Ford Transit for the U.S.: fringe car fans unite!

Ford announced at the recent Detroit motor show that the small van, the Transit, would begin U.S. sales in the middle of 2009. At last, an announcement that gets me excited.

be prepared.

THE BASICS:

The Transit is an oddball vehicle. Ford designed it to serve as an automotive mule for tradesman and couriers - also, Ford needed to compete with Renault’s Kangoo. The design of the truck with regards to the first objective, muledom, is predictable: boxiness and little decoration. Regarding its competition: the Transit has some of the goofiness of the Kangoo face and appears, at least on first impression, to have a similar level of european tidiness to the design. Within its intended market the Transit seems to have a great opportunity. It offers better cargo capacity than the ersatz xB, HHR, and Squid Overlords forbid, PT Cruiser vanlets that have been pushed into urban and suburban usage across the country. At the same time it offers easier and more configurable customization within the cargo area than those vehicles which were never designed for that purpose. Essentially, the Ford Transit will be a smaller version of the successful Sprinter. Cheaper, too.   

THE IMPORTANTS:

This vehicle is way more than a pedestrian snorefest. Simply: If you’re concerned about freedom and/or zombies and/or self-expression then the Transit is coming for you. From here in the GGGP fringes of car culture I can see the real, hidden market. Plenty of people in particular demographic blobs and sub-cultures are drawn to utilitarian cars of the Transit type for personal use. The current wave of these people—I am admittedly one at heart but not in ownership—drive the Scion xB or Honda Element or brick-like classic Volvo wagons, or even, at the fringe of this fringe, compact pickups with caps. I think that much of this is due to the demise of the wagon in the U.S., but it also represents a rejection of SUV hegemony.  What are the characteristics that this group looks for? 

FIRST:

A utilitarian vehicle with a large covered cargo area addresses an important fantasy. That fantasy involves the possibility that you may have to take refuge inside your vehicle. I suppose that for some this represents a worst-case scenario. But to this band of brothers and sisters, taking refuge in your car epitomizes the freedom that comes from automobiles. Surely, there is the car freedom of teenage adventures in your neighborhood or town as there is the freedom to escape cross-country and travel thousands of miles w/o regard to airline destinations or bus routes. Take that kind of freedom and inject a shot of ‘Into the Wild’ or ‘On the Road’, and now you can not only drive anywhere but stop and sleep just about anywhere too. Admittedly, there are numerous limitations to this fantasy. Police. The family from TCM. Lack of toilets. But it is a fantasy, and a Transit-type vehicle gives it life w/o saying, “I am retired and this is my camper.”

FIRST (b):

Zombies and crackheads. They are related to the above. Within the travel-entirely-within-your-vehicle fantasy is the possibility of attack/crap weather. When the zombies or roving midwest meth-heads show up to plunder/eat it is far preferable to have steel between you and them than to have your fancy nylon tent. The weather part is equally obvious.

SECOND:

This class of vehicle projects a strong aura of frugality. Whereas an SUV will consume lots of gas and rubber these vehicles are relatively miserly in comparison. The running costs are low and the utility is high. There is no SUV pretense of trails to be trod. There is a kind of punk-rock anti-aesthetic to the design. If a Camry demonstrates a complete lack of driver concern about design then the Transit demonstrates that same lack of concern but critically offers utility in exchange. Therefore, the Transit sends the message: I am all purpose. I am what I am.

THIRD:

The Transit avails itself to customization. This factor puts it substantially above other similar vehicles. Sure, you can add some TRD geegaws to your xB but can you convert the cargo area into a photo studio or computer tech mini-shop? The interior possibilities are endless and are appealing to DIY hippies and offer no real downsides to the oldster crowd (xB lovers for sure).  Surfers and adventurers of all stripe are served by the possibilities. Keep your gear safe and make a space for it. But the best part is that huge slab of an exterior. Learn to airbrush or find one of the few that still do and paint that steel canvas!

