Bad Decision Train Picking up Speed as Summer Clunker Season Kicks off in Earnest

Cold War Motors Outdoor Storage Facility #3, Ardrossan Ab: Connoisseurs clamored for crusty close-ups today as the Presidents car "collection" swelled again, this time celebrating the inexplicable arrival of another pair of high-rent classics courtesy of the Domestic Car Division and it's insatiable enthusiasm and uncanny capacity for post-war Americana at it's very most mediocre; saluting again the most awe-inspiring underachievements in ponderous 4-door sedan styling and poverty powertrains.

It doesn't run, but at least it's rusty

  Both of these latest dumpy darlings command corrosive curbside appeal, having probably stained the back rows of innumerable mud-lot markets over their long, shitty, slow-ass existences, and would have immediately been cheerfully cubed had any other semi-sensible organization ended up in possession of their tired, rotten, mouse-eaten carcasses.

Lucky one tail light is still... wait- no, it's broken, too.

  How and when it was decided that a 1957 Studebaker Champion should occupy the ledger of what some experts are calling "Operation South Bender" will likely remain among the many mysteries whose unraveling will be left to the archivists, accountants, and authors of what are sure to be a glut of tell-all biographies, sensationally slapped together to capitalize on the public's ravenous, bottomless appetite for self-destruction and comedic ineptitude.
  The President, secretly self-satisfied with the stricken Stude, has allocated double-digit funding to the Operation, making it one of the most expensive and grandiose ever undertaken, and probably among the most likely to result in grievous financial misconduct at every level. Flagrantly exorbitant purchases like 2 exhaust valves and a like number of connecting rod bearings are running up the red ink like an alcoholic, gambling-addicted televangelist whose wife just left him for a cute tattoo artist named Fiona. If there is enough capital left in the Company at the conclusion of this Operation to throw an old blanket over the seats in the crispy, threadbare interior, this reporter will be surprised indeed.
   Somewhere in the backs of their minds, many an auto aficionado will keep a list, long or short (or both, of course) of the cars that they will buy if they get a chance. It is the humble opinion of this publication that you could probably flip through every list ever made by every car collector and you would not exactly be overwhelmed by the number of times "1967 Fury I 4-door sedan" appears in your reading.

The name is synonymous with high performance.

  Just when staff at HQ had started to get used to the newest austerity programs ("Don't Flush the Toilet Tuesdays" are a surprise hit), budgets were slashed again (Candlelight Thursdays!) to bankroll this latest Presidential Battle Cruiser acquisition. Fresh from Agent 1080's Private Limited Personal Stock of 67-8 Furies, PBC #5 has been promoted to Outdoor Storage Facility #1, joining a half-dozen other haggard hopefuls behind the Fence of Shame, awaiting various amounts of attention and, inevitably, financing.
  Seeking to cash in (5 years too late, of course) on the muscle-car craze that has all but ruined the entire hobby, the President figures he can retire on the windfall he will surely realize when he flogs his original paint, three-on-the-tree, radio-deletee sweetie for maximum profit. Agents, fearful of invoking the legendary profanity, have been reluctant to remind el Grande Imbecilo that an important part of the muscle car experience is actually the big engine.

Another blue-chip stock; FoS needs extension already.

  Not that it even runs, either. This slant six is locked up like Manson, scheduled for replace- ment as soon as another can be located. Will this new Cruiser force the retirement of the legend, Battle Cruiser #3? Will 5 years mark the end of the reign of the 1972 Fury II coupe as Winter Beater Champion? Is it even a good idea to try? 
  "I don't care about your winter beater bullshit, I'm a muscle car guy now." said the President in an interview earlier today, trying on white sunglasses at London Drugs and getting some nervous looks from the staff, wary of the catastrophically inebriated.
   "Now is my time... I can feel it... coolness is within my grasp.

   Nonchalant confidence, thy name is Fury I."
  All Agents are reminded to start bringing their own chairs to the office, and report to Agent 086 to pick up your requisite rubber hose for "Siphoning Saturdays".

Domestic Car Division Accidentaly Purchases a Rare and Interesting Car

CWMC Domestic Car Division, Ardrossan, Ab: A missing Van Gogh? What-ever. The Venus De Milo? An armless rock. Dead Sea Scrolls? -yawn- Don't even get this reporter started.
  That's right, taking it's rightful place at the top rung of the amazingly accidental discoveries list...

