trinacriabob

Right, the leisure and discretionary sectors have probably been the hardest hit. People need that stuff to keep their heads screwed on straight. It's weird to be inside an airplane or public transit with so many seats blocked off. The airlines have to fly planes that are, more or less, mostly full to be profitable. I have a feeling that, if normalcy comes, there will be a huge surge in travel and it might be difficult to find airplane seats and hotel rooms at times. Pent up demand can work in strange ways.

Meant to say: Driving down a major street ... * sleep in my eyes ... and on the brain *

Minding down a major street on October 25, minding my own business, and I see this: You bet I was going to pull over to this exotic car dealer that I normally wouldn't pull over to. I was wondering if this is a custom paint. And what the person's motivation for ordering or choosing this car might be. I went to the Bentley website. It's a legitimate color: Jetstream II. This is one pompous car. You can build one on the website, but it won't give you a price. All of the verbiage, such as "colour," is in English for the posh folks. The experience mentally sent me running to the Dodge dealer down the street.

What I really came onto the forum to say tonight ... About a year and a half ago, I bought a sofa and another upholstered piece for the living room. Given my control oriented nature, I ordered it. I hate that the trendy thing is to have pillows that have some wild pattern when the body color of a sofa or a chair is solid. So I ordered everything solid. This salesman, who was younger but NOT pushy, helped me with selecting the upholstery while I had the model/frame already selected. The fact that he didn't push me when I first went into the store to look around is what got him the sale. The items arrived early, were set up, and they looked better than I could have imagined. I sent him a brief e-mail thanking him and telling him how good they looked and attached a photo of each of the two pieces. No response. Tonight, I went in there since I am tentatively looking for another piece for another room. He was there. I hope he didn't see me. I talked to the salesperson who greeted me. (I learned covid has pushed delivery times for factory orders back in a big way.) My attitude is that if the previous salesman couldn't respond with "thank you" or "glad to have helped" like a person with the minimal people skills for sales, I shouldn't be that concerned whether or not he got my business in the future.

I believe you are correct. I know someone in the Sunbelt who bought a simplistic RWD big Chevy or GMC truck 2 or 3 years ago (new, for a great price) and he told me he had a six under the hood. This is a person who builds and repairs things, yet he couldn't tell me which engine was under the hood. I asked him if I could raise the hood and look around. It was a 4.3 or 4300 V6. How would he not know that? The change is that, since it was introduced, it is now an all aluminum (heads and block) engine. Also, TBI gave way to Bosch injectors, I'm sure. I guess that, with steel sleeves lining the cylinder walls, this technology became reliable. As for dogs, I was in Europe and there was this guy holding a puppy at the entrance to his bar - which really means espresso joint. I asked him, in HIS language, what kind of dog it was. His response was pronounced as "Chuck Russ." I asked him for the third time, and he then included the suffix "terrier." I then said, "Oh, Jack Russell terrier." Affirmative. This puppy licked my hand.

So this means they were not available to the Australian market? If it was available to another LHD market, it could have been sourced there. Admittedly, this F-bird had some nice things about it - the silhouette, the dash, the cowl ... and the way the round gauges were inset into individual square "plates" on the dash was sort of cool. But, yes, converting it to RHD would be absurd. It would be more sensible to invest the moolah in moving to the U.S. - with an equity bump from a nice part of Sydney or other costly big Aussie city, it would be doable. Given its weight, I assume it would perform much like a 105 hp or 110 hp base engine powered colonnade Cutlass or Regal. One could comfortably commute in them. They could even merge onto freeways in normal conditions. They were harder to work with on long grades (i.e. the Grapevine), high speed passes, and slalom-like maneuvers requiring quick acceleration in crowded traffic or on ramps. I read that some MYs of it had trouble with engine bearings or other main engine component. I read about it in relation to the earlier squarish Luminas where the 2.5 was the base powerplant. In a weird way, I sort of liked those early Lumina coupes (and NOT the ones that the Monte Carlo was hatched from for a few years).

These were rare, with the 2.5 L (151 c.i.) "Iron Duke" 4 cylinder. I believe it's half a 301 V8, or something like that. The notion of a cast iron block and cast iron head 4 cylinder engine was talked up by Pontiac in pitching this engine is some of its cars. I couldn't believe this '82 F-Bird car was in Australia. When they did the walk around, it was in fact right drive. So, I guess the F-body made it "Down Under." It must have been a low mileage unit. The sound of the engine was decent at both idle and when being driven around and being pushed through its automatic gears. But I heard that the "Iron Dukes" did not fare well over the long haul. (They went away and were replaced by Ecotec 4 cylinders.) At 1:00, you can see the words fuel injection on the door handle, meaning it had the TBI 4 cylinder. Even though the headlamps often didn't pop up after several years, and they had lots of similar quirks to deal with, this F-body, in terms of its silhouette, was a good looking car.

Telepathy? I just found this great YouTube on an entry level FB of this genre "down under."

