Funkengroovin Wednesday: Old v. New - The Mini

 Something different for this week.

VB loaded most of these photos a long time ago, after a visit to the car market in Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt.  That's when she formatted her blog differently, and you can tell when you see the car market photos.

She's off, in her Mini, to fetch The Boss Man from the airport.  He's coming in for Thanksgiving. 

Below 2 photos are VB's Mini.  It gets buried under the snow pretty quickly.  And, yes, that second photo is in color!





Below 4 photos are an old Mini from the Nasr City car market.  We went in September a couple of years ago, and it was scorching hot, so it's quite a contrast to the snow covered photo above.







































A couple of articles:

MINI comes of age

Mini: What's New for 2010?

Funkengroovin Wednesday - One Afternoon, One Road

Auto NEWS From Cairo:
Check out the TIME Magazine video:
The Relentless Din of Egypt's Capital - "Cairenes find their health threatened by dangerously high noise levels."

IN THE MARKET FOR A CAR?
"Located on the outskirts of Nasr City in the Tenth District, the popular car market is one of the town’s modern-day landmarks. The sprawling parking lot covers more than 20 acres teeming with around 20,000 cars and their owners from around the country."

Forgotten history of Ramsis car resurrected in new documentary
"We watch Nasser proclaiming that Egypt will eventually become entirely self-sufficient, will manufacture everything from sewing needles to rockets, as his audience quite literally dance with joy.

The Ramsis was not even 100 percent Egyptian made: many of its components were imported from West Germany (the car itself was based on a German car, the Prinz), the interior the only entirely locally-produced part of the car.

An un-automated production line meant that only five cars were turned out a day. The 550 cc cars themselves were boxy, utilitarian, ugly — a Mogamaa on wheels — but little matter, for this was Egypt’s first Popular Car, a slice of national pride available for only LE 200."

(Below): Broke Down.




(Below): VW Van er "Bus".








Below): Riding On Top. This bus was in front of us and we caught it on the turn.


(Below):Attention VW Shoppers! A new dealership is opening in Maadi! (Actually not the same road.)



NEWS:
(Photos and full article at the link): JustKampers Gives New Meaning To Term "Short Bus"

Just Kampers; Slammed Van, Thank you Jam!

Readers share VW memories

(Photo at the link): Mushroom Men: Collectibles With Pre-Orders (and Mushroom Men VW Bus)

(You have to read it to beleive it. Thank God Candy has the common sense to drive a VW. As for Woofie - he deserves what he gets. Apparently somone's been messin' with his Dewars!) Wolf Blitzer's DIARY:
"... I knew even before I entered the store that Candy Crowley was inside, since her beat-up, avocado-green VW bus is one-of-a-kind. She appeared to be purchasing some apricot schnapps. I'm going to watch her future purchases VERY CLOSELY. With Candy's birthday coming up, I want to stay on her good side. As you know, I'll spend a lot of time with her at the conventions this summer and she's a wild woman if you get her angry...."

(Must see photo of a bent Van - no kidding.): Telekinetically Bent VW Van

Under The Big Top
"Taking a cue from 18th-century garden flowers, an architect designed a garage that's both fanciful and functional."

VB complains about pumps that don't have the clips on the nozzles so you can pump your gas hands free. Some states don't allow it. This article probably explains the reason why.
Static Fires Are a Peril at the Pump
"It may sound like urban legend, but fires at the gas pumps can be sparked by static electricity.

F you think gas prices are scary, consider a far worse fright that Kelly Shager of Lynchburg, Va., got at a gas pump. Eight months ago, Mrs. Shager drove her 1999 Ford Ranger to a self-service gas station, engaged the nozzle’s hold-open clip to have it fill automatically, then sat in her vehicle.

When the tank was full, she slid out and reached for the nozzle. Touching it, she felt a shock.

“Then fire kind of came out of the tank,” she said.

Mrs. Shager ran into the station’s convenience store for a fire extinguisher, but flames were already leaping over her truck. By the time firefighters controlled the blaze, the pickup was a charred ruin.

According to Greg Wormser, the Lynchburg fire marshal, the fire was ignited by an electrostatic charge that had collected on Mrs. Shager as she sat in the truck. When she reached for the nozzle, the charge grounded, igniting the gas vapors around the pump.

“You should never re-enter a vehicle when you’re fueling,” Mr. Wormser said.

