no Explorers in Eugene? But plenty of VW buses
At 9:39 AM today (Tuesday), I left this comment at Jim Grey’s Ranger post: Add a first generation Explorer to your list. Seriously; we’ve never done an Explorer CC, and it needs to be one of the early ones. Amazingly, there’s none here. Where have they all gone? Exploded? Cash for Clunkers? Ten minutes later, I got in the car to run an errand. Coming up to the third light, I noticed the distinctive grille of an Early Explorer behind me. Aha! That was quick. I extricated my phone just as the light was turning green,and peeled off this rather crummy shot, but it proves two points: There are early Explorers in Eugene. And The CC effect really works; all too well.
But how? Well, I hate to pop the magic bubble, but I figured out even well before starting CC that there was an effect like that which could be easily turned on.
Well, I more or less knew it from way back, but one example really brought it home to me. About ten years ago, I had a new tenant, a young woman, who drove a white Chevy Lumina. I hadn’t thought about that highly forgettable car in some time, which made me assume that there really weren’t any around anymore, or very few. Well, the very next day, I saw another one, also white. And then I started seeing them all the time. This went on for weeks; maybe a month or so. I kept seeing white Luminas, way more than I would ever have imagined still existed. They were everywhere….and I almost went in for psychotherapy.
And then one day…no more white Luminas. Well; not that they disappeared, but one day, months later, I realized that I hadn’t “seen” one in ages.
Of course, it’s all about what we’re looking for. Our brain tries to make sense of all the crazy patterns out there, and if a particular pattern has been brought to mind, it will find them, as long as they really exist, of course. If they don’t exist, it really is a problem. My brain was tricked into thinking that white Luminas were important; prey, or an enemy, or a possible mate. Until I “turned it off”, inadvertently. And thankfully; it was getting rather tedious..white Luminas, of all things.
And so it is (was) with the early Explorer. I’m always scanning for prey CCs, but Explorers were not on the list. Until they were, and one popped up behind me within a few blocks of leaving the house.
Now the question is: Do I really want to shoot one and write it up. I already have so many more interesting cars that I captured. Maybe I can “release” the Explorer, and I won’t see anymore? Or maybe there really is a CC Effect, and now I’m doomed…how long does it last, anyway?
Fastest way to generate the CC Effect: Hit some used car lots looking for your next ride. Decide on what you want, but you don’t buy immediately. In the interim time between deciding on the car and negotiating the deal, you’ll see all sorts of variations on that same model on the street.
And once you’ve bought yours and put the whole process into the back of your memory, all those cars on the street disappear again.
I experience the CC Effect all the time. I think it’s as simple as just having a car on your mind and then you begin to notice them. The funny thing is that I tend to see more of a car this way than when I’m intently looking for a specific one.
1st Gen Explorer? JURASSIC PARK instantly comes to mind! In Rhode Island, a 1st Gen is very rare. I can’t tell you the last time I saw one.
And, my cousin had one of the first Explorers ever made – he ordered it before they even hit the dealerships. His vin # was extremely low, like xxxxxx107 – one of the very first ever made! It was black with gray cloth interior, an XLT if my memory serves me right. I cannot tell you how many Patriots games we tailgated with that car. I always thought it rode horribly, especially if you ever hit large bumps. But that Explorer gave him years of good use, so much so that he bought 3 consecutive Explorers and drove them all well past 150k miles. And it is true that as the new model Explorers came out, they only got better and better.
The Jurassic Park Explorers were the coolest by far! I’m sure someone out there has made a replica.
Hey Brendan, wouldn’t that be cool to see a replica of one? Hard to believe the original Jurassic Park movie is 22 years old!
I never read the book, but I remember seing somewhere that the book version originally used Land Rovers, but for the film version Steven Spielberg decided to go with the brand new Ford Explorers. I’m glad he did – you can never forget the cup half full of water vibrating on the dashboard, can you?
It rode badly? Well I hear tell Belichick was moonlighting for Firestone in those days…haha !!! Sorry I couldnt resist!
Personally, Id disagree these got ‘better’ with each new generation. They definitely got more ‘domesticated’, becoming more suited to suburban mommy mobile duties…if thats what you like. I prefer a more rawdog backwoods brawler with just enough creature comfort to make a functional daily driver.
I live in RI (well, nearby MA) as well, and I don’t even see them in Pawtucket anymore! I think I’ve seen more Chevy Citations in the past month.
>>I always thought it rode horribly, <<
Which is why owners were told to underinflate the tires. It was a cheap pickup based product that rode horribly.
