Clearly, I Can't Handle It

Chances are, you've driven behind one of these at least once in your life and, more likely than not, while doing so, you've wanted to shoot yourself in the face with a large caliber firearm.

It's not the Toyota Camry's fault, though. A Camry, by itself, is an innocuous, inoffensive, typically beige-on-metallic-beige object that, when put in the hands of a Camry driver becomes a trigger for suicide ideation.

But we're not here to talk about the typical Camry driver and his/her insistence on methodically and literally obeying speed limits, their penchant for meandering over the double-yellow, fluttering the brakes or any other annoying motoring habits they have picked up in Camry Driver Education (CDE) class. We're here to talk about the Camry itself. Specifically, the 1991-1996 bodystyle.

Why? Because this blogger is, sometimes, fucked up to the point where said blogger decides to focus his energy and, by proxy, yours, on a car he has never owned nor gives a shit about. Remember, don't blame the blog-- blame the blogger.

Actually, we're not even going to be talking about the 1991-1996 Toyota Camry. We're going to be talking about the 1991-1996 Toyota Camry's exterior door handle.

That's right, you heard me.


This is a 1991-1996 Toyota Camry's exterior door handle. The image is from www.carpartswholesale.com and I'm willing to bet that these people sell lots of these door handles. Why? Because, a few years ago, I started noticing that many of the Toyota Camrys I see of this vintage have door handles that do not match the rest of the exterior paint color of the car.

Green Camrys with burgundy door handles. White Camrys with black door handles. Blue Camrys with silver door handles. Green Camrys with beige door handles.

And it's usually the driver's door that has the door handle of a different color, because, obviously, that's the door that's used the most, and, thus, most frequently experiences a break.

Now, things break. I understand that. I'm a pretty understanding guy, as guys go, but the number of 1991-1996 bodystyle Camrys I've noticed with mismatched door handles as compared to, you know, every other fucking car I've ever seen says to me that the 1991-1996 Toyota Camry suffers broken door handles at a much more significant rate than other vehicles. And, for one of the most popular sedans of its time (competing for the honor only with the Ford Taurus and Honda Accord) I think that fucking blows.

According to www.carpartswholesale.com's website:

"No one likes to be inconvenienced. When it comes to your Toyota Camry, there is a variety of mishaps that could occur to cause you to grumble. One of the simplest, yet most aggravating, is a broken door handle. You probably take your Toyota Camry Door Handle for granted, but when it breaks, it becomes painfully obvious."

Yes. I would imagine, carpartswholesale, that it would be painfully obvious. And it's painfully obvious to me that the door handles were designed shittily. I mean, okay, so the floormats of newer Toyotas get caught and the vehicles suddenly accelerate and the braking systems malfunction-- but that's all complicated stuff. I can accept that. This, though? A fucking mechanism that opens a goddamn door? You can't figure that out? I mean, you are Japanese, aren't you?

I wonder if any Toyota executives have killed themselves because of the 1991-1996 Toyota Camry door handle fiasco. I know this isn't going to sound very charitable and trauma-sensitive of me, but I kind of hope at least one did. If not, there's still time. Maybe the Executive Vice-President of the Quality Control division could commit seppuku by inserting a broken 1991-1996 Toyota Camry exterior door handle into his stomach and moving it all around in that shit.

I would watch that.

Big News From the Auto World

You may have missed this latest news story from the world of automobilia. That's understandable as there has been a lot of news lately stemming from automobiles, both their manufacture and their sales.

We've got a lot of headlines emanating lately from the world of hybrid and/or electric cars-- the pleasant newbie the Honda Insight is competing feverishly with the third generation Toyota Prius for the hybrid hearts and minds of America. Chevrolet is still promising us the Volt, but it remains to be seen if it will deliver in time to save the planet. Gasoline and crude oil prices are fluctuating with all the haphazard unpredictability of a crack addict. Saab has just been sold. Chrysler is going to be building Fiat's pint-sized 500 in Mexico. Ford is breaking out the pinatas as it plans to revive the Fiesta. And, of course, there's still cash for clunkers, though you'd probably be better off selling your 1995 Chevrolet Caprice on Ebaymotors the way things are going with government funding.

