Mudflaps and Deathtraps: Show us your Grips

CWMC Headquarters, Ardrossan, Ab: While winter winds up to maximum, style-conscious Agents are already modeling this year's latest looks in rusty rims and subversively salty sidewalls. 

Agent 4261 shows how it's done.

  That's right: the slushy, sodium-slurry sultans of Operation S.C.U.M. are alive and well and spreading the word with freezing-temperature-fashions for Agency Winter Cruisers.

Just a little crud can go a long way, but to really pull off the look, a certain attention to detail and some well-placed waste will send your ride to the darker side; you're an ambassador of anarchy with a 12-ply rating.

The obligatory Grandpa Grips of yore have been largely superseded by more modern, softer-looking winters that actually probably work pretty well; but this doesn't mean they can't look nasty. A few simple tricks can be found in the ever-helpful Field Agent Guide to Vehicle Appearance: Chapter 43 of Jimmy's Letter to his Lawyer, verses 11-13: 
  

Dirty white letters are a can't-miss.

  Thine fronts and thine rears shall not be of the same size, nor the same brand, nor age, nor type. Let not thine rims be too Goddamn shiny, either; for vanity is a sin for summer. Thou shalt do this in remembrance of me; for thou knowest who thou art. Yes, I'm looking at thou. 

  In other important news, the President has finally announced the winner of this years coveted President's Choicest Winter Beater of Distinction award.

Attention to detail is everything.

  At a mercifully brief and largely unattended press conference held earlier this week, the President, quite obviously very much leaning very heavily upon the podium, announced that this year's PCWBD would be going home with Agent 100013, for his inspired '87 5.0. The Prez went on at some considerable length about the stomach-turning appropriateness of the "stolen at least 6 times" vibe that 100013's rusty, broken, rattle-stang radiated. He probably could have kept his Oscar-acceptance-length speech a little tidier with out going into such a passionate endorsement of the chopped-off blue bottle exhaust and the interior full of used tires, but most present considered the event a success as it concluded without substantial vomiting or violence.

Another masterpiece from the fertile mind of Agent 100013.

  Perennial PCWBD champ Agent 1080 was a strong contender with his 1974 Chrysler Newport, but was taken out of the running when he inexplicably sold the 'Port and bought some kind of late-model shame-blob. Sanctions are being considered as this issue goes to press; updates to follow, etc.
  Another usually-strong suitor, Agent 0311, was also DQ'd this year because of the final, long-overdue expiration of his latest, and probably last, Volvo 245. 0311 has chosen to drive his sweet Saab 9000 year-round, and is getting a few hurt looks from HQ. A couple of other Agency Cruisers were considered, but in the end none of them could touch 100013's Rustang for sheer S.C.U.M. appeal. The huge hole in the dash with wires puking out of it everywhere was just the icing on the cake after a thorough and carefully documented inspection revealed a bounty of decay and abuse that spells "winning" every time.

Saline Motorsports Edition: Sacrificial Salty Supercar.

  The President was very nearly overcome with the sheer mag- nificence of 100013's achieve- ment; he stood, weaving quite noticeably now, and presented the trophy to a completely random passer-by before getting into a cab and trying to start it with a cocktail fork for several minutes while the police were called in to assess the situation and grab a couple of sausage rolls left over from the reception. 
   All Agents are requested to stop in and try to help clean up some of the extra drinks.

Downsizing Policy Derailed by Presidential Subterfuge

CWMC Cold Storage Bunker #1, Ardrossan, Ab: With all available auto storage spoken for, and the rest of the CWMC compound reduced to overflow parking for a bottomless pit of rusty restoration projects and parts, the in-house Department of the Treasury has finally seen fit to introduce a much-needed downsizing policy in an attempt to stave off inevitable financial, social, and aesthetic ruin.

VJBD getting crowded

  Unfortunately, and not for the first time, the President has chosen to carefully misinterpret the spirit of the agreement, and rather than downsize the actual collection, has simply shifted his focus from acquisition of large, heavy, 4-wheeled clunkers to a short-term substitute policy of hoarding smaller, more easily handled, ancient motorcycles; particularly the wind-up toy variety of 1960's-era machinery favored by the Vintage Jap Bike Division.

