Random Thoughts Thread

[ocnblu]

I worked at a Chevy-Pontiac-GMC-Oldsmobile-Buick-Cadillac dealership for 10 years.

[trinacriabob]

4 hours ago, ocnblu said:

I worked at a Chevy-Pontiac-GMC-Oldsmobile-Buick-Cadillac dealership for 10 years.

With all the horse and buggy combos in your neck of the woods, they can definitely consolidate the GM brands.

[ocnblu]

9 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

With all the horse and buggy combos in your neck of the woods, they can definitely consolidate the GM brands.

This was in Easton, MD./joke averted

Edited June 17, 2020 by ocnblu

[balthazar]

Lamoille Iowa 1939 :

[trinacriabob]

This could be a sighting, but it's also something I saw quite a while back when I was across the pond, did not and do not know what it is, and found odd

[balthazar]

^ I believe that's a Dethtrapp 2000.

[daves87rs]

2 hours ago, balthazar said:

^ I believe that's a Dethtrapp 2000.

Yep....

[ocnblu]

6 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

This could be a sighting, but it's also something I saw quite a while back when I was across the pond, did not and do not know what it is, and found odd

It's the sexy Renault Twizy EV, the future of personal transport *chokes on own vomit*

[trinacriabob]

3 hours ago, ocnblu said:

It's the sexy Renault Twizy EV

The emblem was indeed Renault.  This thing is goofy.  (At least its rear lights are very much at eye level.)

[balthazar]

Now everything is :

[daves87rs]

8 hours ago, balthazar said:

Now everything is :

Makes me wonder how they held up....

[oldshurst442]

14 minutes ago, daves87rs said:

Makes me wonder how they held up....

Buick is barely alive.

SAAB is dead.

Porsche is creating CUVs to chase volume, and peddling those CUVs to the world's LEAST interested in any kind of enthusiast criteria and while their turbo 911 is one of the world's most capable and fun cars around, it means little when Porsche's image now is all about cup holder ergonomics and rich  bitch, entitled whiny white female -Karens- (as opposed to their lesser priced VW and Audi counterparts that cater to entitled whiny white bitch female -Karens-)  

So...not too well as it may. 

 

 

[frogger]

28 minutes ago, oldshurst442 said:

Buick is barely alive.

SAAB is dead.

Porsche is creating CUVs to chase volume, and peddling those CUVs to the world's LEAST interested in any kind of enthusiast criteria and while their turbo 911 is one of the world's most capable and fun cars around, it means little when Porsche's image now is all about cup holder ergonomics and rich  bitch, entitled whiny white female -Karens- (as opposed to their lesser priced VW and Audi counterparts that cater to entitled whiny white bitch female -Karens-)  

So...not too well as it may. 

 

 

Wow, forgot to take your pills?  Such a stupid post or I missed the tongue in cheek.  Just live to stereotype don't you..

[oldshurst442]

12 minutes ago, frogger said:

Wow, forgot to take your pills?  Such a stupid post or I missed the tongue in cheek.  Just live to stereotype don't you..

Maybe you need to fancy some humour?

I dunno. You had a rough day?

Or are you an insufferable, bitchy white male yourself? 

 

You know...

PHOQUE YOU!!! 

White females being Karens is a phoquing meme...   It exists on the phoquing internet...as a phoquing joke...

https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/karen/

 

For a guy that wants to shame me for internet stereotypes...you sure represent a male version of Karen...

Way to go to quell THAT stereotype...

Go talk to my manager. His number is 1-800-eat-shyt

Now go and petition so I could lose my job. Get canceled from my  internet persona forum... 

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by oldshurst442

[oldshurst442]

 

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by oldshurst442

[daves87rs]

4 hours ago, oldshurst442 said:

Buick is barely alive.

SAAB is dead.

Porsche is creating CUVs to chase volume, and peddling those CUVs to the world's LEAST interested in any kind of enthusiast criteria and while their turbo 911 is one of the world's most capable and fun cars around, it means little when Porsche's image now is all about cup holder ergonomics and rich  bitch, entitled whiny white female -Karens- (as opposed to their lesser priced VW and Audi counterparts that cater to entitled whiny white bitch female -Karens-)  

So...not too well as it may. 

 

 

I meant the Buicks themselves.... ? . I know early turbos had to be cared for...easier to break if abused. Though those turbo SAABs did quite well....... have a neighbor down my street with a 98 with 220k on it with no engine/turbo work....

[balthazar]

Used to see saabs in the ‘90s and into the ‘00s, but they all-llll gone now.

