Saturday, June 26, 2021
I read an interesting article about smuggling and transporting drugs in Road and Track and they mentioned something interesting
this reminds me of when I learned of a fake Coca Cola truck, the only tell was the first two digits of the id number on the sides of the hood.
they are the year the truck was bought, or made, and it's very unlikely to be more than 10 years old
the smugglers didn't steal a Coke truck, which would be alerting the cops that one was stolen, but they made a truck look like it was real, "cloning" the look of it, and then moved drugs with it.
Nissan in the mid 80s did something extremely impressive under the Pike Factory designation, making tiny concept cars in the peak optimism of the Japanese economic bubble.
Given the success of the Be-1, Nissan was only too happy to green-light further Pike Factory cars. The next two to arrive, in 1989, were the rugged-looking Pao and the cheerful, useful S-Cargo.
According to Sakai, the Pao was inspired by the idea behind the fashion brand Banana Republic, a safari lifestyle for everyday. Again, underpinnings were from the March, with the Pao dressed up in Jeep-like exposed door hinges, fold-up rear windows, and a split tailgate.
The success of the Pike Factory cars had caused a ripple effect.
One of the design team suggested a group visit to the nearby Atsugi Cultural Center to watch a small production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. The name stuck.
The oval grille and stunted proportions of the Figaro have been likened to everything from a Goggomobil to a Hillman Minx. Its true ancestor is the original Austin-based Datsun Fairlady of the 1950s, Nissan’s first foray into building sports cars.
Nissan could have sold more, but neither the Figaro nor any of the other Pike Factory cars were profitable. As a marketing exercise, they showed daring and raised the profile of the brand.
I don't think any other car maker has tried something risky like this. Nissan proved what can be done with great design, even at a profit loss, because they knew what is cool.... and inspired Ford to make the retro T bird, and VW to make the retro Beetle
Big compliment and respect to Road and Track for running a multi page feature on these
a 1947 Silver Wraith with a sedanca body by Saoutchik randomly photographed on a 1959 postcard at the passport and customs check at Menton
Thing I learned today: a sedanca body is one with the driver exposed to the elements and the rear seat passengers under cover.
who owned this car when it was new?
Sir John Gaul, often referred to as a millionaire property tycoon (when a million meant something).
He was so rich that in 1947 he bought a ten year old Rolls-Royce Phantom III with a limousine body and sent it to Freestone & Webb for new bodywork and requested a flamboyant use of copper on it. This car became known as the ‘Copper Kettle’. https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-copper-kettle-1937-rolls-that-was.html
He had businesses in London’s Soho and owned the Coronet Club there. He secured a long lease on a Maltese island called Comino and built a hotel complex there. He was married five times and loved extravagant cars. He lived for many years in Rio De Janeiro after some unpleasantness in the UK and later in Malta from whence the UK tried unsuccessfully to extradite him.
advertising in magazines has taken a new method and direction... check out this fake magazine cover
and here is the real cover after that bullshit GM ad was peeled off:
here's the proof that Allstate finds that not driving your car, compared to driving it, relative to the 150 dollars a month, 900 for a 6 month policy, is worth 15 dollars. That's about 2 dollars a month to cover the risks of being on the freeways
so they charge me 148 to have the car insured, but only 2 dollars a month to deal with the risks of driving it? THIS is some bullshit!
Friday, June 25, 2021
bad decisions made at high speeds on donorcycles in a space too small for anyone but the most expert to maneuver through unscathed
about 6 fly through, 2 or 3 crash while trying
near Chicureo Chile, on June 13th 2021 via https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/mghazal67
carved from a walnut stump in 1953, in under a year, capping off a 40 year career of carving
In the winter of 1952-53, a man approached Mooney and asked him if he would be interested in using a massive walnut tree stump for one of his carvings. Mooney traveled to Charm, Ohio, saw the gnarled stump and in it he could see the Union Pacific Big Boy. He started carving on January 13th and would finish it that year on October 30th, his 68th birthday. The Union Pacific Big Boy is one of the most beautiful carvings that Mooney created from walnut.
Mooney captured the last of the steamers with a great tribute to steam history through swirls of walnut that only can be found in nature. He selected which parts of the stump to use and did not shy away from the difficult knots and swirls in the wood. In fact, he chose the most difficult part for the tender, carving from the most inner part of the burled tree stump.
for more intricate hand made models, see https://www.facebook.com/thewarthermuseum/
Thursday, June 24, 2021
Goodyear ad from National Geographic Magazine March 1940. "a double eagle" is what they called a 20 dollar gold coin, but an "airwheel'? Either that's a really old term, or one I haven't heard a tire called
Airwheels explained at https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/10/goodyear-airwheels-i-dont-remember-ever.html but all said and done, the Airwheel was the name Goodyear gave to the airplane tires that had a LOT of soft cushion space for smoother landings on rough ground
Goodyear Airfoam was seat cushion material
Goodyear Airship was their blimp name
I think these are the "Airwheels" for cars in the ad, I posted back in https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/10/big-goodyears.html
Discovery Plus has announced “Richard Hammond’s Workshop” a new six-part docuseries featuring Richard Hammond starting a classic car restoration and repair business
In the program, Hammond will work to learn the business of restoration from scratch. He will be joined by father-son duo Neil and Anthony Greenhouse, who actually know what they’re doing.