  These miniature machines have gained favour lately as their tidy dimensions and light weight allow them to be easily positioned in between other vehicles, whereby the collecting can continue unchecked for the time being.

Important stuff, indeed.

  When other Agents were polled on the subject of the President's downsizing efforts, wittier wags wondered whether the new policy was in fact a de facto endorsement of his apparent fixation on all things 2-stroke, and if the smell of 20:1 had finally gotten to what was left of both his mental and structural facilities. Others suggested that perhaps the pile of projects would hit a critical mass at some point, and level off as the Prez shifted focus to ever-smaller collectibles, filling the gaps with old video-game consoles, cell-phones, Matchbox cars, ashtrays, and little bits of string or shiny pebbles.

They fit just about anywhere...

  "Sometimes you just have to adapt to the situation..." said the President today in an interview from his office at HQ, where he could just be seen behind a vast wall of empty Slurpee cups, stacking dusty drifts of old Bargain Finders and Auto Traders while draining a couple of robust G&Ts between bong hits. 

  "...there's always room for another important piece of history."

   Meanwhile, the VJBD is pleased to announce that there are now enough parts in the building to attempt the reconstruction of the 1966 Suzuki S-32 procured last week in a top-secret trade for one of the half-dozen snowmobiles marked for disposal after a brief bout with sanity revealed that, while 23 motorcycles is a reasonable number, 14 sleds is just silly. Look for regular blue-smoke updates to follow as they are declassified.

Anyone up for Missile Command?

  All Agents are encouraged to please report to HQ this week and attempt to liberate some square-footage in any one of the CWMC buildings by drinking as much beer as possible and just sort of shoving things around.

Restoration Division Rolls out Latest Masterpiece

CWMC Cold Storage Bunker #2, Ardrossan, Ab: With the worldwide credit markets imploding and weed prices showing double-digit inflation, the CWMC Restoration Division has seen it's budget decimated after the latest round of  debt-ceiling hikes, bailouts, and feely-nicey public-relations bullshit has again failed to generate any real fiscal fix-up for the President's very serious dilemma of how to restore twenty cars on a budget for one. The obvious solution, it seems, would be to sell all but one car, and restore it; but the President, like a few other world leaders, has chosen the austerity route.

The Kaiser as delivered after another boozy buying binge.

  The Resto-ration Division chose the fittingly low-end "Special" model from the 1951 Kaiser line upon which to lavish absolutely no funding and minimal time in an attempt to prove to justifiably skeptical creditors that the ridiculous and incoherent CWMC car collection could be managed on a vastly reduced, almost embezzlement-free budget.
  With the entry deadline  for the 2012 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance only days away, the inevitable corner-cutting started in earnest. As the latest in a series of what soon became known around the office as the Zero-Funding Restorations was fearlessly hammered together, Agents from multiple divisions donated precious seconds, even minutes of their ample spare time to this heroic undertaking.

Finished! Just buy the judges a few drinks first.

  Carefully leaning and bullshitting away, the President, now fully delusional and still convinced of a possible class win (at very least an honorable mention), just rolled the broken windows out of sight and tried to scoop out as much of the mouse shit and leafy detritus as he could with one hand, while the other held steady a pretty tidy G&T for 10:41 am.

$9.79 hood badge blew the budget

  Plans to get the Kaiser's Continental "Supersonic" 6 operational were shelved pretty quickly after a brief and discouraging look under the hood, and it was decided that no one would notice, as most serious show cars are trailered around and just kind of fussed over, anyway. Some old tarps and blankets took care of the upholstery needs without undue expenditure, while some fresh air in the tires made pushing much easier; important for proper show cars.
  Thriving mossy ecosystems were uprooted in the name of redemption, and turtle wax duly applied to the remaining paint-covered areas in the hopes that the folksy, casual, run-whatcha-brung- style judging at Pebble Beach would forgive a few, tiny, imperfections in the name of originality and preservation.

Radio delete - of course.

