The Stories

The Forgotten Cars – An American Dream

The Raceways – America’s Other Roads

The Road Ahead – Any color you want, so long as it’s green

The Numbers

Exploring the Numbers – Safety

Exploring the Numbers – Fuel

Exploring the Numbers – Costs

The History

A Brief History of the Automobile

The Champions

The Champions – Famous Race Cars

He hunches over his work in a small room, dust clouding the air and clinging to his beard. Everything is coated in a thin white powder, camouflaging the iron parts and put-off personal projects. The smell is distinctly chemical and unusual to those outside the auto restoration business. But to those who recognize the steel contours littering the walls, the aroma is familiar.

Perhaps it’s the memory of father and son tinkering in the garage late at night, or a project with a 16^th birthday completion date. For others it’s an honest day’s work, the kind a previous generation would commend. Tucked away from the stress and responsibility of a desk job and the complications of a struggling economy or the political ramifications of aiding a flailing auto industry is Carl Putnam’s dimly lit shop. It may not be much to a visitor, but the contents of the shop represent a man’s life.

Today it’s a 1970 Impala occupying the body shop in the back of Duke’s Garage in Westminister, Colo.  Putnam is working on one of the front fenders, working sandpaper wrapped around a plastic tool across the panel, sending body filler dust floating to the ground. The Impala’s owner is requesting a complete restoration. Everything from engine to taillight will be replaced or reconditioned until it gleams like the day it rolled off the dealership lot 40 years ago. With a cigarette hanging from his lip and the mechanized shop air filter droning in the background, he continues to smooth the surface stopping only momentarily to run a hand along his work.

Classic cars are works of art that deserve time and attention to detail, he says. In one toolbox he keeps a small photo album of the cars he’s restored over the years with fond memories of every one restored to perfection. He tells a story of a previous client who wanted a restoration done quick and cheap, a job Putnam turned down.

“For him it’s a sense of accomplishment,” said his wife, Michelle Putnam, the office manager for Duke’s Garage. “In his real life, everything has to be done to perfection. He likes to build.“

In his “real life” outside the garage Putnam traces his love of cars back to popular times in the American automobile industry. He has memories of his restoration projects when they were new and in dealerships. Back when car were stylish and unique, he said.

“Cars have gotten a lot cheaper,” he said. “Full of plastic, crumple zones and safety stuff. Get rid of the friggin’ plastic. Right now [manufacturers] make a car that falls apart in five years. New cars don’t have style; they all look the same, like boxes on wheels. Old cars have character, mystique.”

The same philosophy can be consistently observed among many other collectors of classic automobiles. One of Duke’s biggest clients, Patrick VanWeigh, is the owner of several vehicles stored at the garage. Among his collection are a 1959 Cadillac, several Citroëns, a newer Dodge Ram 2500 and a few muscle cars including the ‘70 Impala. Walking in through the garage door, he is a tall, clean-shaven man wearing a Dickies plaid jacket. He speaks with authority and remnants of a strong French accent – symbols of his hard work and past. Living in France as a child, he was a runaway at 14 who came to America in 1979 with few possessions and even less cash. Today he owns a successful construction business and several vehicles from his past.

For VanWeigh, classic cars are reminiscent of the America he knew and loved.

“I loved big American cars because that’s what America was, there was nothing too small,” he said. “They could do anything, and they did… Today America is slowly being emasculated.”

One of his favorite cars is his black 1959 Cadillac. The Cadillac design team was challenged with building bigger fins than their Chrysler competitor. As a homage to the aeronautics industry, the designers pulled several cues from aircraft including the large flamboyant fins gracing the rear ends of cars at the time. Cadillac’s mission was to regain the title and take the fins to such exaggerated proportions that Chrysler would concede.  Their success came in a symbol not only of Cadillac’s design prowess, but of a generation fascinated with excess, luxury, appliances, neon and chrome.

“I like the fins of the late fifties automobiles,” VanWeigh said. “Big fins, the most audacious, the most ostentatious. Big cars – because that’s what America was back then.  They’ll never make another car like that… More and more those opportunities are disappearing… New cars aren’t desirable. How can you desire a Prius? Those cars have no character, no personality.”

