In a response to yesterday's blog about car names, vair95 commented something about asking a counterman at a NAPA store what kind of antifreeze would be best for a Corvair. Now, keep in mind that Corvairs are AIR COOLED, so they don't use antifreeze! This brought to mind a great little story from my Corvairing past. Here is the response I sent to him, broght to you through the wonders of "Cut & Paste" (with a little editing to correct a few editorial mistakes... ):

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From the time I bought my first Corvair in the fall of 1980, I made a practice of going to the parts counter of a Chevy agency (or calling them on the phone) on April Fool's Day and asking for a water pump for my Corvair. In all that time, only TWO countermen caught it roght off. ONLY TWO!!!

The best one was in 1984 (I think... ), when I was working as the Get-Ready Manager at the local Chevy-Olds dealer. I went to the Parts Dept. around 10:00 and specifically waited for Ed, the old-timer, to be available. Ed had worked there since 1954, so he was a Chevy parts guy throught the entire life-cycle of the Corvair. Well, he first went to the computer to look it up... and couldn't find anything! (Imagine that!) So then, he grabbed a Parts Manual from under the counter and thumbed through it for several minutes. By this time, the Parts Manager had come up to Ed and asked what he was looking for, so Ed told him "Jim needs a water pump for his Corvair, and I can't seem to find the damn thing"! The Manager told him to keep looking, he was sure he'd come up with it sooner or later. About this time, the parts driver came in, and the Manager took him to the back of the storeroom for a minute. When they came back, very quietly, they both had these big ol' s*** eatin' grins on their faces. Ed then went up to the attic area, where they kept the old, obsolete parts and manuals and rooted around up there for a while. By this time, it had been at least 15 minutes, and the manager had quietly called the service manager and the general manager, both of whom walked by and gave me a quick nudge and a wink when Ed wasn't looking. A couple of minutes later, though, Ed FINALLY looked up at me from the manual he was looking through for at least the third time, very red-faced, and all but roared :"A WATER PUMP FOR A CORVAIR???" He then hurled the manual at me, which I sidestepped quickly! This is when I said, "Happy April Fools Day, Ed"! The Parts Manager got on the P.A. system and announced that "Ed has finally found out that he will never find a water pump for Jim's Corvair". Apparently he had heard that word of the prank had spread throughout the entire dealership...

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I suppose I should saved this for, say, April Fool's Day, but it came to mind on Thanksgiving, so that's when I'm posting it. Now here's the challenge for all of you out there in Motortopia: What stories do you have about HARMLESS pranks or jokes that you have played on others concerning YOUR pride and joy?

After I posted my blog about all the cars on Motortopia named "Beast" yesterday, I received a response from a friend, K1M_and_TH3_1MJIMID8TOR, asking just why people name their cars what they do. Good question, but it seems that most people do name their cars, whether they're car people or not. My Grandparents on both sides of the family did, and none of them looked at a car as anything more than a way to get from here to there. When my folks were married in early 1960, my dad had a '58 Impala 348/Power Pack that my mom, having shared a 6-cylinder '57 Chevy 150 with her mother, simply could not handle. My dad surprised her one evening when he arrived home from work with a brand new 1960 Corvair coupe - he traded in his pride and joy to make things easier for his bride (The guy was a romantic then, and still is!). They decided to name the little guy "Archie", and their tradition of naming their cars alphabetically started then. The main car's name was spelled with a capital letter, and any second car would start with the same letter, but in lower-case. In 1962, with one kid already and me on the way, the Corvair was traded in on "Boris" a black 1962 Biscayne 2-door sedan. He got his name because he was bought at "Borss Chevrolet". During Boris's reign, they got a second car so my mom would have wheels while my dad was at work. This was a brown '53 Bel Air sedan named "buster". Later on, buster was replaced by a '63 Corvair Monza sedan, "bucky". As the years went on, Boris gave way to "Casper the Friendly Station Wagon" ('66 Bel Air), "The Dragon Wagon" ('69 Kingswood Estate), "Erik the Red" (Firethorn Red '77 Impala wagon) and so on. Meanwhile, bucky was replaced by my late Grandmother's '65 Chevy II, named "Sunny" by my then 3 year old brother when the car was new. Mom inherited the car in 1968, and it became my first car in 1980. Sunny was replaced by a bright red 1976 AMC Pacer, probably the last car in the state of Pennsylvania to sell new under $3,000... It was a stripped leftover that my folks bought in November of 1977! This car became "eohiphus" (a prehistoric ancestor of the modern-day horse, but the size of a medium-sized dog. Therefore, it was a "little horse", and of course a "Pacer" is a kind of horse, so it makes sense. We always called the car "littlehorse" anyway!), and they gave me this car later on as well.

