Monday, August 10, 2026
the rich people around London are pushing for more scrutiny from London Metro Police to bust hooligans... and a Dubai-registered Ferrari Monza SP2, (1 of 499 made, worth 4M), was confiscated because it was uninsured and the driver wasn't properly licsensed
what a ROTTEN BRAT! (unless, it was an autistic kid, that is of course, the obvious understandable exception when "rotten brat" does not apply)
A flight in Canada had to be canceled last week after a young child stood on their seat and refused to put on their seat belt for takeoff
The Porter Airlines flight was set to take off from Victoria International Airport in British Columbia to Toronto Thursday night, but it could not depart as a safety precaution due to the child, Brad Cicero, a spokesperson for the airline, said in a statement. The airplane had left the terminal and was on the runway, but despite efforts from the child's parent and cabin crew, the child would not sit down or allow their seat belt to be secured.
Flight attendants opted to return to the terminal and deplane all passengers because the time it would have taken to bridge the plane, deplane the child and parent, retrieve their baggage and refile paperwork would have caused the plane to depart too late. The runway at Victoria's airport closes at 12:30 a.m., and the flight was initially scheduled for an 11:03 p.m. departure.
Flight attendants opted to return to the terminal and deplane all passengers because the time it would have taken to bridge the plane, deplane the child and parent, retrieve their baggage and refile paperwork would have caused the plane to depart too late. The runway at Victoria's airport closes at 12:30 a.m., and the flight was initially scheduled for an 11:03 p.m. departure.
Sunday, August 09, 2026
1977 Ford Bronco Stroppe Ambulance built by Bill Stroppe himself as part of Ford's "Limited Edition Sail" promotion, which was an effort to set a cross-country hot air balloon flight record back in 1977.
Hot air balloonist Karl Thomas was at the helm of the obscure promotional balloon, and his plan was to fly from Los Angeles, California, to Daytona Beach, Florida, in under 41 days to break the prior record.
Unfortunately, that record-breaking flight never materialized. Thomas was blown off-course and landed somewhere in Mexico, and though Henry Ford II allegedly campaigned for the stunt to be abandoned, eventually, the balloon made it to Jacksonville, Florida. However, though the journey was technically completed in 18 days, it didn't count as a record-breaking run due to technicalities with the recording process. And, allegedly, Stroppe himself collected eight speeding tickets while chasing the balloon.
https://fordauthority.com/2026/08/1977-ford-bronco-stroppe-ambulance-live-photo-gallery
once again, a federal circuit court of appeals has weighed in on "are personalized license plates (“vanity plates”) government speech or private speech" (1st amendment protected free speech the govt can NOT interfere with) Thank you Capt Doug!
In the case of Whateley v Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
"Does Virginia
speak for itself through the character combinations on the personalized plates it issues – in
which case, it is entitled to express the views of its choice?
Or do Virginia’s personalized
plates convey the private speech of drivers like Whateley – in which case, government
restrictions on that speech must pass muster under the First Amendment?"
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Virginia’s personalized license plate messages ARE private (free) speech subject to 1st
Amendment protection the govt may not censor
And of course, the starched shirts in state govt won't have any free speech go uncensored, and immediately replied that this will be appealed to the Supreme Court
“The commonwealth has a responsibility to ensure that state-issued license plates are not profane and do not promote dangerous hate speech or incite harm,” said RaeAnn Pickett, a spokeswoman for Jay Jones, the state’s attorney general.
Seemingly ignorant, or deliberately overlooking the implication that the govt by this rationale, has the responsibility of not promoting and inciting harm, which, clearly no govt entity I'm aware of operates with any concern about promoting hate and inciting harm/riots (see history of US Govt, and state govt, and police departments, operating with racism and prejudice against blacks and native Americans (2/3rds vote, slavery, police tactics in the March to Selma, pepper spray on nonviolent protesters during the past decade https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search?q=pepper+spray etc etc ad nauseum )
Saturday, August 08, 2026
Truck's Top, Ted Polomis
I just learned that yesterday was Purple Heart Day
Thank you George! His time as a Huey Gunship side door gunner resulted in 2 purple hearts.
There are other regular readers that also received Purple Hearts, and I regret that I have not become well enough acquainted with them, to where I know them by name and can thank them by name, also.
There are other regular readers that also received Purple Hearts, and I regret that I have not become well enough acquainted with them, to where I know them by name and can thank them by name, also.
I just learned that John Force and I both have May 4th for our birthdays!
