Just A Car Guy

Wednesday, March 05, 2025

Saint Paul, mansion (once the largest private residence in Minnesota) was built by railroad magnate James J. Hill and shows what unlimited funding could accomplish in 1891. It is 36,000 ft2 with 13 bathrooms, 22 fireplaces, 16 chandeliers, and a reception hall nearly 100 feet long,

After James J. Hill died in 1916 and his wife died five years later, the children eventually moved out.

In 1925, four of the daughters purchased the house from the estate and donated it to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. The church used it for the next fifty-three years as space for offices, residences, and a teacher’s college for women.

Fortunately, the church preserved it well and did not make any significant alterations, although most of the original furniture was sold during this period.

The Minnesota Historical Society acquired the house in 1978 after the Archdiocese consolidated its offices elsewhere.

https://www.mnhs.org/hillhouse

https://www.exploreminnesota.com/profile/james-j-hill-house/2208

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=627174433613972&set=pcb.627175826947166

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/08/04/historic-piece-minnesota-architecture-james-j-hill-house/

(It would be cool to discover that some railroad owner either converted a railroad station for his own home, or had a home made to look like the old Victorian era train station)

the actual tank used in "The Last Crusade" is at Disney Hollywood Studios in Orlando, and you can see it if you exit stage right when leaving the Indiana Jones show

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=9173089902738361&set=gm.4059722704352322&idorvanity=3164534807204454

how cool! I didn't know that the NHRA sent a support truck to the '54 La Carrera Panamerica

https://thegentlemanracer.com/2017/12/1954-la-carrera-panamericana/

I'm not familiar with this Toyota... and it turned out to be a 2001 Lexus LX 470, only has 13 mpg, 180k miles

it looks like someone made a 4 x 4 from this Chrysler Pacifica

I spotted this weekend racer in a office park parking lot... and it's a more door

notice the race track stickers in the back 1/4 window

interesting bumber sticker

it's been a long time since I've seen a side mirror fix this terrible

No surprise to me that this ass was unable to stay in his own lane, and kept drifting into mine.

how the hell can did this crazy bee glue itself to my windshield and withstand 50 mph aero turbulence?

It made it about 5 miles or so before talking off... certainly far outside it's normal range I think

JFK jr, had it all.... fame, fortune, family legacy, and the family curse

and a promising magazine

this 1969 Chevy Corvette Stingray L88 is ultra-rare and recently sold for $759,000 at the '25 Mecum auction in Florida, it's one of 116 '69 L88 Corvettes, and only has 6,465 original miles

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/car-enthusiast-pays-759000-for-a-1969-chevy-corvette-l88-what-is-so-special-about-it-247938.html#

By the way, there were 4 lightweight L88s built, equipped with open chamber heads, an option not available to the public until June of the model year and a dual disc clutch.

Goodyear had supplied that Corvette team with racing's first set of radial tires.

https://www.barrett-jackson.com/scottsdale-2014/docket/vehicle/1969-chevrolet-corvette-57-rebel-convertible-race-car-161060

the New York MTA has decided to keep secret the facts about how it charges "congestion tolls", when faced with fraud it deo

MTA concluded the four congestion tolls in question (Jesse King's Vespa case), should be refunded.

MTA has not explained why those tolls were charged in the first place, or whether congestion cameras have initiated similar mistaken tolls to other drivers.

This case reveals the secrecy in the way congestion tolls are reported on NYC MTA E-ZPass bills. Unlike tunnel tolls, which are clearly labeled according to the particular tunnel a driver uses, E-ZPass bills do not label which cameras — at which intersections — are involved in prompting a congestion toll.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democratic candidate for New Jersey Governor and one of the loudest critics of congestion pricing, said motorists should be able to easily discover which cameras captured their vehicles incurring a toll on 60th Street and below.

“Just like if I got charged somewhere on the [New Jersey] Turnpike or [Garden State] Parkway, you should know which camera charged you the congestion tax. Where you came in and where you came out,” Gottheimer said.

