What Am I? Healing the Hurt
This next What Am I? feature comes from K2 Mystery Car, who swears up and down that it is from an actual production car — to quote K2: It’s actually from a car, I promise! In fact, it’s from a very well-known vehicle. No bloody concept car stuff here!
I don’t know what this is, but a small part of me seriously hopes this is from an industrial stamping machine that makes car parts or the Space Shuttle…but I have no idea. Maybe a glove box or a part of a tail fin from an old Cadillac?
What is it? Comments below.
Looks like the grandfather to this –
[img] imageshack.com/f/301/p5170176k8no.jpg[/img]
[IMG] imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/301/p5170176k8no.jpg[/IMG]
Well that's a fail. Volvo 240 airbox it ain't.
Up and down! I freakin' swear it.
"up and down" is a clue, gotta be – window of some kind???
KBZ, I didn't intend it to be but it actually is, in a way. I don't think that really helps, though. Sorry!
I said to El Jefe that you guys are sure to get this one and I still believe it. It's only a matter of…
[img] i.imgur.com/52lSG53.jpg?1[/img]
K2 — have you been hitting the herbs again? -Vince
All natural, living free, high on life!
If What Am I? was a free-association test, the first words I'd blurt out would be:
"Ashtray. Cadillac."
Am I on to something here, K2?
i was gonna say "taillight assembly, cadillac"
CFlo, part of your answer is onto something (the other part, not so much)!
Under-dash blower motor cover perhaps? Warm or cold?
Warmish, Ben!
Something something Aztek camper device?
I'm gonna guess it's an intercooler housing of some sort, or possibly a heater/AC-core housing, but from WHAT I couldn't begin to venture a guess.
Looks a lot like a "front-on" shot of a Saab 900 (classic) evap core housing… the thing on the (LHD) passenger-side firewall at the base of the windshield in the engine compartment. With the hood (bonnet) shut, the hood-vents are right over the fresh air "door" for this box.
I said looks a lot like it because the dimensions are wrong. Still searching.
RyanM – my recollection of this – having had one of these things, which was apart for several months at one point so I spent many hours staring at the car's open hood – was that the 9000 HVAC box was longer, less angular, and had none of the metal-channel attaching bracketry apparently hung on the far side of this one.
Maybe I'm wrong in some later model year, but that doesn't quite look right to me.
Excuse me, 900 HVAC box. Had a 9000 later, but it wasn't ever in parts that long.
Turbo Encabulator base plate? Made of prefabulated amulite!
No no, the frenzel vanes on that one aren't quite right. Plus, there's no dingle-arm.
Automotive A/C condenser cover with a drain hole…keeping in spirit of the Mr. Slim HVAC reference… Ford perhaps?
ashtray from a starstreak – or if not, should be
[img] i.imgur.com/ZH2FxKj.jpg?1[/img]
If only this were the winnah!
GM inner glove box assembly?
Cadillac HUD Night Vision Screen Monitor ?
Volvo 1800 air conditioning box.
Or Frigiking (spelling ?) dealer installed AC in some other car.
[img] google.com/url?sa=i&source=imgres&cd=&ved=0CAYQjBwwAGoVChMIi7a30cfExwIVhXuSCh2qXQdA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fi.ebayimg.com%2F00%2Fs%2FMTE5N1gxNjAw%2Fz%2FvNEAAOSweW5VKsOz%2F%24_1.JPG&ei=JYvcVcuPAoX3yQSqu52ABA&psig=AFQjCNFOCjIuluXlQtZyIvoo2FcbOIBqfw&ust=1440603301171737[/img]
Or maybe it's a Euro headlight enclosure of some point and he's playing games with us and rotating it 90 degrees.
rotate? – crikey, could be clockwise, counterclockwise, or anti-clockwise! – pure eeeeevil
Agreed. Challenges like this are pure evil. I'd have no idea what this was, what it did and which car it came from.
[img] i.imgur.com/suSQxDG.jpg?1[/img]
More Space Junk !
m.ebay.com/itm/2001-PONTIAC-AZTEK-Heads-Up-Display-HUD-Unit-OEM-10313084-g-/310787051857
Ding ding ding, looks like a winner. Who knew Aztek's had a HUD?
This comment has been removed by the author.
Oh Lord. Yeah, saw a lot of foolishness like that back in the day.
Memo to GM: do a decent vehicle first, mechanically competent, decent materials, design that doesn't send little children crying to their parents, BEFORE you start spending money on the froufrou crap.
I don't remember the interior of the Aztek, but I do remember that its Buick counterpart had a piece of 'textured aluminum' on the dash that looked like it came straight out of an inkjet printer.
And not a single one has recently sold per eBay's tools. Probably not worth repairing…
Wow, just wow. This part (on its own) looks so much like a malaise-era POS part from some huge Brougham or something. Says a lot about GM and its design ethos in the early 2000s.
I knew it was a heads up display, it took me a while to figure out which one.
[img] i.imgur.com/zHx0Ne8.gif?1[/img]
hugh crawford = WINNER!
Steve H = Honorary Street Cred!
Here is the Aztek HUD in the dash.
[img] i.imgur.com/c1P0F1L.jpg?1[/img]
Those of you that figured out that the image was rotated also deserve street cred. Awesome job!
Great job, Hugh! Well played.
K2, nicely done, keep 'em coming!
Thanks, Ben!
Video with an Aztek with the HUD. Skip to approximately 2:35.
youtube.com/watch?v=qkFx5KVcgao
Oooh! Big gray GM knobs and buttons!
GM really spent two decades hiring people from Playskool, didn't they?
"Sorry, guys, we're GM, you can't use primary colors here".
I think I vomited a little.
Wait, if someone is selling a replacement HUD unit, that implies that someone is repairing an Aztek. Sorry, I am not buying that story.
Anyway, good quiz K2. I am amazed at people's ability to solve these things.
Me too! Thanks.
I must say, one of my neighbors has one in primo condition. I'm sort of used to the sight of it now. There are other cars I find far more jarring, like the i3.
Ack, the i3… you had to go there after I ate, K2.
True story, I was at the Sherman Oaks Galleria oh maybe a year ago now and there was a BMW "product specialist" lady showing off a new i3 and answering questions from all comers. So I hopped in and was immediately drawn to the fact that the same material used to line the trunk lid on my 1998 Volvo was being used as actual touch-surface trim on the interior of the i3!
I asked the lady how much people had to pay for the privilege of being surrounded by such lush and expensive fabrics and she said $45 – $50k. In actual dollar bills. That was the beginning and the end of my interest in that automobile.
My apologies, RyanM. I hope your shoes remained clean. I'm sure there are many good things about the i3 but looks would not be on the list, in my opinion.
I seriously doubt there are any DTers out there that don't know which car we're talking about but if there are, here's a pic of what we're discussing. IMO, that's a seriously butter-faced car. When a blue line makes a car look better you got a prob, bud. Nice going, Benoit; hanging out with Bangle again? Stay away from that guy; he's bad news!
[img] i.imgur.com/YFdM4UT.jpg?1[/img]
Yep, just look at the cancerous mass he insisted on farming on that 7-series' bum!
[img] wired.com/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/2009/02/03/bmw_7series_banglebutt.jpg[/img]
"So I hopped in and was immediately drawn to the fact that the same material used to line the trunk lid on my 1998 Volvo was being used as actual touch-surface trim on the interior of the i3!"
It is also used in your more eye-wateringly expensive factory hotrod early 911s in lieu of carpet and upholstery.
Yeah, but in the 911 it's all about adding lightness vs. adding "green street cred and easier recyclability".