And so, with so much car-related news out there to assimilate and digest, it's completely forgivable that you didn't catch the latest headline to come out of the car world. Well, that's what I'm here for-- to bring you up to speed. And it's good you're here, because this isn't an article you could read in U.S. News & World Report, Car & Driver or even Peugeot Station Wagon Quarterly. No, this is only a piece you can read about on My Masonic Apron which, of course, is Your Masonic Apron, too. Here's the news:

"TOYOTA CAMRY OFFICIALLY BECOMES AMERICA'S

SLOWEST-MOVING VEHICLE"

That's right, folks. You heard it here first. Now go Twitter your friends' tussies and tell them.

Here's the full report:

AP Wire Service - Since 1972, when General Motors began outfitting their Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham sedans with tufted, crushed velour seats, and speedometers that topped out at 85mph, the Cadillac has officially been the slowest-moving vehicle on the streets of America. The Cadillac's propensity to be driven by elderly widows and widowers at an average speed of 13 miles-per-hour below any posted speed limit has been unmatched by any other vehicle, not even the Lincoln Town Car, which has consistently come in a distant second place in clinical trials since 1984. The Cadillac, it seemed, would forever remain the barge of the road.

But all that is changing.

According to research statistics from the University of Georgia's Vehicle Dynamics Division report issued Thursday, data analyzed from traffic cameras, state police speed radar and VASCAR data, driver input and research gathered from 4500 American cities and towns, the Toyota Camry has officially overtaken all Cadillac products as the slowest moving vehicle in the United States. Professor Edwin S. Van Hooten explains the significance of this study's outcome,

"The importance of this finding cannot be overstated-- or understated, for that matter. This is the first time in America's history that a foreign car has attained the distinction of being the car that is driven the slowest on virtually every street in America. Our researchers were simply stunned at this outcome-- why, do you realize that, even in Pompano Beach, where the Cadillac Sedan DeVille and the Seville have been almost completely unchallenged in the realm of slowness, the Camry came in a shocking 4.7 miles slower, on average, than either of those Cadillacs. The Camry even ranked slower than Cadillac hearses actively engaged in funeral processions."

The Toyota Camry was also found to be 7 times as likely to be driven straight for an extended period of time with its left turn signal blinking than any Cadillac vehicle, surprising the University of Georgia researchers, and many police officers.

"Well, when I heard that statistic, that just blew me away," said Cpl. Thomas Phillips of the Clagmore County, TX Sheriff's Department. "Whenever we needed more money to fund vests or new radios or whatever, I used to just park on the side of the road and wait for a Cadillac to come lumbering down with its blinker on for no reason-- we made quota in two weeks. Now, though, it's a different story. I've nailed sixteen Camry drivers for that in just two days. Now that's mad money, baby. We're building an addition onto the squad house and all the patrol units are going to be housed in a heated garage!"

Salesmen at Toyota dealerships across the country do not seem altogether surprised by this new research finding. Car salesman Chet Atkins of Minasquea Toyota in Iowa speaks bluntly,

"Look, I haven't sold a Camry to someone whose hairline wasn't receeding or their pants weren't full of dookie yet. These Hermans and Hagithas just ain't spending the dough on a Cad anymore. Grampie's 401-K's gone like yesterday's Cracklin' Oat Bran. They want a silver Cam with gray interior, and I've got forty-six of them. Come 'an get 'em, pops."

Indeed, evidence accrued by the University of Georgia study seems to support Atkins' anecdotal claim: the number of car-buyers opting for the Toyota Camry fall into the 68-92 year-old-age bracket. In independent surveys, 87% of Camary buyers stated that Calvin Coolidge was the last American president they trusted, 75% reported that they could no longer velcro their own shoes, and an overwhelming majority of Camry owners, 94%, stated that there were "too many lumps in their oatmeal."

Small Cars, Big Death

Well, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has once again pooped on the parade.