When I started buying my own cars, I decided to keep the family tradition alive and name them alphabetically (ay least at first... That changed later on.) The first car I actually bought was "Antoinette" ("Toni"), a 1965 Corvair Monza coupe, and the car that started my love affair with Corvairs that obviously goes on to this day. We didn't go with the lower-case second cars, though, preferring to continue naming them serially. About a year after getting Toni, I had the opportunity to buy a 1976 Buick LeSabre 4-door hardtop for $500! It was a former Police unmarked that had become too well known to be effective in the smallish town it served (West Chester, PA), so they sold it off. The car was white with a maroon vinyl top and reminded me and my (then) wife of a southern gentleman-type car, so we gave it a southern gentleman-type name:"Beauregard" ("Beau"). This car would pass anything but a gas station, and dusted a bunch of high school kids who thought I was out in daddy's car! A 4-barrel 455 with true dual exhaust and no catalytic converters to block things up (yes, the cops did away with the cats!), as well as a shift kit that I had installed on the Turbo 400 will do things like that, even on a 5,000 lb car. Enough of the life stories... These are some of the other cars I've had and their names:

1973 Chevelle Laguna Station Wagon - "Carlotta" (I-a bought her at-a the used-a car lott-a where I-a worked at at the time! We eventually just called her "Carly", because Carlotta was too much of a mouthful for our very young kids)

1966 Corvair Monza coupe - "Degas" (I got artistic on this one with pinstriping, doing it up like a Trans Am Special Edition!)

1966 Corvair 500 sport sedan - "Esmerelda"

1980 Honda Accord sedan - "Farley", after the dog in the "For Better Or For Worse" comic strip, a favorite of my older daughter at the time)

1979 Chevy Malibu coupe - "Glinda" (My ex's car, named after the Good Witch of the North... Ironic, since she turned out to be a bit of a bad witch toward me later on...)

1986 Buick Century station wagon - "Hezekiah"

1965 Corvair Monza sport sedan - "Sir Issac" for my favorite Science Fiction writer, Isaac Asimov

1989 Beretta GT - "Jezebel" (She looked like a "fast lady" - and she was. She was blue, so we called her "Blue J")

1961 Corvair Greenbrier sport van - "The Kelvinator" (it was white and looked like a refrigerator on wheels! I know, Kelvinator was part of AMC and GM had a different appliance division, but the "K" fit!)

About this time, the alphabetizing plan fell apart, and cars were just named whatever seemed appropriate for them:

1964 Corvair Monza sedan - "Goldilocks" (she was gold!)

1960 Corvair 700 sedan - "Eddie" (for Ed Cole, the father of the Corvair, among other things)

1999 Chevy Venture Minivan - "Joy" (Rose's van, from her vanity plate "JESU JOY", her favorite hymn)

1963 Corvair Monza sedan "Little Golaith" (the name the original owner, who I bought the car from, had given it. I figured that since the car had been going by that name since new, it would be a shame to make it learn a new one!)

1999 Cavalier coupe - "Sylvester" (It was black, and my daughter Sarah - ladidragon18 on Motortopia - said it kinda reminded her of the Warner Bros. cartoon cat!)

My current 1966 Corvair Monza coupe - "Ashley" (The name of the daughter/office manager of the classic car dealer who sold me the car on eBay. She was very helpful all through the process, even helping with arrangements for Rose and me to pick up the car at the airport in Denver so we could drive it home to the Philly area. The car is pretty and yellow, and Ashley was a cute blonde, so it seemed natural. And before you get any ideas, Rose suggested the name!)

My current 2006 Cobalt SS - "Bud" (I'm a Dale Earnhardt, Jr. fan, so when I bought my first-ever new car, I got it exactly the way I wanted it. Since Jr. was driving a red Chevy SS in NASCAR at the time, and the Cobalt looks good in red, that's the color I bought. Now of course Jr. was sponsored by Budweiser at the time, and his race car had "Bud" written across the hood in 3-foot high letters. The car sorta named itself!)

Rose's current 2005 Chevy Malibu MAXX (Yep, that's the way Chevy spelled it, all in capitals!) - "MAXX" (Well, that's what it says on her hatch, and it seemed to fit the car's personality: Biggish, semi-tough looking, but with a bit of a fun-loving spirit)

With all the cars I've owned over the years, there are several I've just plain forgotten, and somethat I never got around to naming because I never got them on the road.

Now it's YOUR turn! Why did YOU name your car what you named it???