The MTA says its own employees have the ABILITY to verify locations and times recorded by toll cameras as needed, but the agency DID NOT respond to questions about how commuters might determine for themselves which congestion cameras initiate which tolls.

https://www-nbcnewyork-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.nbcnewyork.com/investigations/congestion-pricing-error-raises-bigger-issue/6171108

The challenges of working in TV production, particularly in the unscripted sector and in 2025, have been laid bare in a new row that has enveloped custom-car build series "Ride of Your Life with Courtney Hansen", and so has part of the cost of making a tv series.

the series airs on the MotorTrend channel as well as on Discovery+, has fallen into the news because a subcontractor's non-payment to a large group of post-production workers, episodic editors and others for work on graphics, music, remote systems operation, and color correction.

Shockingly ironic, the production services company that named itself "Bad Burrito" Productions, didn't pay it's post-production and editor workers after getting paid by Hansen's company.

Last September, Hansen hired Bad Burrito Productions to provide post-production services on the show’s second season. This work began in October and was supposed to run through December, but within days there was already work stoppage, per emails reviewed by Deadline.

post-production was paused by November 8 and did not resume with Bad Burrito Productions.

Several episodes of Ride of Your Life Season 2 had already aired, including those that these crew members say they provided services on.

Hansen commissioned another post-production crew to finish the project once Bad Burrito’s team paused work amid the dispute.

“I am very proud of the work my new team has done to finish the season and re-create the two unapproved episodes that Bad Burrito botched and that had to be completely redone,” Hansen said in a statement to Deadline via her attorney Kenneth Freundlich. “It is unfortunate to hear that Bad Burrito did not pay the editors what they were owed. My company paid Bad Burrito $230,000, and all that I received for that money were two unsatisfactory and incomplete episodes. The real question is, where did that money go?”

While this appears to be a specific problem between a producer and a post house, the problem highlights the increasing challenges for freelancers in the entertainment industry coming off the back of Covid, two strikes and the L.A. wildfires. According to a recent report from FilmLA, production in Los Angeles was down more than 30% over five year averages in 2024.

https://deadline.com/2025/03/motortrend-ride-of-your-life-pay-dispute-crew-1236303019/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21995804/

instead of reducing spending, the Democrat Committee Chair Sen. Chris Gorsek of Oregon, instead, is creating new taxes and intends to tax tires, to pay for Amtrak expansion, not having a damn clue that Amtrak doesn't appeal to the people using cars... ironic that he's not taxing train riders to pave potholes!

Legislators propose two changes to taxes, a tire tax and making it easier to pass a gas tax

This would likely cause a new set of tires, which most cars need every 30,000 miles, to cost another 50-70 dollars

The tire tax would be an excise tax of 4% on the retail price of new tires or newly refurbished tires. The money collected would not go to roads. It would go to rail transit or other public transportation, to fight tire pollution and to protect wildlife from being killed by traffic.

House Bill 3362 aims to support mitigation efforts to protect fish and wildlife from the impacts of vehicle crashes and tire pollutants.

Democrat Committee Chair Sen. Chris Gorsek is sponsoring the bill. "We've been thinking for a long time about the impact vehicles have in general on things like salmon and wildlife crossings," Gorsek said. "We're trying to think a little bigger picture than just the highways and freeways."

It also aims to support the expansion of Amtrak Cascades rail service. It would do so by raking in an estimated $25 million a year in Oregon tax revenue garnered through a 4% excise tax on tires.

"We want to give them options other than simply driving a car," Gorsek said.

A quarter of the tax revenue would fund storm water treatment technology to remove toxic tire pollutants that threaten Coho salmon. Another quarter of the funding would pay for wildlife crossing infrastructure on highways.(Not really, consider how much ANY overpass costs to build, now realize a wide wildlife crossing is much wider and more expensive)

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/oregon-lawmakers-consider-tire-tax/283-ce19862c-6b4c-4827-b902-3e6c0aed4b98

Kevin Bacon has a new tv series getting released on Amazon Apr 3rd, and his character has a 70 Chevelle... good choice!

if you got em, smoke em for Gene... interesting tribute idea! (thanks Mike!)

