There's only one thing that Sharpie left out, however:
Which demographic was responsible for shipping as much manufacturing overseas as possible, while still keeping the same prices, and pocketing the difference? And that same demographic is now shouting the loudest because the party is on its way to being over? This is where I'd like to insert the "hell to pay" part of the discussion.
Golly gee, sure seems like a lot of work is being performed to kinda keep that part quiet.
As I like to say in conversation, every major change in this country since 1992 has been either in the cause of raising capital/property value or in the cause of lowering labor rates.
1992 was the year we started importing Somalis. I like to blame Democrats* for all of life's ills, but Somali importation began under Bush 41, and Columbus' last Republican mayor Greg Lashutka raised his hand and said "Ooo! Ooo! Send them to my city!"
Very timely for me, as a low level engineering employee at a US "manufacturer" I feel like a lonely voice resisting the pull to still just send everything to China, and pull it out of our own plant. I am not really sure how to resist this. The Build America buy America regulations are really the only thing keeping us making stuff in the US at all. Would be interested if anyone else has found effective means to sway their superiors to consider building in US even at marginally higher initial cost.
I work for a mid-size US manufacturer (~1800 people) with 4 US facilities and an operation our auto customers essentially demanded we build in Mexico.
We've seen customers dump us for China pre-covid, only to come crawling back when shipping went parabolic. Same story with different drones this time. The one thing that saved us is our product is very heavy and annoying to ship, yet also relatively inexpensive in absolute terms, so it never resulted in much of a savings to off-shore until China started heavily subsidizing their players in our space.
Sadly, in an era where large companies squirrel chase daily and the same retreads rotate jobs as frequently as I change underwear, they just forget how many billions they've lost in the past 5 years from supply chain disruptions because no one remembers the past. They convince themselves an excel projection based on historical data and powerpoints are reality and their fantastical projections that never worked in the past will somehow work this time around.
"The one thing that saved us is our product is very heavy and annoying to ship, yet also relatively inexpensive in absolute terms"
I KNEW IT! SOMEONE here in the states was manufacturing exact robotic clones of me (down to my hardwood-floor-punishing weight, my making everyone's life around me a living hell whenever I travel anywhere, and exactly-similar dollar value in that I'm generally of little value to everyone around me) and now I know who you are!
(Tries to distract everyone with loud swishing sounds while desperately searching my torso for the knob that raises/lowers your general value to humanity around you, hopes it goes to "11" in the other direction)
I have a similar piece in my drafts about the greatness of the Honda Shadow, mostly because it's a motorcycle built in Japan by people who care. But this is much better. Thanks for the link.
I just hope that a union doesn't come in and create work rules which prevent people from being required to learn new skills and innovations from being incorporated into Newell's processes, which would change the minds of the board about the suitability of US production once again. Clinton being a Chinese agent wasn't the entire reason US industrialists couldn't close their factories here fast enough.
ive seen those before and ill admit to being brazenly envious of his setup and space to work. that vette (and everything else tbh) is a viciously expensive undertaking.
really pleased to see the lovely metalwork on that impala. i like how im not the only one who saw that and wanted to fix the imperfections and make it pretty
The metalwork around the windshield weatherstripping is out of this world. I didn't realize it could be done (without rendering the trim un-replaceable without refabrication... then again... 🤔🤔🤔)
Pinned. With regard to SEMA and EICMA, I think social media has people in a permanent state of fatigue; we could discuss the new V5, but everything everyone knows about it fits into a 5 second IG reel.
Your audience is half boomers and the other half spiritual (sometimes, wishful) boomers ("god let me become bede's sparrow") - The links mainly for those off IG.
Billion dollar restos of boomer era corvettes with late model drive trains have been thing since I started paying attention in 1995. Maybe I’ve been been burned out, they don’t do much for me. I want to see an aluminum frame carbon body C4 with a max effort 4.5” bore space “small block”.
Man, that C4 sounds awesome. Make mine with callaway speedster-look body and hotted NA LT5 plz
I think the gazillion dollar boomer builds may have re-jumped the shark back to coolness via usage of Roadster Shop frames, typically with independent (C5) suspension at all four corners. These days the cars might even be nice to drive, rather than merely to look at and listen to.
To your point though, perhaps something has been lost since rodding was transformed from a cost-conscious fettling hobby to a cash-cannon wallet-racing hobby.
Callaway LMs are out there. And Doug rippie built a nascar engined monster back in the day for One Lap. Not much else out there I can think of along those lines though
From the WSJ Today (there's a paywall, so a link would be useless):
Ford Considers Scrapping Electric Version of F-150 Truck
Once hyped as a ‘smartphone that can tow,’ production of the money-losing EV pickup may be shut down for good
Ford Motor executives are in active discussions about scrapping the electric version of its F-150 pickup, according to people familiar with the matter, which would make the money-losing truck America’s first major EV casualty.
The Lightning, once described by Ford as a modern Model T for its importance to the company, fell far short of expectations as American truck buyers skipped the electric version of the top-selling truck. Ford has racked up $13 billion in EV losses since 2023.
Overall EV sales, already falling short of expectations, are expected to plummet in the absence of government support. And big, electric pickups and SUVs are the most vulnerable.
“The demand is just not there” for F-150 Lightning and other full-size trucks, said Adam Kraushaar, owner of Lester Glenn Auto Group in New Jersey. He sells Ford, GMC, Chevy and other brands. “We don’t order a lot of them because we don’t sell them.”
No final decision has yet been made, according to people familiar with the discussions, but such a move by Ford could be the beginning of the end for big EV trucks.
Ram truck-maker Stellantis earlier this year called off plans to make an electric version of its full-size pickup. General Motors executives have discussed discontinuing some electric trucks, according to people familiar with the matter. Sales of Tesla’s angular, stainless steel Cybertruck pickup tanked this year. And EV truck-maker Rivian has been cutting jobs to conserve cash.
... and so forth... The article goes on, but this is the gist of it.
Bear with me as I climb upon my soap-box. From day one I wondered who the market was for a truck shaped thing that cannot tow and cannot haul anything.
I thought the entire conceit betrayed how deeply Mary Barra and Jim Farley misunderstood their core market, and therefore how desperately bad they were and are at their respective jobs. There is only one reason to buy a full-sized pickup truck -- because you want to haul things or tow things. A BEV truck has a total range of about 100 mi. when towing anything at all, and less if it's a heavy thing or if there's wind or if it's hot/cold. Aside from the "early adopter" fanboys, nobody wanted the thing.
This is bad news for my neck of the woods, because Rivian has dumped a buttload of money into their factory right up the road in Normal, IL and had been on a hiring binge (until recently) that lifted everybody's boat for 2- 5 years.
Is this the beginning of a return to sanity? Time will tell.
Man, I hope so. I've never wanted to see a stupid idea succeed more. I'm a hometown homeboy, and the factory is literally 20 minutes from my front door.
The Rivian Scaringe fellow rented a mtb from me when he was in town drumming up money from billionaires. He was a decent rider, enthusiastic and friendly. He also had two very attractive assistants who took care of things. A small interaction like that changed me from looking forward to seeing them flop to hoping not everyone involved ends up looking for another job.
What's interesting is that a TTAC reader a long time ago wrote me a whole fully researched piece on why Scaringe was a grifter and they'd never make a single vehicle... and he was completely wrong.
its an end to the EV insanity, whether any form remotely close to sanity returns is debatable ....
even those of us how can see valid use cases for EVs thought the pickup EV things were completely nutso from the start.
"There is only one reason to buy a full-sized pickup truck" ah but you forget the poser market for big jacked up, blinged out trucks, whose most strenuous use will be going over parking curbs in the mall lot. lol.
Wondering why the lumber industry hasn't tried to help by scaling their 8-foot pieces down to five or six-foot sections, so they wouldn't hang off the back of most every truck at Home Depot and Lowes.
Contribution: Initially skeptical about the electric F-150, he became a strong advocate for the project, emphasizing its importance to Ford's future.
Bobby Stevenson
Role: Investor and influencer
Contribution: Suggested the idea of electrifying the F-150 during a conversation with Farley, sparking interest in the project.
Ted Cannis
Role: Head of Ford's EV division
Contribution: Played a crucial role in assembling the team that developed the F-150 Lightning.
Darren Palmer
Role: Lead engineer for the F-150 Lightning
Contribution: Initially hesitant, he was convinced to lead the project due to strong support from Ford's leadership.
Bill Ford
Role: Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company
Contribution: Advocated for the F-150 Lightning as a pivotal vehicle for Ford's transition to electric vehicles, comparing its significance to the Model T.
These individuals were instrumental in transforming the F-150 Lightning from a radical idea into a key product for Ford's electric vehicle lineup.
When a company blows through that much money in a relatively short period of time, there is usually ramifications for the people responsible. The Ford family has 2% of the stock but their stock at voting time has the value of 16 regular shares. In practice all they have to do is persuade about 15% of the remaining 98% of the stock out there. Bill Ford is a NEPO baby. Born sliding into home and didn't even have to start at 3rd base.
Ford and GM leadership have long had contempt for truck buyers and have been eager to pigeonhole them alternately as toothless hicks and urban cowboys. They loved the EV trucks because if your sole use for a pickup is to drive between Grosse Pointe and the RenCen, that is actually a pretty good way to do it.
"Ford and GM leadership have long had contempt for truck buyers and have been eager to pigeonhole them alternately as toothless hicks and urban cowboys."
Are you possibly suggesting that in spite of all-car-lines-except-for-Corvette-and-Mustang-were-gleefully-murdered-to-the-contrary, Ford and GM leadership are actually entirely in line with old Enzo Ferrari's core principles in that they only want to exist to build racing cars, and they have a seething hatred for having to produce street-legal trucks to pay for all of their racing programs?
I think it would be the greatest possible suggestion out of everything you possibly suggested that this were a possible suggestion.
I know you meant something else, but hey, it's a fun mental image.
I'm still trying to figure out if I'm a toothless hick or an (sub)urban cowboy. I'm leaning towards "dentally challenged."
I CAN say that after all the NYT/The Atlantic handwringing about "Monster trucks" last year, I felt a almost gravitational pull to buy a diesel truck and immediately put a 3" lift on it, just to honk off the illuminati. I suppose this could make me either a toothless hick OR an urban cowboy... if only I lived in a remotely urban area. It's to my eternal gratitude that I'm happily consigned to Nowhere, USA.
Alas, my only regret is that in making this purchase, I made Mary Barra's numbers look a wee bit better (which makes me kind of sad). The good news is that my truck was assembled in Fort Wayne, IN (as opposed to in Silao, Meh-he-ko). The bad news, "of foreign and domestic parts".
Mary always struck me vacuous and clueless as opposed to having a Bill Ford-level hatred of automobiles and the people who buy them. I don't have any idea, I just know what I read, and Bill was all breathless about the prospect of immolating billions of dollars on the BEV pyre, and therefore staked the reputation of not only the F150, but also the Mustang on his "big bet" for the glorious carbon-free future.
It's for this (and other) reasons that I did not consider a Ford when making my "thumb in the eye" pickup truck purchase last year.
I've given a lot of money to FCA/Stellantis over the years. I'd had 4 Promasters, which were tin cans but also used to be $15K less than similar Ford Transits (the ancient Chevys are terrible to work out of, and therefore out of the running). My wife is on her 3rd Chrysler minivan (a Pacifica), which has been stellar.
But Stellantis trim and electronics quality is... spotty. I know everybody's 10 speed is garbage, but the Stellantis transmissions are frankly terrifying. My son had an early 00s Ram 1500 quadcab that rusted almost in half. In my experience, they're 100% great... for 5 years.
I still really want a Ram 2500 with the Cummins quad-cab with an 8 ft bed, but by the time I was ready to buy Ram no longer offered the kind of discounted content I'd come to expect from them. They were actually more expensive than a comparable truck from the General, and there was no comparison in my (100% subjective) impression of ride and build quality.
When a Ram 3500 with the Cummins could be had for $50K, it was a slam dunk. When it's the same price as a Duramax with an Allison trans... it's a harder argument to make.
I was in the market for a small diesel in a 1500. I wanted a 4-dr. truck that would fit in my shop, but didn't have a stupid short bed. Ram doesn't offer a double cab-- it's either a single cab or a crew cab and a short bed. I got the 7 ft bed with a double cab and the truck fits in the shop. The baby Duramax LZO has almost 500 lb/ft of torque, a tow rating of 14,000 lbs, rides like a car, and feels as solid as the day I bought it at one year and 16,000 mi. I put airbags and load-range E tires on it and treat it like a 2500. The day I come off warranty (at 100k mi.), I'll be deleting it and replacing the stupid oil pump wet belt. I hope this is the last pickup I buy.
I did not expect it, but I've seldom loved a vehicle as much as I do this one.
Isn't Allison in the process of stopping GM from further sullying their name? I believe GM has about five more months to sell existing inventory or they need to pry off the Allison stickers they've been putting on trucks with their own awful 10-speeds.
People like you and me, who put 3/4 ton trucks to fairly frequent use around their operational parameters, simply don't rise to the level of being noticed by our betters in Motor City.
This is a pity. They are BY FAR Detroit's best products, the last thing they (the "big 3") make that are unapologetically American and far, far better than anything made in Asia or Europe.
I say that as a guy who has never had the privilege of driving a CTS-V blown 6.2 with a manual, but as somebody who would have liked to have the chance. Mary has taken that chance away from me by her on-again/off-again killing of the CT5 (in both regular and full-strength form), and for this reason alone should be drawn and quartered.
Unfathomable that Ford has contempt for truck buyers desite transitioning from "a car company that builds trucks" to "a truck company that builds cars" in the 1990s, then killing all non-Mustang cars entirely.
I know nothing compared to Jack and the ACF commentators more closely connected to Detroit, but Ford has so deeply p*ssed me off that I may never buy another new one. I'm still buying every used Transit Connect minivan I can find, because Ford unceremoniously made it impossible to buy a new one.
I used to pipe a bit after the base FWD Hybrid Maverick... when it was <$25k. Now? I don't smoke crack, so no.
I cannot think of any vehicle they make (with the possible exception of a Mustang manual) that I'd want to buy.
I had an F150 Ecoboost, which should have been "all that", but which was deeply flawed. They have 100% lost the scent.
The full-sized transits are $50K vans. CARGO VANS. Beer cans with an engine.
The small van (Connect) work well for us. Fuel economy is important, and we can haul what we need if we build our own shelving and put heavy-duty springs on them. I'd kill for a little diesel, but I'd just like to have a realistically priced small van back on the market.
Ford first made them impossible to buy, then jacked up the price by 30% for no reason, then killed it altogether.
Oh, yes I understand that Connect has value for your particular needs, and I am sorry that Ford did that to you.
Coincidentally, earlier tonight a knowledgeable friend and I had been discussing the merits of the Transit. So when you said "I cannot think of any [Ford] vehicle...that I'd want to buy," I couldn't help but point out that for people who ~do~ need a full-size van (with a factory high roof, nonetheless!), Transit seems like an excellent choice.
I guess your statement goes a few possible ways:
1. None of Ford's products are competitive
2. None of Ford's products are in segments that I would buy
3. None of Ford's competitive products are in segments I buy
We have one Connect with the turbo in our delivery fleet, the rest AWD vans, a mix of older factory Expresses and Quigley conversions. We call the Connect the sport van, or Natalie Portvan because of its size.
I am not sure by weight, but it does more deliveries than the next two busiest vehicles combined because it is so easy to use in town. It's only problem is the 10 - 20 days of the year it would get stuck in the snow.
They do OK here. We get a fair amount of snow here, but don't get stuck (really ever) because we are so heavily loaded. They're excellent to work out of -- dual sliders and everything is accessible without climbing in from one door or another. We can haul 9 refrigerant cylinders, a very extensive tool assortment (torches, recovery machines, CO2 bottles, etc.) and no small amount of small stock (thermostats, drivers, valves, etc.). It's *just" big enough.
It needs a turbo or a diesel or a turbodiesel in a perfect world.
I only ever deal with OEMs at the dealer level — who DO love truck buyers cuz they’re the only ones that ever buy anything — so I’ll take your word for it.
That’s just a profoundly ignorant and gross way to think about the people who give you the lion’s share of your income.
Oh thank God, I was just thinking that I should sell of all the children in order to buy the Mach E Rally that's been languishing on a local Ford lot since early 2025, now still available to the tune of something like $18,000 off sticker price.
My neighbor bought a F150 Lightning. He's a general contractor, and mostly uses it to visit job sites and haul tools/stuff to the site that his subs may have forgotten. One year and not a scratch on it, so it's not really that much of a "work" truck.
He drives 100-150 miles a day and recharges every night. And it's southern Calif so the climate is mild and you don't have to worry about temperature extremes sapping battery capacity or climate control usage. I haven't heard him complain about it.
That being said, this is the *ideal* use case for these things, and I still don't see that many on the roads.
My feeling is Mamdani is what you get when you tell entire generations that they “need to go to college or you’ll end up digging ditches” only to have them graduate with tons of debt and be told “you should have dug ditches instead of going to college”
"well if you can keep up with gonzales you too can earn $8 an hour. thats above minimum wage so you should be thankful. also the work hours are 12 hours a day every day with zero breaks"
Increasingly, hourly jobs are "you must be fully available for us at all times (you may NOT attend school or take another job), but your paid hours will vary unpredictably between 0 and 40 on a weekly basis.
