French Car Division Makes Short Work of New Storage Facility

  CWMC Compound, Ardrossan, Ab: Monday, 3:09 PM: the President, having escaped the protective custody of his marginal, 3-drink-lunch-y "bodyguards", embarked on an insane French-car bender that has had a disastrous effect on the already precarious parking situation at HQ. The body count continues to mount as the first wave of defense, the aptly and recently christened "Shame Fence", or "Fence du Shame" as it is known locally, has been immediately and ruinously overrun by an unstoppable and unsightly onslaught of Euro-junk the likes of which hasn't been seen since the latest 5-year Greek Government bond auction.
  Counting on and receiving the implicit endorse- ment of the ever- treacher- ous French Car Division, the President's Tactical Assault Recovery Team Specialists (TARTS) located one of the last remaining Citroen DS hoards in Canada and proceeded to secure said stylish stash and move it back to HQ. For those unfamiliar with the process of moving dead D's with no steering racks, tires, suspension, or tangible tie-down topography, the process is best described as "tedious".

Fence Du Shame: Had no chance.

   All Agents quickly and wisely made themselves scarce when it came time to attempt the unloading of these new prizes, leaving El Presidente to his own devices and thus rendering the synapse count effectively zero as incapacitated, rusty hulks of French engineering genius were shoveled around by an intoxicated enthusiast and his unimpressed canine supervisor. New, soaring heights of profanity and blasphemy were achieved as bottomed-out cars, bald-tired tow vehicle, and raunchy trailer all took turns getting impossibly stuck in the fresh powder. Luckily, a bemused local happened by and, thinking that some natural disaster must have occurred by the looks of the compound, unceremoniously pushed the whole goddamn shitty mess back out onto the road with his tractor. 

Just one of the FCD's parking "colonies".

  G&Ts were procured and sanity quickly prevailed; orders to retreat to HQ for self-congratulatory bong-rips and beluga were duly issued and enthusiastically seconded by all parties.

Who cares if it fits; so cool...

  Along with the carcasses has arrived an absolutely inappropriate volume of parts, ranging from rusty steering racks and rusty doors all the way to rusty fenders and rusty wheels. The sheer volume of decrepit detritus accompanying the Operation has reduced the normally catastrophic state of the Cold Storage Bunker #4 to a condition which frankly beggars the imagination of even the most jaded junk hoarder. Plans to attempt a rationalization of the stacks of panels and boxes of obtuse Citroen-only fasteners, switches and pumps are early in the drafting process and tangible results will wait, along with any kind of realistic inventory control protocol, until at least the fiscal year-end and its coincident annual Presidential rehab stint.

Everything carefully organized, of course.

Raders? Buy 'em.

  All Agents are please encouraged to remain optimistic as fallout from the President's recent acquittal on charges of racketeering and embezzlement continues to make life difficult for Agents seeking huge, irresponsible home-equity loans for speed boats, vintage Raders, awesome intake manifolds, etc. Updates to follow, etc. 

Agent 1080 Contemplates Life's Most Profound Questions; Buys Another '68 Fury

  Lean Burn Technologies Compound, Cooking Lake, Ab: Following an extended period of near-total seclusion and total sensory deprivation ensconced in the seductive confines of  leather-lined luxury, Agent 1080 has emerged from his comfortable cocoon and looked fresh and youthful when he met with reporters at the All-You-Can-Eat perogy buffet over tempting stacks of bacon-encrusted carbo-balls. 

  "I had a lot of time to reflect while driving my late-model safety-balloon car; I wasn't looking at the temp or watching the gas gauge fall over".

  Reporters leaned in to hear the newly enlightened 1080 praise his economical-front-wheel-drive-V6-automatic-4-door-sedan-with-airbags-and-child-proof latches,

  "All that extra time to think about something other than what was about to break, it was a real revelation... I felt...

Free.

Agent 1080: Thinker. Visionary.

