Twenty years ago my friends and I used to make cracks about if the NSA was listening to our cell phones the least they could do is provide us transcripts so we we could use them. Of course the only thing that Orwell got wrong was not predicting that Big Brother would be private corporations rather than the government.
Interestingly, at least to me, Onstar recently offered me an option to get driving tips. Ways to be a “better driver”. Speed, acceleration, hard braking, etc. I DID NOT sign up. Their disclosures, which I actually read, didn’t make me feel comfortable about what would be done with my data. And it’s not a matter of me worrying about how I’m driving. The Caddy is super competent at speed, but it never encourages you to drive fast. So I’m sure anyone reading my driving transcript would be content with what they found. But, no one needs to be reading that. GM of late makes it harder and harder to be a fan.
Combine that with he whole “we’re going to take away CarPlay/Android Auto and replace it with our own proprietary system that will suck 400% more but also allow us to charge you for bullshit you already get for free on your phone” and GM can go DIAF.
I didn’t know they were adding that bonus. I’ll have to look into it.
Mine is a hackable 2016, so maybe some of the worst stuff can be shut off? That being said, I think the whole Onstar system is pretty cool. But the data should be mine. From what I understand, I own the car after all…
It’s EV only, for now. The real reason is to chase recurring revenue (lol, who is going to subscribe to their shit) and to monetize customer data that Apple and Google get now.
Wow. That’s brutal. Nice move, GM. And I was kinda liking the Lyriq, in a sadly and totally asexual way. But, it didn’t look bad, and it actually fits all 6’4 of me, which is unusual in the world of combovers.
Wow. Just wow. Looks like they’ve released an early beta. I’ve always been a bit of a tech gambler, so let me know when the release candidate is ready.
I borrowed a Lyriq for an extended test drive, and it had visibly crooked door panels. The charging port—a convoluted, power-opening thing that didn’t need to exist—also broke.
It's getting harder to separate the art of the smart, hardworking underlings over there from the stupidity of their superiors. While the former is pushing out modern E39 M5s and 458s, the latter is out there giving delusional interviews about transitioning the firm into driverless electric tech and subscription services (read: taking the wheel out of our hands, giving away all competitive advantage, and actively working towards the worst possible future.)
As a volvo tech I'm utterly shocked at the dismissive attitude of our management. When I queried about how they expect to out sell Tesla with a tiny range challenged CUV, all I got was "because it's a Volvo", to which I replied what does that mean. I never seen a suits mouth open and close rapidly without saying a word before he shuffled off to a meeting. I'm appalled that being an Auto manufacturer nowadays is akin to being an outcast. WTF
According to my GM dealer buddy, his dealers across the mid south are livid about this pivot from ACP and AA. Said buddy has also been told by upper management that studies are showing people spend too much time interacting with their vehicles interfaces and GMs software will save lives :eyeroll:
No, people are going to go back to those cheap Amazon phone mounts on the dash to use proven, simple to use, software.
I'm guessing that not one of those tips is, "In these circumstances, firewall the throttle and steer around the crash occurring directly in front of you."
I've met Mrs. Jonny, she's not overweight, which is admirable. And I think Jonny is losing weight himself. If you wanna beat a stock LEAF up Pikes Peak, every pound counts!
Just won’t let that stellar drive up Pikes Peak go, at least he beat the stock Leaf in his factory prepped 1/4 million Porche, therefore he did not have to deep throat a Mossbueg… 😆😆😆
I assure you that losing any sort of competition, let alone a motorsports competition, matters not one bit to him. Rarely have I have met a man with so little of the masculine compunction to WIN. At the age of eight my son was a fiercer racer than Jonny or any of his cohort.
I don't know exactly how much courage I'd be able to muster in an actual race (racecars cost money, after all), but I do know with absolute certainty that I wouldn't want to lose.
I'd be terrified of binning it and being on the hook for a large six-figure sum, or at least destroying something that the Porsche guys worked hard to prep to race.
I don’t think it’s a “problem” that he was/is slow in that car, but it’s the fact that he won’t shut up about all the simulations he went through, all the details of the road that only a true racer would notice and know AND YET HES STILL SLOWER THAN A LEAF.
But to be fair he seems to talk about everything in the same manner I mean just look at his weight loss journey… he somehow makes it more annoying than that comment Sherman made here how we all need to wear three piece suits when we leave the house just in case we meet potential clients
Interesting points about who is/isn't dialed back at Mercedes. Definitely would not put it past Toto to dial Lewis back given how the departure apparently went down. We likely won't know for sure until we see how Lewis drives next year, but maybe it is a combination of (a) dialing down, (b) lack of effort from Lewis (not something he hasn't done before), and (c) his age catching up to him?