Actually, no one is digging ditches today, there are machines that do that.
Which brings to mind a story told of a Milton Friedman visit to a Chinese air field under construction by battalions of people wielding shovels. He was advised, "Look at all the people we are employing." His response was, "Well if that' the whole idea why not give them spoons?"
I have brought this (perhaps apocryphal) anecdote up numerous times.
The expert hivemind on ACF appears to believe that entrepreneurs start companies so that they can offer highly paid JERBS to people who who have an inalienable right to Monster Truck operation; if there’s a little money left over after that, the entrepreneur might be allowed to keep a little bit of it.
You seem to have institutional investors and private equity confused with entrepreneurs. The people who build businesses are not the ones looking to ring them out like bar rags that just soaked up spilled Glencairns of Double Eagle Rare.
Socialism gets traction because facts don't care about your feelings.
Leftist ideas don't work, and usually kill innocent people in the process.
But conservatism has this Social Darwin mindset that discounts luck and chance in the attainment of success, attributing everything to pure Hard Work, Moxy and Gumption AND ignores the human costs of that success, while demanding payment in cash, up front so to speak, for that success with only a promise to pay up later.
"Work hard, pay your dues, follow the rules. But there are no guarantees."
Unpopular opinion here but as a guy who has a lot of friends “in the trades” I can say the trades are grossly overrated and if you don’t believe me you can just ask them
Why ask them when you can look at numbers? The LOWEST number I've ever seen for improved lifetime earnings of a degree holder is $900k and that was a few years ago, so probably 2020 dollars, and no job requiring a college degree is on the list of 10 most dangerous jobs.
Honestly, the going-to-college benefit is the best argument against student loan forgiveness; it's a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. About the only people I feel sorry for are those with "some college," who have some loans but don't have the increased earning power of a degree.
Problem with the numbers is that they are wildly skewed by a few factors.
First is the billionaire club membership who pretty much all have college degrees. Doesn't take many of those to really bring up the averages. Making that a mean vs median problem. Similarly the non-college bucket includes well paid skilled trades and the vast majority of the chronically unemployed.
Second has been the social norm of the last 40 years that anybody quartile of high school performance is expected to go to college. Statistically that is going to include the folks who are most driven to succeed weather they went the trades or college route.
Third, those lifetime earnings numbers do not take into account the cost of those earnings. The massive increases in tuition have resulted in loans which eat up a very significant portion of that improved lifetime earnings. That hits hardest on those who believed they should "follow their bliss" and spent a small fortune to get degrees which have no real world value.
Full disclosure.... I am part of the college degree set and my degree choice has provided a comfortable lifestyle. Had college not been an option, my backup career path to become an electrician would have provided a pretty similar lifestyle.
Yep. You have a good 30 years (of hopefully union level wages) to get a retirement parachute, and then you should hope your body isn't destroyed before you can move to Tennessee and open a Tiki Bar or whatever.
If you live in a depressed economy, and choose to stay there, or a place of generational poverty, you will work 30 years and be broke the day you can't do it anymore.
One of my close friends is a plumber who had a bypass operation 15 years ago and had to go back to work as soon as he could to keep the wolves at bay. He's still working, still smokes, still doesn't exercise. He'll work til he falls dead. And he's well read, very intelligent, articulate, and a lot of other markers of "educated" people.
I have a close friend who can't get a heart valve done until he wants to retire, because a 6 month gap in tech work makes you unemployable and saying it was for something like that has the recruiters hanging up before you get the "gee" in "surgery" out.
I came into this world with a lot of raw potential. Both mom and dad were exceptionally intelligent -- dad's side of the family stuffed full of people gifted with the ability to make a buttload of money, and mom's side with college profs, PhDs, and eggheads credentialed with all manner of intellectual accomplishments and accouterments -- enough to make them well and truly weird.
Dad was a plumber who owned his own business, and he did exceptionally well. We always lived in nice houses, and dad retired from plumbing when he was in his early 50s. He was also one of the physically strongest men I've ever known, but he was a cancer magnet and died of pancreatic cancer at 76. He taught me absolutely everything I know that's worth remembering.
I graduated at the height of the "go to college or be a loser forever" school of scholastic guidance -- but was the kind of guy who had always defaulted to the hard road... so I didn't go to college, I think just to prove that nobody was going to tell me what to do. I kicked around in dead-end jobs, working in a service station, driving a forklift 3rd shift, etc., but mom's side of the family was manifesting and I was really just cosplaying a blue collar garage monkey while reading Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard on the sly.
I was also reading the New Testament, and became very deeply serious about my faith. Of course I embraced the most hardcore and stridently countercultural method possible of living it out. I got married young to an EXCEPTIONALLY beautiful and impossibly young woman who was way (way) out of my league -- and proceeded to thank her for marrying down by almost immediately hauling her off to the 3rd world so I could live out my fantasy of saving the world (while catching rainwater and living in an off-grid cabin). When I say I was hardcore and stridently countercultural, I choose my words carefully and say it without any hint of hyperbole. My goal was to live as a latter-day John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness. I was insufferably idealistic and almost laughably careless with my own life, as well as the lives of those dependent on me.
As you might expect, we barely made it as a couple... and came home several years later with two kids and one on the way. The landing was as you would expect -- pretty much wheels up, belly dragging, and veering off the runway to land smoking in the grass. Fortunately [/s] for the financial future of the 4 people solely dependent on me, I had no marketable skill nor any formal education. Sure, I'd read all of Leo Tolstoy, etc.-- which made me just another well-read idiot.
I hired on to the last job I'd had before I left, essentially losing almost 4 years in the process. It was with a union commercial HVAC and refrigeration service company, and I was a $10/hr apprentice. I worked every job nobody else in the company would take. "The business" is 24/7/365, and driven by weather extremes. I could tell stories to illustrate how desperately cold I've been (the frostbite in both hands and feet), or how close I came to dying from heatstroke -- but it would sound too farfetched to seem real.
I was nearly electrocuted at a nuclear power plant before I even had my journeyman card and got electrical burns on my hands so bad I could smell my hands smoking as I fought to get off the power line. I had a chain-fall skip a link and crush a thumb like a rotten grape. I went through a drywall celling and hooked my nose on a screw as I went through, nearly cleaving my nose off my face. I ran my right hand through a belt and pulley, grinding my index finger down to the bone.
I've had carpel tunnel surgery in both hands, had a triceps tendon reattached (twice), and have had total knee replacements in both legs (also twice). L1- L5 are all bad (and inoperable) in my back and I've got a permanent scoliosis. I'm on 2 different BP medications, a statin, Levothyroxine for my dead thyroid. I've got hearing aids, and use a CPAP to sleep. I'm a one-man pharmacological cornucopia, kept upright and ambulatory by means of big pharma and gray market drugs from the pill-mills of the Asian subcontinent.
... but back to being not yet 30, flat broke with 3 kids, no formal education, and feeling like I'd absolutely blown my only chance at life: the skilled trades gave me the best living possible for a man with no actual credentials and way of life uniquely suited to my own "unique" personality. It provided more than I could have ever imagined in every way. Beyond just money, it mashed buttons in me I didn't know I had.
I had been a monumental professional F-up before I left for the far side of the globe, but on my return I learned "the trade" in near record time. It's amazing what looking down the barrel of financial annihilation will do for a man. I got my union card. I rapidly became valuable to my company, and was paid over scale. I became a supermarket refrigeration expert, and was servicing all of the independent grocers in two counties within a few years of stepping off the plane. At 34, I was still chafing, and hung out my own shingle... and immediately started making twice as much money as I had the day before for the same amount of work.
I did it all on my own for 15 years, deep into my 40s. I say "on my own", but dad helped when I needed an extra set of hands, and my son started riding with me in the summer when he was 10 years old. By the time he was 16, he was in his own van and making 30 bucks an hour. He owned part of the business.
I paid off my house, paid for all 3 of my kids to go to college, saved for my eventual retirement, and bought the cars I wanted and took the vacations I wanted to. I built my own house (twice), and own my own little corner of Morton, IL (3 houses all in a cluster).
I've got a couple of employees I try to treat like family -- both were young men who either went to college for 3-1/2 years (in the case of the older), or trade school for 2 (in the case of the younger). Both make $50-ish/hr with another $25 in benefits.
After 37 years (total) of doing this and 27 of doing it as an owner/operator, I can say this:
Sure it's hard work, but there are no small number of young men who WANT to take the hard road through life, to push themselves to their physical and mental limit. I was that guy. I've made at least twice as much money along the way as I would have if I'd have taken the easy road, but that isn't why I got into it or stayed in it. I genuinely like the work. I'll be 62 tomorrow, and could have (and maybe should have) retired in my 50s -- but I love this game, and I want to stay in it a bit longer, even if I'm barely touching the tools anymore.
I never set out to be a even sorta' middle class, but this gig has taken me further and higher than I ever could have imagined. My bride and I have kicked around Europe for a month 4 different times in 10 years. We've gone to Mexico or the Caribbean every year for 25 years. I've got 11 grandkids and 3 families dependent on my little shop on the prairie. God has been very, very good to me.
I'm very much learning to appreciate the ACF community.
I originally came here because I liked the cut of Jack's literary jib when he was at R&T, and I keep coming back (even though I'd like significantly more car content and significantly less "Minotaur or gooning") because of the conversation I'm finding here. This is by no means a monolithic community, but it's one where Jack has facilitated respect among members -- and that's pretty great.
Y'all bring something pretty unique to the table, every one of you. Hat's off.
Your devoted wife has been instrumental in your success more than you can imagine. I hope you show her this post and tell her it was her doing. Proverbs 31.
"Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies." We had crazy struggles -- things that wreck marriages -- but we didn't quit. I don't know how to quit, and she hung on by faith alone. I can't imagine why she stuck with me, but she did.
Thanks, but it all just sorta' happened, Andy. I'm just a small-town nobody from the Midwest -- but if I stepped in front of a truck tomorrow, I wouldn't have any regrets. Life is in the living of it.
We've only got a certain number of trips around the sun and I've always known that every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. If I get to the end and realize I never really did anything (besides merely exist) in the middle -- the ride is going to have seemed pretty short and pretty boring.
But if I REALLY live like I mean it in the middle, the whole thing takes shape and becomes a pretty compelling story.
I'm not likely to live another 20 years, so I have no idea if I'm at the end of the middle or the beginning of the end in my own story.
Same thing with factory work. Who could have guessed that 8 hours a day/6 days a week for standing 25 - 30 years on concrete would destroy your back and knees?
I was at the memorial service for a family friend who lived to be 94. His widow was my mother's closest friend and I was close to their son. I found out that day that Etta, my mom's friend, was Emil's second wife. They met in a displaced persons camp after her entire birth family, save for one brother out of a large number of siblings, was murdered. Emil's first wife and child were murdered. Emil and Etta somehow made it to Detroit, where they started a leather apparel company with her brother Sol (Emil's rectitude persuaded a buyer at Hudson's department store to pay them in advance for their first order, making it possible to start production). Sol's son, Mark, who lives three doors away from me, runs the business today. He's one of the most refined and kind people that I've known.
No Black American alive today (or their parents) has gone through anything approaching what Emil experienced. Somehow, he was able to start over and thrive.
It's not what hand you are dealt that determines the outcome of the game, it's how you play the cards
That must be some old brand of conservativism. Most conservatives I know understand the value of charity. The difference is: local, organized charity with measurable results.
It's also worth noting that this is exactly the problem with Boomer self improvement advice in ALL of its forms.
"Go to college" is advice that usually works on an individual basis. Followed by the whole society, you get the Masters Degree Barista.
Time and again I find myself discussing society-wide problems with people who say, "they should just work harder, or lift weights, or looksmaxx, or learn Python," and so on. Most of that will work for ONE person. It doesn't fix a broader issue.
Yes and no. The 4yr/4 wall college is a specific thing and higher learning should be beyond that. And the yields from the big rise of college grads from GI Bill/WW2 is nearly immeasurable.
But we’re failing kids much too early. No one here wants to do what EU and much of Asia do, but they slot kids much earlier into diff tracks, and support them (more or less) appropriately. Here in the US, it’s set up like College or Nowhere, even though college doesn’t ensure much these days.
Perhaps, but many of those high school graduates were working under the direction of guys with engineering degrees. Of course, some of the greatest engineers and inventors were self-taught. Edison, Tesla, Bosch, and Westinghouse didn't have any academic degrees.
Prior to subscribing to ACF, I had never heard the term "jeet" used as a pejorative. "Jeet" was a question asked by Appalachian relatives when I'd visit and they wanted to know if I was hungry.
"Jeet yet? They's ham and beans in the fridge. Or we can go out to Shoney's."
You can both be right. There's literally no other choice than maximum bootstrapping. But the level of collusion is off the charts and not even something indians themselves don't glory in, eg https://www.patelmotelstory.com/
"Sherman" cannot be right: he never argues for bootstrapping, or any other real solution. He explicitly states that wages to anyone in a "high cost country" are "theft" from shareholders (and "make work" and welfare) and believes that offshoring / indentured servitude is good because it reduces this "theft," and that AI is even better because it will soon end this "theft" completely.
He explicitly denigrates any form of skills, up to and including those which are rare, objectively demonstrable, and marketable, up to and including the skills of Javier Báez (the highest paid Tiger).
PS: But I also agree and have had this discussion with many over the years.
Me: "Our enemies, as a group, are acting against us in a coordinated fashion. Shouldn't we organize to defend ourselves?"
Response: "Just focus on yourself as an individual!"
Me: "I am, as I have all my life. But I also think we should coordinate to protect our interests: Tell me what war was won by a single individual."
Response: "Focus on your wife and kids!"
Me: "I am single; the closest I got was covering for my coworker Ramesh while he took a month off for his arranged marriage."
Response: "Just keep working on yourself and ignore the billions of dollars of lobbying, and the coordinated actions of industry and multiple governments against you."
The "human spirit" wants to fight as part of his tribe, but this option is not available to the modern Western man. The "human spirit" doesn't win wars: armies and/or paramilitary groups win wars.
It's not "blackpill" to observe that war is being waged against us and we don't even acknowledge it, let alone fight.
My folks ( boomers )both had degrees but were basically public servants: a nurse and a teacher.
Basically 25 years ago when I went to college they said either get a degree for the public sector that pays low but can be necessary or a high skill degree that might not be.
Ended up doing computer engineering. This idea that boomers just said "get a degree" must be with the late boomers and their millennial children.
Most boomers realized blue collar work got shipped overseas. What else then do you tell your kids?
I'm thinking of selling No 19 stickers (the universal No symbol over the numeral 19). Jack warned me that if I did, I might be hunted down and my assets used to fund trans surgeries.
My initial rename was going to be "Excalibruin", and it was going to be a mullet-haired sword that was into fighting and the Boston Bruins hockey team.
Vaughn Gittin Jr got exactly what he wanted out of Ford in his RTR. The real question is, will anyone buy these things? And yeah... if you want the V8, VG sells one in the form of the RTR Spec5 which is actually a pretty nice stang for half the GTD cost... but it's still a mustang over 100k bucks.
Stellantis-
Let's hope that Stellantis has figured out this "New Coke" experiment should be over and done with. Everything good they are bringing out right now is the very stuff we told them two years not to ditch. I expect it to be met with excellent sales numbers compared to before.
Mumdani-
I'm drinking a whole lot of copium today on this. We're told that he'll win and NYC will fail and it'll prove that this thing doesn't work. But, will it? We continue to pump kids through higher education institutions at a high rate who come out and LOVE the Mumdanis of the world. When they can't find a job, they move places they can. Guess what? That's closer to us.
What I'm really over most is this GOP civil war crap. It's a much wider and bigger tent these days. That means you'll have people you don't like underneath it. If the fighting doesn't stop, there will be zero coalition once Trump is gone. The idiots don't realize that he was an incredibly uniting figure for the totality of the base despite how divisive we've been told he is. The talent bench is deep... but if they start fighting, no one will win.
To change history you either have to stack wins or stack bodies. I fear for the second and frankly I don't think our society has the stomach for it despite electing text message wise guys.
In regards to the civil war crap, the politicians themselves aren't the ones that are mildly terrifying, it's the weasel voters who continue to vote for them that are the issue. My oldest son, against all advice (to be honest, there wasn't much else available for $250,000 in regards to housing, he's outside Pensacola, and got an acre and a half plus a rather new house in a somewhat-decent neighborhood) he moved to Florida, and he's noting that he's surrounded by Trump people, flags waving everywhere, but the type of people who are waving those flags are stuck in a fascinating, sociopathic mindset that Trump is going to re-usher in some sort of golden era of 1980's $5 an hour, and record prices for anything that they might be selling.
This is what's on one side of the civil war in question, greasy Boomer-types who for whatever idiotic reason desperately want the guy in office, but also vehemently disagree with everything he (supposedly) claims to hold dear, in effect, ending the get-rich-at-everyone-else's-expense financial party that the Boomers have been running for decades. At the same time, on the other side of the Boomer aisle, you've got hardcore Democrats who are pissed off that Trump is wanting to end the party, at least while they're still alive and are able to blow through whatever remains of their money so their supposedly-evil kids won't get a dime.
Kind of not really giving a shit about blue or red states these days, they're both corrupt disasters in completely different ways, at this point, might as well stay in Oregon and continue to take my punishment for merely existing, in addition to continue to hope and pray that the Earth Killer asteroid does finally wipe out Homo Sapien sometime during my existence so I can finally breathe that existential sigh of relief.