That’s because when a person who re-enters a vehicle and slides across the seat can acquire a static charge of thousands of volts, caused by friction between two electrically dissimilar materials, such as clothing and seat upholstery, said Dr. Robert E. Nabours, an electrical engineer . If the charge is not harmlessly discharged through the person’s shoes or by the person touching metal, such as part of a grounded car,, an electrical arc can jump from a hand to the nozzle, igniting gas vapors and starting a fire."

Putting the Dream Car Out to Pasture
"America’s romance with the automobile is being severely tested now that every trip causes financial worry, environmental guilt and self-consciousness about the size of your car.

Beyond the bad economic news may lurk a less remarked shift in Americans’ psyches: a change in the role the automobile occupies in people’s emotional lives and self-image. For decades, automakers pitched cars as sex symbols, as extensions of drivers’ freedom or affluence or eye for beauty. Even if that pitch is inverted — if hybrids or minicars become the most desirable wheels, bespeaking a driver’s thriftiness or environmental sensitivity — is it really possible to be passionate about a compromise?

“You wear your car like you wear a Ralph Lauren suit,” said Clotaire Rapaille, an anthropologist and psychiatrist known as the car shrink, whose company, Archetype Discoveries Worldwide, studies consumer preferences."

Tom Vanderbilt's Why We Drive the Way We Do Unlocks How to Unclog Traffic
"Driving down a New Jersey highway three years ago, Tom Vanderbilt decided to stop being a goody-goody. He fought the urge to merge at the first indication that his lane was ending and rode it right to the pinch point, wedging his way in front of a furious driver at the last second. Racked with moral misgivings, he eventually looked into the science of merging and discovered salvation in high math, which proves he made the right choice — and not just for his own time-saving benefit, but for humankind (or at least commuter-kind — the seemingly selfish strategy keeps traffic moving faster for all). "It doesn't have to be an ethics problem," Vanderbilt says. "It's really a system-optimization issue."

Behind the Wheel at a Club With a $125,000 Entry Fee but No Speeding Tickets
"Officials at a new racing club scheduled to open on Sunday in Monticello, N.Y., said the sputtering economy has not deterred the big-bucks, big-horsepower types they are looking for."

From Esquire:
What It Feels Like...to Almost Drown in a Car
What It Feels Like... To Hit Someone with a Car
What It Feels Like... To Be Hit by a Car
What It Feels Like...to Drive 900 Miles Wearing Adult Diapers
What It Feels Like... To Race a Car Blind
What It Feels Like...to Drive 675 Miles Per Hour
What It Feels Like. . . To Be a Blind Race-Car Driver’s Navigator


Little Feat Fat Man In The Bathtub

Funkengroovin Wednesday

On Friday, 9 May 2008, the Boss Man and VB planned on going to the Maadi Car and Taxi Market, but changed our minds. We ended up at Stars City Mall (required shopping detour), with a pass through the Nasr City Car Market, on the way home. It was the first market Friday after the new taxes were imposed, not just on fuel, but also on car licensing fees, based on engine size (among many other taxable items). Was the market packed? Yesiree Bob! In the past, you might find cars for sale parked along the street (in addition to the two lots), but on this day, they were triple parked along the street, with barely two lanes open for regular traffic. Smoking cars, with engines afire were being pushed; others with detached / broken bumpers hanging out the rear windows, could be seen trudging their way up the strip; every conceivable ailment was in plain view, while rarities hid amongst the moving disasters. Everyone was looking for a deal: everyone was looking to get out from under the new tax. The main strip turned into a quasi parking lot itself.

Below, scenes from our short little visit.


(Below: Dang! Just missed a passing Bus!)

(Below: VW Bus Taxi, near Nasr City. Get a load of that rear end.)


(Below: At the Car Market, along the strip - Checking under the hood.)


(Below): A Zastava (aka Fiat) for sale, in the small lot. If you blow this up, it looks like he's giving VB the finger, but in the next photo he was laughing. Unfortunately, that photo wasn't a good car shot. The Boss Man says, the Zastava "makes a VW Bug look like a fucking race car."

(Below): Traffic - the market literally took over the street - it's a virtual parking lot. The traffic cops are too busy looking at the cars for sale, to actually make any effort to conduct traffic.


(Below): As we were leaving we spotted a VW Bus on the other side of the road - wonder if it's on it's way to the car market?


(Below): On the way home - the view must be better up there. Besides, VB's thinkin' that looks like a garbage collection truck, so they're probably better off where they are.