I think it's B and C, maybe even mental apathy more than age. But I do agree with Jack that they're letting George go more now that Lewis is clearly a lame duck which just increases the gap
I was looking at F1 records for winning last weekend and Hamilton is so far out in front of everyone else in race wins it makes me wonder if the whole thing is getting old to him. What else does he have left to accomplish?
I don't think Toto would do A, and I don't think he would have with George last year accept maybe a split strategy because of reliability data. No way he we do anything to jeopardize a single constructors point.
Heavy sedans aren't race cars, no matter how many angry pixies you stuff them with. GM sucks a way bigger wang than I thought, but I'm not surprised. Anywaaay,
Big changes coming to Formula Drift this year! Fortunately, I was able to listen to the latest 2hr long “Outerzone” podcast episode, where FD co-founder and solo-president Ryan Sage lays it all out. The tl;dr if you don’t want all the details is as follows: single run qualifying is no more. Instead, the top 16 or 24 drivers (based on previous round’s result and how many show up to the next one) will be locked into the main Top 32 bracket. The rest of the entrants (44 this year) will battle through their own Top 16 or 32 to fill the remaining 8 or 16 spots in the main with no bye-runs. Round 1 will use the 2023 points results for the “locked in” 16 or 24. This means that if all 44 drivers show up, 20 of them will battle to populate the bottom 16 main spots. The goal is to provide more action for the audience, provide incentive for driver improvement, and lower tire consumption overall. Also of note, is the addition of 2023 Drift Master’s European Championship, uh, champion, Conor Shanahan! He isn’t running all 8 rounds of FD, but it will still be interesting to see how he does over here after dominating in Europe. Those are the highlights, and you can feel how you will about them. Keep reading for nitty-gritty and opinions if you’d like!
Drifting competitions are done via “battles,” where 2 drivers tandem drift the course, then switch positions (lead/chase) and go again. Lead drivers need to run a line assigned by the 3 judges, fill all outer zones, and hit all inner clips. Lead drivers also need to have a high degree of drift angle, lots of flare on transitions, and have a run that is actually chaseable. If the lead driver does a shitty lead with many corrections and mistakes, it becomes difficult or impossible for the chase driver to do his job. Speaking of the chase driver, his job is to mimic the lead car. Chase drivers need to follow the lead’s line, angle, anticipate the transitions, and keep as close “proximity” to the lead car as possible (also called “penetration” if you want a laugh). The judges then decide who did the best in each position. If no decision can be made, either because each driver was perfect or because they both sucked, a “one more time” is called, and the drivers go back for fresh tires and run again. The main competition starts with 32 drivers and eventually results in one winner. Championship points are awarded based on which level of the bracket a driver makes it to, with 100 points going to the winner. For 19 years, the Top 32 was entirely filled out by solo qualifying runs, where the driver’s goal is to run their best “lead” run possible for a score out of 100. They had 2 laps back-to-back and the highest score of the 2 was what they took. During that time, the number 1 qualifier for a round got 3 bonus points for the championship. For 2023, this changed slightly. Number 1 still got 3 points, but all drivers only got ONE lap to qualify- initially. If a driver ran a complete lap and got a score, that was their score. Failure to make a complete run on the qualifying lap would allow them to run again, but with the highest possible position now being 25th. This was often referred to as the “not-so-great-eight” by announcer Jared DeAnda. The bottom 8 drivers were those who simply could not earn a high enough score on their first lap, and drivers who did not complete their first lap at all due to either a mistake, or a mechanical issue. The goal of this was to eliminate 1 or 2 drivers as they had 33-34 entrants in 2023, but this resulted in some very wonky top 32 battles, and played with the championship points in interesting ways. Some top drivers who suffered mechanical problems qualified poorly, and battled another top driver immediately which is not “supposed” to happen. Things are much different this year.