BTW, I should mention that I'm actually a happy guy to be around in person.
Regarding pessimism, I realized something yesterday: I actually have a form of plot armor, in the real world no less!
I'll never have to worry about being killed in a terrorist bombing, plane crash or mass shooting. I'm invulnerable to any kind of mass-casualty incident.
How, you ask? Simple.
When some jihadi blows up a skyscraper, or some airliner lawn-darts into a blue-collar neighborhood, how are the victims inevitably described?
As fun-loving, popular, full of life, outgoing, everybody loved them.
None of them were ever angry loners or sullen misanthropes or depressive introverts or socially awkward shut-ins or anybody else American culture wants to pretend don't exist.
My God, you might have something there. Just imagine the incredible drop in American casualties and deaths in both the European and Pacific/Asian theaters of World War II had we instead sent a couple of million pessimistic assholes over to fight in all those battles, Holy Christ, all of our memorials from that war would only be highlighting, lest we forget, all the casualties our doom-and-gloom boys suffered in the form of paper cuts, shaving nicks, sunburns, and the odd occasional boot-caused blister...
Wait...did we just solve the whole "war" thing?
The only pisser here is that because it's in Jack's Substack, he gets 90% of all the proceeds from our having saved the world from any future war-related deaths or casualties, that parasitic jerk.
JACK? LOOK AWAY, THIS DOESN'T CONCERN YOU MONETARILY.
Me personally, I'd double my efforts and see if you might be able to revive the old Jerry Lewis telethon show, but pessimist your way into curing cancer through live TV/livestream.
Just think: You'll be able to generate an assload of money for curing cancer, but you won't have to spend a dime on research, you've already cured it in the most depressing way imaginable.
I'm gonna wander through the halls of my wife's memory care facility in an hour or two, just to see how many miracles of healing in eradicating dementia I can create with my advanced theorizing of doom and gloom during the last couple of hours of dayshift.
Don't preen too much, I think there are a few dozen regular posters who fit your description too. At least one of them is likely to get hit by a detached, burning Boeing engine.
I whole heartedly approve of many Trumpian actions and policies but then I read that his interests (family) have profited to the tune of forty million dollars with his bit coin ventures. I think, "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater."
Regarding the GOP civil war, I'm usually with Reagan in that those who agree with me 80% of the time aren't 20% my enemies. However, I'm not sure that I can remain in a tent that includes Jew haters who want to see my grandchildren dead, and people who disingenuously platform those haters, saying they are "just asking questions." Those questions are the same bullshit the haters have been saying since they said Jews poisoned wells and spread the Black Plague.
Reagan got elected because William Buckley drew some hard lines two decades earlier. Maybe it's time again to draw some lines. I know that the paleo-right despises the fusionists like Buckley, but when was the last time the paleo-right won an election here?
I think there are two kinds of conservatives. American conservatives who want to conserve the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Declaration and Constitution, and more European style "conservatives" who are reactionary and identitarian. Tradition and identity is more important to them than the liberty expressed in our founding documents. I don't think those reactionaries are in any way ideologically aligned with the broad stream of American conservatism. We see that in the way Tucker Carlson and the people he's promoted attack American culture as degenerate.
White supremacists are just as collectivist as communists; it's just a different collective.
I read the stories on Breitbart. I then read the comments. I comment sometimes. I'm embarrassed to be associated with many of my supposed birds of a feather.
Too many come off like William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting in "Gangs of New York."
Supremacism = your group is inherently superior to those in other groups, who can never equal you because of innate differences, for example, the Han Chinese, or Brahmins of India.
Which group is mine? Americans? Hockey fans? Harmonica enthusiasts? Deadheads? As the poet said, I contain multitudes.
If you're referring to my being a Jew, I'll simply point out that for about 2,600 years Jews were forced into accepting various uberkulturs' definitions of what Jews' legitimate group interests were, one of the factors that lead to the development of modern political Zionism. Apparently, though, Jews defining their own group interests by having political self-determination in their historic homeland is not something much of the world will tolerate.
Since I wasn't, ahem, around when they were new in that era I'll cast my vote off of what I did see when I was, and that was K-cars, despite being in the NE rust belt. The GM products were very few and far between. Pretty sure there were a few early Ks in my high school parking lot, surely pulled out of grandmas garage and put into teen transport duty, in the early 00s.
That would support Jack's assessment that the drivetrains were much more reliable. Since neither of these are particularly desirable cars, why not go with whichever models are more likely to work?
Along with the Mazda vehicle that Bertel Schmidt idolized! (Why can’t I think of the model?! The one with the front end resembling some of the female parts mentioned!)
Chrysler made a better economy car, while GM made a better product. Basic K-Cars to me just seemed more pleasant than base Citation’s. That said a loaded X-Car was far more pleasant than any K-Car short of the fancy stretched ones. And if we’re talking stretch models, there is no world where I would take a LeBaron or a 600 over a Cutlass Ciera or a Century.
I'm recalling a 1984 Celebrity with a 2.8 V6 I was given by a neighbor of my Grandma's. It only had 36K or so on the thing, they never drove it.
I ended up replacing:
The engine. The 2.8's were absolute hot garbage.
Power steering pump...twice
The carburetor, and that was after a few rebuilds, the baseplate was garbage/worn out already
The electric power valve on top of the carb...exactly seven times, I ended up converting the car to an X-11 non-computer-controlled carb and HEI distributor, it actually ran better afterward
Shocks and struts
Brakes, five times, couldn't keep pads on it, only garbage replacements available
six or seven door handles on the driver's door...both sides...
three or four batteries
Two HEI modules for the distributor conversion further up
Five alignments, through three different shops. Want to see sloppy engineering? Watch an expert align one of these cars, you have to screw around with shifting the subframe around to make it straight.
Replaced the driver's seat some five or six times, absolutely flimsy garbage
Two headliners
I did end up getting rid of the terrible 13" wheels and swapped a set of X-11 wheels onto the thing (I got an X-11 for parts, no title, belonged to some ancient guy and he died, couldn't get the title, got the car for $100, had to scrap it)
Traded the thing in with only 52K on it, was weary of replacing parts.
In other news, the only K-ish car I ever owned (I did own a couple of Chrysler T&C minivans) was an '88 Dodge Dynasty with the 2.5 in it, drastically more reliable than any similar-year Chevrolet, other than replacing the problematic reverse-apply pin (common problem with the A670 3-speed auto, the replacement is far stronger), I got it with a tick over a hundred thou on the car, sold it with 260,000, and I last saw the car with the guy I sold it to, it had 365K on it and still had the original (noisy as hell, but it was loud when I got it) 2.5 and transmission.
Yeah, I wish I could rack it up to simply being an idiot with a wrench, but I've encountered similar reliability hijinks-related hilarity with other mid-1980's GM products. I don't call this era of GM "The Interior Rainforest" for nuttin...
It's tough to understand how bad GM cars of the late 70s - early 80s could be without having lived through it. It's like they actively hated their customers and wanted them punished.
Whenever I see the ridiculous sex appeal on social media for 3rd-gen Camaros and Firebirds/Trans Ams, my only response is, "you've clearly never driven one of these cars, or worse, owned one."
When you closed the doors on a new 3rd-ben F-body, it wasn't the solid, refined, generally pleasing to Biff-and-Buffy-alike "thunk" that was associated with so many Mercedes doors, it was instead hearing the sound of cheaply-made robots not quite clapping metal hands in unison, as if there were a couple of slower robots with interesting head injuries in the group.
And pray that you weren't dumb enough to end up with a T-top version of one of these cars...I'd mention the convertibles, but there are people with weak constitutions who read these comments and I don't want to be responsible for yet another hospital trip to the ICU for someone who's just read something I wrote and collapsed near an open dishwasher during the weekly "let's wash all the knives with the sharp ends pointing up!" cleaning session.
I'm having a spot of trouble in coming up with another car where "beauty is only skin deep" applies so well in regards to the 3rd gen. Yes, there are definitely others out there, but we're talking about GM here.
The only version of this car that I'm solidly in love with is the 1LE Camaro of this era, at least Chevrolet was kind enough to devote an option package that shows...at gunpoint because you couldn't get A/C...the only thing the 3rd gen was best at, and that was driving around an autocross track or road course with the windows down and exhaust uncorked, the only blessed sounds with any sort of a fighting chance to drown out the cacophony of cheap within the 3rd gen's existentially-questionable interior.
In the end, there's no way that General Motors could have accidentally combined so many terrifyingly bad features into a single vehicle platform, no, there are vengeful fingerprints all over this car, the amount of fingerprints you'd see on a cute waitress's bottom during "Grab The Waitress's Ass For Fun And Profit!" night at a nearby steakhouse, indicating that it was somehow done on purpose, and with malice, that somehow the AntiChrist would be summoned if enough of these cars were built.
Not really hate; just indifference. When you have 40% market share it doesn't matter what you make: it's gonna sell.
And when they say that their vehicles are "competitive" it's corporate-speak for average.
So if your product is so indistinguishable from the dealer down the street, the only way your competitive product wins is that some buyers may be too lazy to drive another block past your store.
Looking back, I'm simply astonished that this garbage was somehow laughingly allowed to go out the door. And if I recall correctly, this was even after GM and Toyota sort of nervously joined together to try to learn something from each other, or in the case of Toyota, they practically gave away the farm to get inside GM's inner circle just to see if all the horror stories they had heard were actually true.
I seem to recall (okay, I might be going full-absurd here) that Japan's infamous "suicide forest" gathered its first members directly from the group of Toyota executives who had toured GM's hideous 1980's assembly plants and after seeing the horrors contained within ("No, it's actually somehow worse than seeing how sausage is made! I can't unsee what I've just seen!", and then he runs off to go vomit around the corner), were simply being polite by not throwing themselves on their own swords in front of the Americans and waited until they could fly home and do it there.
My Dad’s 1986 Century Limited with the wonky feedback carb on the 2.8, and the blown head gasket on my 1984 2000 Sunbird hatchback, made my family the Honda family we are today!
I was reading this thinking, "wow, five seats, he must have put a gazillion miles on this thing...FIFTYTWOTHOUSAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S IT??????" And that's 52k minus 36k. OMG.
I wish I could say that I weighed 800 pounds, but it was more like 280, I'm from northeastern Europe troll stock, my sons are freaking scrawny but are pushing 240-270. We're all kinda built like Shrek.
It was getting ridiculous, it was either the seat back, the springs, the tilt mechanism, and two sets of seat tracks broke out of the seats.
I would have bought another car, but this and odd time, waaaay before the internet, and my boomer dad did me zero favors when he obliterated my credit report with his borrowing of my SSN for loans that he never paid back.
Later on, after I opened my shop, people were just dropping off fairly nice freebies fairly regularly and I didn't have to buy a car for a long time after that.
Three are the lowest end of over six feet tall, the oldest is, oddly enough, the shortest and heaviest (okay, maybe not that scrawny), but the lightest kid at 240 looks like he hasn't eaten in weeks and is still leaving footprints in a hardwood floor.
It was really weird with the kids when they were, uh, actual kids, you'd pick up someone else's kid to load them into a vehicle or something, and it wasn't anything special, and you'd pick up one of mine and kinda go 'oof', and they weren't a whole lot larger than other kids, if at all. I was 255-260 and right at 6-feet-tall in 9th grade, and the second heaviest player on that year's junior high football team, the heaviest was the center at 260. It was fun knocking him on his ass a few times in a row (top heavy, thinner legs) and then hitting the scales afterward to show that I was indeed just as heavy as he was.
I should also mention that my mom's side of the family sort of look like pissed off cave trolls most of the time (my mom and my oldest son look like they want to murder puppies even when they're in a happy mood), and IIRC, the Soviet Union was sort of forcibly recruiting kindly folks from Lithuania and related areas for their weightlifting/better strength through direct feed line of steroids athletes, my mom and her side of the family is from Estonia.
So yeah, long-winded answer to a short-winded question.
No matter how much you weigh, it doesn't justify that. Imagine what those seats would do in an accident. And your dad was a jerk.
This reminds me of my wife's Cruze. It was a solid car for the most part but I gave up replacing the exterior trunk release button after it failed three times. It's just not protected at all from water so the electric switch stops working. It was annoying because there is no interior button and the key fob would only pop the trunk if the car was off. So, picking up someone from the airport? You had to turn off the car, pull the key out of ignition, press the release, then restart the car.
"Imagine what those seats would do in an accident."
I'm just remembering what those entire 1980's GM cars did in an accident. I had a high school friend of mine (and my wife's as well, her friend first) that was killed in 1991, she was driving an '89 Chevy Corsica, didn't quite clear a big rig when coming back over.
From accident reconstruction, she almost cleared it, maybe caught two or three inches of the offset bulb of the front wheel and the lug nuts, most any other car would have simply bounced off. The wrecking yard this car was dropped off in had another car there that had damn near the exact same hit on it, I think it might have been a mid-1980's Grand Marquis, it just flattened the driver's side of the car about 4-6 inches in, driver was carted to the hospital, left a day later, was kept overnight for observation.
The Corsica, however, it looked like someone took an old style lever can opener and went down the entire side of the car, the doors, door frames, the entire left/driver's side wall, down to the middle of the rear wheel arch, it just cleanly peeled almost the whole damn assembly off (it popped all the spot welds) and bent back behind the car.
Naturally, this was when the sexual rage for door-mounted seat belts was in full effect, so when the doors went, so did the seat belts...and so did the driver, she was rolled and wadded up between the two vehicles. I'll let you fill in the blank for details.
The car even split in half under the seat.
Structurally speaking, the rest of the car didn't look that bad, it almost looked like you could have simply welded on another side of the car, patched up the floor, and drove the thing again. It did need a core support, but it wasn't caved in flat all the way to the engine, I'm thinking maybe a 25-30mph hit in any other accident.
That was a fun double funeral.
It was also loads of fun seeing one of my older brothers sporting a 1991 Corsica as his daily at one point, totally not nervewracking at all when he wanted me to work on it and drive it afterwards.
Was the passenger belted in, and THAT door went, or was it being hit by the driver’s side of the dashboard and steering wheel that took them out? (Amongst the other crash forces?)
And the sad thing is, with all that work, it was still a Celebrity. There is no "...but when it ran!" redemption in this story. It's the girlfriend who was as ugly as she was crazy.
"Look at all the work I've done on this car! Isn't it great?"
Uh, no. It isn't. In fact, I'm so emotionally destroyed by the experience that I'm going to have "I once worked on a 1980's GM product to try to actually improve it and see where I ended up" on my headstone after I pass away.
That was the equivalent of a near-religious experience for me, buying a shitbox 2000 Lexus SC300, I didn't even fit in the damn thing (curse you, Toyota) and it was already immediately better than any American coupe I'd ever driven up to that point. I even ignored panic attacks from claustrophobia to drive that freaking car (tall seated height, thank you, Boomer Dad).
I own a 2010 5th gen Camaro (the Synergy edition, the bright ass green eyesore version of that car that was thankfully only built for one year), and even with a decade or two of development under its belt, fit and finish are still something that lacks in comparison with what is, at best, a 25-year-old car. If Toyota built a proper RWD coupe that I actually fit in (the SC430 is out, as are any of the RCF whatevers that came out later), I'd have a couple of them in my driveway.
Beyond that, after owning what is largely American garbage, driving Toyota or Lexus is largely an unnerving experience in the beginning, simply because you start piling on miles, and you're nervously looking over your shoulder more and more, asking yourself the question, "wait, isn't something supposed to be breaking or failing by now?".
Hmm..oil changes, tire rotations, and maybe a transmission fluid change, brake service, or coolant service, every so often. And a detail once or twice a year.
Who knew?
That describes 90% of the service needs of my five Hondas, all purchased new, since 1994.
It’s worth nothing that the X-body launched the GM factory here in Oklahoma City in the late 1970s. That factory transitioned to making the A-bodies (since those were derived from the X-bodies), then briefly the gen. 3 N-bodies (Cutlass, Malibu), and then finally the extended-wheelbase GMT3XX SUVs. It was shut down in 2006 (well ahead of the bankruptcy and restructuring) when those products were discontinued, and has been annexed into the nearby Tinker Air Force Base.
I know it was a simple typo, but it's comical that this sentence applies so beautifully to describe the blase' history of this particular plant.
To borrow from Ford:
"Mediocrity is Job One!"
Fascinating to hear from someone who lives in my one-time hometown. I managed to live through OKC for about a year (1990-1991, a wonderful ice storm around that time), and this was after living in Moore for almost as long in the late 1980's.
It was a bit weird going back through my old neighborhood in Moore in 2003 and discovering that pretty much the entire neighborhood was simply erased off of the map by the 1999 F5 that kicked and stomped its way through there, bits of sidewalk and asphalt here and there, and broken-off stubs of piping and other bits were all that were left.
It's even a bit more disturbing while looking at similar tornado tracks through that area since 1999, it's as if God keeps forcibly insisting that he really doesn't want anyone to live there, and nobody's listening.
Wasn't too bad of an area otherwise, my wife is from McCurtain County, and somehow escaped without a single hint of an accent, while the rest of her family sounds like Boomhauer from King of the Hill.
