{"id":10183,"date":"2020-04-19T06:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-04-19T10:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dennygibson.com\/blog\/?p=10183"},"modified":"2020-04-19T05:23:27","modified_gmt":"2020-04-19T09:23:27","slug":"my-wheels-chapter-41-the-wheels-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/my-wheels-chapter-41-the-wheels-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"My Wheels \u2014 Chapter 41
The Wheels So Far"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This series has reached a pause. Even though the forty vehicles I’ve owned to date have all been covered, I don’t think that the My Wheels series is truly at an end. I suspect I’ll buy something else someday. It does, however, seem like a good time for a look back and a bit of a summary. Because of a goof in sequencing, the earliest and most recent chapters both featured bicycles. They are the only two bicycles in the series although I actually owned a couple of used bicycles prior to purchasing the J.C.Higgins. In between were five motorcycles, one truck, and thirty-two automobiles. The autos varied greatly in details, but all had four wheels as did the truck. Therefore, the current count of wheels in My Wheels is 146.<\/p>\n

Despite being separated by nearly forty years, there was only one significant difference, other than color, between the two bicycles. The 1997 Schwinn has seven gears; The 1960 Higgins just one.<\/p>\n

The motorcycles varied quite a bit for the small sample size. Three came from Japan, one from Germany, and one from the U.S.A. Three had chains, one a driveshaft, and one was belt-driven (with pedals). There were two inline twins, one boxer twin, and two single-cylinder models. There was even one 2-cycle in the mix. Color-wise there were two reds, one maroon, one black, and one blue. Each came from a different manufacturer: Whizzer, Honda, Suzuki, BMW, Yahama.<\/p>\n

The lone truck was a gray Chevy van. Powered by a V8 with an automatic transmission, its crude self-made camper like interior held as many people as could tolerate sitting on the floor or the bed.<\/p>\n

I’ve applied all the same grouping to the autos as I did with the motorcycles plus a couple of additions. I haven’t overrefined things. For country, I’ve used the country where the manufacturer is headquartered which might not be where the specific car was built. For capacity, I started with the idea of calling everything either 4 or 2 passenger even though some of the older cars with bench seats routinely handled 5 or 6 but quickly realized that I was really just dividing them on whether or not they had a rear seat. I also simplified body style categories. I did not distinguish between SUVs, station wagons, hatchbacks. or any more subtle variations. Anything with a top that folded or was removable is a convertible. Any fixed-roof car with a trunk and usable rear seat is a hardtop. With neither trunk or usable rear seat, it’s a coupe and with a rear seat but no trunk it’s a wagon. Yes, whether or not a rear seat is usable is a matter of opinion and in my opinion, the rear seats in ’94 Camaros and GEO Storms of any year are not generally usable.<\/p>\n

Here’s the breakdown starting with characteristics having the fewest variations. There were 27 cars with rear seats and 5 without. 20 cars had four doors and 12 had two. 29 cars had their engine in the front while 3 were rear-engined. 22 cars were driven by the rear wheels, 7 by the front wheels, and 3 by all four.<\/p>\n

Style<\/strong>
\n15 Hardtop
\n7 Convertible
\n6 Wagon
\n4 Coupe<\/p>\n

Color<\/strong>
\n12 Blue
\n5 Red
\n4 Green
\n4 Gray
\n3 White
\n2 Black
\n1 Brown
\n1 Yellow<\/p>\n

Engine<\/strong> (I=inline, F-flat, R=rotary)
\n9 V8
\n9 I4
\n6 I6
\n3 V6
\n2 F4
\n2 F6
\n1 R<\/p>\n

Transmission<\/strong> (A=automatic, M=manual, CV=continously variable)
\n7 3A
\n6 3M
\n6 4M
\n6 5M
\n3 4A
\n2 6M
\n1 2A
\n1 CV<\/p>\n

Make<\/strong>
\n13 Chevrolet
\n3 Ford
\n2 Dodge
\n2 Mazda
\n2 Plymouth
\n2 Renault
\n2 Subaru
\n1 Acura
\n1 Audi
\n1 Austin-Healey
\n1 Buick
\n1 Mercury
\n1 Opel<\/p>\n

Country<\/strong>
\n22 USA
\n5 Japan
\n2 France
\n2 Germany
\n1 England<\/p>\n

There have been more Chevys than anything else. The most common color has been blue. Based on history, my ideal car must be a blue rear-wheel-drive Chevy two-door hardtop with a V8 and automatic. There is exactly one car on the list that meets those specs. It’s the 1970 Chevelle<\/a> castoff by my former mother-in-law that I owned for less than a year. I’d not thought of it as ideal when I owned it and I’m not buying into that now.<\/p>\n