And we all know what happened to the the tires after being driven at highway speeds at high temps.
And it wasn't just Firestones that blew. We can thank Ford's poor engineering for the tire pressure monitors we now endure. At least Ford make something like $10k per crappy unit.
Davis,
The tires were underinflated to help deter drivers from getting into situations where they roll over. Rather than redesign with a lower center of gravity, they “fixed” it that way.
The 1996 I drove wallowed like a pig. You didn’t dare push it.
The 2-doors with their shorter wheelbase were the worst of all. A friend who owned a 1st Gen 2-door would always find his tires overinflated after taking it in for oil changes or other service.
Of course “overinflated” for a 1st-gen Explorer would have been “properly inflated” on any other vehicle.
My friend would drive home (noting how squirrely it drove at that tire pressure) and let air out of the tires to get the pressure back from 32 to 26.
I still say Ford skated on the whole debacle. But that’s just me, and as noted above, each successive generation’s just gotten better and better.
I don’t buy that at all. Underinflating the tires would have made an absolutely imperceptible/negligible effect on the center of gravity. CG could have been lowered very easily by some minor suspension tweaks.
It’s really quite the opposite: underinflated tires are well known to make a vehicle less stable, and precisely more prone to loss of control and rolling. This is an issue that goes back many decades, and was a key factor in the Corvair’s problems: folks underinflated the rear tires, leading to gross oversteer and loss of control.
The ONLY reason Ford (or any manufacturer) ever recommended a relatively low tire pressure is so that the vehicle rode better over minor surface imperfections,frost heaves, pavement edges, etc. Ford was chasing passenger car owners with the Explorer (very successfully) and wanted to make sure the trucky chassis of the Explorer rode as smooth as possible. And the results were highly predictable and inevitable.
Your friend likely conflated “squirrely” handling with crisper handling, something many Americans weren’t used to or didn’t want. But the more precise handling (response to steering input) of the tires at higher pressure would likely have saved a lot of roll-overs.
The Explorer incident was a shameful incident and the last time one of the Big Three used that tactic to try to cover up intrinsic suspension qualities with sub-normal tire pressure. Never again. Manufacturers have had to do the hard work (spend the money) to improve their suspension, as Ford eventually did with the later IRS Explorer, which finally handled well, instead of like a tippy truck.
My Explorer was a 2-door Sport 4×4 and I always thought it handled quite well for what it was. It was nimble and fun to drive…for a truck. It may not have rode and handled well by today’s standards, but back then it was perfectly acceptable…again, for a truck.
Car and Driver put outriggers on an Explorer and a tire deflation device to see how dangerous it was…and it was fine. There’s also a video on YouTube where they destroy the tires on an outrigger-equipped Explorer. And again, it handles it fine. Not to say Explorers weren’t flawed, but the whole thing was overblown in my opinion by tabloid journalism.
Early Explorers are one of those vehicles that tend to be used increasingly harder by each successive owner. People who bought ’em new often never put them to any task that would make a B-segment hatchback break a sweat, people who buy ’em as beaters tend to see and use them as trucks in the backwoods.
VERY tired-looking, sagging in back, rusty ones were a common sight around here by the mid-00s and were probably the most common Cash for Clunkers trade-in; the ones that were still kept up in 2009 are now in the hands of the backwoods-beater crowd.
The Explorer photo reminds me of a picture of bigfoot or the Lock Ness monster: weird angle, out of focus, subject is partially cut off. Except in this case we can be pretty sure that it really is an Explorer and not somebody in a gorilla suit. The VW bus is less convincing however. 🙂
While I agree that the “CC effect” is often a psychological effect and your explanation makes sense, I think my brain is hard-wired to highlight and identify old and interesting cars, the way that most peoples’ brains identify faces.
Yeah, my brain must be wired like that too, BOC. I read a comment like “I haven’t seen a Nissan Hardbody in ages”; I saw 3 of them on my way to work this morning. Or “still looking for an early A-body”; I was followed by a sealed-beam Century yesterday. And I am in the Milwaukee-Chicago rust belt.
This would obviously not be the case with vehicles that were rare to begin with, but they’re out there. Keep looking!
Ok, I’m confused by that Matrix. It appears to be in the blue hue that was supposed to be exclusive to the “M Theory” limited edition, but otherwise is base spec (steelies, no plastic cladding on the front bumper, body color window uppers).
Bright blue was available across all Matrix/Vibe models, the latter case with either gray or bodycolor cladding, for the 2008 model year only (the last of the first generation, and a short year since the ’09s hit in late spring iirc).