  Free to pursue a meaningful existence! Study art, languages, philosophy! I had thousands of hours of free time to do anything other than fix another Christ-forsaken Plymouth!

  I spent most of it in the city library, poring over the endless stacks of wisdom and philosophy, architecture and music; all seemingly preserved for generations just for me to discover and feast upon!"

  "For months I read and listened. The classics... Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. Then more- Luther, Calvin, Descartes; on and on I read for months and months! I was devouring this lifestyle! I felt like I had a purpose! No more mindlessly wrenching on grubby old clunkers for the shallow gratification of the smell of burning rubber! I was... a thinker."

  "Eventually I began to see a vision for my own existence shaping up, a new, whole and balanced 1080 with a clear purpose and unshakeable faith in the integrity of humanity...

   Well, it was inevitable that I would stumble upon the complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche; had I not decided to work chronologically through the stack, I might have saved a little time."

  "So, everything is pointless and futile, and art is the only worthwhile endeavor. Well, there you go. That answers a lot of questions. Kind of sums it up, really."

 When asked how all of this deep and profound contemplation changed his life, 1080 replied,  "Well, I figured it was time to buy a '68 Fury."

  One reporter asked if it was true that 1080 already owned at least a half a dozen of that same car, to which 1080 replied, "Yes, but I thought those gave my life meaning; this one celebrates the meaninglessness of it."

A moment to reflect, and contemplate '68 Plymouths.

  "This optional vinyl top, for instance; pretty much screams 'God is dead', and for me, the sweet red pinstripes really drive home the realization there is nothing in the world of any inherent importance. I'm going to put Cragars on it ASAP."

The President is, unsurprisingly, unable to be reached for comment. He was last seen carving obscene crop circles in his field with his shitty, hoodless 16-horse lawn tractor. He is dressed in full suburban assault camo: khaki driving cap askew under bright orange earmuffs, shiny black wingtips hammering the demonically grabby clutch and brake. The shirt is inside out, but at a distance the illusion is one of controlled lawn demolition; crude and graceless, but oddly compelling. Smoke from tortured belts pours out from under the machine like a thundering bong rip, while the titanic G&T in the custom-made drink holder shudders and splashes a killing strength cocktail that strips paint from the machine as he careens it over some of the roughest terrain ever to be assigned the term "lawn". The expression is one of grim concentration, like Snoopy aiming his doomed doghouse for the enemy guns...
   All Agents are encouraged to avoid HQ for a couple of days until a certain numbed-out nihilist has reconciled his personal philosophy with the practical concerns of suburban lawn and yard maintenance; as, according to local bylaws, the worthless absurdity of it is apparently no excuse.

Agents Infiltrate Polite Suburbia with Mixed Results

CWMC Heaquarters, Ardrossan, Ab:  Faced with another financial fiasco, the President has pulled the plug on Operation Blow-Molded Plastic Shit in the Yard after a brave, but possibly over- ambitious attempt to blend in with "normal" society in order to perform important market research on behalf of the Company has reached a state of crisis.

  Agents  were dispatched to quiet commuter neighbourhoods to live among the suburbanites, learn their ways, and try to understand their customs and rituals. After they were accepted by the locals, Agents would gradually try to teach their new friends about the path to salvation through the purchase of some kind of old piece of shit and the subsequent lavishing of much attention and cash upon it. Converts would of course be gently steered in the direction of HQ, where, for a trifling tithe, all of their recently fashioned fantasies could be realized. Rusty Lancias and dented Polaras would come from miles around; seeking salvation at the Mecca of Mud, the Vinyl-Top-Vatican... the CWMC Body Works Division.

2111 & 2112 stop by HQ for G&Ts...

  Merciless and cruel, the Body Works Division has seen the ruination of many a vacation fund, the ravaging of a thousand year-end-bonuses, and the pillaging of many multiple mutual fund portfolios. Victims Customers still arrive, but the President needs cash daily now, his bank balance buckling under the weight of his own insatiable appetite for rust-bucket mayhem. Operation B.M.P.S.i.t.Y was going to provide the customers, the B.W.D. would separate them from their cash. Everything looked foolproof; Agents were provided with lawn mowers and clean clothes and sent out into the field to live among the native suburbanites.