A good friend of mine, 64_VERT_VAIR, sent out this message tonight, and it seemed so important to me that I just had to make sure everybody saw it. Now, I wouldn't beg for votes any more than Dave would but, like he says, if you should just happen to click on the link below and maybe vote impartially in the challenge for either his high-mileage old truck or MY WIFE MAXXINE's carefully maintained, economical, sporty-looking, comfortable, shiny, silver sport sedan, That would be OK with me, too! The paragraph below is Dave's message:

64_VERT_VAIR says: Every Rose has a thorn and I'm in pain. I hate it when people send out messages begging for votes so I will not stoop so low.............. but if the link "HAPPENED" to show up below and you "HAPPENED" to vote for one of the cars - I guess that would be alright.

http://www.mo..._vs_maxx/o/33


MAXXINE

The_Dude posed an interesting question as a comment on a challenge earlier today: Just how many cars on Motortopia are called "The Beast" (or some variation thereof). I had thought about that question myself on occasion, so I took it on myself to find out. By searching keyword "Beast" on the "Cars" tab, I came up with close to 200 hits, 152 of which had the word "Beast" somewhere in the name. That's right: 152 BEASTLY CARS ON MOTORTOPIA!!! Of those, 32 are simply "Beast", while 80 more are "The Beast" (Unfortunately, one of the beasts has shed this mortal coil: "The Beast R.I.P." Also we've got two "The Beast II"s, one "Da Beast" and one "Tha Beast").

Some of the "Beasts" are quite colorful - we've got seven "Blue Beast"s, four "Black Beast"s, three are green, two each red and yellow, and one each pink, teal, and burgundy. We even have a "Blueberry Beast"!

Several members rides have "Beast" somewhere in the name, like current Challenge participant Camela 'The Beast' Camaro. In no particular order, we have an "Inferno Beast", a "Mean Beast", a "She Beast", a "Little Beast", a "Jeep Beast", "The Hell Beast", and two "Mini Beast"s. One member even has "Beauty and the Beast, all in one Package"!

By make, it seems that Chevy owners think their cars to be the most Beastly - There are 59 Chevy Beasts! Ford is next with 32... 33 if you include a Saleen-badged car, and 34 if you also include an R/C Monster Truck! From there, the Beasts go as follows: Pontiac - 15, Dodge - 13, GMC - 4, Jeep - 3, two each for BMW, Chrysler, Honda, Mercury, and Toyota, and one each from Acura, AMC, BMC/Mini (That's the original one, not the current car), Lancia, Mazda, Mercedes Benz, Nissan, Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Porsche, and Saturn. Last but not least, there's also a Beastly Kawasaki motorcycle!

My good friend Dave (64_VERT_VAIR) suggested this album without even knowing it at the time! I have a collection of vintage Corvair magazine advertisements, both clipped from the original magazines and as images downloaded from online sources. Dave posted a picture of an advertizement showing his car, and I decided to share my whole collection. It turns out that Dave's ad isn't in my collection... yet. So if you'd like to take a trip back to a simpler time in automotive advertisement, just take a seat in the Way-Back Machine...

Finally got around to posting these shots from a show we went to while on vacation last month. It was hosted by a Corvette club, so there were lots of Vettes there, but lots of other stuff, too.SURPRISE! I had the camera on the wrong setting, and they came out in black and white! At the end of the album are about three dozen shots of cars we found while out and about in the Pocono Mountains, admiring God's handiwork in the beautiful fall leaves. Thankfully, the camera was on the right setting for those shots, so you can see the leaves in all their glory in some of the pictures.

We were at an uncle's house today, and I was showing him how to navigate the "On Demand" feature on his cable service. He told me that he has no interest in paying to rent "Pay-Per-View" movies and sporting events, but would be interested in the free ones. As we were surfing through the "Horror" section of the freebies, we saw that "The Blob", the original Steve McQueen version from 1958, was currently available. Now, we live about 7 miles from Phoenixville, PA, where much of the film was shot, and I took several photos of my Corvair in front of the Colonial Theater (which figures prominently in the movie) just earlier this month. We decided to watch the movie, which was the first time I've ever watched it start to finish! I came to realize a few things... 1) They did a great job restoring the Colonial Theater over the last few years, considering the fact that they did it on a shoestring (all donations). 2) Steve McQueen got a lot better later in his career, because he really wasn't all that good in 1958! 3) Special Effects sure have come a long way... 4) The people of the 1950's were in much better condition, by and large, than they are today. The crowd runs out of the theater and past the "Downingtown Diner" (also still there, and as far as I know still in business) in one climactic scene, but the two buildings are about 15 miles apart! Those poor folks must really have been scared!

If you get the chance, check out "The Blob". Compare the shots of the Colonial Theater in the movie to my photo, and you'll be surprised just how little the building has changed in 50 years.