We will now see all three tomorrow.
For that matter, I’m not sure at the moment whether the bright blue carried into the second generation, so if it did I’m sure those’ll turn up on my temporarily 45-miles-each-way commute soon enough…
Eureka!
http://www.cars.com/toyota/matrix/2009/colors
http://images.gtcarlot.com/pictures/31871137.jpg
Aha! I didn’t know that.
Of course, like most base model Matrix (Matrices?), the wheel covers have long since been smashed to bits by unintended curb contact and not replaced at this point. Over the years I’ve lost count of how many wheel covers I’ve replaced, but I don’t like the look w/o them or cheap wheel covers. Do see the occasional one in this blue, though.
Too bad Toyota didn’t see fit to send the base model out with silver steelies. They could’ve used the money saved to black out the window frames.
I still have three wheel covers left over from my first Matrix, a base 2003. The wheel covers were $80 each from Toyota, and a cheap set of aftermarket wheels were $80 each, so I just bought the aftermarket wheels. Can’t bring myself to throw the wheel covers away even though I no longer have the car.
“I just heard of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon and now I see it everywhere!”
Ed, where did this brain flatulence come from?
“Frequency illusion – The illusion in which a word, a name or other thing that has recently come to one’s attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards (not to be confused with the recency illusion or selection bias). Colloquially, this illusion is known as the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.”
Sorry, Ed. I wasn’t aware that this was a term with a specific meaning. I am sure it will pop up now several times in the next few days.
I’ve observed this many times. If you’re particularly thinking about a car, you’ll find every one that’s in the area, and it’ll seem like they just appear out of the woodwork. Following a CC article, for example, I discovered that there are not just one but two Chrysler “TC by Maserati” convertibles in my neck of the woods.
This is, of course, assuming that there are actually any examples of the car left on the road. Probably wouldn’t work as well for a Yugo, or a Dodge Mirada, or a Fiat 131…etc.
It’s true… I think about Fiat 131s all the time and I still haven’t been able to will one into existence.
Hah!
Do it, post one on the first gen.
The only 90’s Explorers I see these days are usually from the used Southern dealer in my hometown. Our dealership also gets southern rust free vehicles but Explorers are not usually among them. There is a red 1990 Lumina sitting in my friend’s backyard fresh from NJ awaiting some minor repairs with 70K old lady miles that rides and drives like new and we just got in a 2 door Z-34 in fire engine red at our dealership with 200K miles I’m told that still looks like new. Talk about rare sights. Whats next a 1985 white Grand Am coupe in rust free condition?
Good points about the CC Effect. When I really think about it, I’ve still seen most of the cars we post about in the last year or so. What have I *not* seen?
* I can’t remember the last time I saw an early (pre-’86 or so) Panther in the wild.
* Same goes for a Chrysler R Body
* Early Hyundai
* Hondas before 1986 or so
* A Dodge Colt
* A quad headlamp Caravan/Voyager
* I’ve seen the last of the very big mid 70s Big Three luxury cars because I’ve been looking to buy one. But I have not seen a pre-’77 Electra, 98, Fleetwood Brougham, Grand Marquis, or New Yorker Brougham née Imperial anywhere other than in an ad. Not parked. Not driving. Only Continentals and DeVilles.
It has to be at least 5 and probably 10 years since I’ve seen any of those. I don’t think I’ve seen an early panther, or Chrysler r-body since the Clinton administration.
As for the Explorer, I still see those around. A friend in college had one which was sold about 10 years ago (Eddie Bauer edition). But I’ve seen them plying the streets of the city.
There’s an R-body New Yorker on the prowl near where I work. I’ve seen it twice. I’m waiting to find it lit somewhere so I can photograph it. I did get a butt shot of it when I was waiting behind it at a light.
There was a *very* early 80’s LTD coupe that lived near me, though I haven’t seen it recently. I did photograph it and would like to write it up at some point. Hondas pre-86 aren’t extinct either, and I saw a quad-lamp Voyager a couple weeks ago. A beautiful waterfall mid 70’s Imperial lurks somewhere around me too, I’ve seen it in motion more than once. And a somewhat rusty but complete 70’s Grand Marquis lives in a mechanic’s back lot about a block from my house. I guess part of it is central VA’s comparative lack of salt.
I’m with you on a few, though. I can’t recall the last time I saw an R-body or a sealed-beam Colt in the wild (the final generation aero ones are here and there). Not sure when the last 1st-gen Excel was, either, though those did kind of blend in.