  As things turned out, the Agents had a little trouble blending in; as much a function of an appalling lack of prior research as any other single event. It seems that suburbia has a subtle subtext to it; the idea seems to be to not have a cool car but rather to borrow a shitload of "money" and buy one of the sorry things on offer anywhere credit is pimped in 84-month sentences.

Full Presidential Approval? Does the Pope shit in the woods?

  Agents 1086 and 1099 were shocked to find that, not only were their new neighbours not lining up to check out the fuckin' wicked chrome sidewinders on their '76 Stingray, but in fact most of them found the whole thing a bit rude. Mystified, Agent 1086 tried a few deadly full-throttle burnouts for maximum decibel awesomeness, but was again rewarded only with the muted howling of crying babies and the faint, dry whine of approaching sirens.
  Meanwhile, Agents 2111 and 2112 were faring little better in their attempt to blend in, hidden carefully in the quiet residential section of another small commuter town several miles East of HQ. Someone apparently forgot to inform the enthusiastic young Agents that parking 17 dead cars on your previously pristine lawn was a recipe for resentment amongst the locals, most of whom did not share the Agents' enthusiasm for gigantic, rusty C-bodies and insane VW-powered trike contraptions. Pitchfork-waving grannies are regularly seen encamped outside the front door, and stealthy exits have become the norm. Agent 2111 has even resorted to weekly colour-changes on many of his Agency Cruisers, but to no avail, as no one else in town is driving a 1967 Plymouth Fury I station wagon of any description.

Wagons are cool, Furies are cool...Fury wagons? Oh yeah.

  Despite some modest success in generating work for the B.W.D.; most of it caused by locals acci- dentally vandalizing their own vehicles, the Operation has been suspended and Agents are being encouraged to vacate these hostile environments, or at least hide their Cruisers in garages.
   "The situation is worse than we thought," said a lightly anesthetized President today in an interview from HQ, where attempts to hide the ever-growing pile of motorized litter by letting the grass grow really tall are meeting with similarly ambiguous reviews.
  "...but, unlike that Fury wagon, we have lots of options."

Inevitable Inventory Expansion Tempered by Parking Improvements

CWMC Headquarters, Ardrossan, Ab: The days are getting longer, and a fresh crop of weeds is just starting to cover up the large, dead, car-shaped rectangles scattered randomly around the compound where last year's crop of freebie fuckpails festered unfettered by notions of suburban presentability or neighbourly goodwill.

The Domestic Car Division, tired of playing a smoky, leaking, muffler-less version of musical chairs with the never-ending rotating shitstorm of impossibly fucked-up clunkers that pass for the President's car collection, had decided to appropriate some permanent outdoor parking spaces at the expense of several dozen trees in various states of deadness and falling-over-ness. Chainsaws were procured, and several perfectly good hours of goofing-off time were sacrificed to the betterment of the parking situation. When the 2-stroke smoke settled, a tidy spot was secured for the latest of the Domestic Car Division' s Zero Funding Restorations.

  The President had acquired a 1950 Chevrolet Fleetline Deluxe in a series of trades of in- creasingly dubious reasoning, and multiple Agents had dedicated hours of precious off-duty time to the cause of getting the junkyard-condition fastback into something very close to a driveable state (not stoppable, mind); requiring a number of "field engineering" modifications by Agent 533 that rivaled any last-minute bullshit that the A-Team ever pulled off. Crusty 5-spoke Raiders astern mismatched to mummified F78-14s on vintage slots by the master Agent 100013 furnished the finishing touches to this finest hour for the DCD.

The dedication ceremony was kicked off with a speech by the President himself; surpassingly long-winded and gratuitously profane to such an extent that only those possessed of the most robust constitutions and sturdiest stomachs were able to attend the event in its entirety.