I wasn’t alive in 1990/1991, and we didn’t move here until late 2002. But I do remember still seeing carnage from the 1999 tornado. The ones in 2011 and 2013 were pretty bad, too. At this point, practically everything along the S 19th St corridor in Moore is pretty new, probably because of the tornados.
The accents here are odd. I’m from Colorado and have no accent, but my partner—who is from a rural part of Oklahoma—definitely has a twang, which picks up if he’s talking to someone else from the area.
It was a bit of culture shock (and lots of other kind of shock) in early 1982 when my mom suddenly came up with the bright idea of leaving North Hollywood, California behind and dropping us straight into the middle of Hell in McCurtain County, where I was suddenly acquainted with three types of venemous snake, mosquitos, chiggers, seed ticks, regular ticks, facial ticks, tornadoes, hail, humidity, macaroni and butter, and even worse, the local inhabitants around the area who were almost completely unintelligible.
Even better? I encountered all of this on the same day.
I still think that McCurtain County's chief export is people attempting to flee the area for anything better, Detroit, Beirut, the East side of The Ukraine, or even Arkansas.
I seem to have blocked out of memory all of the problems with the 2.8 v6 in my wife's 84 S10 Blazer, other than it was horribly underpowered at sea level and pathetic at elevation in the Rockies.
My dad was paid to build/modify a guy's 2.8 Blazer back in 1987, managed to get better pistons, cam and lifters, and the Edelbrock 2 piece intake for that turd.
The owner blew it up racing a stock Silverado pickup and holding it in manual low, didn't shift in time and windowed the block. The guy was losing to a stock 5.0/305 and thought that winding it out to beyond redline would give it another 100hp.
We never touched another 2.8 after that, these things would break parts even when stock, I am recalling them lunching the #1 and #4 rods, and most local-ish machine shops at the time mostly refused to rebuild them, “too flimsy to rebuild”.
I thought there was a Click and Clack joke about the Omni having a heated rear window so your hands wouldn’t freeze when you pushed it. But Google AI is telling me it was about the Yugo. (Shrug)
The Yugo GV was incredibly well equipped with luxuries such as 3 grab handles, 2 dome lights, a visor vanity mirror, a cigarette lighter and……an electric rear window defroster.
My dad had the Aries version of THAT EXACT CAR. I never saw another dark blue Aries K coupe besides his. Saw a lot of light blue Reliant coupes, though.
That's what I think of the Northeast. Went on a work trip to Boston. At dinner, a middle-age woman working at this contractor brought up how it's a shame there will never be another national election. She was dead serious. Although, if she really thought that, why hasn't she fled the country?
Begpardon for thickness, but she said this as a left-winger believing in Trump 2028 (lol), or a right-winger believing in the demographic implication that future elections will not offer american-americans and american-american to vote for?
"At dinner, a middle-age woman working at this contractor brought up how it's a shame there will never be another national election. She was dead serious."
Imagine working in an entire building full of these types of people. I've been working in healthcare since late 2019, my wife's been doing it since the late 1980's (began at age 16, working in her grandmother's facility), the local hospital system here is filled to the brim with psychos who are convinced that the death camps are coming for them, you know, when they're not trying to tell management with a straight face that they're supposed to be paid a full week's wages but only see one patient.
"I'd love to live in the Pacific Northwest for the scenery and weather."
It's...pretty? But it's not Utah or Colorado levels of pretty.
That's what cracks me up about idiots who move into this area (other than the Cali sociopaths/psychopaths), a few of them are here from Utah and Colorado, and they moved here because it was...pretty.
Not whether or not they could get a job, escape political persecution, better schools (lol), nope, no logical considerations whatsoever, it's just "pretty!" here.
At best, most of Central Oregon is just shitty high desert scrub with parasitic Juniper trees everywhere.
I was thinking of perhaps doing some sort of YT car channel thing here, however, you drive 100 miles in any direction and you get drastically different scenery.
I can say that's pretty much not true. Look at Austin. Look at Houston, and now look at Dallas.
They're coming here because Taxes are lower. Then of course they immediately start in on how 'we need to raise taxes and spend more money'. I'm actually considering selling my house and moving because the Californians that moved into my rural area have raised taxes so many times in the last 7 years that I'm paying a fortune in property taxes.
Yeah. When we decided to flee Chicago it came down to the hill country of Texas or middle Tennessee outside of Nashville. The deciding factor was property taxes. Tennessee wins hands down….excluding Nashville which will have two major increases in a couple of years.
Somewhere there is or should be, a ten foot tall bronze statue of Howard Jarvis, the Godfather of Prop 13, the initiative that saved California real property owners gazillions of dollars.
Gov Nuisance and every other Damnocrat who can only dream of the gazillions of other people's money that might have been flushed down the toilet. Ever hear of the Bullet Train?"
Because you are YOUNGER and the purpose of the younger is to be SACRIFICED TO ENRICH THEIR ELDERS (Mr. Nevell is 91...just shy of the average age of a Democrat member of Congress ;) )
Cali psychopaths have absolutely destroyed the housing markets in practically all 48 continental states, and have introduced their most-profitable-of-all mental illness into many a locale.
I'd like to think, as a current CA resident, the ensuing vacuum here and Gov. Hair-gel's exit to pursue his delusions of grandeur will make the pendulum swing back as far as possible and reset this place.
The full insanity of Our Political Predicament can’t be conveyed any more succinctly than “Trump is to the LEFT of Bill Clinton on 99% of issues” — and despite this we’ve moved so far left so fast leftists hyperventilate when thinking about the guy.
Crazy crazy truth! Trump wouldn’t dare lock up repeat violent offenders a la Clinton
NC has been overrun by blue dot idiots who proclaim "Don't worry, I vote blue!" and the greater Raleigh clusterfuck triangle has a huge population of jeets now asserting their voting numbers on local contests.
Yeah, that's the problem with sociopaths/psychopaths who do this shit, nothing is ever their fault, but they also don't hang around to face the consequences of their actions. Currently dealing with this crap in Central Oregon, where out-of-towners even run practically all city and county government, and they're running it into the ground.
It's actually getting to be difficult to find anyone...and I mean anyone...who was actually born in this state that's still in the area.
Then there are college students who vote in local elections, graduate and leave town. That would be UMASS - Amherst, MA. Everything and anything passes and most of the people that voted for it leave town.
Mamdani can cause a lot of pain. Ignoring criminals & refusing to prosecute them, making the budget deficit even worse, driving business and the productive out of NYC are just a few almost guaranteed to happen.
5000lb sedans are not interesting to me no matter how much HP they have, unless it is a Bentley or Rolls.
Not sure about the generation of K cars you mention, I was very young, but we had a 1987 Plymouth Aries K I do remember and it was a POS. Constantly in the shop and eventually lemoned.
As much as watching an IRL Escape from NY sounds entertaining to me, unfortunately without walls and razorwire it will be a C+ reproduction at best. I predict a flight out of those that see what is coming, followed but a later wave of believers who realize now THEY are the rich, followed by misery/riots/etc. But who knows. The biggest lesson is this: heterogenous societies create homogenous societies, every single time.
I think the kids are alright though… they know that socialism is only ever a few million murders away from working, and I don’t think they are going to go along with the plan.
What's really incredible to me is that this guy could be elected mayor of the city with the largest population of Jews in the world (yes, including Israel). Reminds me of the Lenin quote, "A capitalist is some one who will sell you the rope you use to hang him."
Let’s try this again. Re: both political parties shipping manufacturing to China. Here’s a link to a great article: https://substack.com/@drewholden360/note/c-166235845?r=48qsss&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Everyone should read this. Thank you.
Very well written.
There's only one thing that Sharpie left out, however:
Which demographic was responsible for shipping as much manufacturing overseas as possible, while still keeping the same prices, and pocketing the difference? And that same demographic is now shouting the loudest because the party is on its way to being over? This is where I'd like to insert the "hell to pay" part of the discussion.
Golly gee, sure seems like a lot of work is being performed to kinda keep that part quiet.
As I like to say in conversation, every major change in this country since 1992 has been either in the cause of raising capital/property value or in the cause of lowering labor rates.
1992 was a crucial year: the US had the chance to elect Buchanan or Perot but got "globalism" instead.
Buchanan - no way; don’t trust him at all
Perot - hell yes!
We're pretty deep down the "Pat was right about everything" mineshaft for anyone to suggest that he wasn't trust-worthy. Wild.
1992 was the year we started importing Somalis. I like to blame Democrats* for all of life's ills, but Somali importation began under Bush 41, and Columbus' last Republican mayor Greg Lashutka raised his hand and said "Ooo! Ooo! Send them to my city!"
*it's really the Uniparty.
Very timely for me, as a low level engineering employee at a US "manufacturer" I feel like a lonely voice resisting the pull to still just send everything to China, and pull it out of our own plant. I am not really sure how to resist this. The Build America buy America regulations are really the only thing keeping us making stuff in the US at all. Would be interested if anyone else has found effective means to sway their superiors to consider building in US even at marginally higher initial cost.
I work for a mid-size US manufacturer (~1800 people) with 4 US facilities and an operation our auto customers essentially demanded we build in Mexico.
We've seen customers dump us for China pre-covid, only to come crawling back when shipping went parabolic. Same story with different drones this time. The one thing that saved us is our product is very heavy and annoying to ship, yet also relatively inexpensive in absolute terms, so it never resulted in much of a savings to off-shore until China started heavily subsidizing their players in our space.
Sadly, in an era where large companies squirrel chase daily and the same retreads rotate jobs as frequently as I change underwear, they just forget how many billions they've lost in the past 5 years from supply chain disruptions because no one remembers the past. They convince themselves an excel projection based on historical data and powerpoints are reality and their fantastical projections that never worked in the past will somehow work this time around.
We're hiring engineers - https://metal-technologies.com/careers/
Nice to see a lot map pins stuck inside Michigan!
"The one thing that saved us is our product is very heavy and annoying to ship, yet also relatively inexpensive in absolute terms"
I KNEW IT! SOMEONE here in the states was manufacturing exact robotic clones of me (down to my hardwood-floor-punishing weight, my making everyone's life around me a living hell whenever I travel anywhere, and exactly-similar dollar value in that I'm generally of little value to everyone around me) and now I know who you are!
Wrong answer.
He is making clones of ME.
Oh yeah? Well, take that! And that!
(Tries to distract everyone with loud swishing sounds while desperately searching my torso for the knob that raises/lowers your general value to humanity around you, hopes it goes to "11" in the other direction)
Short of shooting them, its probably hopeless. Says a much older engineer who has had the same arguments with the “geniuses” above and always lost.
I have a similar piece in my drafts about the greatness of the Honda Shadow, mostly because it's a motorcycle built in Japan by people who care. But this is much better. Thanks for the link.
I just hope that a union doesn't come in and create work rules which prevent people from being required to learn new skills and innovations from being incorporated into Newell's processes, which would change the minds of the board about the suitability of US production once again. Clinton being a Chinese agent wasn't the entire reason US industrialists couldn't close their factories here fast enough.
This is a car blog, right? Remiss to let it pass without noting the great work of a very ACFFian young man, Kyle Kuhnhausen (ig: kckuhnhausen) whose C2 corvette (https://kmcspeedshop.com/pages/serious66 ) has set a new bar in a few areas for hotrods. This is to say nothing of BBT Fab's 59 impala which features a bit of mind bending metalwork... https://www.instagram.com/bbtfab/ / https://digital.modernrodding.com/issue/december-2024ph/1959-chevy-impala-receives-fresh-stainless-steel-trim/
among others. Wish I was there, love to see what you all have shot/noticed at the show
Also isn't EICMA going on concurrently?
*edit* Honda making a stunt bike? https://www.eicma.it/en/honda-v3r-900-e-compressor-power-under-control/
only 25 years after hundreds of people took beat up CBR900RR & 929RRs and turned them into flat tank monstrosities
ive seen those before and ill admit to being brazenly envious of his setup and space to work. that vette (and everything else tbh) is a viciously expensive undertaking.
really pleased to see the lovely metalwork on that impala. i like how im not the only one who saw that and wanted to fix the imperfections and make it pretty
so agreed!
The metalwork around the windshield weatherstripping is out of this world. I didn't realize it could be done (without rendering the trim un-replaceable without refabrication... then again... 🤔🤔🤔)
Pinned. With regard to SEMA and EICMA, I think social media has people in a permanent state of fatigue; we could discuss the new V5, but everything everyone knows about it fits into a 5 second IG reel.
Your audience is half boomers and the other half spiritual (sometimes, wishful) boomers ("god let me become bede's sparrow") - The links mainly for those off IG.
On that chrome trim work, I think the OG Robert Kennedy said it best:
“'Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.'”
Amen
My default reaction to resto-mod or custom C2s is loathing, but Kuhnhausen really did a killer job of that one!
then you won't be too sad about this oopsie: https://gmauthority.com/blog/2025/11/jeep-restomod-accidentally-plows-into-c2-corvette-trans-am-c7-zr1-in-auction-parking-lot/
an expensive go/stop pedal mistake!
Those photos are so terrible I can't tell how bad the restomod was hahaha
Billion dollar restos of boomer era corvettes with late model drive trains have been thing since I started paying attention in 1995. Maybe I’ve been been burned out, they don’t do much for me. I want to see an aluminum frame carbon body C4 with a max effort 4.5” bore space “small block”.
Man, that C4 sounds awesome. Make mine with callaway speedster-look body and hotted NA LT5 plz
I think the gazillion dollar boomer builds may have re-jumped the shark back to coolness via usage of Roadster Shop frames, typically with independent (C5) suspension at all four corners. These days the cars might even be nice to drive, rather than merely to look at and listen to.
To your point though, perhaps something has been lost since rodding was transformed from a cost-conscious fettling hobby to a cash-cannon wallet-racing hobby.
Callaway LMs are out there. And Doug rippie built a nascar engined monster back in the day for One Lap. Not much else out there I can think of along those lines though
https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/this-95-corvette-zr-1-braved-le-mans-with-black-widow-power/
⬆️this thing? This is one of the best looking cars ive seen. Never knew about loads of these things
Looks awesome
I thought that was the website for a bagel fork company
BBT Fabrications is right up the road from me here (well, an hour and a half, but still -- this is the prairie).
Thanks for the cool article.
the quality of that metal work is unbelievable
Random aside, but worthy of discussion:
From the WSJ Today (there's a paywall, so a link would be useless):
Ford Considers Scrapping Electric Version of F-150 Truck
Once hyped as a ‘smartphone that can tow,’ production of the money-losing EV pickup may be shut down for good
Ford Motor executives are in active discussions about scrapping the electric version of its F-150 pickup, according to people familiar with the matter, which would make the money-losing truck America’s first major EV casualty.
The Lightning, once described by Ford as a modern Model T for its importance to the company, fell far short of expectations as American truck buyers skipped the electric version of the top-selling truck. Ford has racked up $13 billion in EV losses since 2023.
Overall EV sales, already falling short of expectations, are expected to plummet in the absence of government support. And big, electric pickups and SUVs are the most vulnerable.
“The demand is just not there” for F-150 Lightning and other full-size trucks, said Adam Kraushaar, owner of Lester Glenn Auto Group in New Jersey. He sells Ford, GMC, Chevy and other brands. “We don’t order a lot of them because we don’t sell them.”
No final decision has yet been made, according to people familiar with the discussions, but such a move by Ford could be the beginning of the end for big EV trucks.
Ram truck-maker Stellantis earlier this year called off plans to make an electric version of its full-size pickup. General Motors executives have discussed discontinuing some electric trucks, according to people familiar with the matter. Sales of Tesla’s angular, stainless steel Cybertruck pickup tanked this year. And EV truck-maker Rivian has been cutting jobs to conserve cash.
... and so forth... The article goes on, but this is the gist of it.
Bear with me as I climb upon my soap-box. From day one I wondered who the market was for a truck shaped thing that cannot tow and cannot haul anything.
I thought the entire conceit betrayed how deeply Mary Barra and Jim Farley misunderstood their core market, and therefore how desperately bad they were and are at their respective jobs. There is only one reason to buy a full-sized pickup truck -- because you want to haul things or tow things. A BEV truck has a total range of about 100 mi. when towing anything at all, and less if it's a heavy thing or if there's wind or if it's hot/cold. Aside from the "early adopter" fanboys, nobody wanted the thing.
This is bad news for my neck of the woods, because Rivian has dumped a buttload of money into their factory right up the road in Normal, IL and had been on a hiring binge (until recently) that lifted everybody's boat for 2- 5 years.
Is this the beginning of a return to sanity? Time will tell.
Re: Rivian:
Man, I hope so. I've never wanted to see a stupid idea succeed more. I'm a hometown homeboy, and the factory is literally 20 minutes from my front door.
Re: Ford:
It's gonna' be hard to fire Bill Ford.
Yeah. Them and Lucids (note: not the gravity which looks like a Kia Carnival) are both kinda rad imo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Clay_Ford_Jr.
"Ford has been a vegetarian since 1990, and adopted a vegan diet in 2010."
The Rivian Scaringe fellow rented a mtb from me when he was in town drumming up money from billionaires. He was a decent rider, enthusiastic and friendly. He also had two very attractive assistants who took care of things. A small interaction like that changed me from looking forward to seeing them flop to hoping not everyone involved ends up looking for another job.
What's interesting is that a TTAC reader a long time ago wrote me a whole fully researched piece on why Scaringe was a grifter and they'd never make a single vehicle... and he was completely wrong.
