I just realized that Tom Halter’s Sunday COAL (Cars Of A Lifetime) series ends this week, so we need us a new COALer. Now I know that there may well be some of you who responded to the previews calls, and were asked to hold off. The problem is that it’s difficult for me to go back and see who was ready with what. So please respond again if you’re ready, willing and able; and here’s how:
Send me an email at curbsideclassic(at)gmail.com, and include the list of cars you’re prepared to write up. If you can, include a text of the first one, as a sample of your writing, but that’s not absolutely necessary yet at this point. This is for the regular Sunday morning spot, so we’re looking for someone that can keep them coming weekly for the duration.
We also do random COALs, individual ones like the Monte Carlo this morning, or possibly several, but not necessarily in a weekly series format. If you have just one or a couple of cars you’d like to write up, let me know too.
Have tried to register a few times using my email and google chrome. No luck.
Trouble getting an initial Log In after registering for the first time at CC? Unfortunately, it’s a common problem, and here’s the fix; Try to Log In, but pretend you forgot your password, and ask for a new password to be sent to you via email. Use that to Log In, and if that works fine (it invariably does) you can always change your password to your preferred one.
Actually ;
_EVERY_ time I log in to TTAC I have to reload the page once before it says ” hello Nate” .
try that simple thing, it works, 100 % of the time although it takes a few extra moments .
I wish had some COALs to share as well as any writing ability .
-Nate
Planning to submit my COAL on my quirky VW Eurovan soon. The writing is complete; I just need to get all the pictures together. I’ve had a very strong love/hate relationship with this vehicle – I think you guys are going to like the story I have to tell.
I am planning to start writing some COALs, but I am nowhere near having the time capacity to take a weekly slot. So, when I get around to it it’ll be a bunch of one-off articles that happen to have a chronological and personal tie.
Looking forward to these!
I did send a COAL about my Omega/Catera. I also have one to do about the Grand National, and will do a couple about a few other cars. I bought a Volvo 740 wagon to compliment the Cadillac so am planning on an article about Battle of the Beat Boxes.
I did send you an email a couple of weeks ago with two COALs, highlighting my dilemma with trying to register as well. I’ll try the approach you suggested here and hope for the best.
I need to sit myself down and write something about my cars that came after the 1984 Mustang that was my last entry. What has been holding me back is that from this point forward all of my cars have been either brand new or lightly used and, thus, perhaps less interesting in the sense that they provided little or no adventure, just transportation. And of course, I never took pictures of my cars, at least until fairly recently so there is less of a visual feature as well. We shall see.
I might do an entry on COAM (Cars of a Marriage) highlighting the various vehicles that my wife has driven in our 30+ years of marriage. If I do this it would likely be a short paragraph on each car.
COAM sounds like a good idea to me! I can’t remember who wrote it, but I distinctly remember a COAL article that touched on cars owned by the author’s wife. And how the author liked or disliked said cars.
It would be an interesting piece because almost all COAL articles published on this site have been about cars the author has consciously sought out or decided to buy. Very rarely is there a COAL piece on a car foisted on the author, which is what spouse’s cars (at least early in a relationship) tend to be. All good comedy and drama needs conflict!
It could have been me, my series had a bunch of Allison’s cars that became mine as well (Cressida, GTI, Murano, etc). We’ve been finding that we sometimes nowadays buy a car for one or the other of us and then end up switching as the primary driver either for months at a time or just forever….
Our most recent purchase, the Highlander (as boring as you all think it is) I picked out for myself, Allison came with me to do the actual purchase and drove it home and then decided she liked it and I should have the other car. So the GL has been “mine” for the last 18 months and I don’t often drive the Highlander. She had virtually zero interest or enthusiasm for being involved when I decided to look at it and spent months deciding what I wanted..
The last time I drove “my” Highlander is when I took it for an oil change a couple of months ago (she hates going to the Toyota dealer). After getting the seats and mirrors all adjusted and Allison doing the same on the GL we didn’t switch back for about two weeks. I guess we are weird. Or lazy. Yeah, lazy for sure I guess. 🙂
Other cars in the series that definitely switched at some point over the years were the Volvo V40 and the Odyssey. The only ones that are truly “safe” are the manual transmission ones, she doesn’t see the point of putting oneself through that…
Since getting my drivers license in 1984 I think I owned at least 80 cars, all sorts and makes, but I simply lack the English skills to write up a coal good enough for publishing.
Also, a nasty divorce a few years back left me with no pictures at all from the cars I owned.
Maybe someday I give it a try, would be fun to write about the cars I do remember, because there are more then a few I have forgotten about.
On a side note, judging by the fender badge that truck is a 1980 or newer. I didn’t know that anybody had a coal-fired home boiler that late, it had all gone to oil or natural gas/propane.