I already knew Audrey Hepburn, because before the internet, she was the only one famous enough to be mentioned on Entertainment Tonight's daily celebrity birthday announcements
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Force John was born in 49, same year as my mom
Now that the internet has data gathered all the info and stats, it's a matter of just asking an AI program who was born on any particular day, to learn about the celebs that share your birthday.
So, here are some others that I share my birthday with, just fwiw
Richard Jenkins (terrific role in Cabin In The Woods)
Will Arnett (most fun Batman!)
Randy Travis
Mick Mars
writer Robin Cook, most famous for Coma (1977) OutBreak (1987)
Dick Dale (Misirlou)
Prescott Hill Climb by VSCC, and the 1st car is Spider, a Graham Nash 'Shelsey Special' I posted about in 2015
Spider was inspired by the success of 'Kim', a GN produced by Frazer-Nash in 1922. This was, incidently, the first of the 'Shelsley Specials' of which there are or have been 50 to date. Davenport obtained various GN parts from Frazer Nash and fitted a 1087cc prototype Vitesse engine.
In 1924 Davenport visited the Nash works at Kingston where L A Cushman, Capt Nash's mechanic, suggested that he buy the 1500cc engine out of 'Mowgli' which had lapped Brooklands at 92mph. This 1500cc twin was the only one of its type ever made - 4 valves, 2 plugs per cylinder, bore 89mm stroke 120mm, 2 magnetos and 1 Solex carburettor.
This car gave Davenport great success especially at Shelsley.
Spiders 1 and 2 are, indeed, seen annually at Shelsley and other venues. Indeed Spider 1 appeared at the Entretat hillclimb in France this year. At the Shelsley Walsh Centenary in August David Leigh went up the hill in Spider 1 wearing a brown 'cow gown' symbolic of Basil Davenports 'mechanics' clothes.
http://www.prewarcar.com/magazine/un-solved-mysteries/the-mowgli-mystery-update-now-there-are-two-see-read-more-001754.html via https://www.facebook.com/marc.tudeau?fref=nf
https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/10/mowgli-and-its-hill-climbing-mastery.html
geta load of this... the jumping of the St Lawrence River inspired a movie!
they chose a 67 Barracuda for this new Tuturro movie, that also stars Steve Buscemi and Giancarlo Esposito
this is making the Hollywood car of choice recently, the 2nd generation Plymouth Barracuda... John Wick and Black Panther 2 had gen 3s, that series Poker Face with Natasha Lyonne, and the movie Enforcer with Antonio Banderas, and the documentary with Ethan Hawke about Merle Haggard, a 67 in the Megan Fox movie Subservience, that makes 4 with a gen 2 and 2 with a gen 3
Friday, August 07, 2026
a moment to celebrate the genius, and fortitude, of Charles Harrison, it's a lot to read, but worth it.
He designed the modern plastic garbage can, and the world is a quieter, nicer place.
Until the early sixties a household can was round and made of galvanized steel. It dented when you dropped it, it rusted through at the seam, and empty it was heavy enough that hauling it to the curb was a two-handed job for whoever in the house got stuck with the chore.
And it rang. Every alley in America woke to metal on concrete and metal on truck, five or six mornings a month, before anybody in the house had eaten.
Harrison and another Sears man started asking whether polypropylene could be molded at that size. Nothing that large had ever come out of that process, so there was nobody to ask and no example to copy.
He drew it in 1963, rectangular instead of round so it would sit flat against a wall. He put wheels underneath, so a woman or a child could move it without help. (Has wheels and is cool!)
Then he took the noise out.
It went everywhere, into alleys and driveways and behind restaurants and schools, and it is the reason the bin outside your house has the shape it has. Harrison described the achievement without any ceremony at all.
"No more clang-clang of metal before breakfast."
That can was one object among hundreds, and he drew eight to twelve Sears sewing machines a year for twelve straight years. On a working day he could put one or two product ideas on paper every hour.
Blenders and baby cribs, hair dryers and hedge clippers, riding mowers, cordless shavers, barber chairs, transistor radios, the measuring cup you can see through. He made the Kenmore sewing machines lighter by moving them to die-cast aluminum, and by his own account practically every product in the Sears line passed through his hands at one point or another.
He rose from staff designer in 1961 to Sears Roebuck's chief of design.
He was a salaried designer, which meant the company owned the drawings. They went out into the world wearing the company's brands, and the households reading those catalog pages never learned whose hand was behind the objects arriving at their door.
