Car talk
Cheryl Unruh
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
WHILE DRIVING, a person sees the back end of dozens of cars each day.
And on the trunk or the tailgate, you’ll find the vehicle’s model name.
When I see a Dodge Dakota or a Chevy Colorado, I think, what about us?
The use of the name Colorado may be understandable, but what does either of the Dakotas have that we don’t have? Why not launch a pickup truck called the Chevy Kansas?
There are also a few vehicles named after cities. Hyundai makes the Santa Fe and the Tucson. There’s the Dodge Durango, the Toyota Tacoma. A couple SUVs have other locales for names: Chevy Tahoe, GMC’s Yukon.
Because my mind likes to ponder inconsequential topics, I sometimes think about Kansas place names that might make appropriate model names for vehicles.
With Cloud County in mind, would General Motors ever consider the Cadillac Cloud?
Perhaps a car company would use Bison as the name of a rugged 4X4. Trying out other towns for sound, how about a Hyundai Ozawkie, a Ford Zenda, Chevy Satanta, or a Toyota Quenemo?
If a car company decides to produce a vehicle with glow-in-the-dark paint, they could call it the Radium.
One town name I would not suggest is Hope. Hope is an uplifting word, but it’s not a name you want for a car, as in, “I hope my car starts.”
Even though there’s no Chevy Kansas yet, we’re actually well represented in the automotive world.
There is the Chrysler Corporation, after all, founded in 1924 by Kansan Walter P. Chrysler.
Our boy, Walt, was born in Wamego in 1875. Then the family moved to Ellis where Walt’s father was a locomotive engineer.
In “Life of an American Workman,” (available at the Emporia Public Library), Chrysler tells his story.
After high school, he was overjoyed to become a machine shop apprentice in the Union Pacific Shop in Ellis. “My pay at first was five cents an hour. Who could ask a better chance?”
As a locomotive mechanic, he loved tools and made many of his own. With grease under his fingernails, Chrysler worked his way up.
Wanting to leave home, he got a job with the Santa Fe Railroad in Wellington. “Wellington was so much bigger than Ellis that I felt myself to be a regular city guy,” Chrysler wrote.
After marrying his hometown sweetheart and moving to Iowa, he earned the title of general master mechanic and then superintendent of motive power. “My pay by that time was $350 (per month),” he said.
In 1908, he visited the automobile show in Chicago. Chrysler said, “That is where it happened.”
The Locomobile touring car captured his attention and he spent four days gazing at it. The price tag was $5,000; he had $700.
With a co-signer he bought the car and had it delivered to his home. He had no idea how to drive, but his primary interest was figuring out how the machine worked. He spent three months taking the car apart and putting it back together before ever driving it.
“Most of the time, the innards were spread upon newspapers on the barn floor. There was no single function I did not study over and over.”
Chrysler was the president of Buick before running Willys-Overland and Maxwell Motor Company. In 1924 he founded the Chrysler Corporation. His business expanded in 1928 when he purchased the Dodge Motor Company.
Now it’s not likely that a Kansas town will be represented on a nameplate of a vehicle, but when we see the Chrysler emblem on a car, it can remind us all of a hardworking man from Kansas who made great things happen.
P.S. Hey, for a car model, how about a Chrysler Wamego?
Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.
Happiness08 (anonymous) says...
Very entertaining, but you have way too much time on your hands!
November 19, 2008 at 10:20 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
cwinfough (anonymous) says...
What does that say aboutyou Happiness08? You had time to read it.
November 19, 2008 at 11:17 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
josiesbar (anonymous) says...
"Even though there’s no Chevy Kansas yet"
The way its sounding, pretty soon there might not be a Chevy period.
November 19, 2008 at 11:54 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
cheryl (anonymous) says...
Hey, I'm just here to entertain you. Thanks for reading. :-)
November 19, 2008 at 11:57 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
josiesbar (anonymous) says...
Cheryl,
I meant no offense at all to you. It was a great article, Walter Chrysler has always been one of my heroes. I was referring to the hotly-debated $25B bailout the big 3 is asking for.
November 19, 2008 at 12:24 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
cheryl (anonymous) says...
No offense taken - I was responding to Happiness08. (And Happiness 08 did not offend me either.)
