Jil McIntosh

Reviews: Lincoln MKS, Chevrolet HHR SS

In the Toronto Star today, I have a review from the launch of the new Lincoln MKS, which you can find here.

I also have a review of the Chevrolet HHR SS, which you can access by clicking here.

Chevrolet Malibu, and days gone by ...

In today's Toronto Star, I have a review of the Chevrolet Malibu; you can find it here.

I also took some navel-gazing from these digital pages, and turned them into a story on my Plymouth and driving in the "good old days" of the 1970s and 1980s, which you can find by clicking over here.

The best car I ever owned ...

This is the best car I ever owned -- in terms of financial considerations, anyway. It was a 1978 Chevrolet Bel Air that was affectionately known as "The Beater".

I was working at a car dealership around 1990 when the Beater was traded in, although I think "dumped" would have been a better term -- my guess is that the dealer sweetened the deal by taking the car in and saving its owner the hassle of scrapping it. I was out on my lunch hour when I spotted it at the back of the trade-in lot, just before the wholesaler arrived to take it away. It had four brand-new tires -- the whitewalls still had their protective blue covering -- and a 350 engine.

I figured I could sell the tires and use the engine in a hot rod, so I offered $100 for it. I later discovered I could have had it for $70 if I'd kept my mouth shut, but in either case, it was mine. The door skins were peeling off it, but otherwise, it ran very well. I brought it home, and after my husband took it around the block, he declared he was keeping it.

He put the door skins back on with pop rivets, resealed the leaky windshield frame, and then painted it Trem-Clad black with a brush. That looked so bad that he covered the shiny paint with gray primer, and that's the color the car stayed. Amazingly, it passed a safety inspection without needing any repairs, and so we plated it and put on the road.

We had a slightly older set of tires in the garage, so we sold the Beater's new ones for $150. We were scrapping a big Buick, so we swapped its comfy power seats for the Beater's heavily-worn ones. We drove the car for four or five years, and in that time, had to make one $40 repair to it. Never once did it fail to start or leave us stranded anywhere.

The Beater finally went to the scrap heap when we bought a newer and nicer car, and when it did, the yard gave us $90 for it. Ah, dear Beater, what a fine car you were. I'll never see your likes again.

Just for fun ...

No reason for this, just that it's great fun. This is Corb Lund, a singer from Edmonton, Alberta, with a cool song about trucks.

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