NEWS:

May 21, 1901: Connecticut Sets First Speed Limit at 12 MPH
"The very word automobile was a new entry in the English language. When Connecticut passed its speeding-driver law, it was less than two years since the first use of the term in a major U.S. newspaper. Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Charles Shanks used the French word automobile in a series of articles starting May 22, 1899. The name soon caught on, replacing the backward-looking horseless carriage."


Go Green -- Buy a Used Car. It's Better Than a Hybrid
"As Matt Power notes in this month's issue of Wired, hybrids get great gas mileage but it takes 113 million BTUs of energy to make a Toyota Prius. Because there are about 113,000 BTUs of energy in a gallon of gasoline, the Prius has consumed the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of gasoline before it reaches the showroom. Think of it as a carbon debt -- one you won't pay off until the Prius has turned over 46,000 miles or so."

Hobby starts where job ends for bug-loving county man
"NEWMANSTOWN — Theo-dore S. Axarlis always liked playing with cars. Not the toys; the real ones, and especially Volkswagens.
At 46, Axarlis is still playing with them. He is nearing the end of a two-year project to refurbish a 1980s Volkswagen Beetle for his sister." (More info and photo at the link.)

Is there hope for brands we'd like to see come back?
"A tiny number of hard-core loyalists not only doesn't mean a whole lot when reviving a brand, it might be a problem because those people do remember," Walker writes. He cites VW Beetle purists who didn't like new bug."

Volkswagen's Public Polling Pays Off
"Last month, VW unveiled a key element in the buzz-building campaign, a 3,685-square-foot interactive billboard in New York's Times Square. It pictures the bug parked behind his microphone, alongside the headline "The people want their voice to be heard." VW is the first brand to utilize the interactive technology of the ABC SuperSign, which allows a two-way dialogue with passersby via SMS. Using their cell phones, pedestrians text their yes or no responses to the poll questions appearing on the sign, and through WAP technology, their texted votes are recorded live on a news ticker."

"It's what the people want" has certainly attracted consumer attention. At press time, there have been a total of 977,983 votes and 77,113 polls collected. Up to 500 poll questions run live at any one time."

"The interactive Times Square billboard also caught the attention of the media, including the hosts of The View, who spent about five minutes discussing the poll on the show."

Cottage - and car collection - fit for a king
"The former adviser to a Bulgarian tsar is selling his original Stirlingshire home - which comes with a right royal fleet"

"He is offering to include a collection of more than 10 classic cars when he sells his house in Stirlingshire. Not only that, but the next occupant of North Mid Frew could also take over Drysdale's wedding car business, not to mention his classic car tours of the Trossachs.

The cars include a 1932 Rolls Royce, a BMW Dixi and an Austin Seven - as well as a VW Beetle and a Citroen 2CV. But, tempting as the classic car collection might be, his wife Pat insists that it is the house that is the real star of the sale."

Flyin’ along
"Bug racers run their ride for diabetes cause" (More info and photos at the link.)

Volkswagen Beetles to gather at June Bug Jamboree
"A swarm of VW Beetles, buses and buggies will descend on the Ozarks as GROOVE --General Registry Of Ozarks Volkswagen Enthusiasts-- is sponsoring its 14th annual June Bug Jamboree.

The jamboree will be held on June 6-7 on the grounds of American Legion Post 639, 2660 S. Scenic Ave. Registration starts at 6 p.m. June 6."

My Favorite 'Volksrod'
"THE OWNER: Frank Bryan of Escalon
THE CAR: Based on a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle
WHAT SPARKED THE INTEREST: "The September 2006 issue of Hot VWs featured a 'Volksrod' on the front cover, and I was hooked," said Bryan." (More info and photos at the link.)

Busy pre-running begins Saturday in Mexico on rugged 441.15-mile race course for 40th Tecate SCORE Baja 500

Unorthodox pickup forgot to be functional - 1961-1964 Chevrolet Corvair Pickups
"Since the Corvair so slavishly copied the VW car's configuration, it was not surprising that when Chevrolet entered the light commercial vehicle market VW had virtually to itself, it would follow the VW formula. The Corvair 95 (for its 95-inch [2,413-mm] wheelbase) passenger and utility vans looked uncannily like the VW Bus and Transporter." (More info and photo at the link.)

VW van makes Road Trip! in Cordova a little different
"We acquired a 1973 VW van and brought it to the Pensacola store, added more clothing lines and had to think of a name other than Peace Frogs," said Robinson. "We settled on the name, Road Trip! and created a 'road' down the center of our store underneath the VW van." (More info and photo at the link.)




Everybody Wants To Rule The World

Another edition of Road Trips, Road Food and TV is on it's way.