The blue Chevelle was, like so many I’ve owned, simply a car that was available and affordable when I needed one. The only exceptions are the two vehicles I ordered from the factory. All the others were either used or sitting on a lot after being built to someone else’s specifications. That those two built-to-order rides are almost as different from each other as possible is pretty good proof that there is no single ideal vehicle for most people. Ideals change.<\/p>\n

\"\"The first vehicle I custom ordered was the 1979 truck<\/a>. I was in my early thirties and my boys, although they did not live with me at the time, were eight and ten. I and several friends were into camping and that was the van’s purpose. It was fairly well-optioned in some respects. I checked off A\/C, cruise, etc, but no interior options including radio. I installed my own sound system, replaced the single cargo van seat with a pair of captain’s chairs, and built out the empty space for camping.<\/p>\n

\"\"It would be nearly twenty years before I’d fill out another order sheet. By then, the kids were grown and gone and I had moved from a four-bedroom house to a two-bedroom condo. The 1998 Corvette<\/a> reflected that. I sprung for a convertible, 6-speed manual transmission (auto was standard), Z51 suspension, and upgraded sound and climate control systems. The van and the ‘Vette were both Chevys but their option lists looked nothing alike.<\/p>\n

So this will be the last My Wheels chapter until a new vehicle comes along. It’s a series that isn’t published often (These forty-one chapters were spread over more than seven years.) so maybe that will happen before you even notice the pause but I think it’s going to be a while.<\/p>\n

My Wheel chapters can be seen in total here<\/a> or individually through the following links:
\nChapter 1 1960 J. C. Higgins Flightliner<\/a>
\nChapter 2 1948\/9 Whizzer<\/a>
\nChapter 3 1953 Chevrolet<\/a>
\nChapter 4 1954 Mercury<\/a>
\nChapter 5 1952 Ford<\/a>
\nChapter 6 1959 Chevrolet<\/a>
\nChapter 7 1961 Renault 4CV<\/a>
\nChapter 8 1957 Austin Healey<\/a>
\nChapter 9 Honda 65<\/a>
\nChapter 10 1964 Corvair<\/a>
\nChapter 11 1967 Dodge<\/a>
\nChapter 12 1961 Falcon<\/a>
\nChapter 13 1966 Suzuki<\/a>
\nChapter 14 1965 Barracuda<\/a>
\nChapter 15 1969 Opel Kadett<\/a>
\nChapter 16 1962 Chevy II<\/a>
\nChapter 17 1965 Corvair<\/a>
\nChapter 18 1971 Vega<\/a>
\nChapter 19 1970 Chevrolet Nova<\/a>
\nChapter 20 1972 Audi 100 LS<\/a>
\nChapter 21 1979 Chevrolet G10<\/a>
\nChapter 22 1970 Chevelle<\/a>
\nChapter 23 1972 BMW R75<\/a>
\nChapter 24 1983 Renault Alliance<\/a>
\nChapter 25 1985 Buick Century<\/a>
\nChapter 26 1986 Acura Legend<\/a>
\nChapter 27 1985 Mazda RX7<\/a>
\nChapter 28 1978? Yamaha 400<\/a>
\nChapter 29 1991 Geo Storm<\/a>
\nChapter 30 1992 Chevrolet Lumina<\/a>
\nChapter 31 1994 Chevrolet Camaro<\/a>
\nChapter 32 1986 Ford Bronco II<\/a>
\nChapter 33 1998 Chevrolet Corvette<\/a>
\nChapter 34 2003 Pontiac Vibe<\/a>
\nChapter 35 2006 Chevrolet Corvette<\/a>
\nChapter 36 1963 Plymouth Valiant<\/a>
\nChapter 37 2011 Subaru Forester<\/a>
\nChapter 38 2003 Mazda Miata<\/a>
\nChapter 39 2018 Subaru Forester<\/a>
\nChapter 40 1997 Schwinn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This series has reached a pause. Even though the forty vehicles I’ve owned to date have all been covered, I don’t think that the My Wheels series is truly at an end. I suspect I’ll buy something else someday. It … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[101],"tags":[102,52,103],"class_list":["post-10183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-wheels","tag-bicycle","tag-cars","tag-motorcycle"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WE0S-2Ef","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10183"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10309,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10183\/revisions\/10309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}