I collected nearly all the regulars from mid 1949 and didn't stop holding onto them until about 2019 or so. The quality drastically fell off around 2015 or so. From 2004 to 2014 it was really fun.
Saturday, May 24, 2025
Popular Mechanics has rehashed the Road and Track list of the 50 coolest cars ever made, the ones that are lusted after... and still doesn't make any damn sense. The Shelby Cobra, GT 350 Cobra Mustang, and Jag E Type are at 11, 12, and 13... lower in rank than the Matra #10, the 66 Alfa Spider #9, and the Toronado #8. That's bullshit
Popular Mechanics and Road and Track are both owned by Hearst. But rehashing the same info, that's just lazy
Roger Penske, famous for the "unfair advantage" since the Mark Donohue days, just fired his top 3 execs for getting caught at cheating
As a result of this latest cheating episode, Team Penske has announced the “departure” of:
team president Tim Cindric, who’s had that position since 2006 and has been a part of Team Penske since 1999,
the team’s managing director Ron Ruzewski,
and general manager Kyle Moyer.
Friday, May 23, 2025
how damn cool is this guy?! Lots of effort and travel, and getting a toy train just right, to recreate as best as possible, the old photo!
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1148871946996792&set=pcb.1743103126557870
I was born and raised about an hour away from Marquette
The first-ever Wienie 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway just went down (the race doesn't start in the video until 15:45 mark)
at 21:30, one of the racers blows a headgasket. That race doesn't end until 24:12. Yeah, 9 minute race
And in the most American spectacle of the year, they actually raced
The winner? Slaw Dog, edging out Chi Dog in a photo finish
The winner? Slaw Dog, edging out Chi Dog in a photo finish
Pacific Portland Cement No. 301 was made from a McKeen
Interesting in addition to the Mckeen, is the Portland cement, I was just discussing that with someone last week.
It was named by Joseph Aspdin who obtained a patent for it in 1824.
Portland cement is one of the lowest-cost materials widely used over the last century.
Concrete produced from Portland cement is one of the world's most versatile construction materials.
Portland cement had been imported into the United States, but in the 1870s, was being produced near Kalamazoo, Michigan until the need for importing it disappeared and now it's made domestically
Sidewalks often were made in Ohio as a result of the urban postmasters insisting that before they would deliver mail for free in a city the city had to put in sidewalks.
so there you are, why Portland cement is important, because of postal delivery, and the side effect is that traffic crashes decreased by 74 percent, and postal delivery was the root cause of it all, because communication over long distances with friends and relatives is crucial to human mental health.
Yes, I often feel like I'm doing a similar journalistic thing to "Connections" by James Burke, a fantastic show for history and trivia fans
Vermont's Lt Governor wants to claim the dirt road in front of his house as his own private driveway... it's been public right of way, for 2 centuries
the Lt Gov isn’t even the only one with property there—there are eight other houses on Rodgers Road, according to a local newspaper. “James and Hella Coe own property on the class four section of the road and don’t want to lose access,” writes The Newport Daily Express.
the town had another selectboard meeting in which “almost 20 neighbors who say they need to access that section of the road signed a petition asking the town to maintain control of the road,” according to WCAX, the CBS affiliate
brilliant way to fly under the radar, just be hidden in plain sight! Too many people are upset by homeless travelers getting by living on the street without a mortgage, simply living on a poverty level income. This is a good way to slide through town, get some sleep at night, and not get bothered by assholes
Congress has passed a measure to overturn California’s phased-in 2035 ban on the sale of new gas cars.
The vote impacts 11 other states and the District of Columbia, which make up 40% of the nation’s car market and adopted California emissions standards.
Because California’s emissions regulations — they were created to combat the state’s notorious smog — predate the EPA, the state was grandfathered in with the ability to set more stringent emissions requirements than the federal standard so long as the EPA grants a waiver for each such requirement.