Yeah - bad times for the economy, the car companies.... and us.
I figured I'd better write about Chrysler while there was still a company to write about. :-(
November 19, 2008 at 12:42 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
notasheeple (anonymous) says...
Interesting indeed… Maybe putting one of these in that glow-in-the-dark Radium?
http://www.universalsymbiosis.org/fre...
November 19, 2008 at 2:59 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
I'm with you, josie'sbar. Chevy may not be around long enough to consider anything at all, least of all naming models. Considering that auto workers make $65 an hour, I hope they saved some of it. Let them eat cake. Or sand, or brownie batter, or dead worms.
Yeah, yeah, I know, it's not good news for the entire country. So let them take chapter 11 like our Dolly bakery did. Then they must open their books for an entire overhaul and a complete restructuring which must include wage cuts and no bonuses for management.
November 19, 2008 at 3:03 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
josiesbar (anonymous) says...
Create,
Well said, as always! I am very much against this "bailout" to the auto industry. The Big 3 has made horrible business decisions for the last 20 years, pushing SUV sales, and making little or no effort for fuel-efficient/electric/hydrogen/etc. vehicles. No wonder their broke, no one wants to buy a car that gets 10 MPG anymore. Toyota has been running them into the ground for years, and they have made NO effort to change their business model whatsoever. See also "Who Killed The Electric Car." GREAT movie!
I know its the pot calling the kettle black, because I have an SUV myself, but am definitely looking to upgrade to something smaller with better fuel efficiency, it just happens that no one wants to buy ANYTHING right now, haha.
November 19, 2008 at 4:09 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
josiesbar (anonymous) says...
By the way, I saw a news clip on ABC how the CEOs of Ford and GM flew to Washington DC in private jets to ask for 25 BILLION (with a B) of taxpayers money to help their "struggling" businesses. If you fly in a private jet ANYWHERE, your business is not struggling, I am here to tell you!
November 19, 2008 at 4:13 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
Well, they didn't get their handout. I''m not surprised in view of what must be incredible pressure by constituents all over this country.
I was not impressed with the GM ceo at all when he made an arrogant comment to the senator who asked him what kind of guarantees he could make about making the bailout work if he received it. Instead of answering the question, the GM ceo asked the senator whether the senator himself could guarantee that the government would not continue to spiral downward. That did it for me. You ask for a handout then you want to slap my face? Fail, baby, fail!
Yeah, I drive an SUV too, albeit one with the small engine so I get pretty good gas mileage. Nonetheless, GM has done nothing to repair the problem that continues to plague that small engine. The engine light is always on. I'm told by many mechanics including Mr. Goodwrenches that it is a common problem. One mechanic told me that many people are just masking that readout on the dash with a piece of black tape. And how much for a new GM SUV these days? Can't say I don't feel like I've been had.
November 20, 2008 at 8:53 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
momus (anonymous) says...
I will have to agree that flying a private jet to beg for money ticked me off a bit, as did placing labor in the forefront of a company's financial woes. The CEO of GM makes 9.8 million a year and the CEO of Ford makes 13.3 million per year. If someone on the line gets fired, they get a pink slip. If a CEO gets let go, they get a multi-million dollar golden parachute. Why are we always in a rush to blame the little guy doing their job, when the fat cats that took their respective company's in ill advised directions have their contributions to this mess (salary and other) glossed over?
November 20, 2008 at 9:24 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
notasheeple (anonymous) says...
http://maxnumbers.com/2008/11/11/gene...
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/pol...
November 20, 2008 at 2:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Happiness08 (anonymous) says...
cwinfough: Good point. I hadn't thought about that! LOL
November 24, 2008 at 1:48 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
neighbor (anonymous) says...
Hey Cheryl, waved going thru Pawnee Rock this last weekend like you used to ask me to do.
Ignore the critics, and don't forget there was once a car called a Desoto.
November 24, 2008 at 3:20 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
cheryl (anonymous) says...
Hey, neighbor - thanks for waving! Haven't talked to you for a long time... I hope you and yours are doing well.
November 24, 2008 at 6:58 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
neighbor (anonymous) says...
We are doing fine thanks, busy and on the go with the girls' sports all the time. Hope you have a safe and happy holiday season.
November 25, 2008 at 2:03 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )