Thursday, November 06, 2025

Did you hear of the UPS cargo plane in Louisville Kentucky, at UPS HQ "Worldport" , that crashed shortly after takeoff, as a wing caught on fire during take off, that caused an engine to fall off, and the plane to drop the 40 feet or so back to earth into the businesses under it, crashing into businesses (loaded with fuel) such as Kentucky Petroleum Recycling and a auto salvage business



The plane gained enough altitude to clear the fence at the end of the runway before crashing just outside Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport

Airport security video “shows the left engine detaching from the wing during the takeoff roll,”

Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, said  “It could have been the engine partially coming off and ripping out fuel lines. Or it could have been a fuel leak igniting and then burning the engine off. It’s just too soon to tell,” 

He said the crash bears a lot of similarities to one in 1979 when the left engine fell off an American Airlines jet as it was departing Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, killing 273 people.

Guzzetti said this UPS plane and the American plane were equipped with the same General Electric engines and both planes underwent heavy maintenance in the month before they crashed.

Wednesday, November 05, 2025

I'm posting this last so that it's going to start your day right, with an unusual and rare, but over the top - upgraded 77 Galaxie from Brazil

 






first time I've ever seen an EB 110 in person (91-95 Bugatti)



looking good and eighties in the Mickey Thompson booth

 

49 Metro van that Ian Roussel made look incredible

 


an electric wheelchair fits inside and under a recliner. FYI

 

quite unusual, as you'd expect from something that stands out at SEMA... a 65 Datsun double seat truck

 


an Opala station wagon from Brazil in the Krebs Brothers booth at SEMA this year

 

The Barnes Special is getting a new body made. This might be the famous Troutman-Barnes Special by Dick Troutman and Tom Barnes, their first racing design before they went on to create the legendary Scarabs for Lance Reventlow.

 



but for some reason, Troutman is not mentioned on the signage


Also, after the golden area of racing, Troutman - Barnes were coachbuilders, and made that 4 door E type Jag for the Porsche dealer's wife: https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2020/04/this-is-odd.html

Aussie Valiant Ute at SEMA! Nice surprise

 


shame this Mach 1 was converted to electric, but at least they didn't change the front license plate

Hell of a great choice of license plates!  




66 Fairlane that took place in the Great Race, part of the Jessi Combs Foundation, the Creator Race Team







cool 65 Falcon built by Dillion Houck, who bought it at age 12, for 800 bucks. Built, not bought

 

Tony Curtis, Dudley Moore, Benny Hill, and that goofball, Terry Thomas... whatever happened to making a fun comedy about a car rally? And the art of Ronald Searle, who spent most of WW2 as a POW in the Japanese torture camps on the Thai-Burma Railway, made famous in The Bridge on the River Kwai.







and this art? I dig it, but the information on the artist? Incredible. 

Ronald Searle was a British artist widely recognized for his watercolors and satirical cartoons. Often depicting contemporary and historical culture, his works exhibit a unique and highly-stylized quality. Born on March 3, 1920 in Cambridge, United Kingdom, Searle spent his youth studying at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. 

Searle’s talent was spotted before the war, when he won a scholarship at Cambridge Art School in 1938, meaning he could give up working as a parcel-packer at the Co-op. His father was a porter on Cambridge Station. His mother came from a line of clockmakers, who painted the dials of the clocks.

by 19 he was drawing for the Daily Express.

And then the war came

One month after his brigade arrived in Singapore in January 1942, the island was surrendered to the Japanese. Searle spent the rest of the war as a prisoner in Changi Prison and on the Thai-Burma Railway, made famous in The Bridge on the River Kwai. (‘The film’s rubbish,’ says Searle, ‘Alec [Guinness], who was a friend, hated it. The idea that you’d be proud of building a bridge as a prisoner was ludicrous.’)

Using the one pen that survived the boat trip from England, Searle made 400 secret drawings (several are in the Cartoon Museum show) of his fellow prisoners dying of cholera, and the brutalities meted out by the prison guards. One St Trinian’s cartoon was drawn on the back of a notice listing recent deaths in the prison.

‘It all made me into an artist, though. I went into the war as an art student of 19, who did pictures of my mum and dad and the dog. Suddenly you’re drawing people who are going to die. With a subject matter so brutal, it was your duty to get something on paper that vaguely represented what was going on. I appointed myself an unofficial war artist. I developed far more as an artist in the four years I was in prison than in four years at art school.

After his liberation in late 1945, Searle began producing literature and drawings detailing his harrowing experience of captivity and torture. The artist's work has had a tremendous impact on popular culture, and featured frequently in the pages of the New Yorker and the News Chronicle.

 His varied illustrated series and stand-alone political cartoons, have influenced many contemporary illustrators and cartoonists, including Matt Groening and Pat Oliphant.

 Throughout his life, he received numerous awards, including the 1959 and 1965 National Cartoonists Society's Advertising and Illustration Award, and the appointment of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2004




 
















Skip the 1st 8 minutes to get to the GOOD stuff! Then skip from 12:54 to 14:57 and watch til 17:31

















https://www.artnet.com/artists/ronald-searle/21
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jan/03/ronald-searle-gerald-scarfe
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/from-the-archives-the-great-ronald-searle/

Thank you Doug!