Thanks, guys.

The New York Times has just reported that the IIHS has just released unfortunate news surrounding the safety of current model-year small cars.

Summary: yergonnadie.

Now, we all know that modern cars are equipped with antilock brakes and enough airbags to cushion everything from your neck to your jaun, but that doesn't seem to matter much when a modern microcar is paired against a midsize vehicle, like a Toyota Camry. The fact is, everybody pretty much understands that, if you're teetalooting around in a Smart ForTwo and you slam into a Hummer, you're basically going to crumple up like a boil-in-a-bag dinner thrown against the kitchen wall, but the recent crashtest videos showing Honda Fits and Toyota Yarii flying up in the air and cushmoigiing up like they're made of tin-foil weren't exactly predictable.

My wife and sister-in-law both are currently lusting after Honda Fits, and I have stood by them. I would now prefer, instead, to drive behind them. In a Chevy Impala.

Because the Editorial/Opinion section of the NYT is an apparently inadequate vehicle for handling reader opinions, it has added a comment page to its storylines. As usual, the commentatortots are at it again in full force. When I last checked, this particular news story rang in at 107 comments. Here's a small sampling from the numbnuts gallery. Please keep in mind that these are New York Times readers who are allegedly of superior intelligence, grammatical fortitude, and possess an unchallenged capacity for rational thought, expertise in logical argumentation, and eloquence of expression:

"THIS IS GROSSLY irresponsible. You have these small cars crashing into medium sized cars.
WHAT you need to test is small cars crashing into small cars - which is what would happeen if everyone tried to save the planet and drove small cars"

"Your adversising in favor of big, voracious cars will certainly not help fighting global warming and saving oil reserves !"

"how ’bout pitting a Harley Road King against the Smart? Surely a lot of these gas-hog owners are out there on the weekend posing as HOGs on their vintage bikes! And are they ALL knuckleheads?!"

"Oh my gosh! This is so surprising! I can’t believe that when something tiny hits something bigger the tiny object sustains more damage! My feeble hippie mind apparently cannot comprehend freshman high school level physics!"

That one, by the way, is my favorite. I'll spare you the tedium of reading any more of this palblum. Suffice it to say, the vast majority of these responses dealt with mention of high school physics, which I took for two days before dropping out in favor of the less mind-expanding world of geology and astronomy. Funny, in spite of my dearth of formal physics training, I still had a reasonably good idea that a freight train hitting a gerbil was not going to bode well for the gerbil.

It would be great if we lived in a society where there were no "big gas hogs" (by the way, they hit these microcars with Honda Accords & Toyota Camrys-- hardly "gas hogs" by any stretch of the imagination, but anyway, dickheads...) but, unfortunately, this country has a long, storied history of building things larger than necessary: take a gander at the skyline of any major American city, or the office of any CEO of repute or the guest bathroom in the average American McMansion if you think I'm full of shit. The plump, commodious living room on wheels was invented here, and I'm pretty sure the fucking motorhome was, too, so don't think, my little greenies, that you can just wave your non-CO2 emitting wands around and all the Ford Crown Vics will just disappear off the face of the earth. See-- we have a little thing in this society called "freedom" and if people want to buy six-seater cars, and they have the available funds, they can. Hell, they can buy them even if they don't have the available funds. That's the other thing we invented in this country: credit.

D'oh!

The onus, friends, is not on the mid-sized & large cars which have existed in this country since the dawn of time to simply go away and never be heard from again-- the onus is on the designers and manufacturers who are busily trying to make a quick buck by churning out small cars that are ill-equipped to face the challenges of co-existing in a society where there are cars of varying sizes. If a car put puts around in Bali or Tokyo with no problem, that's great, but if there's a problem when it comes to America, well, then maybe it doesn't belong here-- or maybe the design needs to be retooled. That's the reality of the situation.

And for all of you patchouli-loving dred-asses (by the way, where's my fucking G.P.S.?) who want to bitch and cry about all the big cars speeding around on the road today: why don't you just go walk in front of one?