The Hill of Shame: not quite exactly like Pebble Beach.

   Following another short recess for half-time bong rips and a few refreshing double G&Ts, the President, with some small measure of assistance from Agent 8771 for the unorthodox starting procedure, was able to back the Chev into its new home on only the third attempt and with only minor cosmetic carnage ensuing.

  When asked to specify his plans for the fossilized Fleetline, the Prez replied that he "wasn't made aware that there had to be a plan" and went back to watching a youtube compilation video of himself being "helped" out of various well-known eating and drinking establishments; all set to a lively banjo soundtrack and with queasy gastrointestinal overdubs added for effect.

Full Vintage Motorboat Division Approval, of course.

  Other recently acquired treasures have been gathering on the CWMC Hill of Shame; a kind of provincial purgatory where dead vehicles of various varieties await their individual fates. Some sit stationary for want of wheels while others enjoy a last few moments of freedom before making the final journey to the junkyard. Still others have just arrived and sit in limbo while a gin-tastic President heroically performs a rudimentary triage to assign locations based on the chances of salvation; ranging from "Not very likely" all the way to "Extremely Goddamn Unlikely". 
  Among these new pieces we find a unit looking suspiciously like a motorboat, minus the motor and also short quite a number of boat-like qualities, such as water-tightness. It does, however, score pretty highly on the "Does it have cool tail fins?" question. The President defended the decision to take the junk collecting to the next level by suggesting that the 1959 Larson Thunderhawk would be "pretty goddamn sweet" were it restored and fitted with the appropriate gigantic, smoky OMC V4 or Merc "Tower of Power".
 All Agents are requested to keep watching this newsletter for declassified updates as the scene at HQ continues to deteriorate under the current administration.

New Agency Cruisers Singled Out for Recognition

  Cold War Motors Headquarters, Ardrossan, Ab: Spring is in the air at HQ this week, and with it comes the perennial perfume of old dog poop new growth, and, as the snow disappears, the reminder that the CWMC compound is still an epic, hopeless shitstorm.

  Seized slant sixes sit silently surrounded by a debris field rivaling that of a supernova while lazy dogs nap in the shade lent by various decomposing Dodges mellowing quietly in the new sun.

Field Units don't come much cooler than this.

  Spring also means that the President is compiling his annual list of Field Agents and respective Agency Cruisers to be singled out for special recognition and the presentation of the prestigious Field Unit Commander Kudos award, bestowed upon those Agents whose rides embody the CWMC ethos through a particularly pertinent purchasing principle; boldly exploring the outer limits of what might generously be defined as "patina", for example.
  Recent additions to the CWMC Agency Cruiser Pool have raised a number of appreciative eyebrows around the office, and a few of these have made the short list. These latest cruisers are definitive examples of what it means to grant Full Presidential Approval and are definitely worth a F.U.C.K.
  Agent 043 had been keeping one eye open for a pickup for some time, broadly hinting that it would be of roughly the same vintage and brand as his other Units, and presumably not so beautiful as to cause consternation when carrying around greasy gearboxes, expired engines, and the other inevitable trappings of the car sickness so prevalent at HQ.
  Of course, Agent 1080 caught wind of the truck search, and was happy to perform a little surrogate shopping on behalf of his fellow Agent. Several days later, a routine back-alley patrol yielded a promising candidate, and after a series of clandestine communications with Agent 6044 (there are no old rusty Dodges he doesn't know about, or already own), the owner's parents, an alcoholic astrologer named "Jim Antonic", and the owner himself, 043 was let in on the find and presented with the truck, which he promptly bought; presumably swayed by the generosity of his fellow Agents, and the overwhelming peer pressure.

Stylish bumper is a highlight.

  Proudly carrying the scars of forty plus years of service without a repaint, the 1970 Dodge Camper Special sets a new standard of excellence for laissez-faire rust repair, and the payoff for this strictly non-interventionist maintenance policy is something for all Agents to aspire to. Chalky, chapped panels contrast beautifully with vintage wheels and the whole package rolls to the chunky soundtrack of a hi-po 383 through straight cut duals: pure magic.

  On the topic of magic, Agent 7678 has just re-commissioned his Field Unit; much to the delight of an envious President, who, as has been well documented elsewhere in the pages of this newsletter, has some inexplicable affection for the gigantic devices concocted during the golden age of the Chrysler Corporation. 
  This latest addition to  the CWMC Heavy Cruiser class is another original paint survivor, having accumulated a mere 35000 miles in 41 years, and it looks every bit of it. Massive flanks still shine, unsullied by salt, $249.00 splash-jobs (still on special at the CWMC Body Works Division), or the countless parking lot signatures collected at long-gone Woolworths and Simpsons stores.

This is the way to show up for work at the Ford dealership.

  Rust is also con- spicuous by it's absence; 7678's 'Port must be one of a very tiny number of these fuselage freighters that does not wear quarter panels carved from funny foam and magic cheese. Of course, big-block motivation is a key part of the fun, and here again we are not disappointed. About as politically correct as a pointy white hood, the cammy 383 sucks back impressive amounts of precious premium and barfs it out a pair of sewer pipes under the back bumper.
  A heavily sedated President was briefly available for comment, before being wheeled back into court to face charges of Failure to Stop and Check Out the Savings and Resisting a Rest.
  "I rarely give a F.U.C.K., but these two Cruisers deserve the extra credit for outstanding achievement in the field of non-restoration. Nice work, gentlemen. Now, who's holding?"
  All Agents are please requested to stop buying better cars than the President, who is beginning to feel a bit like Mozart's piano teacher.

Rusty Floors Exhibit Coming Together Nicely

Outdoor Storage Compound, CWMC Headquarters, Ardrossan, Ab: After an exhaustive and painstaking search, the centerpiece of what promises to be the must-see exhibit at Cold War Motors this spring has been tracked down, shot, and dragged back to HQ to be prepared for presentation at this year's "Presidential Awards of Distinction" gala, coming sometime in May.

Perseverance paid off with this gem.

   Soft sounds of sympa- thetic sibilance accom- panied the unloading of the 1958 Mayfair coupe as appre- hensive Agents from various Divisions queued up to catch a glimpse of the latest installation in a long-running series of profoundly poor car-buying decisions that have become the President's signature style. 

Dodge #2 is also very impressive.

 Despite repeated requests for funding to subsidize some of the more glaring storage issues, the Domestic Car Division has proceeded with Operation Fred and Barney: Floorless Fashions of the Fabulous Fifties- one man's vision and $2270.00 worth of fucked-up Dodges.
  "Don't miss this nostalgia-fest of soggy carpets, crumbling seat cushions, and rotten rocker panels," says the March issue of Automobile Quarterly magazine; " ...hats off to the dedicated artists of the Domestic Car Division for putting together this fabulous collection of ferric oxide and mossy underlay for the world to enjoy."

Dodge #4 is settling in.

In the CWMC equivalent of a Grand Opening, all of the Dodges will be brought together for a rare photo session, as soon as enough old bias-plies can be scrounged up from various tire piles to get the frame rails off the ground and mobile.

#3 is down at the stern.

  "Making the best of a colossal fuck-fest like this one will take all the skills that this Division can muster..." said rolling-stock retailer Agent 100013 earlier this week when asked for an approximate date of completion for the tire-fitment program. Interestingly, tire choice remains an important part of the display, while panel fit and mechanical viability take a back seat (also not included) here again, still subject to the vagaries of the ever-incomprehensible Agent Field Guide to Vehicle Appearance, re: Ch. 14, v. 1-6 (rev. 2):

Wanted: double pins.

   "Suffer not thine yard ornaments to wear aging all-seasons; the path to righteousness lies in the enlistment of the unholiest of ancient Firestone 500 double-pinstripe 6.50-14s. Christ knows, tires are everything."

