Editor’s note: Click here for the follow-up to this piece, with photos provided to us directly from Mr. Nabokov.
By Roger Boylan
Two of my lifelong interests come together in the person of Dmitri Nabokov, son of Vladimir: his father’s work (Lolita, Pale Fire, Ada, etc.), and cars. Dmitri is an authority on both, having assisted his father in the translation of the latter’s works from Russian and English into French and Italian (in all of which he is entirely fluent) and having raced cars for a living while, in counterpoint, touring the world as an opera singer–in which guise, singing basso, he debuted (awkward hybrid of a word) in 1961 in Bohème with Luciano Pavarotti. As a racing driver, he participated in most of the major European racing events, including the Mille Miglia, and in 1980, three years after his father’s death, he almost killed himself at the wheel of his rare fiberglass Ferrari 308 GTB on the Lausanne-Sion autoroute in Switzerland (within these parentheses, I add the parenthesis that this road is one of the most beautiful in the world). Most recently, he has been instrumental in letting us, the public, get a look at his father’s last, unfinished novel, The Original of Laura against VN’s express wishes. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve requested a copy from Santa. (I’ve gone back and forth on this whole issue but have finally concluded that Dmitri was right. If VN had really wanted the manuscript–actually, index cards—destroyed, he would have done so himself).
In a move that has made some dealers howl with anger, General Motors has sent out direct mail pieces to customers of terminated dealers that offer discount certificates of as much as $2000 USD on a new GM vehicle.
Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri has reported that a former Ford Motor Company board member is leading a consortium that intends to offer a bid for Volvo this week.
The United States Labor Department is reporting that used car prices rose 3.4% in October, the sharpest monthly increase in 29 years.
After years of insisting to journalists and the general public that its vehicles had quality on par with its rivals, and that the problem was, instead, just a matter of “perception gap,” two top executives made remarkable statements today that threw all of that out the window.
Recent news that GM will be bringing the lauded Opel Insignia to the US as a Buick Regal has been met largely with praise. Having recently traveled to Europe, I’ve seen plenty of Insignia sedan and wagon variants on the road, and, to my eyes, they look great. The Insignia is a good-looking vehicle in both sedan and wagon form, and it has been largely unadulterated in translation to Buick, with the same striking interior and body lines; only the front fascia is notably different. Slated to be available with normally-aspirated and turbocharged four-cylinder powerplants (with enthusiasts hoping for even more poweful OPC-based variants in the future), the Buick Regal will be an economical and spacious family sedan which should be more fun to drive than anything wearing Buick’s shield logo since the GNX a quarter century ago.
Renault has revealed its master plan to help save troubled Russian car maker Lada – simply improve the current product.
