Subaru, Saab and Great Designers

 Meet "Mr. B", my '87 Subaru Brat 2-4 wheel drive pickup. The other day the muffler [located just behind the rear axle] decided it was tired and got REAL loud. I replaced the rear section of pipe and the muffler and while I was at it, added a Monza dual outlet pipe tip. Hot ziggety!

 There you see the exhaust tip in all its exhausting glory. So what's the big deal, here, and what's the connection with Saab, you ask?  And what is this "Great Designer" business, anyhow?  The Subaru connection to Saab was Saab's 9-2, the badge engineered Subaru WRX wagon that Saab sold for a year or so. An excellent car, but not one the Saab snobs liked because it wasn't built in Trollhattan. Now for the designer part.

The Brat was designed by Alex Sarantos Tremulis, who also designed the '48 Tucker, added the chrome front fender exhaust pipes on the supercharged Cord, designed the '40 Chrysler Thunderbolt, a number of Ford show cars, and the world's fastest motorcycle, the streamlined, Triumph powered Gyronaut [ 245.667 mph at Bonneville] and managed to get a full sized motor home to 97.6 mph on Muroc dry lake in Southern California.

I was privileged to meet Alex several times at Art Center College of Design when I was an instructor there. He never stopped thinking, dreaming and designing and his knowledge of aerodynamics was amazing. At that time he owned three Tuckers and always drove one when he visited our school.

I've owned several "designer cars" but Mr. B is probably the coolest of all of 'em.