2002 Opel Vectra – Driven To Write

Gaze Upon A Cold Moon, Close Enough To Touch

From time to time, DTW fulfills its duty as the automotive website of record. That means occasionally running an item that, on the face of it, may not set so many pulses racing.

However, I would like to nonetheless make a small effort draw your attention to a car which is important because of and despite its ubiquity. It is relatively easy to write about the extreme and the intense. As a result the vast middle ground where life is lived is neglected. I actually once tried to keep a diary of ordinary experiences (I had more time on my hands in 2009) and noted the problem of seeming to lionise the mundane, merely by noting it.

The same applies here to some extent: I don’t wish to present this car as any kind of sine qua non (see this for one of those) just by “curating” it. That said, you’d be overlooking something if you did not Continue reading “Gaze Upon A Cold Moon, Close Enough To Touch”

A Photo For Sunday

It could have been any other car here. As luck would have it, a 2002-2008 Opel Vectra had been parked on the spot in question.

2002 Opel Vectra on Dawson Street, Dublin.

You seldom see them in that colour now. And here’s an official photo from GM in a lovely gold. This comment is related, perhaps, to our recent discussion of colour. Continue reading “A Photo For Sunday”

J Mays’ Ford Legacy II

Sean’s article has inspired this short footnote.

J Mays replaced Jack Telnack in 1997 and was responsible for Ford’s sprawling empire of brands. Sean showed us some of Mays’ retrofuturism. What else did he do while in office ? The worst vehicle – in design terms – that Mays can be held responsible for is the 2005 Ford 500 which married VW geometry with softer, more amorphous shapes from somewhere else entirely. Continue reading “J Mays’ Ford Legacy II”

Cars I Can’t Write About 2: Porsche

Some cars defy one’s capacity to describe or discuss them except in the most general terms. Here’s another, a Porsche of some type.

There was a 1970s example of one of these things parked on the road today. They are very rare around my district. I chose to look at a Vectra parked one space ahead of it. I’ve always admired the 2002 model’s headlamp design. When I was in Germany at Easter I saw a rare high-spec 2002 saloon in green metallic that made me Continue reading “Cars I Can’t Write About 2: Porsche”