[ocnblu]

1 minute ago, balthazar said:

Used to see saabs in the ‘90s and into the ‘00s, but they all-llll gone now.

Is that the story you're going with?

 

[Robert Hall]

There are many things

[riviera74]

Given the question of those turbocharged 1978 Buick Regals, I wonder how long the current crop of Buick CUVs (with their turbocharged 4cyl) will last in 20 years (Enclave aside).

[balthazar]

^ Should last as long as any other general turbo'd vehicle.
Again I point to the random guy who promised me my turbo would "explode" at 75K miles; I just turned 199K yesterday.

[balthazar]

I miss Plymouth quite a lot.
'57-58 may have been their peak, stylistically- the Division punched way above their price class with that generation.
And this one doesn't even have the optional bumper wings.

Edited June 20, 2020 by balthazar

[riviera74]

Blame the 90s and the merger with Daimler for the death of Plymouth.  Same thing happened to Eagle after Chrysler bought AMC in 1988.

[balthazar]

Daimler really raped Chrysler over.

Eagle tho: just rebadges.

[Robert Hall]

1 hour ago, balthazar said:

Daimler really raped Chrysler over.

Eagle tho: just rebadges.

 

1 hour ago, riviera74 said:

Blame the 90s and the merger with Daimler for the death of Plymouth.  Same thing happened to Eagle after Chrysler bought AMC in 1988.

Different scenario, though.  The Eagle brand didn't exist until after Chrysler bought AMC--it's various models were based on Renaults (Premier and Medallion), Mitsubishis (Summit, Vista, Talon, 2000GTX) and a Chrysler corp model (Vision).    The brand took it's name from the AMC Eagle which was the last old AMC model still around at time of the merger.

[trinacriabob]

On 6/18/2020 at 7:09 PM, daves87rs said:

Makes me wonder how they held up....

I wondered the same thing.  There was an awful lot of hardware taking up engine bay space with yesteryear's turbocharged engines.  

- - - - -

Happy Father's Day to those who have taken on the challenge of raising a rugrat or two ... or three ... and giving it their best.

[balthazar]

Porsche Panamera :

[daves87rs]

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads... ? 

[USA-1]

'81 Eagle Sundancer Conv. conversion model, only built in '81 and '82. Pretty unique, how many can say they own a convertible 4x4 Coupe with decent ground clearance?

Nice vanity plate too, "81 4x4".

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Eagle#Sundancer_convertibles

 

[Robert Hall]

Eagles were neat..always liked them..I've heard of the Sundancer, never seen one..the regular production Eagles were made in 5 body styles for a model year or two..

Edited June 22, 2020 by Robert Hall

[USA-1]

Yep, one of my Grandma's had a two tone blue/white wagon with the bullet proof 4.2L I-6. Needed the 4x4 to get up a gravel hill to the house and property and the wagon for groceries and dogs. It was a solid pretty reliable 4x4 wagon er uh..early 4x4 CUV I guess ha. Like below just dark blue bottom section.

Edited June 22, 2020 by USA-1

[oldshurst442]

It feels good venting.  Im glad I got that off my chest.

I could be happy again. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by oldshurst442

[balthazar]

^ Screams at inside of closet door, emerges smiling (with just a subtle tic at one eye).  We've all been there.

There's always High Art for solace :
 

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by balthazar

[daves87rs]

Right now, venting is a very healthy thing......

[G. David Felt]

Happy Post Father's day to all the dads out there. 

Mine was great with my kids.

In regards to auto's, Plymouth I see no lose in the auto line not being around. AMC, I miss as they were the first true CUV company of off road auto's that stood out. Quirky and cool before everyone wanted one today.

[ccap41]

Hello gents, 

Hows this place been the last few months? Anything new? Anybody buy something new? 

[ykX]

29 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

Hello gents, 

Hows this place been the last few months? Anything new? Anybody buy something new? 

Where were you, quarantine from C&G?  This place can be toxic sometimes but I don't think it has coronavirus

[ccap41]

8 minutes ago, ykX said:

Where were you, quarantine from C&G?  This place can be toxic sometimes but I don't think it has coronavirus

Haha just working from home and with remoting in everything was so slow I didn't really have much chance to get on here.

[ocnblu]

yo ccap

[daves87rs]

Good to see you back!!!

[balthazar]

It's seldom a new factoid comes my way about post-war American cars (up to circa 1980).
This is one I just learned : first gen Rivieras have detachable door skins, so the door internals can be accessed / serviced. Never saw this on any other car.