Well their service policies and performance is rivaling Tesla, and neither are good.
So glad I didn't sign on to be a service tech for them 3 years ago
A bunch of ICE engineers got fired in pivot to the inEVitable
And I would have done that for only $5m.
its an end to the EV insanity, whether any form remotely close to sanity returns is debatable ....
even those of us how can see valid use cases for EVs thought the pickup EV things were completely nutso from the start.
"There is only one reason to buy a full-sized pickup truck" ah but you forget the poser market for big jacked up, blinged out trucks, whose most strenuous use will be going over parking curbs in the mall lot. lol.
Wondering why the lumber industry hasn't tried to help by scaling their 8-foot pieces down to five or six-foot sections, so they wouldn't hang off the back of most every truck at Home Depot and Lowes.
because 6 foot ceiling heights are out of style.
5 ft ceilings are even worse.
Haven't y'all seen those "mini homes?" : )
An AI says.
Key Figures Behind the F-150 Lightning
Jim Farley
Role: CEO of Ford Motor Company
Contribution: Initially skeptical about the electric F-150, he became a strong advocate for the project, emphasizing its importance to Ford's future.
Bobby Stevenson
Role: Investor and influencer
Contribution: Suggested the idea of electrifying the F-150 during a conversation with Farley, sparking interest in the project.
Ted Cannis
Role: Head of Ford's EV division
Contribution: Played a crucial role in assembling the team that developed the F-150 Lightning.
Darren Palmer
Role: Lead engineer for the F-150 Lightning
Contribution: Initially hesitant, he was convinced to lead the project due to strong support from Ford's leadership.
Bill Ford
Role: Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company
Contribution: Advocated for the F-150 Lightning as a pivotal vehicle for Ford's transition to electric vehicles, comparing its significance to the Model T.
These individuals were instrumental in transforming the F-150 Lightning from a radical idea into a key product for Ford's electric vehicle lineup.
When a company blows through that much money in a relatively short period of time, there is usually ramifications for the people responsible. The Ford family has 2% of the stock but their stock at voting time has the value of 16 regular shares. In practice all they have to do is persuade about 15% of the remaining 98% of the stock out there. Bill Ford is a NEPO baby. Born sliding into home and didn't even have to start at 3rd base.
but they didn't blow any $, they "strategically invested to synergistically advance technology towards a greener future"
(Cues up Weird Al's authentic frontier marketing gibberish classic, "Mission Statement")
You forgot "Paradigm shift".
Darn. My built in corporate BS generator must be getting worn out.
That might be a use for AI!
Ask ChatGPT to rewrite any famous text in marketing-gibberish-speak, a.k.a., bovine feces!
Read it at your next dinner party. Watch cocktails eject through people’s noses!
Pinning this comment to advance the discussion.
Ford and GM leadership have long had contempt for truck buyers and have been eager to pigeonhole them alternately as toothless hicks and urban cowboys. They loved the EV trucks because if your sole use for a pickup is to drive between Grosse Pointe and the RenCen, that is actually a pretty good way to do it.
Well, someone has to do it and it won't be a woman.
"Ford and GM leadership have long had contempt for truck buyers and have been eager to pigeonhole them alternately as toothless hicks and urban cowboys."
Are you possibly suggesting that in spite of all-car-lines-except-for-Corvette-and-Mustang-were-gleefully-murdered-to-the-contrary, Ford and GM leadership are actually entirely in line with old Enzo Ferrari's core principles in that they only want to exist to build racing cars, and they have a seething hatred for having to produce street-legal trucks to pay for all of their racing programs?
I think it would be the greatest possible suggestion out of everything you possibly suggested that this were a possible suggestion.
I know you meant something else, but hey, it's a fun mental image.
Well, Mark Reuss DOES like his pace car programs!
Or is that demolition derbies?! 😂😂
I'm still trying to figure out if I'm a toothless hick or an (sub)urban cowboy. I'm leaning towards "dentally challenged."
I CAN say that after all the NYT/The Atlantic handwringing about "Monster trucks" last year, I felt a almost gravitational pull to buy a diesel truck and immediately put a 3" lift on it, just to honk off the illuminati. I suppose this could make me either a toothless hick OR an urban cowboy... if only I lived in a remotely urban area. It's to my eternal gratitude that I'm happily consigned to Nowhere, USA.
Alas, my only regret is that in making this purchase, I made Mary Barra's numbers look a wee bit better (which makes me kind of sad). The good news is that my truck was assembled in Fort Wayne, IN (as opposed to in Silao, Meh-he-ko). The bad news, "of foreign and domestic parts".
Mary always struck me vacuous and clueless as opposed to having a Bill Ford-level hatred of automobiles and the people who buy them. I don't have any idea, I just know what I read, and Bill was all breathless about the prospect of immolating billions of dollars on the BEV pyre, and therefore staked the reputation of not only the F150, but also the Mustang on his "big bet" for the glorious carbon-free future.
It's for this (and other) reasons that I did not consider a Ford when making my "thumb in the eye" pickup truck purchase last year.
Why not a RAM?
I've given a lot of money to FCA/Stellantis over the years. I'd had 4 Promasters, which were tin cans but also used to be $15K less than similar Ford Transits (the ancient Chevys are terrible to work out of, and therefore out of the running). My wife is on her 3rd Chrysler minivan (a Pacifica), which has been stellar.
But Stellantis trim and electronics quality is... spotty. I know everybody's 10 speed is garbage, but the Stellantis transmissions are frankly terrifying. My son had an early 00s Ram 1500 quadcab that rusted almost in half. In my experience, they're 100% great... for 5 years.
I still really want a Ram 2500 with the Cummins quad-cab with an 8 ft bed, but by the time I was ready to buy Ram no longer offered the kind of discounted content I'd come to expect from them. They were actually more expensive than a comparable truck from the General, and there was no comparison in my (100% subjective) impression of ride and build quality.
When a Ram 3500 with the Cummins could be had for $50K, it was a slam dunk. When it's the same price as a Duramax with an Allison trans... it's a harder argument to make.
I was in the market for a small diesel in a 1500. I wanted a 4-dr. truck that would fit in my shop, but didn't have a stupid short bed. Ram doesn't offer a double cab-- it's either a single cab or a crew cab and a short bed. I got the 7 ft bed with a double cab and the truck fits in the shop. The baby Duramax LZO has almost 500 lb/ft of torque, a tow rating of 14,000 lbs, rides like a car, and feels as solid as the day I bought it at one year and 16,000 mi. I put airbags and load-range E tires on it and treat it like a 2500. The day I come off warranty (at 100k mi.), I'll be deleting it and replacing the stupid oil pump wet belt. I hope this is the last pickup I buy.
I did not expect it, but I've seldom loved a vehicle as much as I do this one.
Isn't Allison in the process of stopping GM from further sullying their name? I believe GM has about five more months to sell existing inventory or they need to pry off the Allison stickers they've been putting on trucks with their own awful 10-speeds.
Probably, but I don't know. It seems "on brand" that they'd screw up the one truly great thing they have going for them.
I still really like my 1500. I don't have to love Mary to love the truck.
People like you and me, who put 3/4 ton trucks to fairly frequent use around their operational parameters, simply don't rise to the level of being noticed by our betters in Motor City.
This is a pity. They are BY FAR Detroit's best products, the last thing they (the "big 3") make that are unapologetically American and far, far better than anything made in Asia or Europe.
I say that as a guy who has never had the privilege of driving a CTS-V blown 6.2 with a manual, but as somebody who would have liked to have the chance. Mary has taken that chance away from me by her on-again/off-again killing of the CT5 (in both regular and full-strength form), and for this reason alone should be drawn and quartered.
I'll take vacous and clueless over giving money to someone who actively hates me.
Me too.
Unfathomable that Ford has contempt for truck buyers desite transitioning from "a car company that builds trucks" to "a truck company that builds cars" in the 1990s, then killing all non-Mustang cars entirely.
I know nothing compared to Jack and the ACF commentators more closely connected to Detroit, but Ford has so deeply p*ssed me off that I may never buy another new one. I'm still buying every used Transit Connect minivan I can find, because Ford unceremoniously made it impossible to buy a new one.
I used to pipe a bit after the base FWD Hybrid Maverick... when it was <$25k. Now? I don't smoke crack, so no.
I cannot think of any vehicle they make (with the possible exception of a Mustang manual) that I'd want to buy.
I had an F150 Ecoboost, which should have been "all that", but which was deeply flawed. They have 100% lost the scent.
Transit (full size)?
The full-sized transits are $50K vans. CARGO VANS. Beer cans with an engine.
The small van (Connect) work well for us. Fuel economy is important, and we can haul what we need if we build our own shelving and put heavy-duty springs on them. I'd kill for a little diesel, but I'd just like to have a realistically priced small van back on the market.
Ford first made them impossible to buy, then jacked up the price by 30% for no reason, then killed it altogether.
They hate fleet users.
Oh, yes I understand that Connect has value for your particular needs, and I am sorry that Ford did that to you.
Coincidentally, earlier tonight a knowledgeable friend and I had been discussing the merits of the Transit. So when you said "I cannot think of any [Ford] vehicle...that I'd want to buy," I couldn't help but point out that for people who ~do~ need a full-size van (with a factory high roof, nonetheless!), Transit seems like an excellent choice.
I guess your statement goes a few possible ways:
1. None of Ford's products are competitive
2. None of Ford's products are in segments that I would buy
3. None of Ford's competitive products are in segments I buy
We have one Connect with the turbo in our delivery fleet, the rest AWD vans, a mix of older factory Expresses and Quigley conversions. We call the Connect the sport van, or Natalie Portvan because of its size.
I am not sure by weight, but it does more deliveries than the next two busiest vehicles combined because it is so easy to use in town. It's only problem is the 10 - 20 days of the year it would get stuck in the snow.
Which vans are awd?
From 2003 to 2014, although good luck finding later ones, Chevy made a factory awd version of the 1500 express.
https://www.quigley4x4.com/
Those guys will swap in the 4x4 system from the ancient GMT 800 platform the Express is based on.
They do OK here. We get a fair amount of snow here, but don't get stuck (really ever) because we are so heavily loaded. They're excellent to work out of -- dual sliders and everything is accessible without climbing in from one door or another. We can haul 9 refrigerant cylinders, a very extensive tool assortment (torches, recovery machines, CO2 bottles, etc.) and no small amount of small stock (thermostats, drivers, valves, etc.). It's *just" big enough.
It needs a turbo or a diesel or a turbodiesel in a perfect world.
“Ford and GM leadership have long had contempt for truck buyers”
Have they? Light duty trucks seem to get like 95% of their development money (non EV division, of course) and time.
Subjectively, they also feel like the only cars either brand builds with any attention at all to QA.
Every auto executive i have ever met talks about truck drivers the way you'd talk about the homeless guy who shaves his body in your co-op foyer.
Jesus
I only ever deal with OEMs at the dealer level — who DO love truck buyers cuz they’re the only ones that ever buy anything — so I’ll take your word for it.
That’s just a profoundly ignorant and gross way to think about the people who give you the lion’s share of your income.
"a ‘smartphone that can tow,’"
oh good
my biggest complaint with regards to my smartphone is its pithy tow rating of zero
ah, it might be able to tow a HotWheels car
Put your cell phone on vibrate and it can play football.
https://youtu.be/jtYfKcv6RYc?si=dm7PAuu8aIJrgyRy&t=114
"And there's no place to hook up a Class 3 receiver, those cheap bastards!"
Reason number... 3 I bought a 25 year old truck: I DON'T WANNA DRIVE A PHONE
same reason i love my miata
the only real bit of electronics (aside from the ecu obvs) is the radio which isnt going to exist in my car much longer
I'll digress a bit and say I don't mind having a touch screen radio with android auto. But that's my limit, we don't need anything more!
For a daily driver, I honestly don’t know that I would ever want to go without CarPlay again.
It’s just so convenient and practical. For an infotainment setup, idk that there is anything better really.
Hilarious, then, that of course GM is killing it on their entire lineup soon
Oh thank God, I was just thinking that I should sell of all the children in order to buy the Mach E Rally that's been languishing on a local Ford lot since early 2025, now still available to the tune of something like $18,000 off sticker price.
hold out for a bit longer, it will be $25k off soon
Oh bless you sir, and here I thought I had nothing left to live for...
The worst case scenario is they drop it off at your house and tell you that you have to buy the charger for it. Which is a hassle.
My neighbor bought a F150 Lightning. He's a general contractor, and mostly uses it to visit job sites and haul tools/stuff to the site that his subs may have forgotten. One year and not a scratch on it, so it's not really that much of a "work" truck.
He drives 100-150 miles a day and recharges every night. And it's southern Calif so the climate is mild and you don't have to worry about temperature extremes sapping battery capacity or climate control usage. I haven't heard him complain about it.
That being said, this is the *ideal* use case for these things, and I still don't see that many on the roads.
What was Ford thinking?
Ford was thinking that the govt would actually require 100% EV sales by some silly 2030 date. And somehow didn’t consider reality.
They were assuming a Kamala Harris Predsidency, in which case that was exactly what was supposed to happen.
My feeling is Mamdani is what you get when you tell entire generations that they “need to go to college or you’ll end up digging ditches” only to have them graduate with tons of debt and be told “you should have dug ditches instead of going to college”
neither do i
just a heap of wasted time
Condolences, sir. Might I suggest that the trajectory of a life can be changed by even one encounter with the right teacher, class, fellow student.
thanks
im here now because i did
I believe the correct diagnosis regarding student loans is, "got sold a bill of goods."
"Okay, we stayed off your lawn, now what happens?"
Oh, and by the way we let in a bunch of ditch diggers willing to work for low hourly cash payments under the table.
"dont be so greedy and be glad you have a job"
"Americans don't want to dig ditches"
"well if you can keep up with gonzales you too can earn $8 an hour. thats above minimum wage so you should be thankful. also the work hours are 12 hours a day every day with zero breaks"
Increasingly, hourly jobs are "you must be fully available for us at all times (you may NOT attend school or take another job), but your paid hours will vary unpredictably between 0 and 40 on a weekly basis.
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/05/part-time-jobs-underwork/682768/
got to keep that shareholder value trending upward ............
I'm still amazed we haven't had a real revolt of the working classes.
There outta-be-a-law (FTC?, DeptOfLabor?) that "on call" means the employer has to pay you 1/4 regular wages for each hour you're on call.
I mean you have to wait around until they decide they want you in -- if you have to put your life on hold for them, they should pay you.
That will put an end to "on call" and/or make managers be more diligent planning for their weekly labor needs.
Actually, no one is digging ditches today, there are machines that do that.
Which brings to mind a story told of a Milton Friedman visit to a Chinese air field under construction by battalions of people wielding shovels. He was advised, "Look at all the people we are employing." His response was, "Well if that' the whole idea why not give them spoons?"
Well then substitute frame a house.
Or make shoes, like the Nike CEO said.
I have brought this (perhaps apocryphal) anecdote up numerous times.
The expert hivemind on ACF appears to believe that entrepreneurs start companies so that they can offer highly paid JERBS to people who who have an inalienable right to Monster Truck operation; if there’s a little money left over after that, the entrepreneur might be allowed to keep a little bit of it.
You seem to have institutional investors and private equity confused with entrepreneurs. The people who build businesses are not the ones looking to ring them out like bar rags that just soaked up spilled Glencairns of Double Eagle Rare.
Occasionally in city street projects, when there are a lot of tricky under ground utilities that intersect, hand digging is required for some of it.
And the contracts specified that in the bid process.
Socialism gets traction because facts don't care about your feelings.
Leftist ideas don't work, and usually kill innocent people in the process.
But conservatism has this Social Darwin mindset that discounts luck and chance in the attainment of success, attributing everything to pure Hard Work, Moxy and Gumption AND ignores the human costs of that success, while demanding payment in cash, up front so to speak, for that success with only a promise to pay up later.
"Work hard, pay your dues, follow the rules. But there are no guarantees."
Unpopular opinion here but as a guy who has a lot of friends “in the trades” I can say the trades are grossly overrated and if you don’t believe me you can just ask them
Why ask them when you can look at numbers? The LOWEST number I've ever seen for improved lifetime earnings of a degree holder is $900k and that was a few years ago, so probably 2020 dollars, and no job requiring a college degree is on the list of 10 most dangerous jobs.
Honestly, the going-to-college benefit is the best argument against student loan forgiveness; it's a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. About the only people I feel sorry for are those with "some college," who have some loans but don't have the increased earning power of a degree.
Problem with the numbers is that they are wildly skewed by a few factors.
First is the billionaire club membership who pretty much all have college degrees. Doesn't take many of those to really bring up the averages. Making that a mean vs median problem. Similarly the non-college bucket includes well paid skilled trades and the vast majority of the chronically unemployed.
Second has been the social norm of the last 40 years that anybody quartile of high school performance is expected to go to college. Statistically that is going to include the folks who are most driven to succeed weather they went the trades or college route.
Third, those lifetime earnings numbers do not take into account the cost of those earnings. The massive increases in tuition have resulted in loans which eat up a very significant portion of that improved lifetime earnings. That hits hardest on those who believed they should "follow their bliss" and spent a small fortune to get degrees which have no real world value.
Full disclosure.... I am part of the college degree set and my degree choice has provided a comfortable lifestyle. Had college not been an option, my backup career path to become an electrician would have provided a pretty similar lifestyle.