   The latest of these new, Zero-Funding Restorations (ZFRs) was unveiled at HQ yesterday to an appropriately subdued, select, Agents-only audience. Unfortunately, the Prez had been prepared to forestall what he perceived as a liquidity crisis by stockpiling cases of Gilbey's in his office at HQ, and had begun a pretty serious skim operation by noon that day.  Several hours later, the scene at HQ had degenerated into something substantially more like a proper fundraiser, with mysterious women and hazy, half-remembered speculation about whether the whole thing was in fact a disguised bailout of the French Car Division, whose books were singularly ruinous, and whose recent escapades had demonstrated a wholesale disregard for accountability on any level.

CSB II is full again.

  A speech was unavoidable, but someone evidently forgot to remind the President that his Wilhelm II imper-sonation, however accurate and studiously delivered, would be a tough sell in today's econo-litically correct climate, and there were definitely a few uncomfortable silences at his latest, and hopefully final, public appearance for this year.
  Not that he noticed.
  All Agents are encouraged to please report to HQ to pick up their Zero-Funding Bonus Cheques (ZFBCs). 
               

French Car Division Faced With Credibility Downgrade

CWMC Headquarters, Ardrossan, Ab: The atmosphere was tense Tuesday as Agents from multiple Divisions gathered at HQ for yet another in a seemingly endless series of desperate funding-related "summits" intended to generate some kind of a feasible fiscal facility from which a coherent purchasing protocol might be constructed. Taken particularly to task was, again, the French Car Division, following the arrival of another unit, which, even by the Presidents particularly unpretentious standards, has to be unambiguously regarded as an unholy piece of merde.

   Trouble was easily predictable from the beginning, as the 1980-ish Citroen CX2500D at the center of the credibility collapse was clearly setting off every "run away" alarm in the vicinity from even the most generous and casual appraisal of the almost-literate advertisement and accompanying cell-phone photography. Plenty of spray-can improvements were showcased, and the bottom half of the unit had been dusted in barbecue black; always a reliable signpost of a quality, low-mileage gem. Hindsight would suggest that, with the local market for destitute Gallic oil-burners apparently saturated, the seller was possibly prone to generosity in his description of the car during a brief telephone interview.

  Of course, it was in Calgary, and would require trailering; calling to active duty the Presidents 198? Dodge 150. With the odds of success hovering around the 40% mark, the decision to attempt the recovery was based not so much on the chances of success, as it was on the chances of finding another Series 1 CX anywhere near HQ.

CX#1 looking downright tidy by comparison.

  Upon arrival, it quickly became obvious that the operation was in serious trouble. The President had again forgotten in his enthusiasm that shitty, 30-year-old French cars seldom look better up close than they did from 200 miles away. In fact, had not such a long drive been already invested, the President would have simply driven by, and not even stopped to further hurt his eyes on the shambling remains of the once-great CX. But, as is often the case lately, the mission was deemed "Too Big to Fail" and bad decisions were starting to pile up. Even the briefest walkaround netted an eye-watering list of shortcomings so all-encompassing that it would have been funny if this were a fictitious account of a non-event. Both of the original headlights were M.I.A.; replaced with not-even-slightly-similar units from a late-70s Malibu. The doors had been re-skinned with aluminum sheeting pop-riveted over the rust, and the seam partially hidden with 3-inch Chevy truck moulding. The hood was bent where someone had tried to close it with the prop rod still in place. The left quarter was smashed, its tail light gone. The partially disassembled interior looked like it had been the scene of a disagreement between a sadistic electrician, a drunk pro-wrestler, and a flock of owls. The ignition switch was dangling by the floor with a broken screwdriver sticking out of it. Overall, a pretty sad state of affairs for a car that cost Ferrari-money when new. To the sellers credit, most of the damage had occurred prior to his inheriting the car, but his optimistic pricing was an issue that would have to be addressed. The President briefly considered canvassing the neighbors to see how much funding could be raised by promising to tow away the local eyesore.

Careful restoration efforts are impressive.