In 2024, qualifying will also be done via BATTLES! There are 2 ways this goes down depending on how many of the 44 Pro1 drivers or 48 ProSpec drivers enter a given round. For rounds with 33-40 entrants, the top 24 drivers are locked into the Main Top 32 bracket. 25th-32nd and the rest will be placed into a top 16 qualifying bracket, modified by a random number system to keep this bracket mixed up, and battle for the bottom 8 spots in the Main Top 32 bracket. For rounds with 41 or more entrants the system is similar, but only the highest 16 drivers are locked in, and up to 20 drivers have to battle it out to fill in the bottom 16 spots instead of 8. There are many interesting results of this massive format change. From the driver’s perspective, you have more opportunities to learn by doing more battles at every event. You use fewer tires; one solo qual lap would burn an entire pair, battles are 2 laps. You are also able to provide more value for your sponsors because you’re now featured in more actual competition over the weekend. I think the biggest thing a driver should be thinking about is the fact they know exactly who their first battle will be weeks ahead of time. The bracket for Long Beach is set right now, and the event doesn’t happen until April 13th. This is important for drivers to think about because they can find footage of their opponent and study it over and over to develop a strategy. From the audience perspective, this is exciting because the solo-runs were boring and the whole of qualifying was often tedious to watch (almost as tedious as this is to read, maybe). Instead of watching 5 drivers flounder for every 1 exciting run, we get to watch tandem battles all the way through! I expect this to really separate the wheat from the proverival chaff as well. The stakes are higher and the implications are greater, so the drivers will have to give their full effort from the very start.
As I said earlier, the season doesn’t start for another month, so I may not have updates again until the week before, where I summarize the finale of 2023 and paint a picture for the beginning of 2024. I may not be able to watch some of these events live, but I will catch up and bring the results and drama here to ACF every Wednesday once we’re rolling!
You could do street drag racing without the fake drama and false pretense of illegality. It would be cool enough to see Clay Millican run down "xy road" in "ab city" anyway.
Not a bad idea! In the future these will be much shorter, so I'm not sure it would be sustainable for just FD. Maybe I could use it for other things as well! I had a lot I wanted to say for background and context this week, so I typed this all in a Google doc on a computer during some free time, and then just copy/pasted it here when the post went up.
Like Silentsod's Moto updates and Sherman's everything else updates I thought your info was cool. Honestly I would rather read about racing and maybe watch the vehicles getting prepped than watch more than a few minutes of any kind of racing, on tv at least.
Damn son, that could verge on indulgent! I don't think it would be appropriate for me to have entire guest posts about FD here, though. I should start my own blog and do full length recaps, but for ACF comments a brief summary of highlights and final standings is plenty.
Every time something comes out about how terrible modern cars are, like delivering your telemetry straight to your insurance company, I can hear my S2000 get more valuable. At least I feel happier about it.
That being said, I filled out an app with both American Collector and The Hag That Shall Not Be Named, and both spit back the same-ish number, $750/yr for stated value of $25k (probably slightly optimistic but not outrageous). Which is almost 2x what I pay USAA for regular insurance on it now. In the spirit of the Open thread, can someone either A) sell me on why I should double up the price to insure a Honda with chipped paint and 120k miles that’s old enough to drink, or B) reassure me that I should just save my $400/year (about 2 Direzzas shipped and mounted) and USAA will likely more or less make me whole should the unthinkable happen to my really pretty mainstream old used car anyways. Unfortunately neither option will likely stop the 4-5 spam calls I’m now getting a week from each company.
Use the savings to buy a Personal Umbrella Policy, which everyone should have. You can get $1mm in coverage on top of all your other policies for $300 or so a year. A must in this litigious world.
Check and check. I got one of those years ago when I had a rental house. Exact coverage and basically same cost as you said. Also have a valuable personal property policy for my wife’s jewelry.
Forgot to mention, the other impetus for looking into this is I will ideally, theoretically, in the next 12 months have a vintage motorcycle I will also need to insure. Not sure USAA will want a piece of that one too. Just liability, I’ll only have like $3500 into the thing.
Good man. I’m going to sell my old Corvette this year so then I’ll be done with Traverse City forever. I, too, only have liability on my 2007 3 Series wagon. Cheap insurance is the best part about old cars you don’t really care about. When I moved from IL to NC my car insurance dropped by two thirds.
I have multiple umbrellas, which I got for free at auto show media previews from companies like Rain-X and State Farm. Not as nicely made as your J. Press, I'm quite sure, but better than those cheap single-use bumbershoots sold on NYC sidewalks during rainstorms.
I typically keep one in the car. It's not as fancy as the umbrella Rolls-Royce puts, spring-loaded, in their door jams, but it keeps me dry. That gives me an idea, next year, if I'm fortunate to still be around to cover the Detroit Autorama, I'm going to suggest to some custom builders that they take a look at stuff like the R-R umbrella and the special compartment for a set of golf clubs one can find on cars from the '30s.