Priceless patina intact...

  Another rusty 4-door sedan! Oh, the glory and fame that showered down upon the CWMC Cold Storage Yard! Reporters from all of the major enthusiast magazines jostled among the smouldering flash bulbs for a few words from the President, and busloads of bespectacled auction-house-heavyweight, double-black-belt car nerds slashed themselves pale on the compound's razor-wire perimeter fence, desperate for a glimpse of this year's most amazing automotive authentication. 
  The Army (well... the KISS Army) had to be called in briefly to help control the crowd, and to organize a pretty magic all-KISS Karaoke Kontest, which was later cancelled when the posters were printed using a poor choice of abbreviations and unfortunate, burning-cross imagery borrowed from Sabbath.

It's radio delete, of course.

  Eventually, some semblance of order was restored and The Prez, his disappoint- ment at not being elected Pope plain to see and his countenance betraying clearly the type of fatigue that only long-term drug and alcohol abuse coupled with the screaming of profanity at inanimate objects for hours at a time can produce, did manage a speech so foul, so bereft of redeemable qualities in even the briefest of passages that it shall serve as a maledictive high-water mark for generations to come, and as a reminder of the perils of letting unedited speechwriters and reporters consume copious quantities of magic mushrooms before large, public events.

Worth its weight in...well, steel.

  The 1951 Kaiser Special was apparently some kind of coral pink metallic back when houses were less than 10 grand and the future was still something to be looked forward to, but the brilliant paint, like that naive post-war optimism, has faded to nothing but rust and failure. Appropriate, then, that the CWMC HARASS (Half-Assed Researchers And Serial # Sleuths) team would deliver this car to HQ months before discovering its unusual, Canadian origins. One of only 1000 made in Canada, and one of only three known to survive, it is thought that the car's extreme rarity and nice color combination could place its value somewhere around $275.00, making it the first car in the history of CWMC that turned out to be worth more than the purchase price.

  In other ground-breakingly, critically important news, the President has chosen a surprise, come-from-outta-nowhere winner upon whom to bestow this season's omni-coveted Winter Beater of the Year. Seldom has the WBOTY selection process been an easy one, with the debate invariably degenerating fairly quickly to drunken name-calling, followed by outright hostility and usually ending badly, culminating in trips to the hospital, jail, or rehab. Or all three. 

This is how we do it...

 This year, however, there was one Agency S.C.U.M. Cruiser that stood out from the crowd of throwaway Taurii and flaky Fox-bodies, and it was unanimously decided that Agent 303 would take home the honors for his visionary, brave choice of a 1972 Olds 98 coupe.
  Its menacing facade still shiny in several places, this gigantic General generates a whole fuckload of 9 mpg BTU's inside as Agent 303 reclines in plush velour armchair awesomeness, isolated from the world and its lesser machines. He is not concerned that he has to start the car with a race-car-set trigger-style device from under the hood, nor with the smorgasbord of different tires at each corner; 303 knows that he is rolling the only way that matters... with Full Presidential Approval.

Do you think these guys know each other?

President under Pressure as he Defends French Car Division's Accounting Atrocities

 

CWMC French Car Division, Ardrossan, Ab: The appearance at HQ of yet another shab-tastic five-speed Franco-diesel has apparently pushed the Accounting Division over the edge. The French Car Division's debt / GDP ratio, mathematically unsustainable and climbing for years now, has finally reached it's "hockey-stick" phase, and landed the President in court to defend himself and his favorite Division from the wrath of the Company's calculator commandos.
  The list of charges reads like a who's who of bad decisions: DS, CX, 604, 505... more oxidizing continental curiosities than any single company could hope to maintain without concocting some profound pecuniary prevarication.