After than, he disappears in a big cloud of smoke, see the video at https://www.instagram.com/kustomhogue805/reel/DGzGAM1v2lU/

This makes me wonder... if any of us had thought to ask Gene... what would he have said would be a cool tribute he'd get a kick out of? Racing on the salt? Smoking tires? Chopping a Merc? Painting a car? Teaching someone something you're good at?

Gene did all that, and a hell of a lot more.

I don't think I ever did a post on Gene... just on the many momentary things he was doing at the time.

But today I found that Kustomrama did a better bio about Gene than I ever could, seriously. But then, they have FOCUSED on customizers for longer than I've been blogging. So, give the credit where it's due, they knocked it out of the park for Gene

https://kustomrama.com/wiki/Gene_Winfield (and here's just some of the info there, that I didn't know!)

While putting the hobby shop together, Gene and three other GI's came together and rented a small shop in the city where they started building cars. In the shop, they built 4 cars, a little sports car with a Crosley engine, a full-size sports car based on a 1939 Ford convertible with a loaded flathead and stepped frame, front and rear, a half-chopped and half-sectioned 1941 Ford coupe that they installed 1946 Ford fenders on, and a 1941 Ford convertible that they hand formed new front fenders, hood, and a grille for out of sheet metal.

Gene raced the 1941 Ford in the first stock car event ever held in Japan!

By the way, SpeedKulture did an interview with Gene a month ago, and they only have the preview clip on youtube so far... so, hopefully, soon they'll have the full video to share

If you're having a bad day (thank you Mike!)

Tuesday, March 04, 2025

This drop top Cutlass was caught in the afternoon rush hour traffic jam, very unexpected to see something like this with original California plates used for commuting!

I saw a movie on Netflix the other day, Demon City... the "hit man" main character has a Batman like secret lair in a tunnel, and drives a 71 Mustang

decorating license plates is getting to be a thing... it's not just trim rings and vanity plates with cleverly chosen words anymore

An entry level Tesla truck costs 10 dollars less than the limit for federal electric vehicle tax credit. That's not likely coicidence

https://www.thedrive.com/news/adding-a-white-interior-to-a-tesla-cybertruck-is-an-11000-mistake

Xiaomi was the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor, then it turned to making electric cars in 2021, and delivered 100,000 SU7 models in 2024 alone. Soon it will be selling electric cars outside China

https://fordauthority.com/2025/03/ford-ev-rival-xiaomi-announces-plan-to-sell-vehicles-globally/#google_vignette

oh c'mon..... .who the hell drives across the Cape Cod oceanic wetbridge, and doesn't check the tide tables? They are twice a day, like clockwork

https://www.thedrive.com/news/fedex-van-gets-caught-in-rising-tide-during-island-delivery-gone-wrong

Gene Winfield has left us behind and gone on ahead. This sorry world won't be any damn good without him... I was lucky to have met and talked with him

if you want to read his bio, or see what he'd created, I've posted 4 dozen times about him https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search/label/Gene%20Winfield and covered it all.

Or read the well written article at https://www.autoweek.com/news/a64040173/gene-winfield-custom-car-icon-obituary

At 10, Gene worked as a car hop for his mom's burger stand/lunch bar, joined the Navy right after high school while WW2 was happening, he held a NASCAR license from 1951 to 1953. He joined the Army in 1949, and was transferred to Japan as a trained cook, but when he arrived, he was placed in charge of the battalion hobby shop instead. After arriving, Gene ordered all of the necessary items to open a hobby shop for his battalion. At night he would teach classes in leatherwork, model airplane building, and copper tooling. He also included a photo lab, so he could learn how to process film.

While putting the hobby shop together, Gene and three other GI's came together and rented a small shop in the city where they started building cars. In the shop, they built 4 cars, a little sports car with a Crosley engine, a full-size sports car based on a 1939 Ford convertible with a loaded flathead and stepped frame, front and rear, a half-chopped and half-sectioned 1941 Ford coupe that they installed 1946 Ford fenders on, and a 1941 Ford convertible that they hand formed new front fenders, hood, and a grille for out of sheet metal.

