Sneaking a little gearhead into the local paper.

[LandQuail]

Thought I'd share this with you kids. I just wrote it to have some filler for the upcoming holiday season. It's not often my interest in cars converges with my job, but it turns out pretty good, I think.
Cheers.

Oh, I'll have to post it in two installments. Sorry about that.



By JOE LAMB
LOG CABIN STAFF WRITER

Tis’ is the season for holiday wish lists. As the time draws near when Faulkner County families will wake up early to see what’s under their trees, it’s hard not to let the mind wander from what gifts are likely to appear under the tree, to what theoretically could wind up there Christmas morning.
If you’re a “car person,” the line between educated guesses and outright wishes is crossed quickly, since desirability generally increases proportionally with a vehicle’s price tag. Though the most coveted vehicles are usually well and truly out of reach for most, it’s still fun to dream about little boxes with jingly keys inside.
If you want to let someone know you think they’re special this holiday season, you could certainly do worse than leaving them the keys to a 200-mph sports car costing more than the average family home under the tree.
On Sept. 21, the one-year production run for the Ford GT, the company’s hip-high mid-engine supercar built to pay homage to one of the most successful American racecars ever to turn a wheel in anger, ended. That doesn’t mean that all Ford GT’s are gone, however. There’s one of them right here in Conway — and it’s for sale. They’re rumored, by the way, to look great with a big bow on top.
The Ford GT is one of those cars you have to understand via a lengthy story with parts nobody has ever really been able to verify and which leaves all but true enthusiasts nodding off halfway through it. In the interest of our readers staying awake, here’s the condensed version of the Ford GT’s automotive fairy-tale:
In the early-60’s Henry Ford II wanted to make his company’s mark on the international racing scene, and that meant building a car that could be raced successfully in the 24 hours of LeMans, then and today the most prestigious race in all of motorsports. As in any sort of racing, speed never hurts, but half the challenge of LeMans is simply making a racecar that can last the entire 24-hour race. Building a car that is fast enough to stay ahead of the pack, but reliable enough to finish, takes years of trial and error for even the most well-funded projects.
Ford decided buying Italian sports car manufacturer Ferrari from the company’s enigmatic founder Enzo Ferrari would be a good start. Ferraris were largely dominant in races across the world throught the early 60’s, winning at LeMans in 1960, 1961 and 1962.
Ford entered into an extended courtship with the company, which was receptive to the possibity of a Ford buy-out until Ferrari abruptly terminated the blossoming deal for reasons still debated. According to some accounts, Enzo Ferrari kicked Henry Ford II off the Ferrari factory grounds.
Outraged, Ford vowed to hit Ferrari where it hurts — on the racetrack. He contracted British racecar maker Lola to produce a lightweight mid-engine chassis and powered it with a Ford 289 cubic-inch Cobra Jet V-8. They called it the Ford GT, but soon someone noted that the low-slung car’s roof was only 40 inches above the road. The car’s unofficial name became GT 40, a name that stuck for the car’s decade-long racing career.
The first GT 40s, known as GT 40 Mark Ones, entered but failed to finish the race in 1964 and 1965. Ford used lessons learned from these first two attempts to build an improved GT 40, the Mk. II. Following the old American racing addage “there’s no replacement for displacement,” Ford yanked the 289 and fitted a huge 426-cubic-inch Cobra Jet V-8 in its place.
It worked. In 1966 three Ford GT 40 Mk IIs crossed the finish line at the Le Mans 24-hour race in first, second, and third place. They’d beaten the best Ferrari, as well as the rest of the racing world, could throw at them.
Now, take a deep breath and soak in all that history before you look at the new Ford GT’s price tag. At $153,000 you’ll need to think of it as buying a chunk of history.
But what a beautiful piece of history it is. Time has been kind to the original GT-40’s shape. More than 40 years after its debut at LeMans, Ford’s stylists found little room for improvement on the design. Though some of the original’s lines have been sharpened, and the car has grown a bit in every dimension (as have most American drivers), it remains faithful to the original’s flowing lines. Unless you’re very familiar with both, it’s hard to tell the original from its modern interpretation.
The Ford GT has classic mid-engine sportscar proportions: A low hood and front fenders, a steeply raked windshield, and a graceful fastback roofline ending in an abruptly abbreviated tail. In one stylish and dramatic departure from the original’s design, the GT’s engine cover doubles as the rear windshield, proudly displaying the supercharged V-8 under glass for all to gawk at.
Most interestingly in this age of computerized gizmos programmed to cut engine power when the driver tries to do a smoky burnout or donut — the automotive equvalent of your car giving you a slap on the wrist — the Ford GT does without any form of traction or stability control. While this means a Ford GT driver is free to exploit all aspects of the car’s performance, the GT doesn’t have the electronic safety nets other sportscars have to save a driver who’s enthusiasm has written a check their ability can’t cash.
The friendly folks at Smith Ford were quick to let The Log Cabin Democrat know there would be no test drive. That’s a shame, because with 550 horsepower and 500 lb/ft of torque running from the supercharged 330 cubic-inch V-8 to the rear tires with absolutely no traction control system, a spin in the GT, however brief, would certainly be thrilling.
With a heavy V-8 virtually riding shotgun over your right shoulder, though, a spin in the GT could be just that.
Planting the engine behind the driver makes for a car that’s able to change directions quickly. To illustrate the benefits of placing an engine in the middle of a car, place a heavy item, such as a case of soft drinks, towards the rear of your shopping cart next time you go to the grocery store. Take note of how the cart “handles,” then move the heavy item towards the front of the cart and take it for a “drive.”
Though mid-engined cars are agreed by most to handle better than front-engined cars, instability is the downside of putting the cart before the horse. Many mid-engined cars are notoriously prone to spinning if the driver turns into a corner too briskly while braking, or powers out of one too enthusiastically — with 550 horses prancing under your right foot, any accelleration in the GT is liable to be a little too enthusiastic.