^ Agree completely, TL.
Mean-vs-median skews a lot of statistics.
Pointing this out leads to a lot of blank stares and "it doesn't really make that big a difference."
Even here on ACF.
The 100% true and correct perspective
Blue collar work destroys the body.
Many people in it (in any capacity other than managing owner sitting behind a desk) want to move to a different part, or out of it entirely
Yep. You have a good 30 years (of hopefully union level wages) to get a retirement parachute, and then you should hope your body isn't destroyed before you can move to Tennessee and open a Tiki Bar or whatever.
If you live in a depressed economy, and choose to stay there, or a place of generational poverty, you will work 30 years and be broke the day you can't do it anymore.
One of my close friends is a plumber who had a bypass operation 15 years ago and had to go back to work as soon as he could to keep the wolves at bay. He's still working, still smokes, still doesn't exercise. He'll work til he falls dead. And he's well read, very intelligent, articulate, and a lot of other markers of "educated" people.
Honest to god, someone, not me in this case but SOME BODY has got to make a body horror about the unvarnished REALITY of working blue collar.
The horror of not outrunning the collections man…
Truer horror has never graced the silver screen… which maybe is silver in the same sense as silver tongue
I have a close friend who can't get a heart valve done until he wants to retire, because a 6 month gap in tech work makes you unemployable and saying it was for something like that has the recruiters hanging up before you get the "gee" in "surgery" out.
Or as an OF’er might snipe:
“I can’t believe they sell their bodies like that,” says man on long-term disability after 20 years on the shop floor.
It’s too good, this one is buried but should otherwise do numbers. Need a 60 second OF ad driving this joke to the limit and beyond
I feel uniquely qualified to comment here:
I came into this world with a lot of raw potential. Both mom and dad were exceptionally intelligent -- dad's side of the family stuffed full of people gifted with the ability to make a buttload of money, and mom's side with college profs, PhDs, and eggheads credentialed with all manner of intellectual accomplishments and accouterments -- enough to make them well and truly weird.
Dad was a plumber who owned his own business, and he did exceptionally well. We always lived in nice houses, and dad retired from plumbing when he was in his early 50s. He was also one of the physically strongest men I've ever known, but he was a cancer magnet and died of pancreatic cancer at 76. He taught me absolutely everything I know that's worth remembering.
I graduated at the height of the "go to college or be a loser forever" school of scholastic guidance -- but was the kind of guy who had always defaulted to the hard road... so I didn't go to college, I think just to prove that nobody was going to tell me what to do. I kicked around in dead-end jobs, working in a service station, driving a forklift 3rd shift, etc., but mom's side of the family was manifesting and I was really just cosplaying a blue collar garage monkey while reading Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard on the sly.
I was also reading the New Testament, and became very deeply serious about my faith. Of course I embraced the most hardcore and stridently countercultural method possible of living it out. I got married young to an EXCEPTIONALLY beautiful and impossibly young woman who was way (way) out of my league -- and proceeded to thank her for marrying down by almost immediately hauling her off to the 3rd world so I could live out my fantasy of saving the world (while catching rainwater and living in an off-grid cabin). When I say I was hardcore and stridently countercultural, I choose my words carefully and say it without any hint of hyperbole. My goal was to live as a latter-day John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness. I was insufferably idealistic and almost laughably careless with my own life, as well as the lives of those dependent on me.
As you might expect, we barely made it as a couple... and came home several years later with two kids and one on the way. The landing was as you would expect -- pretty much wheels up, belly dragging, and veering off the runway to land smoking in the grass. Fortunately [/s] for the financial future of the 4 people solely dependent on me, I had no marketable skill nor any formal education. Sure, I'd read all of Leo Tolstoy, etc.-- which made me just another well-read idiot.
I hired on to the last job I'd had before I left, essentially losing almost 4 years in the process. It was with a union commercial HVAC and refrigeration service company, and I was a $10/hr apprentice. I worked every job nobody else in the company would take. "The business" is 24/7/365, and driven by weather extremes. I could tell stories to illustrate how desperately cold I've been (the frostbite in both hands and feet), or how close I came to dying from heatstroke -- but it would sound too farfetched to seem real.
I was nearly electrocuted at a nuclear power plant before I even had my journeyman card and got electrical burns on my hands so bad I could smell my hands smoking as I fought to get off the power line. I had a chain-fall skip a link and crush a thumb like a rotten grape. I went through a drywall celling and hooked my nose on a screw as I went through, nearly cleaving my nose off my face. I ran my right hand through a belt and pulley, grinding my index finger down to the bone.
I've had carpel tunnel surgery in both hands, had a triceps tendon reattached (twice), and have had total knee replacements in both legs (also twice). L1- L5 are all bad (and inoperable) in my back and I've got a permanent scoliosis. I'm on 2 different BP medications, a statin, Levothyroxine for my dead thyroid. I've got hearing aids, and use a CPAP to sleep. I'm a one-man pharmacological cornucopia, kept upright and ambulatory by means of big pharma and gray market drugs from the pill-mills of the Asian subcontinent.
... but back to being not yet 30, flat broke with 3 kids, no formal education, and feeling like I'd absolutely blown my only chance at life: the skilled trades gave me the best living possible for a man with no actual credentials and way of life uniquely suited to my own "unique" personality. It provided more than I could have ever imagined in every way. Beyond just money, it mashed buttons in me I didn't know I had.
I had been a monumental professional F-up before I left for the far side of the globe, but on my return I learned "the trade" in near record time. It's amazing what looking down the barrel of financial annihilation will do for a man. I got my union card. I rapidly became valuable to my company, and was paid over scale. I became a supermarket refrigeration expert, and was servicing all of the independent grocers in two counties within a few years of stepping off the plane. At 34, I was still chafing, and hung out my own shingle... and immediately started making twice as much money as I had the day before for the same amount of work.
I did it all on my own for 15 years, deep into my 40s. I say "on my own", but dad helped when I needed an extra set of hands, and my son started riding with me in the summer when he was 10 years old. By the time he was 16, he was in his own van and making 30 bucks an hour. He owned part of the business.
I paid off my house, paid for all 3 of my kids to go to college, saved for my eventual retirement, and bought the cars I wanted and took the vacations I wanted to. I built my own house (twice), and own my own little corner of Morton, IL (3 houses all in a cluster).
I've got a couple of employees I try to treat like family -- both were young men who either went to college for 3-1/2 years (in the case of the older), or trade school for 2 (in the case of the younger). Both make $50-ish/hr with another $25 in benefits.
After 37 years (total) of doing this and 27 of doing it as an owner/operator, I can say this:
Sure it's hard work, but there are no small number of young men who WANT to take the hard road through life, to push themselves to their physical and mental limit. I was that guy. I've made at least twice as much money along the way as I would have if I'd have taken the easy road, but that isn't why I got into it or stayed in it. I genuinely like the work. I'll be 62 tomorrow, and could have (and maybe should have) retired in my 50s -- but I love this game, and I want to stay in it a bit longer, even if I'm barely touching the tools anymore.
I never set out to be a even sorta' middle class, but this gig has taken me further and higher than I ever could have imagined. My bride and I have kicked around Europe for a month 4 different times in 10 years. We've gone to Mexico or the Caribbean every year for 25 years. I've got 11 grandkids and 3 families dependent on my little shop on the prairie. God has been very, very good to me.
Every pot has a lid. Your milage may vary.
i take personal experience of acf members far higher than anyone else so i appreciate you telling your story here
I'm very much learning to appreciate the ACF community.
I originally came here because I liked the cut of Jack's literary jib when he was at R&T, and I keep coming back (even though I'd like significantly more car content and significantly less "Minotaur or gooning") because of the conversation I'm finding here. This is by no means a monolithic community, but it's one where Jack has facilitated respect among members -- and that's pretty great.
Y'all bring something pretty unique to the table, every one of you. Hat's off.
Your devoted wife has been instrumental in your success more than you can imagine. I hope you show her this post and tell her it was her doing. Proverbs 31.
100%, friend.
"Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies." We had crazy struggles -- things that wreck marriages -- but we didn't quit. I don't know how to quit, and she hung on by faith alone. I can't imagine why she stuck with me, but she did.
It'll be 40 years in December.
Impressive Stan. Hats off to you.
Thanks, but it all just sorta' happened, Andy. I'm just a small-town nobody from the Midwest -- but if I stepped in front of a truck tomorrow, I wouldn't have any regrets. Life is in the living of it.
We've only got a certain number of trips around the sun and I've always known that every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. If I get to the end and realize I never really did anything (besides merely exist) in the middle -- the ride is going to have seemed pretty short and pretty boring.
But if I REALLY live like I mean it in the middle, the whole thing takes shape and becomes a pretty compelling story.
I'm not likely to live another 20 years, so I have no idea if I'm at the end of the middle or the beginning of the end in my own story.
Regardless, as I said -- I've got no regrets.
Same thing with factory work. Who could have guessed that 8 hours a day/6 days a week for standing 25 - 30 years on concrete would destroy your back and knees?
Three hours, actually!
People working jobs in private industry only get to dick off for just an hour?
Unless it's February, June, or November, that's my average.
That’s less than me and I’m retired!
My one retirement rule is that I must accomplish one thing a day.
If you piss off Sherman with a taunting post that should do it for the day, no?
One of the most conservative Black friends I have says, “Don’t tell me about bootstraps, when it was illegal for me to own boots.”
"okay fine pull yourself up by your jordans or whatever"
And pull up your pants while you’re at it! 🤦♂️🤦♂️
The operant word there is "was".
I was at the memorial service for a family friend who lived to be 94. His widow was my mother's closest friend and I was close to their son. I found out that day that Etta, my mom's friend, was Emil's second wife. They met in a displaced persons camp after her entire birth family, save for one brother out of a large number of siblings, was murdered. Emil's first wife and child were murdered. Emil and Etta somehow made it to Detroit, where they started a leather apparel company with her brother Sol (Emil's rectitude persuaded a buyer at Hudson's department store to pay them in advance for their first order, making it possible to start production). Sol's son, Mark, who lives three doors away from me, runs the business today. He's one of the most refined and kind people that I've known.
No Black American alive today (or their parents) has gone through anything approaching what Emil experienced. Somehow, he was able to start over and thrive.
It's not what hand you are dealt that determines the outcome of the game, it's how you play the cards
Quick question do you have black friends?
do italians count
Sicilians count as half.
Obligatory reference to Walken/Hopper exchange in 'True Romance'.
Most of those "isms" sort of gleefully ignore another problem with Homo Sapien:
Competition for resources. You can't shut it off.
That must be some old brand of conservativism. Most conservatives I know understand the value of charity. The difference is: local, organized charity with measurable results.
It's also worth noting that this is exactly the problem with Boomer self improvement advice in ALL of its forms.
"Go to college" is advice that usually works on an individual basis. Followed by the whole society, you get the Masters Degree Barista.
Time and again I find myself discussing society-wide problems with people who say, "they should just work harder, or lift weights, or looksmaxx, or learn Python," and so on. Most of that will work for ONE person. It doesn't fix a broader issue.
MOST people shouldn't go to college. It does nothing for them. High school graduates built 95% of the useful world.
Yes and no. The 4yr/4 wall college is a specific thing and higher learning should be beyond that. And the yields from the big rise of college grads from GI Bill/WW2 is nearly immeasurable.
But we’re failing kids much too early. No one here wants to do what EU and much of Asia do, but they slot kids much earlier into diff tracks, and support them (more or less) appropriately. Here in the US, it’s set up like College or Nowhere, even though college doesn’t ensure much these days.
Respectfully, Jack, depends upon your definition of "useful."
I studied philosophy for years, so imagine a sane person would put the figure closer to 98%.
Perhaps, but many of those high school graduates were working under the direction of guys with engineering degrees. Of course, some of the greatest engineers and inventors were self-taught. Edison, Tesla, Bosch, and Westinghouse didn't have any academic degrees.
You may be onto something.
Sam Altman didn’t spend much time at Stanford, after all.
Even then, guys DO IT, to be told "NOBODY OWES YOU A JOB / WIFE / FAMILY / APARTMENT / MEAL!!1!!!1!"
Consider the Sherman Batsignal swtiched ON
I haven’t the heart.
He would be a trillionaire if it weren’t for the billion plus horde of dirty, stinky jeets colluding to stand between him and success.
tbf, they do be colluding....
Prior to subscribing to ACF, I had never heard the term "jeet" used as a pejorative. "Jeet" was a question asked by Appalachian relatives when I'd visit and they wanted to know if I was hungry.
"Jeet yet? They's ham and beans in the fridge. Or we can go out to Shoney's."
I hadn’t heard of it until relatively recently, either.
the phrase is everywhere online and has been in canada for some time now
You can both be right. There's literally no other choice than maximum bootstrapping. But the level of collusion is off the charts and not even something indians themselves don't glory in, eg https://www.patelmotelstory.com/
"Sherman" cannot be right: he never argues for bootstrapping, or any other real solution. He explicitly states that wages to anyone in a "high cost country" are "theft" from shareholders (and "make work" and welfare) and believes that offshoring / indentured servitude is good because it reduces this "theft," and that AI is even better because it will soon end this "theft" completely.
He explicitly denigrates any form of skills, up to and including those which are rare, objectively demonstrable, and marketable, up to and including the skills of Javier Báez (the highest paid Tiger).
Meanwhile, American men are literally DYING from the collusion: https://www.theblaze.com/columns/analysis/analysis-how-diversity-dogma-and-h-1b-visas-sank-a-proud-american-brand
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G4C8c26WgAAfIPA?format=png&name=small
Most wars in history been fought over much less than this.
In fact, the Boston Tea Party was literally over a policy intended to subsidize the BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY*:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/taxnotes/2024/01/04/three-misconceptions-about-the-boston-tea-party-tax-edition/
* The inventors of "Hinduism": https://x.com/realmattforney/status/1981360608210530693
both things can be true
The other guy is always wrong has served me well.
PS: But I also agree and have had this discussion with many over the years.
Me: "Our enemies, as a group, are acting against us in a coordinated fashion. Shouldn't we organize to defend ourselves?"
Response: "Just focus on yourself as an individual!"
Me: "I am, as I have all my life. But I also think we should coordinate to protect our interests: Tell me what war was won by a single individual."
Response: "Focus on your wife and kids!"
Me: "I am single; the closest I got was covering for my coworker Ramesh while he took a month off for his arranged marriage."
Response: "Just keep working on yourself and ignore the billions of dollars of lobbying, and the coordinated actions of industry and multiple governments against you."
believe in the power of the indomitable human spirit vs insipid globohomo bullshit
dont blackpill
The "human spirit" wants to fight as part of his tribe, but this option is not available to the modern Western man. The "human spirit" doesn't win wars: armies and/or paramilitary groups win wars.
It's not "blackpill" to observe that war is being waged against us and we don't even acknowledge it, let alone fight.
well option b is to roll over and die
sounds unpleasant tbh
False dichotomy!
We need to each "mind our own business," but also find ways to organize collectively fight back.
'Me: "I am single; the closest I got was covering for my coworker Ramesh while he took a month off for his arranged marriage."'
Oh, this hurts.
Much like being told to save money and invest in index funds. If everyone stopped spending and did that our economy would crash.
It's called "the paradox of thrift."
My folks ( boomers )both had degrees but were basically public servants: a nurse and a teacher.
Basically 25 years ago when I went to college they said either get a degree for the public sector that pays low but can be necessary or a high skill degree that might not be.
Ended up doing computer engineering. This idea that boomers just said "get a degree" must be with the late boomers and their millennial children.
Most boomers realized blue collar work got shipped overseas. What else then do you tell your kids?
^ This comment, and indeed most of the responses are pure gold. PURE GOLD. ^
I have nothing useful to add this week other than three jokes (out of many) that I have written:
"Intelligence is an inventory conundrum: Most everyone thinks that they have loads of it in stock, but the empty shelves say otherwise."
"I would love to write a song called, "The Schizophrenic Perfectionist", but I'm paranoid that I wouldn't get it right."
"I want to be a sarcastic Lady of the Lake that gives King Arthur a magic, talking, smart-ass, insult-spewing sword named...Excaliburn."
There, all done.
"I want to be a sarcastic Lady of the Lake that gives King Arthur a magic, talking, smart-ass, insult-spewing sword named...Excaliburn."
this would have done numbers as a webcomic on tumblr in 2014
Yeah, I'm always rolling in waaaay too late to make any money off of an idea.
I'm thinking of selling No 19 stickers (the universal No symbol over the numeral 19). Jack warned me that if I did, I might be hunted down and my assets used to fund trans surgeries.
Well, maybe if the funds were used for those surgeries in...Bulgaria?
How's this for nit-picking at its finest? Excalibur is not spelled with an "n".
I went to college and earn my living as a proof reader (no outstanding loans BTW).
Just kidding but I have offered my services at various times and for no charge to journalists and never even received a "No thanks."
My initial rename was going to be "Excalibruin", and it was going to be a mullet-haired sword that was into fighting and the Boston Bruins hockey team.
Love it, love it, love it!!!
Or UCLA
Ford-
Vaughn Gittin Jr got exactly what he wanted out of Ford in his RTR. The real question is, will anyone buy these things? And yeah... if you want the V8, VG sells one in the form of the RTR Spec5 which is actually a pretty nice stang for half the GTD cost... but it's still a mustang over 100k bucks.