Rolls Royce and Skoda! Such a clever idea putting an umbrella in the deadspace inside a door.
Surprise and delight from the consumer for such a simple feature. I'd much rather have an umbrella nook in the door of my next car rather than yet another cupholder.
I’m thinking a scenario like “GT3 and McLaren/Ferrari/etc. are driving in the mountains and GT3 driver rear-ends the other car - two totaled cars, injuries, etc.”
I’m sure they’d total my car out. But I guess the question is, how hard would I have to fight with USAA to get the $22-25k the car is worth? I had them total one car already (wife hit a deer in a 7 year old 125k mile Jetta) and they were more than generous with the payout (gave us $7500 for a car that would probably net $4500 on a trade in). So I guess I don’t necessarily see the value in collector insurance, given that it isn’t hard to evaluate S2000s (BaT and CnB are full of them).
Key word is truck. Those have value as tools well beyond 100k, the sports car, even a rare one like an S2k will likely be tougher for a non-speciality insurer.
I think there's still enough mainline auction data to support the value. In five or ten years the volume won't be enough for the insurers to feel good about paying the right amount of money for it.
I'm not sure about s2ks, but the value of e9x m3s is all over the place. When I totaled my 2008 e92 they wanted a nearly exact comp for age and mileage. My insurance initially offered $10k less than what I thought it was worth (30 vs 20). I managed to split the difference with them after some arguing. I was probably too optimistic with my valuation, but what they paid definitely doesn't make a replacement easy.
All that said, I wouldn't double my premium to cover that gap.
S2000s are super simple because there are zero configurations. It’s your year and mileage, with maybe a slight variation for a rare color. That’s it. There are no options aside from dealer accessories (if I had an OEM hardtop I’d get a rider for that). There are the CR models, which if I had a low mileage one I’d get collector insurance for that (they’re 6-figure cars now shockingly) but a standard car? Nah. Simple.
The thing that bothered me when I got an agreed value quote from the hag awhile back was they only offered annual premiums with no regard for the car being put away 3-4 months a year. Fine if you live in Florida, less so for me in the Midwest. Made the real cost per driving month much higher than comparable coverage from a traditional insurer.
I have to say I’m glad it didn’t work out, being both a paid member here and a customer of theirs would have been a paradox almost on the level of enjoying Lieberman or Brownell’s written work.
I don't feel that way, for what it's worth. There are good people still working there. I know, because I hired them. As for the rest, lizard people are gonna lizard.
I think employing me took all the institutional courage they had ever possessed in a single wild spurt, like an 18-year cicada shoving itself out of the ground just long enough to reproduce.
The other day I saw an article about a topic I found interesting. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed to see that my interest was shared with BB, whose byline was on the piece.
I just read an old Hemmings article you wrote on the Aerovette. I really enjoyed it as there’s not much written about that car. I would still love to know its dimensions to compare it to the C8.
Yeah it’s already baked in. But also a quirk of my having an umbrella policy is that I can’t lower premiums on my car for winter anyways (put in storage) because it would cause a coverage gap or something. So it doesn’t really matter to me.
My 2001 S2000 is insures for $24k agreed value with Hag. Half of what American family charged and probably be totaled at $12k. 173,000 miles btw. I love Hondas.
My policy with the bagel company renews in June and the quotes you got are not giving me a warm and fuzzy feeling about what my new premium will be. Mine floats around 780/yr including the dumb quarterly because I can't find it in myself to call them and tell them I just want the insurance. That is for 35k on my E36.
The only way I get 35k out of my car is to total it, if I'm being honest. So, I buck up and pay the man. Unless you have close 50k into your S2k, I picked double the declared value because that is about what I'm into my E36 for, I'd say you're fine sticking with USAA.
The only thing to note is if you add a second vehicle to your bagel company policy with the same primary driver your premium usually drops, I know that was the case when I got quotes to add other vehicles to my policy.
Regarding GM: Ugh... I have a 5V Blackwing and it came with a complimentary data plan when I bought it. The app disclosed serious acceleration events and forceful braking - every single drive. Perhaps I'm not the typical Caddy driver, but those are nothing compared to my times on the track.
And now I know that data is out there somewhere. I'm sure a future insurance company will deny me for "undisclosed" reasons. Which module can I rip out to stop this?
They used to make this easy; the first day GM advertised Onstars ability to have law enforcement remotely shut down your car, I located the module in the trunk of my G8 and removed it.
Now I think it’s much more difficult/interferes with other systems. Still would do it if someone found a way though.