  After some enthus-iastic haggling had established a more realistic pricing structure (one based primarily upon the weight of the vehicle), the old Citroen was started up using the aforementioned screwdriver and some creative underhood wiring jumps. When a suitably generous amount of time had elapsed, the CX reluctantly dragged itself up from the pavement that had supported it, and began to pull itself forward on to the awaiting trailer.
  Then the front drive axle fell out, and progress was again halted for several minutes while the President reconsidered just leaving the whole goddamn mess sitting there in the street and going home. Eventually, bad decision-making prevailed again, and some lucky locals were conscripted to push the remains close enough to the trailer that it could be winched aboard.
  Several hours later, back at HQ, the newest addition to the French Car Division's garage was, rather without ceremony it has to be said, unloaded, and the Prez retreated to HQ for recuperative bong rips and a couple of family-sized G&Ts.
  With the French Car Division's debt/GDP ratio sailing past that of Greece and Portugal, and the President lacking the political will to effect real policy change at the expense of his own already somewhat dubious legacy, today came the inevitable announcement that the FCD's Credibility Rating would be slashed from "Mildly Eccentric" to "Totally Batshit".  
  "Well," said the President later that evening, now recalling the days events through a warm and friendly gin-filter "it does make the other one look a lot better."

Scoop! 1080: Any 'Port in a (Winter) Storm

 

Lean Burn Technologies , Cooking Lake, Ab: HQ was in a state of shock earlier this week, when LBT proprietor Agent 1080 returned from a Winter Cruiser-related mission at the wheel of nothing less than a 1974 Chrysler Newport Custom hardtop coupe, dashing in Daffodil Yellow and sporting the desirable black vinyl top together with matching interior. To see 1080 step so far out of his comfort zone was a real shocker for all the CWMC staff; scarcely anyone suspected that the head of LBT was going to seek out a C-body Chrysler product for winter duty. 

CSB 3 1/2 holds a six-er of sleds

  "I wanted something completely different" said an elated 1080 at a brief debriefing session held earlier today at CWMC HQ, where Agents 8771 and 0666 were putting the finishing touches to the latest Cold Storage Bunker #3 1/2. Agent 1080, whose C-body carography includes 1966, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77,and 1978 models, was unable to resist the sightly different grille texture and steering wheel emblem of the elusive 1974 model. All productivity (such as it is) was suspended again as the President was brought up to date as to the minutiae of this missing-link in 1080s C-chain.

On any given Friday: C-body Central at CWMC

   Regular recipients of this newsletter might have been wondering what constitutes a typical transaction when you purchase a half-sack of these unsellable mastodons every season; HQ has obtained this partial transcription using state of the art (1981) Soviet miniaturized microphone technology, smuggled out of Romania during the L.A. Olympic Games in the charcoal canister of a demonstrator Dacia 1410 at great personal expense to the President, who was anxious to field-test this new wire-tapping capability. An excerpt follows:

(static, phone ringing)

Seller: Hello?

1080: Hello, I'm the only person that is going to call about the '74 Newport. I'll give you six hundred for it.

Seller: Um, I was asking $2500. Its really nice, my grandfath... (static, sound of cats fighting - approx 14 seconds) ...and I just don't have room for it.

1080: Five. (Static- possible sounds of laughter in background)

Seller: What? You haven't even (static: background TV noise, 11 seconds; Agent 4261 confirms it is the theme from Remington Steele) ...for the price of the tires!

1080: Take it or leave it. 

(Static: cats. Pierce Brosnan. Cursing)

1080: I'm on my way.

Its a '74, of course!

All Agents are encouraged to take 1080's Used Chrysler Purchasing Techniques and Tactics refresher course at LBT, held alternate Fridays (after Ballast Resistor Bingo) between 2 and 4:30 AM. Admission is free, but bring your own smokes.

   The President, unable to be reached directly due to an income tax issue which requires that he be in a G&T-induced-coma at least three days a week, was quoted by a reliable source as having issued Full Presidential Approval, pending the re-installation of the Newport's original, ugly pie-plate hubcaps.

CWMC Agents Fall for Cool Swedish Models

Edmonton, Ab / Vancouver, BC: Sporting fighter-plane heritage and parts-pricing to match, Saab automobiles have traditionally appealed to cerebral, thoughtful professionals with six-figure tax-returns, Hans Wegner coffee tables, and no inclination whatsoever to take car-buying advice from Consumer Reports magazine, with its dizzying, tediously compiled pages of red and black dots coldly compelling the masses into Camrys and Accords for the last thirty years. Bravo, then, to those brave pilots, plastic surgeons, art directors and debutantes who forked out substantial funding for the exclusive privilege of parking one of these Trollhatten honeys in the garage when they were new; depreciation be damned.

