Saturday, September 06, 2025
This 1978 Ford Ranchero is up for auction at Bring a Trailer with just 213 miles on the clock, the wife didn’t like it, so it sat parked until 2013. That's really scornful... wasting all that money, and storage space, for 35 years?
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1978-ford-ranchero-9/
It's bid to 12,500. Unreal. You could buy a better vehicle for 10k. This only has 134 horsepower, lousy brakes, lousy suspension, etc.
I can recommend this book to anyone that is a Star Wars fan, and would like to know some more about how it got started, and the MANY times it nearly failed
What is most clear from the 1st half of the book, is that George Lucas was utterly unlike most kids, and most people, and completely rebelled at normality, because he was stuck in fantasy, sci fi, and was lucky enough to have rich parents who didn't beat it out of him, and instead, paid his way into college even though his school average grade was between an F and a D. Also, they drop more than a million hints that George is on the spectrum
above, he rebelled at his dad's insistence that he mow the lawn with some really old heavy lawnmower, he spent his own money and bought a new light weight push mower. That's a rich kid by the way
I never learned until now that he had an Autobianchi Bianchina... in Modesto. How the hell does that happen?
This is a 1960 Bianchina, so you know what 18 year old George Lucas was driving... a new car, maybe 2 or 3 years old. Like I said, rich kid.
Surprised me to find I'd posted about this https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/12/in-1962-18-year-old-boy-named-george.html
I posted about this, Peter Brock was a driver at Willow Springs https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2013/10/what-to-george-lucas-and-peter-brock.html
I never heard that James Cameron was a truck driver!
Dropped out of high school, went to different high school, and graduated. Went to community college, dropped out.
He was a truck driver in the 1970s and he quit after being inspired by Star Wars in 1977 to pursue a career in filmmaking.
He'd volunteer for long haul in order to sleep over in towns. He'd make sure he was in a town with a university and take out dissertations of film students and study them over his down-time.
While working as a truck driver, he taught himself about filmmaking by photocopying technical texts at the USC library, and this self-taught knowledge eventually led to his first film job with Roger Corman on Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
Now, the trucking scenes in Terminator movies have a connection
And it was by chance that Star Wars was even played at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, they had planned to play "Sorceror" whatever that movie was... but they used Star Wars as a back up, and it broke all records
This book also make is clear that Fox was utterly at a loss as to how to make money, it was run by a lot of morons, who had nearly bankrupted it with garbage in the 60s, after the glory days of cheap money making movies in the 40s and 50s, and Fox screwed up over and over, and Star Wars was the biggest money maker movie of all time, and this book shows page after page of how Fox execs couldn't commit to signing a contract.
When they did, it was an iron clad perfect contract for Lucas, and Fox went on to screw up Firefly 3 decades later. Tye simply never learned. Get out of the way of creative geniuses.
Other interesting things...
He was later drafted by the United States Army for military service in Viet Nam, but he was exempted from service after medical tests showed he has diabetes, and was immediately exempted, of course.
Darth Vader was inspired by Dr Doom, and Star Wars was inspired by Flash Gordon
Nice to know that a track only EV race car with 2000hp, a track only space frame chassis, and a fake van silhouette, is only as fast as a stock Porsche GT3 with 1/4 the hp.
OK... now Sacramento can gloat it has a hydrogen powered train. What's the big deal? It's not pulling cargo. It's a switcher. So... trainyard work. Not really doing much to change the world, or lower emissions on a scale that's noticeable
The locomotive will replace aging diesel switchers statewide, potentially eliminating up to 50,000 gallons of diesel fuel annually, according to industry estimates.
A 16 cylinder EMD uses 130-140 gallons of diesel per hour. All this depends on the amount of weight pulled, and the geography it's rolling over... if that's going uphill at all, it uses more fuel.
50,000 gallons a year. What's that good for? About 2 weeks of operating a regular diesel locomotive hauling a full load of cargo across the country, for a round trip, one time?
Not impressively eliminating much... that's the smallest fraction of diesel fuel measurable on an annual nationwide, or even statewide, use. It's about how much a single freight train uses round trip, from coast to coast, one time. There are a LOT more trains in use, all over the state, and the country, than that. We know, because they seem to crash alot, and get into the news
So, in 10 hours, about 1500 gallons, so, in 24 hours, about 3600 gallons.
In 7 days, about 21,000 gallons.
3 years after I post about the Olomana, a Hawaiian sugar plantation train, George found that another was also restored! Hawaiian Sugar Company 3, named Kaipu (Thank you George!)
This one was a working train on Kauai, the Olomana was a working train on Oahu
https://railfan.com/saddle-tank-locomotive-restored-in-hawaii/ and the other one, became famous: https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-olomana-spent-62-seasons-working-on.html
this caught my eye... ever see this 1951 VW Sport? Or this Dyna panhard? I wonder if these were just the artist's interpretation of the real cars, or ones he made up
in 2016 I learned of the car illustrations and art of Guy Sabran, but only this week found the late 40s children's books he was famous for illustrating
https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2016/11/guy-sabran.html for the car illustrations
and the other illustrated kids books https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2025/09/cornebuse-et-cie-is-french-comic-about.html
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