The big question is, is GM using this module currently on a new car like yours, or is there another module buried somewhere that’s transmitting? I suppose you could remove the module and see if the app data stops. Please let us know if you find out.
I’ve done some digging on this and found a great write up on disabling OnStar on a Camaro. Apparently this also applies to a C7 Corvette, too. This may be a model for other makes. https://www.camaro6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=467634
The author of this fix claims that just removing the antenna doesn’t mean that the unit is not still transmitting, the signal is just not being amplified. I’m a technophobe and this is getting into tinfoil hat territory, but it seems to make sense.
The fix seems to be pretty easy just by removing a circuit board from the OnStar box in the passenger footwell area. The good part is that it doesn’t affect other functions on the car, only OnStar. Apparently on some Chevys just removing the OnStar fuse kills direction and temperature functions, and maybe Bluetooth and other dashboard functions. I’ve seen a fix on a Chevy Silverado similar to this Camaro fix, and on the video it is shown that everything stills works afterwards except OnStar.
One note, it appears that C8 Corvettes have the OnStar functions totally integrated into the car’s electronics and the Camaro fix would not work. Also, there are two transmitting antennas under each front fender, requiring fender removal to get to. Chevy really really wants your info. F them.
One more note about OnStar, only 10% of new customers pay for it after the free subscription ends on new cars. The customer reviews online mostly trash it. It’s also not cheap. YMMV.
I'm sure the many genius-tier devs gathered here can still outperform this software code generator when it counts, but if it's this good at coding, then why would we assume that it can't do other, bureaucratic make-work (ie 80+% of all knowledge work) jobs?
Hard not to see in this the portents of the apocalypse of the knowledge worker
Believe it or not, programming is easier than "natural" language. The more open-ended a language is, the harder it is to write.
But the main reason not to use this "AI coding" is that a human being will have to read every line for compliance and safety. Many of us can code faster than we can read other peoples' code.
Airbags killed lots of kids sitting in the front seat, and the “safety” goons got away with it. Big Government doesn’t care who AI kills. Government has a long list of collateral damage victims they don't care about for all their desired beta testing.
"Years later, in the mid-1990s, when concerns over the deaths of 52 children and petite women caused by airbags were prompting regulators to consider warning stickers or even eliminating mandated airbags, Carey, by then retired, mounted his own personal public relations campaign to defend Eaton’s invention. He said that their earliest research showed that unbelted or out of position children could be at risk, something they didn’t hide from automakers or regulators. Carey would eventually be honored by the Automotive Hall of Fame for his team’s development of the first practical airbags."
It may seem backwards but I saw the video of this coding AI and thought it portends a rough spell for NON-developers' jobs. Several parts of the video imply this but abstracting the command into an actionable work plan, fixing errors and determining workarounds -- are basically the description of my job if it could take (input X) and then place persuasive phone calls y1, y2, y3
When I submit PCBs to China Inc for fabrication and stuffing, I have to go ever every component, line by line, to make sure that their AI didn't substitute something wrong.
But the point of the bot is that it is NOT fixed, deterministic code: the bot is generating the replies sui generis. Reviewing every message that a bot sends is very different from the "write once, run many times" tradition of software.
But perhaps it will be similar to the transition from "cashier" to "self-scan monitor."
I think you're spot on there, with the humans going from "from cashiers to self-checkout monitors."
I'm working with some folks implementing basic AI chat bots, and you need to really read every message up front and keep verifying it's going in the right direction for a while. You also accept that there will be some mistakes, the key is making sure they aren't too expensive.
There was some Chevy dealership that was using a commercial AI that costs money to use as an individual; people were using the Chevy chatline to do their physics homework at no cost.
Thanks for providing yet another reinforcement of my decision to buy an Expedition over a Tahoe. Even if I missed out on sweet 6.2 exhaust note for the twin turbo whine, that data grab is terrifying! I'm amazed they don't share it anonymized, but it does make sense since Tesla does pitch themselves as a "data company" so clearly GM has to follow along.
As for the Porsche (well it's a literal PORKER!), it'll just sell to the same crowd who want to say they drive a PORSCH just like the Panamera Turbo folks. Most of what they're selling are pure Veblen goods for morons at this point, but I'm sure I'll see a bunch of them rolling around Miami.
The press embargo on the newest Panamera facelift broke a few hours ago; the top trim offers “Porsche Active Ride” (the bouncy suspension thing) for about $10k.
Robert Farago has a recent post on his substack about the end of privacy. He notes that it isn't difficult to identify people in allegedly anonymized data sets.