[balthazar]

On 6/8/2020 at 11:11 PM, smk4565 said:

Duesenberg disappeared partly because the wealthy didn't want to be seen flaunting wealth in the depression.  Also FDR raised the top tier tax rate to 94%  by 1941 so he basically put a limit on income because no one would make salary over that cap.  Today with a 37% top tax rate, and even at that the billionaires aren't paying, you have these super wealthy that was not as widespread decades ago.

Also these big corporations bet government bailouts all the time.  The billionaires won't be hurt at all by Covid-19, riots, looking, etc, because the system is rigged for them.  

I'm a grow the economy fro the bottom up kind of guy and would love a modern day FDR tax code, but that isn't what we have.  The 3 richest Americans have more money than the poorest 160 million Americans combined. So it isn't the rich that hurt, it is that 160 million people that do.

'41 top tax rate was actually 88%. It did hit 94% in '44 & '45, then edged down a bit to 91% in '46 - thru the '50s.
Had to pay for the War. It was 81% in '39, 79% in '38-'34.

All these numbers are too high, and none of them prevented new millionaires from being made.
It was 91% in 1960, and the number of millionaires grew by 600+% from '44 to '60.
'Not wanting to be seen in rich cars in the '30s' was a social construct, not a Gov't-sourced one.

It's not about 'rigging', tho it would be if Gov'ts confiscated wealth in order to fatten their own pockets. Big Gov't is by far the most wildly inefficient manager of money in the known universe. No accountability, no sense of reality.

And if "big corporations don't pay taxes" and "Millionaires / billionaires don't pay taxes" and the bottom 47% don't pay taxes.....
WHO'S LEFT? Where does the richest corporation in the US, the IRS, get it's $3.5 TRILLION from?

[daves87rs]

2 hours ago, balthazar said:

It's seldom a new factoid comes my way about post-war American cars (up to circa 1980).
This is one I just learned : first gen Rivieras have detachable door skins, so the door internals can be accessed / serviced. Never saw this on any other car.

That is pretty cool!!

[ocnblu]

Nowhere near as early, but Volkswagen had that feature on the Mk V Rabbit/Golf/Jetta, and Saturn's S-Series was that way.

[balthazar]

[ccap41]

17 hours ago, ocnblu said:

yo ccap

13 hours ago, daves87rs said:

Good to see you back!!!

[trinacriabob]

On 6/21/2020 at 7:40 PM, USA-1 said:

'81 Eagle Sundancer Conv. conversion model, only built in '81 and '82. Pretty unique, how many can say they own a convertible 4x4 Coupe with decent ground clearance?

Nice vanity plate too, "81 4x4".

 

 

Georgia plates!  If I recall, Georgia has something like 148 counties.  California definitely only has 58.  The Atlanta metro area is counted so many different ways, with some far flung hick and unpopulated counties sometimes thrown into the expanded equation.  As far as I'm concerned, the bulk of Metro Atlanta lies in the counties of Fulton (city of Atlanta is within it), DeKalk, Cobb, Gwinnett, and Clayton (where the airport is).  The others are more tentative.  Still ... 148 counties seems wasteful.  Even Florida has nowhere near that many.

Also, this sled ^ makes more sense in Florida than it does in Georgia.

[Robert Hall]

13 minutes ago, trinacriabob said:

Georgia plates!  If I recall, Georgia has something like 148 counties.   

159, 2nd only to Texas which has 254. If memory serves me, Ohio has 88..I had to memorize them and facts about each in my Ohio history class in school 35+ years ago...Ohio used to have stickers on the license plates spelling out the county name,  when I moved here 3 years ago they were using  county number stickers instead of name stickers.   Then in 2018, they switched back to county name stickers..go figure.

[G. David Felt]

14 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

159, 2nd only to Texas which has 254. If memory serves me, Ohio has 88..I had to memorize them and facts about each in my Ohio history class in school 35+ years ago...Ohio used to have stickers on the license plates spelling out the county name,  when I moved here 3 years ago they were using  county number stickers instead of name stickers.   Then in 2018, they switched back to county name stickers..go figure.

Lucky me, Washington only has 31 and like you we had to memorize them and what was the key product for each county. ? Lucky we do not state what county your from, but they do ask the name of the county your in which is weird to out of state transplants as everything here is Indian terms. So I live in Snohomish County. 

[Robert Hall]

1 minute ago, dfelt said:

Lucky me, Washington only has 31 and like you we had to memorize them and what was the key product for each county. ? Lucky we do not state what county your from, but they do ask the name of the county your in which is weird to out of state transplants as everything here is Indian terms. So I live in Snohomish County. 

Several Ohio counties have Indian names, I grew up in Tuscarawas County, now live in Cuyahoga County..