In 1979, he was taken out of the design department, and promoted to Group Laboratory Manager. The purpose was to provide technical support to a specific merchandise group from the Chicago headquarters, but servicing Sears all over the world. He was the manager for a merchandising section, which included automotive, sporting goods, tires, and batteries.
In 1993 Sears shut the in-house design department down completely. Harrison was the last industrial designer to walk out of the building, after thirty-two years. He was the company's first black executive.
In recognition of his impactful and groundbreaking career, Harrison received the National Design Award for lifetime achievement from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in 2008 and an honorary doctorate from SAIC in 2009.
Martha Stewart introduced him at the gala and told the room she had learned to sew on a Kenmore machine. He had drawn eight to twelve of those a year for twelve years, so the odds were good that the machine in her story had come off his board.
Charles Harrison had come back from the Army in 1956 with a bachelor's degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and two years of military drafting behind him. The Army had trained him as a cartographer and sent him to West Germany to help redraw the maps of a country that had recently finished tearing itself and half a continent apart.
He was the only Black draftsman in his topographic unit. He spent two years making a wrecked place legible again, and then he came home and could not get hired to draw a toaster.
I share stories like Charles Harrison’s because history belongs not only to famous products and brands, but also to the people whose hands shaped the objects we use every day, the designers.
Have you ever been pulled over and the cop goes back to the cruiser, and you’re sitting there waiting…
And then the cop comes back and gives you a warning and tells you to have a good day….???
Well, what happened was that cop definitely dropped your driver's license down the crack in the seat between the center console, and it absolutely took him at least 15 minutes to fish it out.
Thursday, August 06, 2026
Mopar is bringing back the Super Bee! On the 60th anniversary of the Charger, they released the news that the new Charger will be available with 600Hp from a twin turbo inline 6 - they call it the 2027 Charger Sixpack Super Bee in Launch Edition spec
A pair of 85mm Garrett turbos, on a straight 6... 600 HP, 531 Ft Lbs torque
The Canadian Police recovered 392 stolen vehicles worth an estimated $28 million before overseas export from Canadian ports. The recoveries occurred in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Project NoCargo began in June 2025 after investigators identified a growing export-fraud threat. The program targets organized crime networks using stolen or manufactured identities. Those credentials can secure vehicle loans and insurance policies. Criminals then attempt to ship the fraudulently obtained vehicles overseas.
INTERPOL Ottawa identified the trend during 2025, according to the RCMP. Criminal networks used compromised or fabricated personal information to purchase vehicles. They also used those credentials to obtain insurance coverage.
The CBSA intercepted 1,590 stolen vehicles in rail yards and ports during 2025.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/392-stolen-vehicles-worth-28m-stopped-before-overseas-export-rcmp-says
New research shows that mountain lion/cougar/puma often steer deer populations away from human roads.
“On the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, deer alter their use of both space and time where pumas are present, overlapping less with roads and reducing activity at night, when some of the most dangerous collisions occur,” Suraci said.
Their findings, published Thursday in Current Biology, also provide some insight into how exactly pumas are causing less car accidents.
How to effectively advertise a simple tool... prove how the mechanic, or modern car owner needs to do an impossible job - changing the damn sparkplugs in a transverse mounted engine bay, or boxer engine bay
It's spark plugs. And it's the reason a dealer can look you in the eye and charge you seven hundred dollars for a part that costs fifteen.
Here's what nobody tells you about a boxer engine. The cylinders lie flat on their sides and the spark plugs point straight out at the frame rails, an inch and a half of air between the plug and a solid steel beam. The front two you can reach. The back two you cannot.
The worst one, the rear plug on the driver's side, sits buried behind the battery tray and the wiring brackets, where your hand goes in and your knuckles come out bleeding.
A swivel socket on two extensions flexes under load and walks off the hex.
A stubby flex-head ratchet has maybe five degrees of swing before the handle hits the frame rail, and five degrees is nothing on a plug that's been in since the factory.
A universal joint binds up and twists off the head every time
The service writer will tell you $700, give or take, to change four spark plugs.
But... have you ever heard of a chain bar. A chain, sealed in the bar. It stays dead square on the plug, so it can't rock and round it. The only reason that back plug is a dealer job is there's no room to swing a ratchet at it. Nothing to do with the plug. It's the room.
The maker is wild bear tools
FWIW, anything so utterly replicated by cheap imitations, especially when they are even duplicating the colors and appearance, must be quite damn good. I advise against buying tools made of Chinesium.
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