NeonLX

OMG, BlackViper, that is the beast, in all its ugliness. When I first glimpsed it in the mirror coming up on me, I thought it was a hyped up Honda Enema. As it passed me at around 85 MPH, I tried hard to get a glimpse of a nameplate but wasn't successful. The thing is FUGLY, no doubt about it.

We were traveling on the interstate over the weekend and a big, ugly-@ssed van came up behind us in a major hurry (we were only doing about 70 at the time, in the right lane). In the mirror, the front end looked like a Honda Element with a serious pituitary gland issue. It then zoomed by in the far left lane and I wasn't able to get a look at any emblems. It *might* have been a Nissan NV, but it was far uglier and more awkward-looking than any NV I'd seen before. P.S. I STILL haven't seen a new Dodge Dart under its own power.

Whoa! That Sunbird is awfully pricey, even with the "low miles".

Heh. That Sunbird is actually kind of cool.

...I should just sit down and shut up; they ain't designing this car for me. I'm freakin' old.

The 2008 model still looks great. The 2013 looks...well, "Japanese". I don't mean that in any kind of ethnic sense, I mean it in the sense of Honda-ish or Toyota-ish (emphasis on "ish"). Even the taillights look like they were cribbed from a Corolla to me. The styling, the rear seat squeeze, and the lack of an affordable V6 option have conspired to take the new Malibu completely out of the running for me.

Truly you've experienced a descent into one level of hell. It's funny (or maybe it ain't), but I'm "conservative" in an older sense of the word, as in I try to conserve--I don't drive the car unless absolutely necessary; I take public transit, bike or walk whenever possible. I HATE wasting miles on the car by commuting and fortunately, I have great bus service nearby. But I'm also an old redneck in many ways. Cars like the Prius, Leaf and so on vaguely piss me off. I haven't thought about why that is too much, but I think it might have to do with the fact that drivers of such vehicles get to feel all self righteous about their enlightened approach to automobiles or whatever, even though their vehicle still requires all of the infrastructure of any old automobile--millions of acres of paving for streets, highways and parking lots, huge concrete edifices called parking ramps hogging prime downtown real estate, and then all of the maintenace that goes along with this pavement and concrete--awful salt mixtures spread across thousands of miles of roads in the winter, all of the runoff, etc. And yeah, the Prius, Leaf et. al. still need to get their power from somewhere, and that power has to be generated, whether it be directly from fuel or indirectly via the electrical grid. Whatev. I'm just an old dude who likes his internal combustion engines and enjoys standing on the throttle once in awhile just to experience a bit of a rush that has echoes of a long-ago past, when gasoline was cheap and plentiful (but so was pollution!).

I think the badge on the back said, "IQ". Ha-Ha. Get it? Wish I hadn't quit drinking.

Looks to be a 1937-ish International, fer sure.

...if they had, I would have kept my eyes closed more. I have YET to see a Dodge Dart on the road, but I got accosted by this a few minutes ago:

The driver's ed car in my very rural high school was a 1970 Phord LTD. It was actually the instructor's personal car that the school paid for the use thereof. First day out, a girl named Lois put the thing in a ditch. Yikes.

That particular one is the only Smart car I've ever "liked".

They prolly don't need to use the ladder as much with that one.

Freddie Hart! http://youtu.be/vXQw6GvQRKU

I, for one, enjoy having some woodtone as part of a car's interior treatment. Warms things up considerably, in constrast to the sterile & techy-tacky metal surface designs.

I saw a new Volt sitting out in the employee parking lot this a.m. It's black. Don't know whose it is...

My favorite inline six, bar none. The earlier AMC 199/232/258/282* sixes were marvelous engines. I've had four different cars with 232s or 258s down through the years. ----------------------- * 282 was a Mexico-produced version with a whopping 3.92" bore. The rest of the AMC sixes had 3.75" bore with varying strokes. The Jeep 4.0L had a 3.875" bore.

I'd think about a modern Eagle wagon, but only if it was powered by the AMC/Jeep 4.0L inline six (or derivative thereof).

Yeah, I'm not liking it either. Again, part of that has to stem from the fact that I'm now a cranky old man. We are down to one vehicle now. I plan on keeping the Malibu running until it simply gets too expensive to keep operating. At that point, I may go looking for a "gently used' Impala or Sentra or sump'n'...or, I may jump back into a survivor from an earlier era, say that nice AMC Concord that is still for sale down the road from where I work. I'd hate to subject something like that to all of the salt and crap of winter driving around here, but the simple mechanicals of an inline six and Torqueflite auto tranny are kind of tempting. Yeah, I'll have to change plugs more often but who cares--everything is so dammed accessible! Of course, all bets are off if they implement mandatory annual testing. I might just ditch the idea of a personal automobile altogether at that point and rent when I need wheels beyond my bike and bus route.

OK, a real gobble spot: Walking to work this a.m., I was at an intersection waiting to cross. Two identical Volvo V70 wagons, each white with "Thule" carriers on top, passed me going in opposite directions, at exactly the same time. I didn't know whether that was a good omen or a bad one...

Heh. You can probably build a brand new 1930 JD tractor from the parts catalog. (I think you can also do it for a '57 Chevy and '65 Mustang too). Say, I wonder if the rest of board is gonna get fed up with our tractor talk?

Ha! Flywheel start! We had one of those too, not sure what model it was but I think it was a GP. It was my grandad's tractor and it mainly sat around doing nothing because it was on steel lugs. We'd start it a couple of times per year to keep things "freed up".

The 730 in the pic I posted is similarly soothing as the JD model A (the steady rhythm of that 2-cylinder engine). I'm one of those weirdos who likes a hand clutch, too! On edit: It is so cool to discover other tractor geeks here!

^^^^ Agree with ocnblu.