“I’ve spent 25 years critiquing other people’s cars and now I’m putting my own work out there,” Hammond said in a release. “My grandfather was an automotive craftsman, who knows, maybe I’ve inherited some of his skill! So, this is a real business, a real project and I really hope people enjoy watching the highs and inevitable lows throughout the series!”
Discovery Plus launched in January, and can be found on Amazon Fire, Roku, etc https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/discovery-plus-roku-fire-tv-smart-tv-1234878232
https://variety.com/2021/tv/global/richard-hammond-discovery-plus-car-restoration-1235001410/
Ever hear of the 1972 Isreali airport terrorist attack? I just learned of it. The PLO hired Japanese mercenaries... how's that for getting someone else who is utterly innocent looking to the security dept of an airport, to do your dirty work in hope no one finds out who is actually to blame?
Who the hell are the Japanese Red Army, and why haven't you ever heard of them? Well, they failed to accomplish their proclaimed goals, and instead had to get work as mercenaries, apparently, to put food on the table. I mean seriously, who the hell ever heard of the Symbionese Liberation Army either?
Neither of these "armies" ever fought a war. So, it's not like they were legit.
An international terrorist group of only 6 people, formed around 1970 after breaking away from Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. Whatever that was.
The JRA's historical goal has been to overthrow the Japanese Government and monarchy and to help foment world revolution.
Ummm, apparently, as I've never heard of them, they never did anything that even hinted at any intention of overthrowing the Japanese govt. https://unseenjapan.com/red-army-faction/ if you want to read a longwinded account of it
three members of the Japanese Red Army recruited by the Palestinian group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations (PFLP-EO), attacked now Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, killing 26 people and injuring 80 others. Two of the attackers were killed, while a third, was captured after being wounded.
The dead comprised 17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico, a Canadian citizen, and eight Israelis, including Professor Aharon Katzir, an internationally renowned protein biophysicist. Katzir was head of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences and a popular scientific radio show host; he was also a candidate in the upcoming Israeli presidency election. His brother, Ephraim Katzir, was elected President of Israel the following year.
Because airport security was focused on the possibility of a Palestinian attack, the use of Japanese attackers took the guards by surprise.
The attack has often been described as a suicide mission, but it has also been asserted that it was the outcome of an unpublicized larger operation that went awry. The three perpetrators had been trained in Baalbek, Lebanon; the actual planning was handled by the head of PFLP External Operations.
In the immediate aftermath, Der Spiegel speculated that funding had been provided by some of the $5 million ransom paid by the West German government in exchange for the hostages of hijacked Lufthansa Flight 649 in February 1972
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
I see they have decided to try to make a point, and get the message across
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQQ6I-TH1NZ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link for the video of the meter maids walking away from this
some cool vehicles just remain out of sight for decades, like this Powerwagon that was used to haul wood from the forest to a monastery in Vermont
A forest fire warden bought this 1956 Dodge Power Wagon from monks on a Vermont mountain.
Deep in the woods on Mt. Equinox, the tallest mountain in southern Vermont, a group of about 15 men have joined in a life of extreme isolation and religious devotion.
The members of the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration have taken vows of almost total silence and separation from the outside world, and made it their mission to spend their days praying for the rest of the outside world.
They live in separate cells, mostly meditating and praying alone. They eat once a day, alone in their room — save for a once-a-week group meal. They each have a wood-burning stove that they use for heat in their individual quarters, and some tools to cut and split their own wood.
That’s where the Power Wagon comes in.
Several members of the group work to keep the monastery running, doing chores such as cooking, cleaning and gathering fire wood. It shouldn’t be surprising then that when a group living such a hard, Spartan existence needed a truck, they chose the most basic, strong-willed machine available. It only had one option available, the drivers side armrest.
The Power Wagon is as tough and rugged as it looks. The monks only put 27,000 miles on the Dodge in all those years, serving as a lumber wagon and ATV.
A few years back, the brothers decided that it was time to move on to a more modern iron horse, and ‘It would be nice if someone could give it a new home,’” chuckled Mattison. “So I said, ‘Well, OK.’ And I bought it. It was all original and all garage kept, but it wound up sitting at my house
It is now helping the Vermont State Forest Fire warden for the town of Glastenbury.
“I think the only blacktop it ever saw was from the dealership to the monastery,” says Mattison. “The same brother had it since ’56 when it was new. They used it to bring in about 100 cord of wood a year and it pretty much just lived out in the woods."
https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/features/car-of-the-week-1956-dodge-power-wagon posted about this in March 2021, and a year and a half later, Hagerty posted about it https://www.hemmings.com/stories/restoration-1956-dodge-power-wagon/
airline ticket prices
were up 10% in April
were up 7% in May
according to the latest consumer price index report from the bureau of labor statistics
via nbcnews.com, Airlines scramble with unexpected rush of passengers June 21, 2021