Car sales are on the rise this year following the economic crash and subsequent bailout of American auto companies of the past few years. Standing in contrast to the notion of classic cars as toys, the restoration market continues to perform well.

According to the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association (SEMA) in its 2010 Annual Report, the restoration of automobiles accounted for $1.38 billion in sales, a slight decrease from the year before. This figure doesn’t include the applicable categories of Street Performance or Street Rod and Custom, that when added total $4.72 billion. Craigslist and newspaper classifieds offer hundreds of project cars in various stages of completeness, inviting anyone with gumption and some cash to get started on their own restoration project.

In the collector market, the sale of “blue-chip” vehicles, the 25 most sought after classics, hit a high point in 2008 according to insurance company Hagerty. After a dive parallel with the dip in the economy, the market is experiencing an uptick with average prices just below $1 million.

“My 3-year-old was working on the Mustang with me,” Carl Putnam said. “She pulled the dash pad off. A 3-year-old! She loves working with me, handing me tools and helping out.”

His eldest daughter carries a picture of her Mustang in its disassembled state to prove to the cute boy at school that she has one.  And Carl fears for anyone who lays hands on his wife’s bloved Mustang. For him, cars aren’t just a love, they’re a life.

“I’ll always be a car guy,” he said. “Put me at a desk and I’ll kill somebody. A lot of people ask me why I restore cars; I love to do it. It’s not work to me. I spend so many hours in this shop working on cars because it’s what I want … I don’t really know how to explain it, I just like getting in cars and going. I do what I want and I want bloody knuckles.”

There are many reasons to restore vehicles. Whether it’s to preserve a piece of history, drive the car the parents or grandparents drove, be a part of a community or even pick up the cute guy at school, vehicle restoration remains a solidified piece of Americana. As the classic market continues to grow, many discover a passion for cars waiting to again hit the highways. In the meantime Putnam will continue pursuing his passion, maybe even finishing the rock crawler he’s got tucked in the back of his shop. Though he comes home dirty and covered in dust, his passion remains.

“In life I’m a grunt,” he said. “I know I am. The difference is I love doing it.”

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At the 24 Hours of Le Mans car colors represented more than a driver’s personal preference. They were the symbols of a nation, each color indicating its country of origin like an steel flag blurring by at 150 mph. Hailing from Germany, the silver arrows of Mercedes clashed with the bright red of Ferrari’s Italy. France had the blue Bugattis and Great Britain the green Aston Martins.

Today the color green again represents more than a personal preference. It is the future of the automobile itself.Impending oil shortages, pollution, economic sanctions and global warming all contributed to the automobile arriving at the forefront of American discussions. Sometimes a scapegoat and sometimes a torchbearer, the automobile remains a pervasive part of our culture and transportation infrastructure.  Many Americans recognize transportation as a crucial part of their daily lives but these looming energy concerns pose a change for the automobile industry unlike any seen before.

“For years I worked on regulations and in product planning we were always chasing regulations,” said Pete Hardigan, a policy and green engineer at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Mich.  “Whether it was fuel economy or tailpipe hydrocarbons we were always playing catch up. Five years ago we said we need to get ahead of this. We started looking at trends, where things were going, and we noticed there was a lot of emphasis on climate change and energy security.”

This caught the Detroit three off-guard. Comprised of Chrysler, General Motors and Ford they’d produced large SUVs and trucks to meet consumer demand for years. Suddenly, the market shrunk and condemned the very vehicles consumers had previously demanded. Combined with the housing market crash and shaky economy the American automotive market tanked, ultimately requiring government aid and multi-billion dollar initiatives. One example was the Cash for Clunkers legislation passed to subsidize the purchase of new fuel efficient vehicles in exchange for sending inefficient vehicles to the crusher.

While average travel rates decreased slightly, the majority of Americans stayed on the roads, according to data gathered by the Metropolitan Policy Program at think tank agency Brooking. In their report The Road … Less Traveled: An Analysis of Vehicle Miles Traveled Trends in the U.S., Robert Puentes and Adie Tomer argue Vehicle Miles Traveled dipped predating increased gas prices for the first time since 1980, amounting to about 90 billion miles. Though 90 billion miles is still a significant amount, it pales in comparison to the previous total of 3 trillion miles.

