Hello, fellow Autopians! Here it is, the first week after the launch, and now we have to keep filling up this site with top-notch car-stuff for you to enjoy. We’re excited. Maybe a little scared. No, that’s the wrong word; I meant frightened. Much better.
[Cold Start is how we’re going to start our days, with an interesting automotive image, and a bit of text. Our way of saying good morning as we pull the choke and try to get started. –Ed]
I picked this AMC lineup to start for kind of symbolic reasons: AMC was always sort of the underdog, which is how we’re starting out, but they were always clever and strange and fun and those are all qualities I hope we have, too.
Granted, I’d prefer a different outcome for The Autopian (Powered by Optima Batteries) than AMC, but maybe if Renault wants to pour a lot of cash in us like they did AMC, that could be okay.
Also, I’ll leave it to you to decide who is the Pacer, Hornet, or Gremlin. I’m torn between Pacer and Hornet for myself.
We have great things coming, but we are a bit understaffed at the moment, so I’ll ask some forgiveness up front: if there’s a typo or two, or the pace isn’t exactly as quick as you’d like, just know we’re trying our best, and will always try to do better.
We want to give you the best place for automotive enjoyment possible, and want you here, every day! So, please, stick around, share the things you like, and give us plenty of feedback–this is your site, too.
Okay, time to write. See you in the comments!
Had a 73 Hornet wagon in the mid 80s. 6cyl, 3 on the tree. Best snow car I ever owned, or would ever own. Skinny bias snow tires on the rears, and that thing was a goat. Funny thing about the Hornet under the hood: it had two battery platforms, one on each side. So I added a second battery, and wired them in parallel with some jumper cables and terminal clamps. I lived in Wisconsin at the time, and that damn car would ALWAYS start, and get me where I needed to be. Bailed out many a friend with that thing. Kinda nice looking too, in an AMC way. I recall dumping the bimetal coil auto-choke for a manual pull-by-wire. Wonderful simple bulletproof car.
So far so good! So much good stuff here already. It was definitely worth the wait. As for the cars… time will tell… time will tell…
Jason got it wrong on AMC…. They didn’t need Renault, they just needed a good corporate sponsor. Y’all got Optima batteries. With a big Optima banner on the side, and the battery inside, we might still be lucky enough to be driving a Sportabout…..
Concept works for Nascar….
An aside. I suppose all the staff was given a life time supply of Optima batteries. I just don’t see it working for Tracy. None of his vehicles seem worthy of an Optima…. Maybe the aJ10…. But I can see David scrounging every U-Pull-It yard in southern Michigan looking for used batteries. Hope he writes it up….
Optima batteries rule. Will never buy a different brand. On my 4th Optima now. First two lasted 9 and 12 years and powered my truck stereos for afternoons (hundreds of them).
Sorry but you guys are NOT the underdog here. You outshined the other kids on your first day.
I like how this is starting out: A hopeless piece of Dave worthy vaguely car shaped rust, minutia about indicators, getting a “handle”. I’d seriously pay money to see this succeed and continue to be weird takes on cars.
If Renault pumped a bunch of cash into the site, I would suggest a “Fuego” car of the day. The inaugural one should be the R5 turbo.
You’re looking at this all wrong, AMC also had the vision to create the Eagle. Like it or not that pretty much started the crossover/SUV, one of the biggest automotive trends since the Model “T”
I think quality over quantity is the most important thing. I’d rather have a few really good articles per day as opposed to a dozen half-assed not really automotive articles. Everything looks great so far.
What? I’m already in the greys? Damnit!! 😉
Some great content here over the weekend. Very impressed!
This is the same feeling I had when David E launched Automobile when I was in college. It’s only missing the tweed suit.
I’m just thrilled to be here at the beginning of this adventure, rather than finding a site as the usual late adopter that I am. Supporting you guys 100%.
I love the name Cold Start, it’s perfect.
Really happy with the site layout, too. It’s great to have a “feed” that you can scroll through in order rather than a magazine-style front page where you have to dig around in different areas.
I’m training my fingers to type the letter A instead of the letter J when I hit the URL bar now.
My first car was an ’83 AMC Concord…in 2002. But I loved that goofy old thing. My teenage self sunk most of his after-school job money into ridiculous things that had no business in an aging AMC, like blue neon light tubes to replace the melted/broken dome light and big, cheap Jensen speakers and an MP3-CD receiver to replace the factory AM/FM (not even a tape deck!) radio and single glovebox-adjacent speaker. There were also more practical upgrades–I thought it’d be neat to have a passenger side-view mirror, for example.