Those are all quite rare here too
Early Exploders are rare here Ford has not supplied parts for them for several years and once the parts supply dried up they all got taken off the road via the Warrant of fitness scheme.
The VW Bus in the picture bookends it rather fittingly.
The CC effect is nationwide, as this morning on a drive to Bloomington, I came upon an early Explorer. And a 2 tone brown Eddie Bauer, in simply gorgeous condition. But I was on my way to court and could not follow it.
I think PN’s explanation of the CC effect has merit to a degree, but I don’t think it explains the day that we ran a piece on a 61 LeSabre, then later that day I saw a 61 LeSabre parked in my bank parking lot, a car I have never seen before or since. Sorry, but the CC effect has some cosmic dimensions too. 🙂
Court? What kind of trouble did you get into this time? 😉
If Paul’s explanation is true, it is closely related to Douglas Adams’ “SEP” cloaking field, from one of the H2G2 books. (SEP stands for “Somebody Else’s problem”.)
(And yes, I know where my towel is.)
Perhaps it’s the exception that proves the rule, but I have a recent counter example to Paul’s Explorer. You just can’t tell me that Fiat 600 Mutliplas are common enough to be invisible, but I saw one not two days after the recent Fiat 600 post.
Even though Portland, OR is import vehicle gaga there are some domestic vehicles I suspect the residents went bananas for back in the day and I bet the Explorer is one of those vehicles. I like the top photo by the way.
There are still a few Navajos as well as decent number of 1st and 2nd generation Explorers in Portland, but in the ritzier neighborhoods or suburbs they are thin on the ground. I hardly ever see a Mountaineer, but there are a bunch for sale on Craig’s List. I do not care for Explorers since they are functionally obsolete and are one of the causes for the SUV boom. Some of the XLT Explorers of the 1st generation have Lime Green accents on their lower portions (rub strips?), but what I tend to look for in 1st and 2nd generation Explorers is how they look after two decades of use. Some people Donk them, others have incredibly unsafe looking sagging rear suspension, others look like they were attacked by baseball bats, and some are filthy from offroading.
Because I really like 1970-1972 Darts, 1991-1995 Plymouth Voyagers, 1977-1996 Caprices, and pre-GM Saabs I keep an eye out for those vehicles while out and about. I also keep an eye out for vanity license plates as well as vehicles I would never see in New York and have somewhat trained myself to zone out VW Beetles.
I worked for a Ford dealership during the Cash For Nice Cars blowout. A lot of really nice Explorers bit the dust. And a couple of mint F-150’s. Lots of dead little 302’s. One of the most wasteful programs I’ve ever seen in my life.
Explorers are still around where I’m at, even the first-generation. They may not be in the best shape, but they seem to run fine, and this is ~5 years after the Cash For Clunkers fiasco. Ford must have made a ton of those for it to be the #1 traded-in vehicle.
I wonder how many other vehicles of its vintage that had some life left over that became a victim of Cash for Clunkers. Every time I’m on the freeway and some old 1970’s rusted pickup with rust holes everywhere barely wheezes by me with the strong smell of gasoline, I’m reminded of (relatively) newer cars in better running condition that fell victim to Cash for Clunkers.
I’m not saying that the old vehicles in poor condition that I still see running should have been scrapped–that’s up to the vehicle’s owner, not the government–but it just shows how ineffective the program was. And to make matters worse, a lot of the people who took advantage of C4C purchased vehicles with an MPG that wasn’t much higher than their trade-in.
I can never forgive taking perfectly operable vehicles and destroying them *and* subsidizing the purchase of a new car all on the taxpayer’s dime. There is no justification for it, just like it is with 99% of any other government initiatives and projects.
Anyways, growing up, we had a first-gen 1992 Explorer. I liked it a lot. However, I didn’t like it nowhere near as much as its eventual replacement, a 1998 Plymouth Grand Voyager: the cool and futuristic cab-forward design, the nice interior, the ease of getting in and getting out (I was a clumsy second-grader), air conditioning in the back. I will say that the Explorer was a nice vehicle as well.
Well for a number of years the Explorer was the best selling “car” outselling the Camry, Accord and Taurus. So outside of pickups it was far and away the most common of the vehicles that qualified. You had to go down the list of best sellers aways to get to another vehicle that qualified. Pickups were not as prevalent because some people actually need a pickup and they couldn’t trade it in on a pickup and qualify for C4C money.