“While housing remains the most expensive essential, transportation is now a close second,” wrote Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez in their book Carjacked, “By 2003 it swallowed one in five dollars spent. That’s in sharp contrast to 1960, when just one in ten family dollars went to transportation.”

With transportation so crucial to an American lifestyle and concerns about limited petroleum energy sources growing increasingly problematic, the need for the next generation of mobility becomes apparent.

But achieving green energy for transportation use is not as easy as the public might perceive.

“Millennial America has mostly maintained its faith in the idea that the car is evolving and progressing,” Lutz writes. “There is widespread confidence that America’s engineering genius will find a solution to the problems – pollution, traffic, crashes – that the car itself has created. The faith is framed this way because progress is seen primarily as a scientific and technical problem.”

But such innovations haven’t come easily to the automotive industry. Meeting consumer demands for affordability without significant design compromise while appeasing tight government regulation is a balancing act for the manufactures, said Hardigan.

“Consumers, when they look at value, if the technology doesn’t pay for itself within a couple years there’s a pretty big lack of interest on the consumer perspective.  So we looked at technologies that we thought would be affordable to consumers and that’s where Ecoboost rose to the top.”

In the long term, Ford is looking towards a variety of alternative options including the release of an all-electric delivery van the Transit Connect. The all-electric technology will begin to work its way towards others in the lineup including the new Ford Focus. Meanwhile Ecoboost is scheduled to arrive in most of Ford’s portfolio in the next few years. Hardigan said. Beyond these solutions, the future is unclear. Nonetheless, Ford is preparing for the uncertain.

The idea was simple. Make many platforms common across many vehicles to allow parts to be interchanged. Moving to modular global platforms enables Ford to respond to public demand in a timely manner. Platforms are the underpinnings of each vehicle, the skeleton comprised of the engine, brakes and frame and other essential parts. By making these platforms universal among several vehicles, costs are reduced and allowing for interchangeability.

“Our strategy is built around these global platforms,” Hardigan explained. “So for example, on the C-sized platform we’re going to build a Focus gasoline vehicle … on that same platform we’re going to build a battery electric Focus. In Europe, we’ll have a diesel and gasoline version for South America and Brazil, we’ll have a bio-fuel version. On that same platform in 2012, we’ll have a plug-in hybrid and a conventional hybrid. So if the market suddenly decides it wants a diesel Focus in the U.S. we’re able to provide it.”

This interchangeability is key for a market reliant primarily on one energy source. It allows the company to keep pace with a changing market in the face of rising gas costs while allowing innovation to be experimented with. One of the biggest realizations they’ve had in the past 20 years, platform sharing is key Hardigan said.

“What we didn’t realize was that you have to be able to react, Hardigan said. “You need that fuel economy leadership and then if you want to offer performance great.  But your baselines got to be that fuel economy leadership. That’s something I know we didn’t know back then.”

Fuel economy is not a  new concern for the automobile industry. The Model T got a respectable 28.5 mpg when it was introduced in 1908. Yet the national average was just 24.7 mpg in 2004 according to Carjacked.

“Advances in fuel efficiency technologies have been offset by increases in horsepower, with the result that average gas mileage has remained basically flat,” Lutz writes.

So despite more than 100 years of technological prowess, fuel economy hasn’t moved. This might be due to the lack of importance weighed towards what was once a cheap and readily available commodity or the sheer size, safety and power equipment the American public has come to expect on their new vehicles. But recent green movements focused on sustainability and environmental consciousness are changing that approach at a steady pace, Hardigan says. His belief reflects public opinion.

“A recent survey of American attitudes toward innovation found that one-third of adolescents think that by 2015, the gasoline powered engine will be obsolete,” Lutz writes. “a reflection of their overwhelming belief that new technologies are on the cusp of solving critical global energy and environmental problems.”

The automobile is an indispensible part of American culture, but one that is quickly being adapted and changed. With new technology and a shift in consumer demand driven by high gas prices and traffic congestion Detroit is experiencing a reinvention of transportation. Despite a troubling market Ford Motor Company and other manufacturers are poised to rebuild transportation in the United States and around the globe.

