Saturday, August 03, 2024
the important license plate from Jurassic Park is coming to auction with Prop Store Auctions
A park Jeep 18 license plate from Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Alan Grant (Sam Neill), and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) were driven to meet John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) in a Jeep numbered "18" upon arriving at Isla Nublar.
Jeep 18 has a storied place in the Jurassic Park franchise, appearing at key scenes in two films. In the first film, the vehicle and its license plates were present during the first spectacular encounter with Hammond's dinosaurs, a landmark sequence in computer-generated imagery on screen. The Jeep later reappeared as an Easter Egg in Jurassic World when Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) used it to escape from an Indominus rex.
Johnny Cash showing reporters how he gets in and out of a Ferrari 308 (the Magnum PI type)
the site I found this on says it was June's car, not Johnny's. That makes a LOT more sense
Based on his shirt, I'm guessing this was in Jamaica, where the Cash's maintained a home for 4 decades
Friday, August 02, 2024
The Yenko 1981 Camaro Turbo Z, with only 19 models ever made, is the rarest Chevy muscle car of the 1980s
The 5.7-liter V8's 8.2:1 compression worked well with the forced induction addition and power estimates suggest 240-250 horsepower was attainable. Positraction and the factory three-speed auto, only available with the Z28's 350 option, remained on duty.
Equipped with Weld two-piece wheels paired with Koni shocks and, underneath, Guldstrand polyurethane bushings in place of the factory rubber pieces. Inside, an appropriate Racemark steering wheel and matching Kamp leather seats replaced the stock versions to complete a race-ready package.
50 years after Julio’s beloved Pontiac Firebird was stolen his son Josh surprised him with a replacement (I can embed one video that tells the story not very well, but recommend instead, you click the link and watch the other, it's a 100 times better)
Seriously, some amatuer made the above video from screen shots. It sucks, trust me, click the link below, and really enjoy the real story with the people involved
Airfloat trailers, the holy grail of vintage trailers. This trailer was found in a mobile home park where it was sitting and rotting for 50 years, still shod in its factory tires from 1950.
for the full history of the Airfloat: https://www.theautopian.com/a-car-engineer-built-some-of-the-most-gorgeous-campers-the-world-has-ever-seen/
as I was getting off the freeway, I was passed by a Lincoln that looked like a Toyota Sienna... just swoopier, like a station wagon
These were the only photos I could get. You can see there are 3 windows down the side, and a flat back
Stewart-Haas Racing is going away at the end of 2024, it was announced Tuesday
the team won 69 NASCAR Cup and 22 Xfinity races, and three championships—two Cup and one Xfinity—in 16 years.
Stewart has married, will soon be a dad, and has sold sever big ticket assets.
Haas went to prison for tax evasion (75 million in restitution) then focused on F1
Thursday, August 01, 2024
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Hyundai ALMOST made an El Camino... but made it a 4 door. They call it the Santa Fe. Seems very similar to the Chevy Avalanche... Maybe next time they will get it right and make a 2 door car sized truck!
https://www.saffordbrownhyundaifairfax.com/2024-hyundai-santa-cruz-in-stock-near-fairfax-virginia/
Japan's Fair Trade Commission raided the offices of Harley-Davidson Japan, a subsidiary of Harley-Davidson, Incorporated, to investigate allegations of excessive sales quotas on contract dealerships.
According to multiple Japanese news reports, sources allege that H-D Japan began setting unrealistically high sales quotas around 2020-2021. Dealerships under contract were then allegedly threatened with not having their contracts renewed if they did not meet these high sales quotas.
This, in turn, left dealers no choice but to buy bikes themselves in order to meet the quotas. In some cases, the allegations say, this included models that they did not want or could not justify being purchased and sold in their areas.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
The Big Bear Aircraft Company (an allegory about Disney, and how competition creates evolution, or obsolescence)
This 11 page illustrated story was submitted to a 1989 Disney Executive retreat where they would be discussing future plans for the company.
In the late 1980s, Sanders created an allegorical picture book entitled The Big Bear Aircraft Company, with the subheading "A book for the big retreat" clarifying that it was created for a Disney offsite event. The Big Bear Aircraft Company is a thinly disguised version of Disney itself, and the book is critical of the creative process at the company, which prioritized "big ideas, figuring they will be big successes" and noted that if proposed aircraft (i.e., movie ideas) "don't look the same as the ones [that were] built before, [the boss, Big Bear] gets uncomfortable." After handing each idea pitched by the "visual engineer" to a writer who "likes airplanes" but "has actually never worked on one before, and couldn't tell you for sure what makes one fly", the story states the assigned writer "is guaranteed of making the same mistakes every time. He will make his airplane look like every one he's seen before ..." In the end, the head of the company, Big Bear, gets an airplane that is "a lot like last year's; not very inspiring and not very memorable. But people bought it before, and they'll probably buy it again. By playing it safe, he's insured his company's survival." However, since it is not the only aircraft company, these policies are destined to leave the company vulnerable to more imaginative competitors "with its wings of good reputation all shot off." The story concludes that Big Bear should instead give the visual engineers "the two things they need to do their job: Bear's trust and time" to allow smaller, more innovative ideas to flourish.
Lockheed learned of it, and asked Sanders if they could use it too!
Chris Sander's allegory compares Disney to an aircraft company and if you don't make better and better jets, the competition can easily scream past you.
Chris Sanders is famous for creating Lilo and Stitch, an evolution of his earlier work, Kiskaloo. He's also famous for The Croods, and was head of story on Mulan
Sanders catapulted to the top of Disney animation through his work on Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994). He helped write the 1998 Disney animated hit Mulan (1998), which moved him into the position to write, direct, and voice Lilo & Stitch (2002). Sanders moved to Dreamworks where he co-wrote, co-directed and did character design for How to Train Your Dragon (2010). He also voiced Belt in The Croods
He also wrote the upcoming The Wild Robot, and directed the recent Harrison Ford movie "The Call Of the Wild"