Worse than that - nevermind Lexis/Nexis, the US government is likely buying GM's data.
I was angling more towards being prepared to help lead the resistance. I'm not a tough mother fucker, but if pushed hard enough I could be. A labor camp would absolutely be a hard enough push!
MotoGP kicks off with some reasonable competition between the sprint and the full length race.
Saturday's sprint had last years' championship runner up and sprint dominator Jorge Martin on a Ducati rode to an easy first place with Brad Binder on his KTM in second (he also did well last year in a number of sprints), and somewhat surprisingly for me Aleix Espargo on the Aprilia coming in third (!). Bagnaia ended up in fourth which was an okay, but not great, start to the weekend.
During the Sunday race Bagnaia was back in form and managed to lead just about the entire way for first place. Jorge Martin battled it out with Brad Binder for second place but couldn't match his pace over the long haul with a couple of errors seeing him manage the ride to third instead of throwing the bike away in a stupid incident which, I thought, showed him maturing as a competitor. Just taking the points instead of trying and pushing too far. This means there's a 3 point spread between first and third going into the next race with Bagnaia at 31, Binder with 29, and Martin at 28.
I'm hoping KTM stays competitive, but Miller's early crash due to cold tires (?) from a strange delayed start sequence means the spotlight and weight is all on Brad.
Pedro Acosta, who has a hype train running moved nowhere in the sprint and learned a valuable lesson about tire management in the full race. He went from 8 -> 9 and worked up to 4th position before it became clear he had used too much tire too early and rapidly fell back through the pack to a 9th place finish.
Marc Marquez finished 5th and 4th riding a year old Ducati and it was, frankly, nice to see him be competitive without risking everything or looking like he was on the absolute limit all the time.
ETA: MotoAmerica ran the Daytona 200 and I watched about half the events.
Newcomer to King of the Baggers, Troy Herfoss (?), immediately looks strong on the Indian but played the race tactics poorly and Kyle Wyman took first in both due to unforced errors. In the last lap of the last race Herfoss looked over his shoulder and took his bike OFF LINE and scrubbed entirely too much speed.
I still don't like the supersport Daytona 200 format though several riders ran out of gas at various points which was good for laughs (not for them).
I haven't caught up on the Super Hooligans but there should be a broader bike variety than last year with a Triumph Triple and an MT-09 both in the field. In the meantime - Indian is walking away with the most points on the factory FTRs again.
Thanks for the updates on not-GP racing as well! When I do watch a race recording, it's always King of the Baggers. 3 entries in Super Hooligans sounds interesting now though!
I only caught that the MT-09 was dumped early on in one of the races :\ Shame, but the variety should be interesting.
O'Hara looking a little shaky on the Challenger already and he had a mechanical over the weekend and then race 1 he caught a false neutral or blew a braking point because he about put the bike into a wall as I recall it.
I like watching them wrestle 600lb machines around with no traction control or ABS and they regularly look like they'll be bucked off them.
I don't care about cruisers or have any personal desire to own one. I also understand these are bespoke bikes running prototype parts. Probably I will buy a cruiser for my wife since she wants to just breeze along on a bike.
I’m curious what our resident designer-commenter-Goth Adrian Clarke’s original article on the Rivian R3X was before it was very toned down by the editorial board.
The R3X media blowjob is almost as sad as the Tay Can thing. Imagine how sad the state of the new-car art right now is for people to get excited about a 4,000 pound Nissan LEAF just because it has the same rear rake as a first-gen Stanza.
It's a PIG, and has less space than a Golf. I find it funny Audi announced the A3 "AllStreet" (aka allroad-lite) for Europe at basically the same time, since it's basically the same concept and actually you know, works...
I really don't understand the Rivian love, it's a small less capable truck with batteries that is functionally worse in every way versus the F150 Lightning, and yet they're getting all this love. Just reinforces how our automotive "media" has no understanding of what actually sells modern cars.
That makes sense, they're all electric golf carts for cruising the neighborhood to me. I'm guessing your neighbor also has a real truck of sorts, or is he simply playing farm life?
He's the odd man out around here. He's been driving an X5. He dresses and acts like a suburbanite. Doesn't come to the township meetings unless he has a gripe. His wife is crippled and I think she likes being out here where she has more control over her environment than she'd have in a Columbus suburb.
Rivian offers a guilt-free truck or utility vehicle to people who would think twice about buying an SUV and wouldn’t be caught dead in a pickup truck. That’s a sizable TAM for them, as the only other “truck” in that space is the Honda Ridgeline.
