Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Thursday, June 6, 2019.
Wordless Outtake: 2008 Chevrolet Malibu – Too Little, Too Late
– Posted on June 7, 2019
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Curbside Classics Archives
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Thursday, June 6, 2019.
Guess the owner cinched it a little too tight
Gotta fit into those “compact” spaces somehow. 😀
Is that a car band-aid? I’ve never seen that before. Those Mailbus are some of the best looking cars out there to me and I’ll miss when they are gone.
That one looks like it just entered my price range…
It’s a removable bumper protector that many people who live in the city install to prevent against minor scrapes and dings usually associated with light, slow-speed “taps” from poor parallel parking. Clearly this car or the vehicle that hit it was going at a higher speed.
Makes me wonder if this damage didn’t happen while the bumper saver was on the car, and now it’s wedged into the wreckage and impossible to remove.
My Ford Escape looked the same when it was re-ended by a driver with no drivers license, no insurance, and the car was not his. He was distracted while texting on his cell phone!!
Took me 45 days before the insurance company of the owner of the car finally agreed to pay for repairs. The owner kept ducking the insurance company’s calls and letters concerning the accident.
Maybe the owner of the above car is waiting on a settlement.
Wait a minute, thinking about this I almost only ever see these things on the backs of cars in the city, including this one. Are these protectors being installed to theoretically protect their car from other people people bump parking, or are they installing it so they can bump park into other peoples cars without damaging their car? Perhaps this is the result of some retribution for the latter.
I’m also just noticing the rear bumper cover looks to have already been replaced at some point, note how it’s a shade darker than the body.
It’s a girdle. A Spanx for cars.
Does this outfit make my ass look fat?
And I wondered why companies that make these bumper guards feel the need to clarify that this piece of rubber “will not contribute to a vehicle’s crashworthiness or occupant safety”?
I live in a small town and don’t have to parallel park, but as bad as small scratches and small chips would bother me that black rubber monstrosity that can be seen from a mile away would bother me more.
Also it identifies the driver as a ” benny” ( anyone who is not a native of South Jersey )
It almost falls into the category of the cure being worse than the disease. I mean, if someone really wanted to completely protect their vehicle, wouldn’t they just completely cover it with maybe six inches of foam rubber?
It might protect it from minor dents and dings, but it would also be like driving around in a giant Nerf ball.
Just like the car bra “ I don’t want unsightly paint chips, so I cover the entire front end with a lumpy black piece of rubber”.
I was guilty of this one. 😂
These “Bumper Bullies” (I think that’s the brand name) are goofy. While I understand they serve a purpose, they make no sense to me in how they are used.
I commute between Baltimore and just north of DC on I-95. Nearly 100% of these things are on cars headed southbound with New York plates.
OK, I get it… parking in NYC is a contact sport. But you’re 2 states away in Maryland, driving a car with which you obviously care about its looks to have installed one of these eyesores…. and therein lies the contradiction….
TAKE THE DAMN THING OFF BEFORE YOU VENTURE OUT!!!! Especially, if you want to show off a car that you went out of your way to protect its appearance.
Nothing spoils the looks of a nice car than one of these monstrosities flapping in the breeze at 70MPH!
End of Rant. Sorry.
These Bumper Bullies, Bumper Badgers, and Bumper Defenders are quite commonly seen in NYC and environs.
This picture is sadly relevant to my life. An offspring’s really nice 98 Honda Civic which has been featured on these pages was in a nasty scrape within the last 48 hours from an incident involving an animal in the road and a tree just off it. The passenger side is now literally a wreck, although the doors still open and close.
The CC effect can be a bitch sometimes.
Oh, gosh. I am so sorry, JP.
These bumper protector things are relatively common in NYC. I always found them ugly and thought I’d probably just prefer the odd chip or scratch.
The Malibu, on the other hand, I love. This is almost identical to my friend Jason’s and these are actually genuinely nice. Particularly the interior, which has some nice materials and a cool design. They drive well too. The following Malibu had an even nicer interior but the exterior was uglied up a bit.
Classic GM. Finally get a mid-sized sedan right just when the segment is going into decline.