Stellantis-
Let's hope that Stellantis has figured out this "New Coke" experiment should be over and done with. Everything good they are bringing out right now is the very stuff we told them two years not to ditch. I expect it to be met with excellent sales numbers compared to before.
Mumdani-
I'm drinking a whole lot of copium today on this. We're told that he'll win and NYC will fail and it'll prove that this thing doesn't work. But, will it? We continue to pump kids through higher education institutions at a high rate who come out and LOVE the Mumdanis of the world. When they can't find a job, they move places they can. Guess what? That's closer to us.
What I'm really over most is this GOP civil war crap. It's a much wider and bigger tent these days. That means you'll have people you don't like underneath it. If the fighting doesn't stop, there will be zero coalition once Trump is gone. The idiots don't realize that he was an incredibly uniting figure for the totality of the base despite how divisive we've been told he is. The talent bench is deep... but if they start fighting, no one will win.
To change history you either have to stack wins or stack bodies. I fear for the second and frankly I don't think our society has the stomach for it despite electing text message wise guys.
In regards to the civil war crap, the politicians themselves aren't the ones that are mildly terrifying, it's the weasel voters who continue to vote for them that are the issue. My oldest son, against all advice (to be honest, there wasn't much else available for $250,000 in regards to housing, he's outside Pensacola, and got an acre and a half plus a rather new house in a somewhat-decent neighborhood) he moved to Florida, and he's noting that he's surrounded by Trump people, flags waving everywhere, but the type of people who are waving those flags are stuck in a fascinating, sociopathic mindset that Trump is going to re-usher in some sort of golden era of 1980's $5 an hour, and record prices for anything that they might be selling.
This is what's on one side of the civil war in question, greasy Boomer-types who for whatever idiotic reason desperately want the guy in office, but also vehemently disagree with everything he (supposedly) claims to hold dear, in effect, ending the get-rich-at-everyone-else's-expense financial party that the Boomers have been running for decades. At the same time, on the other side of the Boomer aisle, you've got hardcore Democrats who are pissed off that Trump is wanting to end the party, at least while they're still alive and are able to blow through whatever remains of their money so their supposedly-evil kids won't get a dime.
Kind of not really giving a shit about blue or red states these days, they're both corrupt disasters in completely different ways, at this point, might as well stay in Oregon and continue to take my punishment for merely existing, in addition to continue to hope and pray that the Earth Killer asteroid does finally wipe out Homo Sapien sometime during my existence so I can finally breathe that existential sigh of relief.
BTW, I should mention that I'm actually a happy guy to be around in person.
Regarding pessimism, I realized something yesterday: I actually have a form of plot armor, in the real world no less!
I'll never have to worry about being killed in a terrorist bombing, plane crash or mass shooting. I'm invulnerable to any kind of mass-casualty incident.
How, you ask? Simple.
When some jihadi blows up a skyscraper, or some airliner lawn-darts into a blue-collar neighborhood, how are the victims inevitably described?
As fun-loving, popular, full of life, outgoing, everybody loved them.
None of them were ever angry loners or sullen misanthropes or depressive introverts or socially awkward shut-ins or anybody else American culture wants to pretend don't exist.
I'm indestructible!
damn
incredible insight
I know, right?
My God, you might have something there. Just imagine the incredible drop in American casualties and deaths in both the European and Pacific/Asian theaters of World War II had we instead sent a couple of million pessimistic assholes over to fight in all those battles, Holy Christ, all of our memorials from that war would only be highlighting, lest we forget, all the casualties our doom-and-gloom boys suffered in the form of paper cuts, shaving nicks, sunburns, and the odd occasional boot-caused blister...
Wait...did we just solve the whole "war" thing?
The only pisser here is that because it's in Jack's Substack, he gets 90% of all the proceeds from our having saved the world from any future war-related deaths or casualties, that parasitic jerk.
I could be a superhero.
My very presence is keeping everyone in my office alive.
How do I monetize this?
JACK? LOOK AWAY, THIS DOESN'T CONCERN YOU MONETARILY.
Me personally, I'd double my efforts and see if you might be able to revive the old Jerry Lewis telethon show, but pessimist your way into curing cancer through live TV/livestream.
Just think: You'll be able to generate an assload of money for curing cancer, but you won't have to spend a dime on research, you've already cured it in the most depressing way imaginable.
I'm gonna wander through the halls of my wife's memory care facility in an hour or two, just to see how many miracles of healing in eradicating dementia I can create with my advanced theorizing of doom and gloom during the last couple of hours of dayshift.
My God! Are we actually...closet Goths?
My God, that's brilliant!
Life sucks, but it'll go on cancer-free!
Fanfuckingtastically, funny!! Many thanks.
Don't preen too much, I think there are a few dozen regular posters who fit your description too. At least one of them is likely to get hit by a detached, burning Boeing engine.
the real horseshoe theory is that its attached to the hoof of a horse that has been kicking you in the dick for the last few decades
Yeah, one might think that you might at least shift position slightly sometime after decade #2 in order to have the horse kick you somewhere else.
...unless one is into that sort of thing...
The appropriate response to that would be “you be you!”
I whole heartedly approve of many Trumpian actions and policies but then I read that his interests (family) have profited to the tune of forty million dollars with his bit coin ventures. I think, "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater."
Regarding the GOP civil war, I'm usually with Reagan in that those who agree with me 80% of the time aren't 20% my enemies. However, I'm not sure that I can remain in a tent that includes Jew haters who want to see my grandchildren dead, and people who disingenuously platform those haters, saying they are "just asking questions." Those questions are the same bullshit the haters have been saying since they said Jews poisoned wells and spread the Black Plague.
Reagan got elected because William Buckley drew some hard lines two decades earlier. Maybe it's time again to draw some lines. I know that the paleo-right despises the fusionists like Buckley, but when was the last time the paleo-right won an election here?
I think there are two kinds of conservatives. American conservatives who want to conserve the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Declaration and Constitution, and more European style "conservatives" who are reactionary and identitarian. Tradition and identity is more important to them than the liberty expressed in our founding documents. I don't think those reactionaries are in any way ideologically aligned with the broad stream of American conservatism. We see that in the way Tucker Carlson and the people he's promoted attack American culture as degenerate.
White supremacists are just as collectivist as communists; it's just a different collective.
I read the stories on Breitbart. I then read the comments. I comment sometimes. I'm embarrassed to be associated with many of my supposed birds of a feather.
Too many come off like William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting in "Gangs of New York."
You must be joking. Every other racial and ethnic group is encouraged to act collectively. To be the only one not doing so is suicide.
but das waysis
There's a big difference between representing legitimate group interests and supremacism.
What is your definition of 'supremacism'? Slavery? Colonialism? Jim Crow? Those boogey men are all long dead.
Should any group let another define what a 'legitimate' group interest is? Does yours?
Supremacism = your group is inherently superior to those in other groups, who can never equal you because of innate differences, for example, the Han Chinese, or Brahmins of India.
Which group is mine? Americans? Hockey fans? Harmonica enthusiasts? Deadheads? As the poet said, I contain multitudes.
If you're referring to my being a Jew, I'll simply point out that for about 2,600 years Jews were forced into accepting various uberkulturs' definitions of what Jews' legitimate group interests were, one of the factors that lead to the development of modern political Zionism. Apparently, though, Jews defining their own group interests by having political self-determination in their historic homeland is not something much of the world will tolerate.
what is that difference
See above.
"White supremacists are just as collectivist as communists; it's just a different collective."
Holy Projection alert, someone get me my fainting couch, can't take these levels of unintentional irony without asphyxiating from laughter
Since I'm neither a supremacist or a communist, I'm not sure how I could be projecting anything by that comment.
Since I wasn't, ahem, around when they were new in that era I'll cast my vote off of what I did see when I was, and that was K-cars, despite being in the NE rust belt. The GM products were very few and far between. Pretty sure there were a few early Ks in my high school parking lot, surely pulled out of grandmas garage and put into teen transport duty, in the early 00s.
That would support Jack's assessment that the drivetrains were much more reliable. Since neither of these are particularly desirable cars, why not go with whichever models are more likely to work?
Reliability is important because:
a) these are utilitarian cars, not "rich guy 4th cars"
b) The overall reliability of the era was extremely poor: we aren't comparing 99.997% vs 99.998%
Agreed. Nobody driving these 20 or 40 years ago had a backup. 80% vs 70%, or something like that is huge.
“Maverick Lobo suspension…”
I first read that as “Lesbo” and wondered.
A successor to the Sierra Ghia Sapphic.
The perfect vehicle to join your Honda Cervix and Vulva (the safe Swedish lux brand) in the garage!
Along with the Mazda vehicle that Bertel Schmidt idolized! (Why can’t I think of the model?! The one with the front end resembling some of the female parts mentioned!)
Chrysler made a better economy car, while GM made a better product. Basic K-Cars to me just seemed more pleasant than base Citation’s. That said a loaded X-Car was far more pleasant than any K-Car short of the fancy stretched ones. And if we’re talking stretch models, there is no world where I would take a LeBaron or a 600 over a Cutlass Ciera or a Century.
I'm recalling a 1984 Celebrity with a 2.8 V6 I was given by a neighbor of my Grandma's. It only had 36K or so on the thing, they never drove it.
I ended up replacing:
The engine. The 2.8's were absolute hot garbage.
Power steering pump...twice
The carburetor, and that was after a few rebuilds, the baseplate was garbage/worn out already
The electric power valve on top of the carb...exactly seven times, I ended up converting the car to an X-11 non-computer-controlled carb and HEI distributor, it actually ran better afterward
Shocks and struts
Brakes, five times, couldn't keep pads on it, only garbage replacements available
six or seven door handles on the driver's door...both sides...
three or four batteries
Two HEI modules for the distributor conversion further up
Five alignments, through three different shops. Want to see sloppy engineering? Watch an expert align one of these cars, you have to screw around with shifting the subframe around to make it straight.
Replaced the driver's seat some five or six times, absolutely flimsy garbage
Two headliners
I did end up getting rid of the terrible 13" wheels and swapped a set of X-11 wheels onto the thing (I got an X-11 for parts, no title, belonged to some ancient guy and he died, couldn't get the title, got the car for $100, had to scrap it)
Traded the thing in with only 52K on it, was weary of replacing parts.
In other news, the only K-ish car I ever owned (I did own a couple of Chrysler T&C minivans) was an '88 Dodge Dynasty with the 2.5 in it, drastically more reliable than any similar-year Chevrolet, other than replacing the problematic reverse-apply pin (common problem with the A670 3-speed auto, the replacement is far stronger), I got it with a tick over a hundred thou on the car, sold it with 260,000, and I last saw the car with the guy I sold it to, it had 365K on it and still had the original (noisy as hell, but it was loud when I got it) 2.5 and transmission.
The Celebrity of Theseus!
wow. what an incredible disaster. i didnt think cars could ever consume that many parts that fast
Yeah, I wish I could rack it up to simply being an idiot with a wrench, but I've encountered similar reliability hijinks-related hilarity with other mid-1980's GM products. I don't call this era of GM "The Interior Rainforest" for nuttin...
you have no idea how bad quality was in the '80's.
Was it like "equality" today?
worse
It sounds like that was a Monday or Friday build for sure!
In the ‘80s at GM there were 2 Mondays and 2 Fridays each week.
It's tough to understand how bad GM cars of the late 70s - early 80s could be without having lived through it. It's like they actively hated their customers and wanted them punished.
Whenever I see the ridiculous sex appeal on social media for 3rd-gen Camaros and Firebirds/Trans Ams, my only response is, "you've clearly never driven one of these cars, or worse, owned one."
When you closed the doors on a new 3rd-ben F-body, it wasn't the solid, refined, generally pleasing to Biff-and-Buffy-alike "thunk" that was associated with so many Mercedes doors, it was instead hearing the sound of cheaply-made robots not quite clapping metal hands in unison, as if there were a couple of slower robots with interesting head injuries in the group.
And pray that you weren't dumb enough to end up with a T-top version of one of these cars...I'd mention the convertibles, but there are people with weak constitutions who read these comments and I don't want to be responsible for yet another hospital trip to the ICU for someone who's just read something I wrote and collapsed near an open dishwasher during the weekly "let's wash all the knives with the sharp ends pointing up!" cleaning session.
I'm having a spot of trouble in coming up with another car where "beauty is only skin deep" applies so well in regards to the 3rd gen. Yes, there are definitely others out there, but we're talking about GM here.
The only version of this car that I'm solidly in love with is the 1LE Camaro of this era, at least Chevrolet was kind enough to devote an option package that shows...at gunpoint because you couldn't get A/C...the only thing the 3rd gen was best at, and that was driving around an autocross track or road course with the windows down and exhaust uncorked, the only blessed sounds with any sort of a fighting chance to drown out the cacophony of cheap within the 3rd gen's existentially-questionable interior.
In the end, there's no way that General Motors could have accidentally combined so many terrifyingly bad features into a single vehicle platform, no, there are vengeful fingerprints all over this car, the amount of fingerprints you'd see on a cute waitress's bottom during "Grab The Waitress's Ass For Fun And Profit!" night at a nearby steakhouse, indicating that it was somehow done on purpose, and with malice, that somehow the AntiChrist would be summoned if enough of these cars were built.
Not really hate; just indifference. When you have 40% market share it doesn't matter what you make: it's gonna sell.
And when they say that their vehicles are "competitive" it's corporate-speak for average.
So if your product is so indistinguishable from the dealer down the street, the only way your competitive product wins is that some buyers may be too lazy to drive another block past your store.
the finest in '80's GM quality. thus a lot of Hondas and Toyotas were purchased.
I traded in my x-car on an Accord LXi
Looking back, I'm simply astonished that this garbage was somehow laughingly allowed to go out the door. And if I recall correctly, this was even after GM and Toyota sort of nervously joined together to try to learn something from each other, or in the case of Toyota, they practically gave away the farm to get inside GM's inner circle just to see if all the horror stories they had heard were actually true.
I seem to recall (okay, I might be going full-absurd here) that Japan's infamous "suicide forest" gathered its first members directly from the group of Toyota executives who had toured GM's hideous 1980's assembly plants and after seeing the horrors contained within ("No, it's actually somehow worse than seeing how sausage is made! I can't unsee what I've just seen!", and then he runs off to go vomit around the corner), were simply being polite by not throwing themselves on their own swords in front of the Americans and waited until they could fly home and do it there.
My Dad’s 1986 Century Limited with the wonky feedback carb on the 2.8, and the blown head gasket on my 1984 2000 Sunbird hatchback, made my family the Honda family we are today!
I was reading this thinking, "wow, five seats, he must have put a gazillion miles on this thing...FIFTYTWOTHOUSAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S IT??????" And that's 52k minus 36k. OMG.
I wish I could say that I weighed 800 pounds, but it was more like 280, I'm from northeastern Europe troll stock, my sons are freaking scrawny but are pushing 240-270. We're all kinda built like Shrek.
It was getting ridiculous, it was either the seat back, the springs, the tilt mechanism, and two sets of seat tracks broke out of the seats.
I would have bought another car, but this and odd time, waaaay before the internet, and my boomer dad did me zero favors when he obliterated my credit report with his borrowing of my SSN for loans that he never paid back.
Later on, after I opened my shop, people were just dropping off fairly nice freebies fairly regularly and I didn't have to buy a car for a long time after that.
scrawny at 270?
are they 9 feet tall
Three are the lowest end of over six feet tall, the oldest is, oddly enough, the shortest and heaviest (okay, maybe not that scrawny), but the lightest kid at 240 looks like he hasn't eaten in weeks and is still leaving footprints in a hardwood floor.
It was really weird with the kids when they were, uh, actual kids, you'd pick up someone else's kid to load them into a vehicle or something, and it wasn't anything special, and you'd pick up one of mine and kinda go 'oof', and they weren't a whole lot larger than other kids, if at all. I was 255-260 and right at 6-feet-tall in 9th grade, and the second heaviest player on that year's junior high football team, the heaviest was the center at 260. It was fun knocking him on his ass a few times in a row (top heavy, thinner legs) and then hitting the scales afterward to show that I was indeed just as heavy as he was.
I should also mention that my mom's side of the family sort of look like pissed off cave trolls most of the time (my mom and my oldest son look like they want to murder puppies even when they're in a happy mood), and IIRC, the Soviet Union was sort of forcibly recruiting kindly folks from Lithuania and related areas for their weightlifting/better strength through direct feed line of steroids athletes, my mom and her side of the family is from Estonia.
So yeah, long-winded answer to a short-winded question.
No matter how much you weigh, it doesn't justify that. Imagine what those seats would do in an accident. And your dad was a jerk.
This reminds me of my wife's Cruze. It was a solid car for the most part but I gave up replacing the exterior trunk release button after it failed three times. It's just not protected at all from water so the electric switch stops working. It was annoying because there is no interior button and the key fob would only pop the trunk if the car was off. So, picking up someone from the airport? You had to turn off the car, pull the key out of ignition, press the release, then restart the car.
"Imagine what those seats would do in an accident."
I'm just remembering what those entire 1980's GM cars did in an accident. I had a high school friend of mine (and my wife's as well, her friend first) that was killed in 1991, she was driving an '89 Chevy Corsica, didn't quite clear a big rig when coming back over.
