In Defense of the Name Blaine

Blaine was the name of my childhood neighbor, a WWII vet with the best stories and all of them earned, not overheard. At nearly 80 he still lit his smokes with a Zippo and rolled his packs of unfiltered Camels into his t-shirt sleeve. He was dying of congestive heart failure but wouldn’t admit it, his conversations interrupted by long hacking coughs that drained his color. I’d see him walking on the side of the road in Florida’s 95 degree summer heat because his unloving wife drove their only car to Sears where she managed the shoe department. I’d stop and motion him in – he’d resist, complain that I had more important things to do. If I had more important things to do that merited letting him die in the summer heat, I don’t know what they could be.

Blaine deserved better. His children up north never called, forgot his birthday but used his place as a rest stop on the rare occasion they visited Disney. I really loved the guy, he was an appreciated substitute for my own deadbeat dad when I was in high school. Before he passed away in my sophomore year of college I’d sent him a new Zippo, monogrammed with my appreciation for my stand-in dad and a pack of Camels with a stern Sharpie’d note on them that they were NOT to be smoked. I was too broke to come home for the funeral but my mom said that Zippo was in his box of greatest treasures, next to the medals and Purple Heart and other sparse jewelry that a man acquires who’s too practical for such vane things. I've missed him ever since, not a week goes by that I don't think about him or ruminate on his battlefield stories of boredom and terror. I hope you've had a Blaine in your life too.

"Blaine? His name is Blaine? That's not a name it's a major appliance!"

The Nissan Pao - S-Cargo - Figaro Conundrum

Any devoted masochist would or should gravitate towards owning an automobile not sold in his/her own country, with all the pitfalls that go with it. To that end, Jennifer has thrown down the gauntlet and declared "I Will Have a Nissan Pao - or an S-Cargo!" and with that the search began. It was with some enormous disbelief that the first search on Craigslist returned a Pao only a 20 minute drive away. Had we called last month that would've netted a S-Cargo too. What are the odds?

As I am loathe to retype the entire sordid history of these truly and refreshingly odd vehicles, let me Google that for you. I'll wait for you to get up to speed. Meanwhile, the bare minimum is that Nissan in a fit of madness/genius back in '89 released a trio of vehicles that were an homage to styles of the distant past, like creating a parallel timeline. This was well before the New Beetle, PT Cruiser or Thunderbird, and even those cars were meant to ape their former selves. Not Nissan. At any rate, here's the Pao we're considering, as seen at Montu Motors in Oldsmar, FL:

Tailgate folds down, glass hinges up, nice!

Walk-around!

The very definition of Spartan.

It's the black sheep at Montu.

Even its stereo is retro!

While not perfect, it's certainly much, much nicer than most any American 26 year old daily driver. There's a rust spot in the spare wheel well, the pivoting vent window frames are rusting, the accordion sliding rag top refused to open and there's a crack in the fiberglass hood. Sam tells us that he'll make sure that's fixed as well as service the a/c before the sale, so there's that.

In no order of preference, here's the other cars on their sales floor. I was smitten with the '89 Prelude 4WS 2.0xx - mostly identical to the one I owned, blissfully, over a decade ago.

The apogee of affordable Honda engineering.

Those turbine wheels look better with age.

The most functional automotive cockpit ever.

My a/c was manual. This one is much nicer.

Make no bones about it: it's FOUR Wheel Steering!

Nissan Patrol fire truck. My Japanese pal Nob noted
"The livery says it belonged to the Kamikawa
City Fire Department, part of the Fukumoto Squad."

I am a long-time fan of the Honda Beat - when I lived in Japan from 99 to 00 (that doesn't look right) they were still a common sight on the road, though their numbers were waning. It seemed that there was no closer four wheeled relative to the motorcycle available and certainly not with air conditioning and a stereo. I wonder if Kitano "Beat" Takeshi had any say in its name?

Honda's legendary Beat. A truly Lilliputian roadster.

Really, really tiny kei. No better deal out there by the pound.

"Trunk" No topside engine access?

Looks like a BDSM dream. I kinda like it!