  "The FCD's track record here speaks for itself, I'm afraid," said Agent 313 in an exclusive interview on CBC 2 today, "...there doesn't seem to be any real hope of fabricating some kind of a defensible high ground from which we can ward off these totally accurate- I mean crazy, charges."
  His High-ness, whose personal style has been accused by some of
"...post-Wagnerian grandiosity; given to Gatsby-esque Ferris-wheel installations and booze-cruising a dented yellow Silver Ghost in pipe-and-slippers-by-the-fire attire..." 
(The World's Biggest Assholes, Newsweek, July 1982.)
remains confident in the face of the overwhelming evidence against him and his FCD cohorts.
  "We'll just bullshit our way out of it. Booze, hookers, and speedboats for the right people and the whole stupid thing will go away. It's worked for thousands of years, so I don't expect there to be any change now. We'll just get them to 'lend' us the 'money', or whatever, and, well, fuck-'em, you know... is that mic on?"
  The President's own "manifesto" is expected to be presented as evidence in the case against him and his Company; drawn heavily from his earlier works of equally dubious merit, and reiterating similar "paranoid" themes of corruption and debauchery at every turn, it is believed unlikely to characterize him to the judiciary in a sympathetic and generous light.
  Court was adjourned briefly this afternoon until the President could be located, and, presumably, tidied up enough to make an appearance on the stand for some lively cross-examination by the attorney for the Accounting Division. A brief excerpt follows:

 

  All Agents have been advised to just keep up the good work, and don't, whatever you do, pull your "RRSPs" out of the company account and use the money for something meaningful. Everything is fine, just don't worry about it. Look! A tiger!

  Oh, it's gone now. Carry on.

Funding Free-for-All as Tobacco Livery nets Full Presidential Approval.

  CWMC Racing Headquarters, Ardrossan, Ab:  Following the devastating loss of Satan as a sponsor this year, the CWMC Racing Division was relieved to find another source of unholy evil sporting staggering fuckloads of semi-legal-tax-dodgin'-tender and happily welcomed several reviled mega-corporations aboard with assurances of front page performance and professionalism.

High hopes; higher drivers.

   Banned from sponsoring major-league motorsport, tobacco giants have had to rely strictly on the ruinous addiction factor to shore up sales, and they were desperate to get their colours back on some iron and tacked up on some bedroom walls, even if it meant handing over an irrational amount of "startup funds" to possibly the least effectual group of individuals in the history of motor sport, the CWMC Racing Division.
   With the promise of a bottomless cash cow funneling spine-chilling amounts of dough into the Racing Division's bank account, the Prez , in the hopes of feathering somewhat of a nicotinic nest-egg, had already begun drafting the plans for Operation Ultimate Safety Meeting Showdown, a complex series of protocols designed to demoralize even the most tenacious of accounting firms and ensure a tidy skim to help offset the cost of his own habits, both automotive and auto-destructive. Of course, this meant taking the actual cash out of the budget for the cars, which, if the skim had been a subtle series of feints and phantom delivery charges, would not have presented itself quite so obviously as it did this last season, with ferocious cost-cutting taking its toll on maintenance, and, inevitably, reliability.

Satan's money and connections will be missed.

  "I don't see any downside at all," said the President today, inter- viewed from his bed on the 11th floor of the Jiffy-Park on 132nd where he sat, propped up and somewhat ashen, burning through pack after pack of Marlboro Kings and Viscount 100s, pouring effective G&Ts one-handed and causing occasional flare-ups as gin-soaked sheets came in contact with falling butts, "I really can't imagine how this can go wrong."

Season shortened by Agent 406's killer Sunbird.

  The missing funding seems to be headed in several uncomfort- able directions; a decent chunk of it is immediately appropriated for narcotics and a similar wedge cut to keep the delivery trucks full of Beefeater and Bombay Dry backing up to the door. The rest gets harder to trace; the French Car Division is a likely suspect again here, but the sheer size of the Company makes a mockery of any attempts to navigate its convolutions.

8771's JPS in happier times

  "The potential for abuse here is just about impossible to overstate." said Agent 8771 today in a laborious telephone interview from Maui where he has been been "training" for several weeks now, apparently to improve his skills at shuffling around shit-headed, looking for his hotel after a rough workout of touristy, triple-umbrella cocktails at the beach, chaining free JPS Kings courtesy of his generous sponsor and throwing the butts at the playing dolphins while hollering incoherently about the "goddamn track conditions".

Lack of funding for maintenance is starting to show.

  Satan, meanwhile, has decided to concen- trate full-time on robbing the entire working middle class of their savings and his day job doesn't leave time to concentrate on motor sports as much as he wants to.
  "Look," he said, opening the door to his Prius, "just keep borrowing more money to buy depreciating assets. That's all I'm asking. And buy some stocks and shit like that; remember, you gotta be in for the long term."
  The President wished to remind all Agents that "You can print money, but you can't print stupid; that you have to supply yourself."

President Sets the Bad-Ide-O-Meter to 10; Breaks off the Knob

CWMC Headquarters, Ardrossan, Ab: With another year-end fiscal fuck-o-rama on the horizon, the President has authorized the immediate implementation of debilitating austerity measures for every Division in an attempt to mitigate the ghastly budgetary indiscretions of the past several months. 

Other admirers include neighbours and NAPA personnel.

  As is usually the case in these situations, the President is the principal source of the problem, and several of his latest acquisitions have been cause for more than the usual amount of Monday-morning coffee-pot quarterbacking and backhanded photocopier-leaning speculation concerning the seemingly inexhaustible appetite for intoxicants and insanity that seem to fuel his decision-making process. 
  At the center of this latest cash crisis sits, (immobile, naturally) not one, not two, but a trio of inert Saab 99s; all in a state that would make any sensible person run away screaming, holding their wallet protectively close to keep it from harm and gibbering long-suppressed scraps of scripture to ward off the evil. Actually exchanging real Authorized Funding for multiple dead examples of 35-year-old cars from an extinct company should trigger a few red indicators. If it does not, as is clearly the case within the Swedish Car Division, you probably have other wiring issues with your risk management circuitry.

Delicate detailing takes the breath away.

  On the topic of wiring issues, we come to the first of the 99's. Like the other two, the "restorable" example arrived by trailer, drizzling a Hansel and Gretel-esque trail of its remaining fuel onto the ground and smoldering suspiciously from underhood whenever any of its electric devices was engaged. It is apparently a 1978 model, and is actually being granted indoor storage because of its impossibly rust-free condition, and to hide it from locals suspicious of anything not powered by a Cummins. Test drives are being postponed until the vehicle is not actually ready to catch on fire at any second.

Saab #3: That door handle is still good.

  The second 99, a 4-door GLE model, has been the victim at some time in the recent past of some seriously counter-productive bodywork. Such is the damage caused by the previous owner that the car will be consigned to the parts bin, or possibly cobbled up into running condition and enlisted in the CWMC Winter Beater fleet. The President is considering assigning the car to Agent 100013, just to see the looks on the faces of his co-workers at NAPA.
  Saab #3 is ostensibly the "parts car" of the group; ready and willing to sacrifice itself for the betterment of the Saab community at large. Or, it would be if there were any good parts on it. The engine, transmission, radiator, and parts of the interior have already been removed, and the body panels are rusted out in the usual, depressing, places.

Agent 311: Serious allegations in Saab Scaandal.

   " #3 is basically just a windshield that takes up a lot of room and leaks power steering fluid on the grass." Said Agent 311 yesterday in a rarely heard telephone interview from his Swedish Car Division Office in Houston. CWMC's only other Trollhattan-thusiast is suspected by several other Agents not to have done enough to discourage these Sunday-stoner-time Saab-shopping binges.
  "What the hell is going on around here?" said a disbelieving Agent 1080 upon seeing the infestation of short, funny-looking Swedish sedans for the first time, "What the fuck are these things? Jesus, I...I...why? Are you keeping this junk? 
  Not a fan; these don't resemble 1968 Plymouths at all."
  Agent 0318 was similarly unmoved by the appearance of the 99's.
  "I try to be your friend, you know? Like, I didn't say anything when you bought that... CX? what the fuck is that thing? Some kind of a chopped Citation? What the hell are you going to do with that? You have two of them? And what's this other thing? Why would you buy any of this shit?"
  "Look, I just think it's time you took a minute... I mean, if you think that I'll ride in this thing..."  added Agent 1080, recoiling as he looked in on an interior devoid of decadence and die-cast decoration; upright seats, soft surfaces, and hieroglyphic heater controls combined to offend his slouchy, gear-banging, beer-cans-out-the-window style.
 The President, his capacity for subtlety severely diminished by a towering pair of able-bodied G&Ts, replied that
   "All Agents should be advised that year-end bonuses this term will consist largely of being told to fuck off."

 

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.