From accident reconstruction, she almost cleared it, maybe caught two or three inches of the offset bulb of the front wheel and the lug nuts, most any other car would have simply bounced off. The wrecking yard this car was dropped off in had another car there that had damn near the exact same hit on it, I think it might have been a mid-1980's Grand Marquis, it just flattened the driver's side of the car about 4-6 inches in, driver was carted to the hospital, left a day later, was kept overnight for observation.
The Corsica, however, it looked like someone took an old style lever can opener and went down the entire side of the car, the doors, door frames, the entire left/driver's side wall, down to the middle of the rear wheel arch, it just cleanly peeled almost the whole damn assembly off (it popped all the spot welds) and bent back behind the car.
Naturally, this was when the sexual rage for door-mounted seat belts was in full effect, so when the doors went, so did the seat belts...and so did the driver, she was rolled and wadded up between the two vehicles. I'll let you fill in the blank for details.
The car even split in half under the seat.
Structurally speaking, the rest of the car didn't look that bad, it almost looked like you could have simply welded on another side of the car, patched up the floor, and drove the thing again. It did need a core support, but it wasn't caved in flat all the way to the engine, I'm thinking maybe a 25-30mph hit in any other accident.
That was a fun double funeral.
It was also loads of fun seeing one of my older brothers sporting a 1991 Corsica as his daily at one point, totally not nervewracking at all when he wanted me to work on it and drive it afterwards.
Was the passenger belted in, and THAT door went, or was it being hit by the driver’s side of the dashboard and steering wheel that took them out? (Amongst the other crash forces?)
And the sad thing is, with all that work, it was still a Celebrity. There is no "...but when it ran!" redemption in this story. It's the girlfriend who was as ugly as she was crazy.
I think they got a little less bad over time.
"Look at all the work I've done on this car! Isn't it great?"
Uh, no. It isn't. In fact, I'm so emotionally destroyed by the experience that I'm going to have "I once worked on a 1980's GM product to try to actually improve it and see where I ended up" on my headstone after I pass away.
That's the thing. Back in the 70s/80s/90s, we just assumed that was part of owning a car; so we kept buying American.
Then one day, you decide to try a Toyota and don't seem to have those problems.
And you never go back.
That was the equivalent of a near-religious experience for me, buying a shitbox 2000 Lexus SC300, I didn't even fit in the damn thing (curse you, Toyota) and it was already immediately better than any American coupe I'd ever driven up to that point. I even ignored panic attacks from claustrophobia to drive that freaking car (tall seated height, thank you, Boomer Dad).
I own a 2010 5th gen Camaro (the Synergy edition, the bright ass green eyesore version of that car that was thankfully only built for one year), and even with a decade or two of development under its belt, fit and finish are still something that lacks in comparison with what is, at best, a 25-year-old car. If Toyota built a proper RWD coupe that I actually fit in (the SC430 is out, as are any of the RCF whatevers that came out later), I'd have a couple of them in my driveway.
Beyond that, after owning what is largely American garbage, driving Toyota or Lexus is largely an unnerving experience in the beginning, simply because you start piling on miles, and you're nervously looking over your shoulder more and more, asking yourself the question, "wait, isn't something supposed to be breaking or failing by now?".
Hmm..oil changes, tire rotations, and maybe a transmission fluid change, brake service, or coolant service, every so often. And a detail once or twice a year.
Who knew?
That describes 90% of the service needs of my five Hondas, all purchased new, since 1994.
It’s worth nothing that the X-body launched the GM factory here in Oklahoma City in the late 1970s. That factory transitioned to making the A-bodies (since those were derived from the X-bodies), then briefly the gen. 3 N-bodies (Cutlass, Malibu), and then finally the extended-wheelbase GMT3XX SUVs. It was shut down in 2006 (well ahead of the bankruptcy and restructuring) when those products were discontinued, and has been annexed into the nearby Tinker Air Force Base.
"It’s worth nothing"
I know it was a simple typo, but it's comical that this sentence applies so beautifully to describe the blase' history of this particular plant.
To borrow from Ford:
"Mediocrity is Job One!"
Fascinating to hear from someone who lives in my one-time hometown. I managed to live through OKC for about a year (1990-1991, a wonderful ice storm around that time), and this was after living in Moore for almost as long in the late 1980's.
It was a bit weird going back through my old neighborhood in Moore in 2003 and discovering that pretty much the entire neighborhood was simply erased off of the map by the 1999 F5 that kicked and stomped its way through there, bits of sidewalk and asphalt here and there, and broken-off stubs of piping and other bits were all that were left.
It's even a bit more disturbing while looking at similar tornado tracks through that area since 1999, it's as if God keeps forcibly insisting that he really doesn't want anyone to live there, and nobody's listening.
Wasn't too bad of an area otherwise, my wife is from McCurtain County, and somehow escaped without a single hint of an accent, while the rest of her family sounds like Boomhauer from King of the Hill.
I wasn’t alive in 1990/1991, and we didn’t move here until late 2002. But I do remember still seeing carnage from the 1999 tornado. The ones in 2011 and 2013 were pretty bad, too. At this point, practically everything along the S 19th St corridor in Moore is pretty new, probably because of the tornados.
The accents here are odd. I’m from Colorado and have no accent, but my partner—who is from a rural part of Oklahoma—definitely has a twang, which picks up if he’s talking to someone else from the area.
It was a bit of culture shock (and lots of other kind of shock) in early 1982 when my mom suddenly came up with the bright idea of leaving North Hollywood, California behind and dropping us straight into the middle of Hell in McCurtain County, where I was suddenly acquainted with three types of venemous snake, mosquitos, chiggers, seed ticks, regular ticks, facial ticks, tornadoes, hail, humidity, macaroni and butter, and even worse, the local inhabitants around the area who were almost completely unintelligible.
Even better? I encountered all of this on the same day.
I still think that McCurtain County's chief export is people attempting to flee the area for anything better, Detroit, Beirut, the East side of The Ukraine, or even Arkansas.
I seem to have blocked out of memory all of the problems with the 2.8 v6 in my wife's 84 S10 Blazer, other than it was horribly underpowered at sea level and pathetic at elevation in the Rockies.
I can't speak to mile-high but the Edelbrock intake manifold and header set woke it up, even with the stock two barrel.
I can’t imagine how that would have gone with the Iron Duke under the hood! (Or was the V6 the only engine in the little Blazer?)
the 2.8 V6 was the only engine available in the S10 Blazer at the start (1984) ~8 years later GM finally changed to the 4.3 V6.
My dad was paid to build/modify a guy's 2.8 Blazer back in 1987, managed to get better pistons, cam and lifters, and the Edelbrock 2 piece intake for that turd.
The owner blew it up racing a stock Silverado pickup and holding it in manual low, didn't shift in time and windowed the block. The guy was losing to a stock 5.0/305 and thought that winding it out to beyond redline would give it another 100hp.
We never touched another 2.8 after that, these things would break parts even when stock, I am recalling them lunching the #1 and #4 rods, and most local-ish machine shops at the time mostly refused to rebuild them, “too flimsy to rebuild”.
Naturally it was all my dad's fault.
K-car. As the joke goes, 'It was a reliant automobile'.
And they were. Sure they weren't pretty - but the were cheap and they worked. Also they weren't ugly.
They were boxes. But they worked.
Usually.
Sometimes.
I thought there was a Click and Clack joke about the Omni having a heated rear window so your hands wouldn’t freeze when you pushed it. But Google AI is telling me it was about the Yugo. (Shrug)
I'm pretty sure most Yugos did not have a heated rear window. Just adding to the irony!
The Yugo GV was incredibly well equipped with luxuries such as 3 grab handles, 2 dome lights, a visor vanity mirror, a cigarette lighter and……an electric rear window defroster.
if i had a million dollars and all that
Certified Canadian Content!
I’d be rich!
My dad had the Aries version of THAT EXACT CAR. I never saw another dark blue Aries K coupe besides his. Saw a lot of light blue Reliant coupes, though.
The biggest problem with Mamdani winning?
Lot's of New Yorkers are, according to the news, fleeing to TEXAS.
Listen assholes, you ruined NY, you need to stay there and enjoy it. We don't need your voting patterns and problem causing in Texas.
Folks fleeing other states have actually enforced Texan conservatism. Often the transplants are more conservative than the natives.
Often.
But not often enough. Look what they did to Colorado amd Virginia.
Frickin’ Puget Sound region of western Washington!
I'd love to live in the Pacific Northwest for the scenery and weather.
But politically and culturally, it's a radioactive postapocalyptic desert.
That's what I think of the Northeast. Went on a work trip to Boston. At dinner, a middle-age woman working at this contractor brought up how it's a shame there will never be another national election. She was dead serious. Although, if she really thought that, why hasn't she fled the country?
Begpardon for thickness, but she said this as a left-winger believing in Trump 2028 (lol), or a right-winger believing in the demographic implication that future elections will not offer american-americans and american-american to vote for?
"At dinner, a middle-age woman working at this contractor brought up how it's a shame there will never be another national election. She was dead serious."
Imagine working in an entire building full of these types of people. I've been working in healthcare since late 2019, my wife's been doing it since the late 1980's (began at age 16, working in her grandmother's facility), the local hospital system here is filled to the brim with psychos who are convinced that the death camps are coming for them, you know, when they're not trying to tell management with a straight face that they're supposed to be paid a full week's wages but only see one patient.
That is what is so disheartening as a 3rd generation native.
"I'd love to live in the Pacific Northwest for the scenery and weather."
It's...pretty? But it's not Utah or Colorado levels of pretty.
That's what cracks me up about idiots who move into this area (other than the Cali sociopaths/psychopaths), a few of them are here from Utah and Colorado, and they moved here because it was...pretty.
Not whether or not they could get a job, escape political persecution, better schools (lol), nope, no logical considerations whatsoever, it's just "pretty!" here.
At best, most of Central Oregon is just shitty high desert scrub with parasitic Juniper trees everywhere.
I was thinking of perhaps doing some sort of YT car channel thing here, however, you drive 100 miles in any direction and you get drastically different scenery.
Nobody moves to the Great Pacific Northwest for the weather. Except ducks..
Quack quack.
Wasn’t all this called Californication?
Whoaaa, I never knew Mia was the girl from The Nanny.
Californication has its faults (especially the later seasons), but it’s absolutely hilarious. One of my all time favorites.
Some of the old timers called them ‘fornyans.
I thought that Virginia's problem was being basically a DC suburb?
NoVA is, yeah. But the rest has the same problem as upstate New York, downstate Illinois and inland California.
Same problem as every state with a large city in it--witness Pennsyltucky between Pittsburgh and Philly.
The solution is to live in a place without large cities, like, uh, North Dakota?
I think I'll pass. Though I would liked to have seen Montana....
By some accounts Bozeman and Missoula are blue bug hives and the state is lousy with CA refugees.
My solution is to politically separate large cities from their states and reactivate the polis model.
have you been to ND in the winter?
Blueberries in the red watermelon soup.
😂😂
Yeah, claiming CO has become borderline embarrassing.
I can say that's pretty much not true. Look at Austin. Look at Houston, and now look at Dallas.
They're coming here because Taxes are lower. Then of course they immediately start in on how 'we need to raise taxes and spend more money'. I'm actually considering selling my house and moving because the Californians that moved into my rural area have raised taxes so many times in the last 7 years that I'm paying a fortune in property taxes.
Yeah. When we decided to flee Chicago it came down to the hill country of Texas or middle Tennessee outside of Nashville. The deciding factor was property taxes. Tennessee wins hands down….excluding Nashville which will have two major increases in a couple of years.
Somewhere there is or should be, a ten foot tall bronze statue of Howard Jarvis, the Godfather of Prop 13, the initiative that saved California real property owners gazillions of dollars.
I hear that Newsom is working on getting it repealed.
Gov Nuisance and every other Damnocrat who can only dream of the gazillions of other people's money that might have been flushed down the toilet. Ever hear of the Bullet Train?"
Good. Explain to me why I should pay 3x the property tax as my neighbor on the same street with the exact same house?
Why should he pay more? Especially if he bought it long ago?
The problem isn't your neighbor - the problem is the government which taxes far too much.
You should be going after the politicians. You should be asking them why your taxes are so damn high. You should be forcing them to lower your taxes.
Again, the problem isn't your neighbor.
Because you are YOUNGER and the purpose of the younger is to be SACRIFICED TO ENRICH THEIR ELDERS (Mr. Nevell is 91...just shy of the average age of a Democrat member of Congress ;) )
They don't raise taxes here, they just pass permanent levies.
In small microcosms, perhaps.
Cali psychopaths have absolutely destroyed the housing markets in practically all 48 continental states, and have introduced their most-profitable-of-all mental illness into many a locale.
I'd like to think, as a current CA resident, the ensuing vacuum here and Gov. Hair-gel's exit to pursue his delusions of grandeur will make the pendulum swing back as far as possible and reset this place.
And to think that Nixon and Reagan were Governors there.
Pelosi’s retirement may help.
Nope! I’m sure the human debris elected in her place will make her look like Jerry Ford, the way things are going!
the rightwing guys in leftwing hellholes are at times wildly more radical than regular republicans
Regular Republicans are now just 90s Democrats. The full tilt right wingers are just Reagan types, minus the assault weapons thing.
id go a step further and say that most are against shamnesty and whatnot
ronnie ray gun still has detractors i guess
I wasn’t alive then, so take this for what
it’s worth. Reagan was a POS. Anti-gun, pro-amnesty, etc. The USSR was already cracking, so I have a hard time crediting him with their demise.
I’m convinced that the only reason he’s held in such high regard is because his predecessor was the second worst president of all time.
You left out no fault divorce and the massive ramping up of deficit spending.
yeah i am by no means a fan
If we stuck 1992 Bill Clinton in a time machine and brought him to the present day, he’d be considered a Republican.
The full insanity of Our Political Predicament can’t be conveyed any more succinctly than “Trump is to the LEFT of Bill Clinton on 99% of issues” — and despite this we’ve moved so far left so fast leftists hyperventilate when thinking about the guy.
Crazy crazy truth! Trump wouldn’t dare lock up repeat violent offenders a la Clinton
It’s like the old saying, the most ardent Zionist you meet is the newly-converted one
NC has been overrun by blue dot idiots who proclaim "Don't worry, I vote blue!" and the greater Raleigh clusterfuck triangle has a huge population of jeets now asserting their voting numbers on local contests.
We kicked them out of CA. Glad to hear they found a good home.
Yeah, that's the problem with sociopaths/psychopaths who do this shit, nothing is ever their fault, but they also don't hang around to face the consequences of their actions. Currently dealing with this crap in Central Oregon, where out-of-towners even run practically all city and county government, and they're running it into the ground.
It's actually getting to be difficult to find anyone...and I mean anyone...who was actually born in this state that's still in the area.
Shades of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"?
“where out-of-towners even run practically all city and county government, and they're running it into the ground.”
I’m hearing this complaint about Gianforte in MT even though he’s lived there for 30 yrs. You can take guy out of Silicon Valley, but not vice versa.
Then there are college students who vote in local elections, graduate and leave town. That would be UMASS - Amherst, MA. Everything and anything passes and most of the people that voted for it leave town.
The proper response to Democrat voters is to wall them up inside their urban paradises and let them prey on each other.
He’s up for realtor of the year in any state south of the Mason Dixon is what I’m hearing.
Like how Barack Obama was Gun Salesman of the Year for eight consecutive years.
Mamdani can cause a lot of pain. Ignoring criminals & refusing to prosecute them, making the budget deficit even worse, driving business and the productive out of NYC are just a few almost guaranteed to happen.
5000lb sedans are not interesting to me no matter how much HP they have, unless it is a Bentley or Rolls.
Not sure about the generation of K cars you mention, I was very young, but we had a 1987 Plymouth Aries K I do remember and it was a POS. Constantly in the shop and eventually lemoned.
“Ignoring criminals & refusing to prosecute them, making the budget deficit even worse, driving business and the productive out of NYC…”
So he’s a blue state status quo mayor is what you’re saying.
Well yes, but in this case it could be a real life Gotham situation straight out of
Hollywood. When it is some place like Cincinnati it is just dirty & trashy.
He’s keeping Tisch as NYPD comish, so let’s see.
Link to a great story
As much as watching an IRL Escape from NY sounds entertaining to me, unfortunately without walls and razorwire it will be a C+ reproduction at best. I predict a flight out of those that see what is coming, followed but a later wave of believers who realize now THEY are the rich, followed by misery/riots/etc. But who knows. The biggest lesson is this: heterogenous societies create homogenous societies, every single time.
I think the kids are alright though… they know that socialism is only ever a few million murders away from working, and I don’t think they are going to go along with the plan.
The interesting dynamic will be Mamdani's interactions with Governor Hochul, who is up for re-election next year.
Either way, the morons in the NY State GOP will probably eff it up.
What's really incredible to me is that this guy could be elected mayor of the city with the largest population of Jews in the world (yes, including Israel). Reminds me of the Lenin quote, "A capitalist is some one who will sell you the rope you use to hang him."
whats almost stranger is that a third of jews voted for him
What in THE HELL could these people be thinking?
maybe theyre the ones opening the gates of toledo and think the hordes will just let them leave idk
That he could be anti-Likud/Binni/etc and not be anti-Semitic… which basically describes themselves as well
Search 'Mandami campaign team' for that head scratcher.
Jews have been voting anti-Israel (Democrats) in large numbers for years.