Ho hum post about October 24 sightings: I usually dislike alloy wheels that are not stock. Some look downright pimpy. However, these work very well on this LaX They got it right ... and it came and went in a flash. And did a number on Lordstown. This turned out to be a real nice handling and riding car for the size and the price point that one would have understandably been waiting for a more upline Buick Verano to be further refined and put onto this same platform.

The wheels on this one seem better than the color keyed ones. For a while, Olds was running the alloy options that weren't body colored on Cutlasses. I thought they looked better. I like the ones below even better than the ones we saw on Olds products in the mid '70s: They just need to be cleaned up.

Precor makes the best ellipticals and treadmills IMHO. They're the only ones on which I am able to complete a routine I start. I've gotten used to their settings over the years.

Labradoodles and goldendoodles are now fairly established. I don't know much about their pros and cons. These are now called "designer" dog breeds, specifically bred to cross two sets of qualities they want to combine. Within the last week, I saw a photo of a combination of a Bernese Mountain Dog (one of the best dogs around) with a poodle. You should have seen the price on it. It was a beautiful dog. Dogs are not cheap these days. Someone explained to me that, since people are increasingly warming up to the reality that, in shorthand, people suck, the demand for household pets, and especially select breeds, has gone up.

Spotted on October 13 Vista Cruiser wagon by Olds Hard to explain: engine note sounded typical of Olds, but not like that quieter woosh sound of when their V8s were new(er). My 350 kept the quieter exhaust note to beyond 170,000 miles ... because exhaust components were kept up? Those wheels don't look stock to this model, or are they?

Even though it won't be happening, I could use something like an old school GM 4.3 V6 with TBI under the hood of my next car.

I didn't get much buy-in to the sun dried tomato salad dressing I once posted and raved about. I know tomatoes can be acidic. How about this variety? Incredible.

They look like they could inadvertently snap at someone ... as in "Surprise!"

Man. I didn't say I liked her or didn't like her. I just was capitalizing on posting that vintage photo that has made me laugh for years and years. And I had to get a "down vote" for doing so. Too funny.

October 26 seemed like a familiar date. Then the light bulb went on. It's Hillary's birthday. Happy birthday, Hillary. Some people just keep on hitting the wall harder and harder. For others, they're not getting older, they're getting better.

I am a sucker for these animal stories and videos, though more so when they are about dogs. I like this one, too, about a goofy dog hopping onto a bus in Finland: https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/dog-rides-bus-alone He didn't sit down. He stood on the seats. At least he didn't have a boom box with him.

That's a trippy choice for a college student. The dad and the son must be free thinkers who don't need conformity to guide them. - - - - - Well, something had to sour the trip. Here it is ... spotted on October 8: the car for free thinkers who aren't such free thinkers.

I chose the laugh icon because I'd be afraid to feed it. The mpg I got between Tampa Bay and Orlando in that base Charger sold me on the 3.6.

I realize I captioned a photo up above incorrectly. The engine bay has a 3.6, and not a 3.5. They will obviously have some money in the budget to fine tune these vehicles' styling and amenities for the next 3 years. I hope they take them in the right direction. Sometimes, there is some floundering and wavering with how they change things up. Take the 300. I liked the clean, horizontal grille of this mid-decade more so than the later and current blacked out eggcrate/honeycomb grille. I think that these platforms are continuing on for a few reasons. FCA may have some hesitation about the next moves with this platform and may be buying time. With GM and Ford leaving this segment, they have it to themselves among domestic brands. Police fleets and rental car companies, as well as die-hard fans of this platform, will buy them again. In consumers sounding off, quite a few have stepped up from one Charger to another one, or one 300 to another one, over the last dozen or so years.

Yes, in the DTS, too. And Parks and LeSabres of that era. I liked them in that they made interiors look less cluttered.

You make no sense and I don't get the humor. I can't possibly remember the old vehicles from "The Godfather" except that the "cannoli car" was big, American, bulbous, and about that color. - - - - - Spotted on October 7 near the Straits of Mackinac Bridge, a wonderful area. I did it again ... you know, some interior photos. I've got a soft spot for the Bonnes, given that I was invited to a car clinic where I got to drive one on a test track with pylons when newly released. I was surprised I liked it as much as I did and that it handled nimbly for its size. I can't tell the years on these Bonnes. Most of the ones I see seem to be this color, silver, or white. This one has too much ribbed side cladding. I think the automatic lamps in my vehicle light up the rear light bar on the Bonne since it was late in the afternoon Busy interior and dashboard and Pontiac sure liked to put circular vents and gauges anywhere they could. That extra pod with climate control vents scabbed on to the right of the center stack has always looked weird but, otherwise, the dash is cool. This interior is super comfortable and supportive, I'm sure. This is the only car I can think of where the seat belts were anchored to the seat, and not to a pillar or structure that is not part of the seat. I wonder why that was discontinued and how well that worked, but I've always thought it was an interesting set-up. And I also like the perforated headrests, which were also found in Grand Prixs during that span of years.

Thank you for using the word concrete. Meh ... I know you know the score on this topic. Quite a few learned people tend to use the word cement for it. It's probably even the most common way to refer to it. However, it is okay to use if you're the Clampitts and have a "cement pond."