Sadly, having spent 18 winters in Wisconsin already by the time I took the keys, my beloved “Earl” (I could tell this car used he/him and that his name was Earl. My maroon AMC sedan just oozed classic old-man vibes) was not much longer for this world. The carpet was the only thing keeping the outside outside and the inside inside down by my feet, and the rest of the body was ready to rot as well, culminating in a very bad day when one of the rear strut towers decided to take a field trip to the inside of the trunk. I only spent about a year with this car, but I loved every minute of it. There were no other AMCs in my high school parking lot. There were maybe one or two Eagles in my whole small town. I loved having something unique and with some local Wisco history to it.
My next car, a ’93 Taurus was a marked upgrade all around, but I never loved it like my AMC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7qHFxfRHtI
My dad had a Gremlin back in the early 80’s before I was born. Typical fat tires, traction bars, flat black paint job (could have been a crap factory job too) and a 304.
Wonderfully ugly cars, same as the Pacer.
Oddly, I’ve always wanted an Eagle wagon, to swap in a 304/standard shift combo……the Eagle AMC should have built.
The picture of 3 AMC cars on the fairway of the 18th hole of some hoity-toity country club is a bit optimistic, don’t you think??
Maybe it’s the AMC dealership OWNER that golfs there. Any regular driver of these 3 cars would be better suited in the parking lot of the local bowling alley. These cars were more apt to hold balls than clubs, some would say.
Being of the older persuasion, I will not begin with these misbegotten products of AMC. Instead, I will begin with my G’pa’s 48 Hudson, followed by a 49, and 51. When they got involved with Packard and Studebaker he lost interest until he bought a 57 Rambler Wagon. I guess he figured the bloodlines were sufficient. Sadly, I’ve never owned a Hudson.
I am very pleased with the direction you are going with this. If the quality is this good, frequency can come as it pleases.
On an admin note, my current email address is invalid but your login won’t accept my Gmail account for some reason.
I’m just happy I can post a comment that doesn’t forever remain greyed out in purgatory
Get Mercedes over here.
Pity I can only give this one Like!
“If there’s a typo or two, or the pace isn’t exactly as quick as you’d like, just know we’re trying our best, and will always try to do better.”
Personally, I plan to throw a fit regardless. Bet you’ve never seen a grown man hold his breath until he passes out!
Actually, I knew a guy who crashed his car because of holding his breath until he passed out. A bet was involved.
I’ve always loved the styling of the Pacer. It gives me 928 vibes with its round, greenhouse of an ass, and has such a goofy, cartoonish aesthetic. The one in the brochure pic makes me long for some two-tone paint jobs coming back on average cars.
Some site feedback:
1) New comment box immediately after the article so we don’t have to scroll past everything to post a new one.
2) Add a brief window of time to edit a comment after posting to fix typos etc. Maybe 2-3 minutes?
I think the biggest disappointment with the commenting engine is the inability to either host or even link images. I agree with your other two points though.
I get that commenting engines are just hard though. Kinja was a multi million dollar ground up platform designed for the commentariat so it’ll never match it for the (former) easy of navigating the notifications menu and getting to easily create well formatted replies in a threaded form. On the ad free subblogs it even ran pretty quickly.
Kinja was pretty decent at one time. It’s been wrecked like everything else over there, but it was a great idea.
I actually like having it at the bottom, it’s like a little suggestion to read the fucking room before I open my big fat mouth. Can’t say I’m always gonna do that, but I do think it promotes better discussion. It also creates a tiny bit of friction to dissuade casual shitposting.
I assume the commenting engine will get more features over time. What we’re dealing with here seems like basically an MVP—presumably they intend to flesh the site out a bit as they go. In the meantime the actual content seems excellent, and that’s what really matters!
Agreed, I can wait for new features since the content is gonna rule. And hey, they already got replies in at least since the first teaser post. It would have taken a year for that to be done in Kinja.
p.s. The response time is a little slow – maybe a little tuning is needed?
Cold start and a cup of black coffee – My morning is complete.
The Gremlin as my dad had one a loaner. Fun and unsafe 🙂
I saw AMC like Citroën. A mix of WTF and quirky brilliance.
“I’m torn between Pacer and Hornet for myself.”
That’s interesting. I had you pegged for the Gremlin.
Hey, lay off the Gremlin-pegging talk. This isn’t that kind of site. I don’t think.
“The Autopian After Dark” is where the truly sexy/disturbing stuff will go.
Autopian after dark is Jason’s taillight techie title!
Ambears rule!