I need to buy cars more often...

We went to Branson over the weekend, and due to a broken power window in my wife's car, we had to take mine. It was an ok trip, the front visor over the window that looks really cool tends to make a lot of noise in the wind -- but we dealt with it. It was the hills around Branson that proved to be an eye-opener.

Like any other even remotely usable car, the Cruiser has cruise control. I'm old enough to remember when those first came out -- a control box you mounted up by the engine, you plugged the speedometer cable from the car to the box, then another one from the box to the dash. Then you hooked up the unit that actually pulled on the accelerator cable, a wire to the battery, a hose to the engine vacuum, and one cable to the little box on the turn signal. That was it, the control box counted how fast the speedometer cable was going, and if it started going slower, it would yank on the gas pedal -- faster it would let go of the gas pedal. Pretty simple. My old Cavalier worked that way, all my wife's old Pontiac's, the Tbird, and the Le Sabre -- all the same. Not the cruiser...

I noticed something strange going on while going up and down the hills -- the car didn't behave like I was expecting it to. Turns out, when going downhill, the cruise control will actually kick the transmission down into a lower gear to try to slow the car down. If that doesn't work, it will even apply the brakes! This, in a car with no traction control (that I know of) and no anti-lock brakes.

I'm not sure if I like that or not...