THE END:

One of our principles at GGGP is that your car choice says something about you. The Transit unites purpose and design—driving a Transit projects your understanding of the beauty of purpose/design integration. At this test alone lots of vehicles fail; that a goofy panel van from europe accomplishes this is fantastic. Sell well little Transit. I can’t wait for the first techno-disco-hippie, mural-painted, one to drive cross country.  

The Art of Automotive Airbrushing: In Memoriam

Yesterday, while reading through issue #51 of Marvel Comic’s Master of Kung Fu, published in 1977, I came across an old advertisement for a home study course in customizing cars, vans, trucks, motorcycles, and dune buggies. The ad promised “everything you need” to learn the skills required to launch the full or part time career in automotive customization that you dreamed of every night from your prison cell, counting the days until your release, eagerly anticipating the opportunity to put the past behind you and earn back the visitation rights you lost after your arrest. While the training offered in the course included such useful skills as applying decals, gold-leafing, and installing portholes, moon-roofs, curtains, and high-back swivel captain’s chairs, the focus seemed to be on pin-striping and airbrushing; specifically, “fading, fogging, flames, scallops, lace, cobwebbing and other special effects” for custom vans. By simply following the step-by-step instructions provided by the Customizing Center of Newport Beach, California, in just a few weeks—practicing an hour or two a day, from your own back yard or garage—you’d learn to handle “an air gun and striping brush as though you were born with them in your hands.”

Career Fair

I found all of this extremely appealing and, while the home study course itself no longer exists, certainly the van customization industry—as well as many well-preserved examples—still does. However, a quick search on ebay Motors returned only two custom vans out of 850, and only one of those had minor airbrushing on the spare tire cover. (I didn’t even bother searching for dune buggies, knowing that would have been an even greater disappointment.) Google offered images of a few more examples, but nearly all of those were for advertising purposes.

Heartbroken, my mind drifted back to a time—somewhere during the early 1980’s—where I had dreamed of a not-so-distant future where the skies were littered with flying cars covered in hand-painted murals of snowy white wolves howling at full, blue moons, or busty mermaids floating in deep space, holding crystal balls high above their heads, their fiery hair blowing in the void. Alas, that hope has become as much a fantasy as the images that inspired it. Not to mention the unfulfilled promise of the flying car. 

While you still see it on motorcycles, airbrushing in the world of car customization appears to be a dead art, and I have a few theories about that: For starters, wizards aren’t cool anymore. And Harry Potter did nothing to return these fictional characters to the hearts of the American public. Neither are silhouettes of cowboys against sunsets, for which I blame the public outcry against cigarette advertising over the last 20 years.

Secondly, the full sized van is nearly extinct; unless you need one for industrial purposes, you’re going to buy a minivan or SUV. And if you buy one of those you’re not going to customize it with the airbrushed image of an Amazon woman taming a black panther; you’ve got to know that, deep down, whatever visual improvements you try to make to either one of these cars, you’ll never look cool. Also, unlike the full sized vans of yesteryear, minivans and SUVs have windows all the way around, taking up the surface area that would otherwise be available for airbrushing, which is completely pointless since SUV and minivan drivers don’t seem to use their windows any more than their side mirrors or turn signals. 

Thirdly, most people just don’t have class anymore—a statement which I feel does not need to be justified. And I don’t see any of this changing. While there doesn’t seem to be any hope for the art of airbrushing in making a comeback, a few examples still do exist. You just have to be in the right place. Spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles’s Griffith Park and you’ll find a small handful of low riders with some impressive custom paint work; if anyone still has class it’s the hombres (which I think is the same as calling a black man a “brother”). Then there are Charlie’s Angels reruns. Also, while I’m not sure it’s on the road anymore, around D.C. I used to see frequently this pickup truck on the road covered in airbrushed portraits of the singer Selena, which just screams classy. (That owner was also an hombre, as I recall.) Actually, I guess I take back my original statement: if Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in America—and they seem to be the only ones still practicing the art of airbrushing—maybe it will make a comeback.