9088: West Coast Agent at Large

  Fast forward a quarter century, several bankruptcies, GM-ification, more subsequent bankruptcies, bailouts, and final, merciful extinction, and these same Saabs are a bit difficult to unload onto a public cowed into a steady, revolving-credit-scheme series of soulless safety-porridge-tins, warm-blanket warranties, and self-parking stupidity. When the phone finally rings, and a cardigan-clad calculator-jockey appears on your front step, you can be sure of a couple of things:

  1) Unless you live in a city with a population greater than seven million, this is the only person that is going to make you an offer on your 1980-something Saab, and,

  2) This unlikely character is almost certainly a card-carrying Cold War Motors Agent.

  Agents 0311 (engineer and Volvo-owner) and 9088 (ditto) were both recently seduced by the intangible allure of the other Swedish car, and both were able to procure pretty tidy examples of some classic, pre-GM Saabs at tiny fractions of their original prices. 
  Agent 9088 has just been issued Full Presidential Approval for his 1985 900, sporting a nice set of 8-spoke Ronals and some obligatory minor electrical mayhem, usually curable with a carefully placed Fonzie-esque smack to the afflicted instrument or gauge. 9088 reports that "All systems are go (except where otherwise indicated)" and is looking forward to an almost certainly trouble-free winter of stylish commuting amongst the aforementioned Camrys-and-cupholders crowd. 

Roxette tapes still in the glove box.

   Agent 0311, no stranger to the pages of this newsletter, has taken the plunge right into the deep end of the chancy commuter pool, and sprung for the 1987 9000 Turbo variant, Saab's (and 0311's) first real luxury model. With enough lights, dials, and buttons inside (many of them still working) to amuse even the most jaded 747 pilot, the 9000 is so far outside 0311's car ownership experience (read: late 70's Jap rustbuckets and an encyclopedic set of haggard 240s) that he still walks past it enviously in the office parking lot before realizing it is in fact his car. 0311, not known for rash decision-making, actually sought and received Full Presidential Pre-approval before making the only offer on this sweetheart, 1 owner unit.

0311: "Where's the choke?"

  From inside the leather-and-walnut confines of his first not-a-complete-fuckpail car, 0311 marvels at the sheer decency of the experience; nary a scabbed-in-with-zap-straps repair in sight, and a total lack of drywall screws or PL2000 Sure-Bond construction adhesive holding on various trim panels, speaker grilles, or un-labeled Radio-Shack toggle switches.
  When asked to comment on the wisdom of purchasing quarter-century-old obsolete turbo cars from an extinct company, the President, in a fairly optimistic state of mind after a refreshing set of identical double G&Ts, was happy to point out that "Many parts interchange with the Lancia Thema, Fiat Croma, or Alfa Romeo 164, so what the fuck could possibly be the problem?"
  All agents are encouraged to check their basements and spare bedrooms for all those extra Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo-interchangeable Saab parts they have just lying around and put them aside for Agents 0311 and 9088. Not that they will need them.

Almost definitely not. 

Inventory Blowout Generates Fresh Funding

CWMC  Remarketing Division, Side of the Road, Ardrossan, Ab: With summer a vague memory and fall fast turning to whatever season follows it, the President has authorized an all-out inventory liquidation in an attempt to free up some much-needed square footage in the various cold-storage bunkers, currently overflowing with a veritable cornucopia of crumbling castoffs in various states of un-roadworthiness. A delightful lineup of hopeful-looking debris was towed or pushed to the edge of the compound and left near the adjoining highway to entice passers-by and further dampen local property values.


  Scarcely had a week passed when an actual customer stopped in and procured the 1964 Rambler Cross-Country, netting the Prez a cool $325.00 profit after some spirited haggling and what-me-with-a-family-to-feed-type bullshit. Batteries (and fuel pump, shock towers, floors, etc.) of course, not included.



Stella ruins picture #539



  Next to go was the 1970 Chevrolet Bel-Air, possibly the only decent car Cold War Motors has ever sold; certainly one of a very small number that may ever see the back of a plate being screwed to its bumper again. Small cash profit, and cause for celebratory bong rips all-round. The President was actually a bit sad to see this one go, but the pile of threatening hate mail from Agent 1080 was beginning to get the better of him, and CWM's only GM car is just a memory now.