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The five-member team runs around the car swapping tires, filling the tank, checking pressures and brake fluids. Like a swarm of bees, their movements were seemingly chaotic, but not without purpose. The driver emerges from the car to get a bottle of water, quickly jaunting up to the two-story trailer that houses equipment and the team’s other BMW. Surrounding the team is racing technology, but the hood is propped open with a wooden stick.

To an untrained eye the track is no more than a small sprawl of asphalt 20 minutes from a town with only a gas station, a motel and a 25 mile-per-hour speed limit. From there it’s a straight shot down the barren road to High Plains Raceway. You can’t miss it; it’s the only thing out there.

Today the gravel parking lot, three-pump gas shanty and hilly track play home to the Rocky Mountain Vintage Racing association, a group of mostly retired car lovers with fond memories of blue Chevys, Lookout Point and teenage girlfriends in poodle skirts. Spread across the half-paved, half-dirt lot with newly constructed carports is a few dozen boring RVs, trucks and trailers with racecars peppered like gumdrops in between.

Tucked under one carport is the Longwell Racing Team, and they’re in a rush. The pit stop is limited to 15 minutes, an eternity to NASCAR crews, a challenge to a five-man team. Of course it doesn’t hurt having three young new members who happen to be former Honda engineers. The bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz of impact wrenches overshadow the charged conversation about race conditions and other drivers.  With the car wrapped up, Inness Eisele jumps back in and navigates the pits back toward the track. Everyone wipes their hands then climbs a small latter to the top of their trailer for a better view.

For the Longwells, racing is in the blood. In 8^th grade, John Longwell started collecting parts from a local junkyard to hack together crude but effective mini bikes. He and his buddies would collect chains, lawnmower engines and bicycles ­— anything that would help them go fast.

“By the time I got out of high school I think we built 11 mini bikes and go karts,” he said. “Obviously the design wasn’t great because a lot of them would break and end up in the junk pile and we’d build another one.”

The crew didn’t stop with building projects. With a bike comes an attitude, and with an attitude comes a mini biker gang.

“I remember having these ape-hanger handle bars … my T-Bones jacket on. So we started a mini bike gang called the T-Bones and we made these denim jackets with a skull and crossbones on the back, black leather boots and tight jeans,” John said. “We’d cruise around on our mini bikes and terrorize women and children.”

As terrifying as tight jeans on pint-sized lawnmower-powered motorcycles are, John didn’t start really scaring people until he bought his first dirt bike in high school.  He raced motocross for several years before pausing to settle down and start a family. Then his kids took an interest in motorcycle racing and it wasn’t long before they at the track again, competing against one another. John’s daughter Kelly started racing alongside her dad and brother nearly every weekend, loading up the motor home and trekking to different tracks across the country. It wasn’t the typical lifestyle for a teenage girl.

From there Kelly picked up several sponsorships some including Spy Goggles, Pirelli and Maxim Magazine, signaling the birth of Longwell racing. But after an accident crippled a family friend, John bowed out. Touring the women’s national circuit a little longer, Kelly soon quit as well. She had a desire to go to college and competitive racing would have taken too much time.  She went to school for mechanical engineering before becoming an engineer in the power sports division at Honda, where she met her boyfriend Inness Eisele and friend Marcos DeLeon. Together they left Honda to move back to Colorado and pursue different careers.

A month later in early November the team is at a crossroad. The semi-professional partnership of John and his wife Denise grew by three members and will allow them to race in the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) at a higher level. The SCCA is a national racing club for semi-professional and amateur racers alike. Since its birth in 1944, the SCCA has offered various racing divisions to keep races fair.  These divisions are often based type of car and equipment (engine, suspension, etc.) The Longwells are trying to decide if, with the additional help of Kelly, Inness and Marcos, they can race in a higher division.

“It’s in between a hobby and business,” Inness said. “We’re in a transition period.”

That transition period has stuck them with a difficult question.

“What do we want to be when we grow up?” Denise said.

It’s a common question in racing, one that goes back to an old adage: the more money one has, the faster one goes. Racing is by no means a cheap sport if the intent is to win. Depending on the class or group, costs can range from $500 – $5 million each season for the car alone. Then comes the additional costs of tires, repairs, track fees, club fees,  racing gasoline, transportation and food, all of which create a barrier to entry.  Each racing engine is only good for about 50 hours of racing John said, at a cost of about $10,000 per motor.