Rivian is like Patagonia or Arcteryx outerwear - it’s “nice,” the have nots know it’s expensive and trendy, but it’s not ostentatious. You can drive a Rivian to work in (almost) any office job in America and not have it reflect poorly on your image as a good corporate citizen.
I understand that, it's basically a Taycan for those who need a truck or an electric Range Rover. I've seen quite a few go from Jeep Gladiators in Connecticut and the Northeast. Seems to have taken that role as the look at me "truck" for the Patagonia/Arcteryx crowd.
But as a company trying to expand the product line, I'm not sure what the smaller units do for them considering how much cash they burn already.
The R2 (Macan / Q5 competitor AFAIK) will be the volume model. Goal is to push ASPs down so that it can be a mass market vehicle - ~$45K on the low end IIRC.
It's cool, but it's 3 years out. Will Rivian be around then?
I get they want to go mass market, but it's far enough off to cause other trouble for them and potentially depress existing sales. I guess the finance types are the audience for this one.
I just learned of this now and I think it looks really good, the simple clean face works better here than on the big trucks, and far better than its competition (Blazer EV, Model Y, Polestar, all ugly ducklings). The weight of 4000lbs tells me they attempted to reign it in. I imagine they will sell like relative hotcakes to upper middle class city dwellers, and actual hotcakes if they can borrow a 2.0t from someone like Honda. I have less than zero interest in an EV powertrain, but I feel like we should be proud that an American company is beating Subaru at their game.
Then again I rolled through that McMansion-basher's blog and most things I saw made me say that's impressive, never seen that before. (Aren't McMansions supposed to be comformist? Why am I not allowed to have opera windows?)
Went and read the editor's note on that piece. As if I needed any more proof that, with the exception of "Murilee," everyone who ever occupied the Jalopnik masthead is a contemptible loser.
Everyone responsible for the Rivian Omnirizon deserves to be publicly humiliated.
I said a few months ago that The Autopian was Jalopnik 2.0 and a few people staunchly disagreed with me.
After reading this comment, I found a pre-edit version of Adrian’s article. Why they felt the need to edit it and post an apology I don’t understand.
No disrespect to Adrain, but it was a pretty weak hot take in the sense that it was entirely inoffensive. I’d expect to hear this kind of design critique from him in the same way I’d expect Fernando Alonso to write an article saying that the Taycan Turbo GT drives like shit and Lieberman doesn’t know better because he also drives like shit.
I think it was a little too real for their comment section, and likely the Rivian PR folks who they desperately want to get drives from. The bit on Land Rover was spot on, as was the "if Rivian survives," but noone wants to be told they're wrong about the car BUSINESS. Especially online enthusiasts, who don't actually spend money. I'd argue with him about the nostalgic Land Rover being needed, but I'm also one of the even smaller minority who can and would put up money tomorrow for a real "old school" Discovery or Defender.
It hurts me to read it (Autopian). When they launched it I assumed it was going to be a series of David Tracey's Illiads and more Jason shitting in a plastic bag. But no, DT is on Lamborghini press launches in Spain and Jason hardly seems to be there at all.
I think there are people at that publication who are genuine, good writers, and really do care. It’s about as good as it gets right now tbh.
Unfortunately, the business
model they have there also means they have big daddy Galpin looking over their shoulders to some degree. Or so I’d assume at least. Gotta toe the line at least a bit.
If Mom reads the free ones I imagine you should expect a phone call but I'm guessing this would be one of the more minor offenses you've bothered her with.
Of course Ms Spice is a formerly worldly slut of the first order who only now masquerades as a Lady of the Manor but she must have faced a mountain of pressure to dump Mr Horny. Let this be a lesson to all of us; Do whatever Bernie says.
I grew up with the girl dancing in it. I remember when she got her clit piercing in high school, because she showed it to everyone in AP English when the teacher was out of the room making copies. I remember when she used to dance on tables in Buckhead bars while not wearing underwear. Et cetera.
She’s now a suburban wife and mother who owns and operates half a dozen Pure Barre locations and spends her free time posting about Trump (in favor), seed oils (not in favor), and her wholesome, family-oriented, Christ-centered lifestyle.
The primary benefit of social media for me, at least, is seeing all the high school and college skanks pretend they have always been wholesome #girl/boymoms. WE STILL REMEMBER THAT TIME YOU SNORTED COKE OFF THAT STRIPPERS TAINT ASHLEY!!!
Although I keep up with her - and many other (relatively) - high achievers from my hometown via social media, the last time I saw her in person was about 10 years ago.