 

Bring cash. And gas.



  Despite a boozy summer's worth of half-assed wrenching and hammering, the "Operation Yard Ornament" 1962 Plymouth Belvedere is proving no easier to sell now than when it arrived in boxes. Perhaps the lack of a wiring harness or gas tank has something to do with this; then again, it could just be the fact that it is a 1962 Plymouth, a car that was hard enough to sell when it was brand new. GT Hood Stripes have been duly applied in an attempt to spruce up the ugliest car in the fleet, but to little effect. Two-digit offers are now being considered as the snow approaches...

 

There are at least seven good parts in there somewhere. 



  Also still "on the hill" are the 1983 Ford F150 (get-this-piece-of-shit-out-of-my-yard priced at $350.00) and the President's personal Battle Cruiser #4 1976 Chrysler Newport Custom. This mobile monument to political incorrectness is not exactly flying off the shelves, either, possibly because not as many people are colourblind as the Remarketing Division had hoped. If golf-course-green brocade is your thing, this supertanker sweetheart is ready-to-go at $4900.00.

  Just when things were looking up, parking space-wise, our fearless leader has seen fit to give a home to yet another of Canada's rustiest Chryslers. This flyblown carcass might have been a Dodge Regent coupe back when the American car industry was the envy of the world, but its pretty hard to tell anymore. Just what the rationale was behind this bit of impulse-buying is lost on everyone, but all Agents are encouraged to stop in and contemplate the decision-making processes demonstrated therein.





  After the profits were totalled up and apprpriate numbers were crunched, it slowly became obvious that the Prez was going to still be about fifty grand shy of the price of a new shop truck. Rather than get a real job or keep embezzling funding from his own company, the Chief Cheapskate simply knocked a couple of zeros off the budget and went with the 1989 Dodge 150, complete with optional peeling paint and rust decor group. HQ reports that all systems (with the exception of the air, cruise, temp and oil guages) are go. So far. 



New Cold Storage Bunker Hailed by Critics

C.W.M.C. Headquarters, Ardrossan, Ab: Pundits are positively priapic over the latest addition to the President's empire of empty materialism. Architectural Digest magazine is calling the new Cold Storage Bunker #3 "A breathtaking achievement; conceived and constructed without compromise... a new standard of superiority in all facets of its design and execution."

  The new structure, reverently referred to as the CSBIII amongst the privileged few to have glimpsed its glorious facade, has only recently been unveiled to stunned audiences worldwide, prompting breathless, gushing hyperbole from all who have witnessed the first great architectural masterpiece of the 21st century.

  As you approach the imposing main entrance, you are struck by the setting; mountains of used tires, dead motorcycles, and twisted panels frame your vision, creating a tranquil, yet awe-inspiring promenade for visitors and Agents alike. How many hours did (two) men labour to create such beauty? The mind can scarcely grasp the sheer audacity of the concept, much less comprehend the absolute numbers: almost two hundred 2x6x10s, forty-five sheets of the finest 7/16" OSB, imported from Hinton, four, yes, four windows of the finest quality that could be had for free, twenty-eight sheets of steel roofing panels acquired in an epic journey to the far Eastern Hutterite colony in Holden; the list goes on, each item more outrageous than the last. Literally thousands of the cheapest finest nails were sacrificed to this great project; the final cost of this heroic monument to one man's car-storage vision is likely to be in the thousands of dollars, but actual costs may never be known due to the, shall we say, imprecise nature of the CWMC Accounting Division's, er, accounting.

  While the President basks in the accolades of the worlds press, one slightly worrying fact is becoming apparent: it's already full. Full, that is, of enough rusty rubbish to occupy the careers of three generations of welders, preppers, and painters.

  "Well, I'll just build another one." said a glazed-looking President today in an interview from the Taco Bell parking lot in Lacombe, where he was seen wrestling seagulls for discarded enchilada wrappers in an attempt to cut costs after the latest round of funding requisitions was denied by friends and family alike.

  "Food is pricey these days, but indoor parking is priceless."