At the top are the Formula 1 teams like Toyota whose budget was a staggering $445.6 million in 2008 according to F1 Fanatic. On the low end is The 24 Hours of LeMons (parodying the 24 Hours of Le Mans): an endurance race for cars costing less than $500 and often held together in some manner with duct tape.

Cost may prohibit some from getting involved, but clubs like RMVR realized they’re an aging bunch. As such, several initiatives popped up to encourage new interest in the sport. Denise is marketing chairperson for Colorado region of SCCA and serves PR duties for High Plains Raceway. With a fellow female driver she created Wheels in Heels, a group dedicated to getting more women racers on the track and transferring high-speed safety skills back to everyday driving.

Beyond Wheels in Heels, she is on a mission to bring attention to how easy and affordable it can be to start racing, and how quickly it becomes addictive.

“So few people know you can actually go do this,” she said. “The general public has no concept of that. That you can take no street car out and go on a race track or that you can get into racing inexpensively.“

Denise is no slouch herself, having won the Regional Points Championship for her class this year. She races in a black BMW M5, newer models from those on John’s dealership lot years ago. For that reason the entire team races under the black and blue symbol from Bavaria.  They already have three frequent racers; tonight they’re questioning the addition of another.

“Since Inness and Kelly and Marcos moved out here its breathed new life into the team,” John said. “You’ve got the youth and the enthusiasm and the energy and some help. It was difficult for me and Denise to do all the racing ourselves. It’s a lot of hard work. But I want to encourage their racing careers to continue because I’ve always loved racing, ever since I was a kid.”

In a world of rubber baby toys and “HOT” labels printed on the side of coffee cups, it might seem absurd for a family to risk their lives at the race track driving sports cars. In 2007, 41,059 people were killed in car crashes, “…the equivalent of a nearly fully loaded passenger plane going down in flames every single day of the year,” according to Carjacked by Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez. Race drivers have a different perspective.

“It’s safer than driving on I-70,” Inness said. “I’d rather drive around a racetrack with people who are semi-paying attention than drive down I-70 with a bunch of people who are texting and doing whatever else. You’re much less likely to get killed or seriously injured on a racetrack because of all the safety equipment.”

But it’s the thrill and adrenaline of racing, not safety, which keeps this family participating in a sport with despite the high price tag.

“It’s exciting to look forward to a race weekend, you get your car prepped you get your trailer prepped, you sign up for the race,” John said. “It’s fun having a number of people involved. It’s a very adrenaline charged hobby.”

“The driving part is very fun and very technical,” Denise added. “I find it very technical trying to figure out where the best place is to get your car around and be consistent every lap. I love that part of it.”

Every member says the racing is fun, but that family ties keep him or her involved. That sense of family extends beyond their team to those with whom they are competitive. The camaraderie of racing contributes to an exciting atmosphere that remains fun welcoming said Denise.

“If your car breaks, your competitors will be the first ones there to help you fix it because they don’t want to beat you in the paddock, they want to beat you on the track,” she said. “The fact that everybody chips in and if anybody breaks everybody is there trying to help or offering parts. So the driving aspect is one part of it and the competition but it’s also the camaraderie of it, it’s really a fun environment.”

The magnet drawing people to race might be the most illusionary. Competition is fierce on the track but friendly beyond the brick and tire barriers. Racing is no longer a sport for the wealthy and adventurous. Instead, those who love the sport drive its evolution. For those lovers, racing is more than a hobby, it’s an opportunity to be a family. For the Longwells, it’s the beginning of a family tradition.

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Exploring the numbers in the automotive industry is a titan task. So much of the American economy and lifestyle revolve around transportation. Analyzing significant numbers provides an interesting snapshot of that infrastructure while providing insights to the necessity of vehicles in the United States.

For more information visit the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Fuel Consumption

For more information visit the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Costs of Ownership

For more information visit the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the National Transportation Safety Board and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

For more age demographics, see pg 28 of the CDC’s report.

Safety

Let me introduce you to your future love.