Artistic Photo #12

Citroen 2CV in Rome, Italy (Taken on August 11, 2015)

Car Lyric of the Week: Can't Tell Me Nothing and Mercy by Kanye West

     Can't Tell Me Nothing:

     "Let up the suicide doors
     This is my life homie, you decide yours"

     Mercy:

     "Let the suicide doors up
     I threw suicides on the tour bus
     I threw suicides on the private jet
     You know what that mean, I'm fly to death"










     On the defiant, yet introspective "Can't Tell Me Nothing," Kanye calls out the haters while reflecting on the consequences of wealth and fame. However, Yeezy also makes a small blunder: he mistakes scissor doors for suicide doors. Suicide doors are hinged at the rear and open backwards, and can be found on modern Rolls-Royces. Scissor doors are what Ye actually meant to rap about, as these open vertically, and these expensive contraptions have been made famous by Lamborghini. This is an excusable mistake on West's part, but unfortunately he made the exact same error five years later. On "Mercy," a Lamborghini Murcielago-dedicated banger off his collaboration album Cruel Summer, Kanye yet again messes up. Making the mistake once is understandable, but the fact that he spits essentially the same line five years later makes me wonder if no one told him he was wrong in the first place in fear of bruising his sensitive ego.

Suicide doors on a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe at the 2015 New York Auto Show

Scissor doors on a Lamborghini Murcielgao at the 2015 New York Auto Show

BMW E24 6 Series

1987 BMW L6 in Baruch Houses in the Lower East Side, New York, New York 

In 2004, BMW resurrected the 6 Series nameplate on a slinky coupe which was adapted from the Z9 Concept. Designed when Chris Bangle was BMW's chief of design, the 6 Series' controversial exterior featured a bulbous rear end, squinty, upturned headlights, and snout-like grille. While certainly striking, the reborn E63 6 Series wasn't reminiscent of the aggressively handsome original. Introduced for the 1977 model year, the E24 6 Series replaced the CS coupe (which had spawned the legendary 3.0 CSL), and with its "shark-nose" styling the E24 is an imposing presence.

The 6 Series's good looks are entirely due to the front-end styling. The sharp forward-leaning grille and headlights give the impression that the BMW is charging forward, slicing through the air. This windswept look gives the coupe visual speed and a healthy dose of attitude. Like all '70s and '80s Bimmers, the twin headlights are integrated into black rectangular vents. However, this element looks best on the E24 due to the extremely skinny kidney grille that separates the vents. This causes the 6 Series to look wider than its BMW brethren, even though the width is similar to the 5 Series and far less than the 7 Series of the time.

A thin rectangular hood bulge that rises out of the kidney grille gives the car a powerful appearance. BMW was able to minimize the visual damage of the strict U.S. demands for bumpers by topping them off with chrome. The 6 Series features a subtle beltine, a light crease that flows from the headlights to the taillights uninterrupted. Around back, things are kept simple, with bland, blocky taillights outlined in chrome. The twin tailpipes peek from underneath the bumper, hinting at the 215 horses under the hood. Overall, while the rear fascia is a bit ordinary, the dramatic shark-nose front makes the 6 Series a handsome grand tourer.

Grade
Front: A
Back: B
Overall: A-

Artistic Photo #11

1967 Plymouth Fury taxi on Rivington Street in New York, New York (Taken on October 23, 2015)

Comuta-Car

1981 Comuta-car at LeMay-America's Car Museum in Tacoma, Washington

Until 2011, this tin can surprisingly held the record for the most road-legal electric cars sold in post-war U.S. with 4,444 units shifted. Known as the CitiCar, and later the Comuta-Car when the design was purchased by Commuter Vehicles in 1979, this trapezoidal hatchback was powered by a measly electric motor that had a decent range of 40 miles. This alternative powertrain was provoked by the 1973 oil crisis, when gas prices surged and many stations experienced fuel droughts due to an embargo by the member countries of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries. While the Comuta-Car's historical significance is intriguing, its design, especially those of the early 1980's models seen here, is overwhelmingly repulsive.

1981 Comuta-car at LeMay-America's Car Museum in Tacoma, Washington

The poor exterior begins simply with the basic shape, which appears to have been designed with a ruler. The hood and windshield angle backwards away from the protruding bumper at a straight incline, before meeting the flat near-square roof. This almost vertically extends downwards out the back and sides, essentially creating a metal box. However, there have been attractive box design before like the spunky, and relatively popular, first generation Scion xB (R.I.P. 2003-2016) and the Nissan Cube. Yet the Comuta-Car's few exterior doodads just make it an even more hideous beast.

The most glaring offenders are the oversized bumpers. These massive plastic appendages hang off either end of the car and were added to meet more stringent safety regulations. (Further safety requirements would prove to be the demise of the small company.) While all U.S. market cars between 1973 and 1982 suffered from these bulbous bumpers, they look significantly larger, and therefore worse, on the Comuta-Car because it is so short to begin with.

Moving back, the hood features one of the other prominent design flaws. Rising out of the flat bonnet is a rectangular bulge, which does not appear to be functional. This protrusion is a pointless, odd-looking, and not very aerodynamic addition, disrupting what would have otherwise been a smooth hood. The roof, which appears to be vinyl, is also unattractive, making the car look cheaper. Vinyl roofs are also very prone to sun damage and tend to fade, crack, and peel.

1980 Comuta-car at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan

The bumpers, hood bulge, and vinyl roof all make the Comuta-car look insanely cheap, but what puts the bolt in the coffin are the visible bolts holding the car together. If you look along the sides of the hood and down the rear of the car, you can see where the different metal sheets were fastened together, which makes the car look unsafe, as if it's all about to fall apart into hundreds of little pieces. The car's one saving grace is the wacky paintjob, while consists of very '70s stripes and the lowercase word "electric." Other than these laughable but cool decals, the Comuta-car is a truly ugly car, even when compared to the myriad of unattractive cars from the design dark ages that were the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

Grade
Front: F
Rear: F
Overall: F

Car Lyric of the Week: Untouchable by Pusha T

"The Rolls-Royce playing peek-a-boo with the emblem"

In this ferocious track off his latest EP, Darkest Before the Dawn: The Prelude, Pusha T spits about becoming the president of G.O.O.D. Music, a record label started by Kanye West, and his tracks being featured in film scores. He also boasts about his Rolls-Royce, which appears to be a Ghost judging by the music video. In a 2013 interview with Complex, Pusha T mentioned that his dream car was a Rolls, and it seems like the success from his debut solo album, My Name is My Name, and his most recent project, has made the dream come true. This clever line refers to the Spirit of Ecstasy, Rolls' famous hood ornament, and its ability to retract into the ostentatious chrome grille. Pusha T puts an interesting twist on this neat trick by comparing it to a game of peek-a-boo, creating one of my favorite lines of the album, let alone the song.

Spirit of Ecstasy on a 1979 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow II in Brooklyn, New York

This video shows the retracting Spirit of Ecstasy found on modern Rolls-Royces.

Artistic Photo #10

Lamborghini Egoista Concept at the Lamborghini Museum in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy
(Taken on August 20, 2015)