The ban would have required that 35% of cars in model year 2026 be qualifying zero-emissions vehicles, which allows for a large share of plug-in hybrid models, in addition to the now ubiquitous battery-electric vehicles, and rare hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. In California, which has the nation’s largest EV charging network and highest EV adoption rates, ZEV sales declined from 22% in the last quarter of 2024 to 20.8% in the first quarter of 2025, suggesting buyers are becoming less enthusiastic about purchasing electric vehicles.
Given that the 2026 model year is already under way for many automakers, a ZEV increase from 20.8% to 35% would have required a 68% increase in ZEV market share within the year, leading Toyota to call California’s requirement “impossible to meet.”
Automakers would have had to either restrict the inventory of non-qualifying vehicles, as Jeep has done in the past, purchase costly excess credits from automakers with excess ZEV credits such as Tesla or Rivian, or pay a $10,000 fine for each car they sell that doesn’t meet the requirement.
Given that the 2026 model year is already under way for many automakers, a ZEV increase from 20.8% to 35% would have required a 68% increase in ZEV market share within the year, leading Toyota to call California’s requirement “impossible to meet.”
Automakers would have had to either restrict the inventory of non-qualifying vehicles, as Jeep has done in the past, purchase costly excess credits from automakers with excess ZEV credits such as Tesla or Rivian, or pay a $10,000 fine for each car they sell that doesn’t meet the requirement.
junkyard interrogation sequence that wasn't developed into Pixar's CARS 2, that features Zil, a Soviet-era race car and the original villain idea for the movie, vs the hero British spy car
the Bright Pioneer Museum in LeGrand, California, a forgotten museum at an almond farm established in 1945, has one superb variety of tractors that will be selling at auction this fall, the whole list of what's for sale won't be available for months, but it has a San Fran street car
A 1926 Rumely Truck! I'm sure you're familiar with their kerosene burning Oil Pull steam powered tractors, but I've never heard of them making trucks until now
I will guess that Euclid don't come to auction very often!
I will also guess that someone has made a coffee table encyclopedia book of tractor seats, just from collections like this
Yes, really, a Buick truck! I've never seen this one before, or even heard of it when I posted about Buick tucks https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/09/buick-made-trucks-1910-1922-and-couple.html
I'm certain I posted about the kidnapping of the Chowchilla busload of kids, in 1976, and the live burial (for ransom) of them inside a moving van, about a decade ago... but I can't find that post. Anyway, the bus? Still around, and in the background of this photo
If you're wondering about the kidnapping (I swear, I posted about that) read about it here: https://www.cityofchowchilla.org/300/1976-Bus-Kidnapping because some MFing rich guys adult kid was pissed daddy wouldn't give him 5 million dollars so he could live the junkie millionaire life where he never would have to work, or worry about more money and drugs, so he figured a kidnapping (sort of the go to instant money maker it seems based on the Patty Hearst and SLA kidnapping/ransom demand) would solve his problems. It was the most historical kidnapping of the 1970s
Or read about it at https://mercedcountytimes.com/kidnappers-parole-renews-interest-in-dusty-ag-museum/
it can take a decade or more to bridge the gap between seeing something, and learning what it is... there are just SO MANY things to learn in this world, even in the small segment of the world that is tractor focused, but I finally got another, the Fordson with a Rotapet 4 chain drive adapter with caterpillar like tracks
about 10 years ago (serious, the really good days of blogging, when the content was SO FOCUSED on machinery, and barely any news) I came across a similar Fordson with a track conversion that looks a lot like the above, but it had 3 spades per flat https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2016/04/this-british-built-square-tracked.html
and the year before that, Martin (super cool incredible artist) posted https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/08/martin-squires-auto-blogger-illustrator.html
So, I'm not saying these are all Rotapet, but the first one is on the blue Fordson, and you can compare for yourself the other two.
I simply amazed that in just 4 days, I've came across this decade gapper of a tractor track drive, and the OTHER tractor with the incredible flip over traction front rims, the Pavesi https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2025/05/andre-knew-about-these-military-wheels.html