The first gen Explorer definitely deserves a full CC as the most significant vehicle from the 90’s. It is what made the SUV the family hualer of the 90’s and early 00’s. It is the only SUV to ever have the title of the best selling “car” in the US. Yes some people will say it is not a car but the vast majority of them were purchased as the family car and not for off-roading. It also showed mfgs that people would pay big bucks for such a vehicle and they wanted them loaded with up with all the options. It changed the automotive landscape, for better or worse and its influence can be still be seen with the popularity of the CUV today.
The human brain’s desire to see patterns, particularly the male brain to see “prey”, however that is defined in the modern world, definitely explains why we will notice vehicles that have faded into the background after they are featured here. It does not however explain why someone will spot a car in the wild and then get home to see it featured or see it featured a day or two later.
The CC effect is global. I’m vacationing in Turkey, and saw three early Explorers in Istanbul this morning. They were among about 100 cars traveling to Jordan as part of an overland journey, with the goal,of selling the cars at the destination and donating the proceeds to charity. There was a Buick Regal, a few Lada Nivas and a few first-gen Outbacks, but the majority of cars were older E class wagons, Audi 100/200 Avant wagons, Passats, and BMW 5-Series wagons. I just couldn’t figure out the reason for this oddly homogeneous collection, so I asked one of the participants. Apparently the rules were that the cars had to be 20 or more years old, and cost less than 1000 Euros. I had no idea that a ’95 525 Touring would be so cheap.
Nice catch ! (Ditto for the Fargo truck below)
Have you already seen those bigger Fords from Turkey ?
As a matter of fact. The ride to the airport yesterday was in very heavy traffic and took over an hour. My wife dozed and I went into car- and truck-spotting overload. And motorcycle. The only old cars I saw were a surprising number of air-cooled Beetles, compared to no Golfs older than a 5th generation, though a saw a circa 1980 Buick B- body. Three Buicks and one “DeSoto” in 3 days. Not bad ….
Somewhat delayed CC effect, but 5 months after a recent discussion of Chrysler sub-brand trucks in other parts of the world, I saw this Fargo in Istanbul. I also saw a DeSoto truck on the freeway but couldn’t get a picture.
I mentioned a CC Effect earlier this week on the Montclair post. Bryce posted a pic of a Ford Consul 315 he saw recently; I’d also seen one (a different colour) only two weeks ago. There must be hardly any 315s left in NZ (and probably the world!) now, so for us both to see one made me giggle!
Funny… since my last mention, I’ve seen three of them today. They’re still common out in the hills where I’m located. Then again, cars get older out here.
I know this thread has been open for a day or two, but I can’t help adding to it. My second car was a new 1991 Ford Explorer XLT 4 door, 4×4 with a 5 speed manual transmission.
I was a college sophomore and my dad had the Explorer all of two weeks when he was offered a company car. At the time I was driving my first car, the 1976 BMW 2002 I bought for $3,500 of my own money at age 16. Even though I loved the Bimmer, it was wonderfully quirky, but getting more expensive to maintain. Going to college 6 hours from home meant “deferred maintenance” was becomming an issue. Dad made me a deal, I give him the (rust-free) 2002 and I get the Explorer free and clear. With a heavy heart (but also) soon to be a heavier wallet, I agreed. The BMW later went to someone from up north. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times (parting ways with the BMW is another story for another time).
Even as I missed the 02, I came to thoroughly enjoy the Explorer. Even though it was bouncy and handled like a moon buggy, It saw me through college, several moves, countless trips to the mountains, the Appalachian Trail, and many beach trips hauling my friends and all of our canoes/kayaks/gear. After two girlfriends, numerous concerts and trips, it served as my daily driver when I landed my first “real job.”
By 1999 and 160K miles, the “Light Sandalwood Metallic” paint and beige cloth had aged well, but the front end developed a vibration at highway speeds that just wouldn’t go away. A visit to a trusted shop revealed that the tie rod ends and ball joints were shot. There was also a leaking steering pump. Total estimate? $1450. The mechanic even noted (CYA) on the invoice that vehicle was “unsafe to drive.” What did I do?
I drove it to a Toyota dealer and negotiated a deal on a new 2000 Four Runner after getting $5,500 in trade. I was still single, so I drove off the Toyota lot by myself that evening. Since I was alone, no one else saw my tear-filled eyes glance back in the rear view mirror to see the salesman take the Explorer around back. Certain cars will do that to you-even a 1991 Explorer. The Nineties were good to us.
Epilogue: I found an old insurance card with the VIN printed on it. A few years ago when I had a 30-day access to CarFax, I entered the Explorer’s VIN and learned after it left its Atlanta home it surfaced in New Hampshire. The registration was renewed for several years before the trail went cold in 2004. We all know what that means.