[LandQuail]

If you’re more of a truck person, the International CXT is your Ferrari. There are some big pickup trucks in Conway, but the CXT dwarfs them all. Those present at this year’s Conway Christmas Parade would have had to blink really, really hard to miss the International CXT entered by Conway’s IC Corp. plant, and some must have thought, however fleetingly, about finding a pair of keys stamped CXT under the tree.
The CXT was recognized at the 2005 Chicago Auto Show as the world’s largest production pickup truck, tipping the scales at an asphault-denting 25,999 pounds. If it were two pounds heavier, you’d need a commercial driver’s license to get behind the wheel.
Even without a commercial driver’s license, CXT drivers could still use Santa’s help to pay commercial-grade fuel bills, as the truck gets between seven and ten miles per gallon.
The CXT looks a bit like a commercial semi with the addition of what appears to be a Ford dualley pickup bed bolted to the back. To illustrate the scale of the truck, the extended dualley fenders sit empty, a good foot above the tops of the tires.
The point of it all? According to David Morrow, International Corporation’s transportaton department team leader at the Conway IC Corp. plant, it draws as much attention as “four Lamborghinis stacked on top of each other.”
Ed Hartung, IC Corp.’s Conway plant manager, took me for a ride around town in a CXT on loan to the Conway plant.
“They told me to fuel it up late at night, because it draws a crowd,” Hartung said as he guided the massive truck down Dave Ward Drive.
It was certainly drawing a lot of admiring, or at least confused looks on our ride, though it was sometimes hard to tell which. Passengers in the CXT almost have to stand up to see anything but the roof of even the biggest SUV or truck that passed by.
“It looked like some sort of airplane had gotten off the interstate and was going through town,” Noah Sitton, an acquaintance of mine who found himself behind the CXT in a mere Nissan X-Terra said.
IC Corp’s CXT is powered by a 466 cubic inch inine six-cylinder diesel engine producing 245 horsepower and over 600 pount-feet of torque, which is enough for adequate accelleration in the 13-ton truck, but not enough to make it anybody’s drag strip hero.
If you want more power (and why wouldn’t a buyer already clearly interested in big numbers want more power?) you can get it in the form of an International DT 570 engine pushing out 310 horsepower and a scarcely believable 1,050 pound-feet of torque.
As far as handling goes, it’s best not to ask. Even at 20 miles per hour, the bulk of the CXT feels overwhelming. It’s like driving a freight train. The air brakes also take getting used to. The lightest pressure on the brake pedal, for those not used to braking via compressed air, brings the truck to a lurching, clumbsy stop. It’s the sort of thing a driver would get used to, but the CXT isn’t something anybody would choose for a blast out their favorite twisty road. If you need to pull up to 20 tons though, the only better choice would be an actual semi.
If no smaller truck will do on your holiday wish list, Santa will have to dish out over $100,000 to give the holiday gift of utter automotive excess, and that’s not counting the cost of hiring a crew of elves to building a 15-foot high garage to house the biggest toy on the road.
You can’t always get what you want, as the Rolling Stones put it, and even Santa can’t put a check beside every item on your theoretical holiday wish list, but that doesn’t make dreaming about what could be waiting under the tree any less fun.
(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached by e-mail at ibelievethat'snoneofyourbusinessthan...t hecabin.net or by phone at (none of your business). To comment on this and other stories, log on to www.thanksfornotasking.net, open this story and post a comment at the end.)

(Now you know my name. The mystique's all gone. Shucks.)

[Rockefella]

Originally Posted by LandQuail

(Now you know my name. The mystique's all gone. Shucks.)

k00l, w4nna cyb3r l0l

[kingofthering]

kool wanna hav interNet XXX?

Some idiot's gonna write in saying how we need 100 kazillion mpg hybrids, that Detroit and Big Oil will not give because they want money, and blah blah blah Toyota Prius.
Great article.

[LandQuail]

I appreciate it. Thanks.

I expect to get calls tomorrow from redneck prudes (they exist, I assure you) letting me know they don't pay for their subscription to read about nonsense, but maybe somebody will appreciate it. We need to work to spread car enthusiasm in America. For most, it's the second most expensive purchase they'll ever make, and yet there's not a "car channel" on TV.

It's not fair, I say.

[IWantAnAudiRS6]

Nicely written article, you have a style that's similar to Jeremy Clarkson's, but slightly more mature...

Merry Christmas, dude.