That's more like it.

Dodge #1 actually moves.

  Unable to be reached directly for comment due to the difficult nature of his bail conditions, the President has released a short statement from his yacht, moored just outside the jurisdiction of those who would see him incarcerated for what amounts to not much more than a series of unfortunate misunderstandings involving a couple of sexy lab technicians, an army-surplus gravity bong, and a "liberated" Russian Zenit 2SB launch vehicle.

#1 shows how its done.

  "G&T supplies low; send money." read the brief but clearly heartfelt letter of congratulation. 
  HQ remains the scene of some consternation as the annual slushy mud-bog continues to thwart efforts to move units into position for the upcoming Opening Night festivities, sure to be dimly recalled for months to come.
  All Agents are please encouraged to report to HQ for a couple of cold ones, followed by a brief refresher course on the many financial and lifestyle perks of obsessive-compulsive car hoarding. 

Happy hunting!

French Car Division Unrepentant Following Latest Funding Scandal

CWMC Cold Storage Bunker #3, Ardrossan, Ab: Subsequent to a brief and blissful period of relative inactivity, the budget-busting brainchildren of the French Car Division have just recently launched Operation Get This Crepe Out of my Yard.

  As usual, at least part of the blame for this latest in a long series of baguette-beater-bargains can be attributed to CWMC French-Car-Division ringleader and hydro-pneumatic high-priest, Agent 747.  Through his extensive underground network that dates back decades to the relative heyday of 1970's-era Francophilia, the location of the ailing 1971 DS20 Estate was ascertained and a small recovery team of Agents dispatched to retrieve the unit from the predictably quiet, brainy residential area where it had lain dormant for multiple years under a large, dripping willow, with commensurate cosmetic corrosion easily evident.

Sticker adds much-needed redneck cred.

As Operation Versailles is still at best two or three years from viability, a sub- stantially less deconstructionist approach to this latest double-chevron driver was adopted, with restoration efforts being largely geared towards bare-minimum safety and presentability standards intended to provide several interim seasons of floaty French fun while the arduous, nut-and-bolt reconstruction of the President's other 1971 DS continues at a pace that makes continental drift look like AA/Fuel Altered.

Stella is ready to go.

   It is also not entirely by accident that at least one of the Citroens will remain fully assembled at all times to serve as a rolling instruction book to be consulted when it becomes evident that, just maybe, the President might have forgotten where a few of the thousands of unrecognizable grommets, twisted steel lines, proportioning valves, hoses, and 7mm screws are supposed to go. Suggestions to Agent 747 that perhaps he should be the lucky expert tasked with re-installing the famously fiendish wiring harness have thus far been met with polite laughter, followed by convincingly feigned deafness and sudden, just- remembered "appointments" to be kept.

Agent 747 sold this one back in the 80's, too.

  Having con- structed at sizable personal expense a veritable Maginot Line-of-Credit, the President defended the FCD's blatant thievery and book-keeping chicanery while remaining officially detached and still nominally capable of addressing the ferocious funding fiasco with a protracted propaganda assault aimed at mitigating the effects of record-low morale among the administrative personnel at HQ.

Parked in CSB III with CX, 604, and non-French rubbish.

  "I think we've probably seen the worst of it already," said the President today in a brief interview from the second floor of the old Liquor Control Board store where he was hiding out from police asking questions about a missing Gulfstream II, a $979.00 room-service bill at Holiday Inn Havana in the name of Pancho Del Benzino, and several pending paternity suits involving tellers at First National Bank of Uruguay.
  "...it looks as though everything is going to work itself out in time for Chicken Wing Mayhem at the Sawmill on Thursday."
  All Agents are please encouraged to stop by HQ for bong hits, followed by a brief salary review (Hint: don't get your hopes up) and boozy speculation about the future of fiat currencies and Fiat Chryslers. Same hint applies.