Gene raced the 1941 Ford in the first stock car event ever held in Japan!

do the Kamaz trucks have any ordinary use? Or, are they only built for the Dakar rally?

Oddities & special cars at Goodwood

with tariffs potentially making European imports less desirable than domestic built foreign brands, VW is trying a new approach to getting a contract with the UAW in Chattanooga

Volkswagen on Thursday extended a conditional contract offer to the United Auto Workers that agrees to make improvements for Chattanooga plant employees, but only if the union withdraws some of its demands.

In return VW is asking the UAW withdraw such demands as company subsidized child care, a retirement bonus, a shift premium and an increase in paid time off.

The latest offer by VW "is not standard, but we are trying a new approach to move these negotiations along," Michael Lowder, a spokesperson for Volkswagen Group of America, said in an email.

https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/feb/27/20-pay-raise-in-volkswagens-latest-offer-to-uaw/

I think the union is trying to get EVERYTHING they have ever wanted or heard of now that the situation appears to give them a once in a life time amount of leverage, but is likely to overplay it's hand, and find that VW won't set a precedent because the long term implications would leave it with nothing to use for contract negotiating bargaining positions in the future

Monday, March 03, 2025

suicide door bug in Ecuador... thank you Gary!

Joe sent me this and wonders (rightly so!) is the rear wiper is standard equipment? or did somebody pay extra to get the clear view of the spare tire and third brake light?

Thank you Joe!

interesting movie coming soon, The Accidental Getaway Driver

The names are fictional but the events are mostly real, based on a GQ article by Paul Kix, of a 2016 true-crime story, Sing L. Lee’s strong debut “The Accidental Getaway Driver” is a human-sized thriller set across several blue-black nights off the grid in Orange County. The main character is a 75-year-old unregistered taxi driver from Vietnam who scrapes together a living in the shadows, giving strangers rides in his battered beige Camry.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2025-03-01/the-accidental-getaway-driver-review-compelling-real-life-thriller-orange-country-vietnamese

just how ridiculously overpaid can a CEO be that doesn't earn the money by keeping his company afloat? The last Stellantis CEO made about 100 million, and the company has been failing to even maintain sales, profits, or models

The first and only CEO of Stellantis had held the position since 2021, when Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Peugeot Citroën (PSA Group) officially tied the knot, finalizing their mega-merger.

During his four years as Stellantis CEO, Tavares earned precisely €102,192,256, or about $106,200,000

Last year was particularly bad for Stellantis. The company suffered a 70% decrease in net profit and a 17% decrease in net revenue. Sales fell by 12% due to “temporary gaps in product offering."

https://www.motor1.com/news/752100/carlos-tavares-pay-stellantis-ceo/
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/former-stellantis-ceo-tavares-pay-package-fell-37-24-million-2024-2025-02-27/

The Chevrolet Citation was so unsafe the US Department of Justice got involved Read More: https://www.slashgear.com/1799228/worst-cars-1980s/

The '80s saw an influx of compact foreign cars that were inexpensive, dependable, and offered drivers more miles to the gallon. So, American automakers wanted to hop on this trend but, unfortunately, didn't have any experience outside of producing large vehicles.

In the case of the Citation, Chevrolet was not only trying to engineer a completely new type of American car, but they were also doing so in an incredibly brief time frame.

The result was a very poorly built compact whose interior would come apart and its transmission frequently failed.

But the most severe issue with the Citation had to do with its rear brakes, which were sometimes locking up and causing accidents. During this time GM refused to do a recall even as serious complaints were piling up.

Eventually, the U.S. Department of Justice sued GM in an effort to get the automaker to issue a recall. The effect all of this legal drama had on sales was predictably negative, with drivers not wanting to become a collision statistic.

https://www.slashgear.com/1799228/worst-cars-1980s/