  All agents are encouraged to avoid HQ for the next couple of weeks as the President, desperate for funding, has resorted to Delorean-esque tactics like selling off his shitty home-grown weed at $2300.00/oz. 

$49.95 GT Hood Stripe Special Held Over due to Huge Demand

C.W.M.C. Paint & Body Division, Ardrossan, Ab: As the sun sets on another sizzling summer, the Agents-only GT Hood Stripe Special offer has been held over to try to accomodate the tremendous demand for parallel black stripes on the hoods of all Agency Cruisers. Making GT Hood Stripes a mandatory requirement for Special Agent status has no doubt helped the President line up the work, even if so far the majority of the cars so decorated are actually his own.

  Agent 0842, having just recently enlisted the services of the P&B Division to chop a huge hole in the hood of his mint, all original 1966 Mustang convertible and apply a decidedly not-factory hood scoop, decided to go the extra mile and totally offend the local Mustang-nerd fraternity by letting the Presidents favorite division dream up a completely inaccurate set of stripes for the yellow Cruiser.

  "This is an outrage," said Edgar "The Pony" Crashworthy, V.P. of the local Mustang Nitpickers Association; "We will not stand by and watch this terrible company desecrate our Mustangs with this kind of nonsense." He then returned to detailing his beloved 'Stang, polishing the overspray on the frame rails; oblivious to the water pouring in through the rusty cowl vents.

  Agent 0842 says he likes the look of his new stripes and scoop package, but he is getting tired of waking up to find threatening letters in his mail box and burning effigies of himself and his "ruined" convertible on the front lawn.
  All Agents are encouraged to get in on this sweet deal before the President starts to sober up and realizes that he is losing about $378.00 on each set of stripes. Plus taxes.

Inventory Control Policy Another Disappointing Failure

CWMC Compound, Ardrossan, Ab: Following a 10-year program of inventory acquisition and retention (read "hoarding"), the management at CWMC have attempted to introduce radical new guidelines for inventory control, only to be met again with strong resistance from all Agents, and, ultimately, abject failure.

  Despite some honest effort on behalf of the ever-cooperative President, he has several times in the last number of weeks been unable to control the need to acquire bargain-basement "classics" and park them haphazardly around the CWMC compound. Perhaps the most glaring example of this pro-inventory mindset has arrived in the form of another half-dozen outboard motors of various lineages and vintages, all non-op and without any obvious practical applications, as there is no actual boat upon which to affix any of them, were they even tangibly functional.

  Agent 8771 cannot be excluded from the proverbial shit list, either, having recently added multiple units to the sizeable pile of half-dead "antique" snowmobiles that decorate the compound, scattered randomly about wherever they quit running last year. The CWMC equivalent of man-made reefs are providing comfortable seating for visitors, and welcome nesting areas for local rodentia.

  Perhaps the most vexing of all is the President's own penchant for castoff classics, arriving unannounced and immobile; mute testimony to the car-collecting sickness that apparently has no cure, and only limited treatment potential. The much-anticipated departure of the 1959 Mercedes 190D has been more than made up for with the arrival of a 1952 Hudson, dilapidated in extremis and with no realistic plan to resuscitate. Vague, incoherent talk of "getting it on the road" seems far-fetched at best, as the lineup of similar jalopies with similar half-baked schemes is long and expensive.



French dog with American one.



  The final insult to the now- totally-failed Inventory Control Policy has to be the appear -ance of a 1970 Chevrolet Bel-Air sedan. Agent 1080 is so upset by the purchase of CWMC's first and only GM vehicle that he has locked himself in his Aspen and refuses to speak to anyone. A hunger strike is being conducted, but the stacks of pizza boxes outside the car window are tending to blunt the impact of the protest. Agent 4261, on the other hand, is ready to detail the old Chev to within an inch of its scruffy life, and is lobbying convincingly for a fleet of Presidential Battle Cruisers that don't stall in the rain.

  "I just like stuff, I guess..." said the President today in an interview from the new $6000.00 garage he has erected to keep $63.00 worth of cars out of the weather.

  All Agents are encouraged to visit the CWMC Compound and try their luck at starting any of these latest projects.

 Then steal something. Bring a trailer.