Junior investment bankers (this basically applies to analysts and associates, the first two rungs of the job ladder) receive a meal stipend each evening. Assuming you’re working in the office past a certain time, you get $X to spend on dinner.
For us at the time, it was 8 PM and $30. What most people would do is go to Whole Foods a mile or so from the office and buy dinner and something that *might* (i.e., would) be groceries. I once expensed a 12 pack of sugar free Red Bull when I had to work all night on short notice.
On one group visit to Whole Foods, I bumped into this girl in the checkout line. She’s wearing slightly more than she is in the music video. We start chatting.
The other analysts in my group were curious how I knew her, obviously.
“…Right there to move his lips up and down the shaft of this profoundly stupid disaster…” That’s just fucking brilliant.
Another mostly procession in Jedda. Happy to see Ferrari best of the rest again with LeClerq’s podium and Bearman’s very impressive debut. Lots of aggression against established drivers. The guy’s got balls.
What the hell is wrong with those RBs? Same engine as the Red Bulls but that chassis appears to be a piece of shit. Curious to see some inside scoop on that.
Elsewhere the INDYCAR season opener in Saint Pete also turned out to be a bit of a procession with Joseph Newgarden doing his best to imitate Max Verstappen by leading most of the race despite several safety car periods bunching up the pack. He just simply walked away on every restart. Young Pado O’Ward did his best to keep Joseph in sight and resisted the temptation to wreck another car, ultimately finishing second just ahead of the other two Penskes. I love to watch this kid drive, and if he’s matured enough to bring it home like this for the rest of the season, he’s got a good shot at the championship.
This is the first IndyCar season opener I haven't watched in forty years. I could stomach the spec racing if they'd at least get a new car every now and then. I won't put myself through any more aggravation watching fuel mileage racing in vintage equipment.
I doubt 12-15 year old Verstappen could have outraced Vettel! (Yes, yes, I know what you meant). Anyway, I'm not sure why you're dissing him. He did, after all, win the drivers' championship four years in a row, in much more closely-matched cars than Verstappen or Hamilton have had. Babe Ruth being the greatest Yankee doesn't make Lou Gehrig any less great. It was also a completely different era of the sport. Cornering Gs have nearly doubled, pit stop times halved, and the number+precision of parameters the team and driver can monitor and adjust on the fly has gone up a hundred-fold. What would now be considered accurate simulators didn't exist, nor did accurate CFD.
a) I'm not sure 12-year-old Max Verstappen couldn't have given Seb a run for his money!
b) I'm not trying to compare training and skills across generations so much as I'm noting that Max simply makes far fewer mistakes. As an example, I don't believe he's ever crashed his codriver out of the race while leading the WDC. Seb was just HUGELY inconsistent in his ability to work traffic and make smart decisions.
I shall confess here, at my own peril, that this was perhaps the only thing I found interesting in Newey's book. Namely, his description of how different drivers he worked with approached the car, and the driving process, including the feedback they would focus on/provide. Of course, even that was "washed" many times through "appropriateness filters" before being put to page. But it was, to me, one of the more informative aspects of the book, such as it is.
Because GM values individual cust... HAHAHA I CAN'T GO ON
Twenty years ago my friends and I used to make cracks about if the NSA was listening to our cell phones the least they could do is provide us transcripts so we we could use them. Of course the only thing that Orwell got wrong was not predicting that Big Brother would be private corporations rather than the government.
You sure he got that wrong? Orwell never wrote about HOW the tech was invented.
Yeah but he presumably had driven enough Lucas equipped cars to have very few suspicions in the direction of private enterprise.
Reminds me of a joke my father would tell:
Do you know why the British never built a television? Because they couldn't find a way to make it leak oil.
There's a great sticker I keep meaning to buy that says "DANGER: MADE IN ENGLAND."
Interestingly, at least to me, Onstar recently offered me an option to get driving tips. Ways to be a “better driver”. Speed, acceleration, hard braking, etc. I DID NOT sign up. Their disclosures, which I actually read, didn’t make me feel comfortable about what would be done with my data. And it’s not a matter of me worrying about how I’m driving. The Caddy is super competent at speed, but it never encourages you to drive fast. So I’m sure anyone reading my driving transcript would be content with what they found. But, no one needs to be reading that. GM of late makes it harder and harder to be a fan.
Combine that with he whole “we’re going to take away CarPlay/Android Auto and replace it with our own proprietary system that will suck 400% more but also allow us to charge you for bullshit you already get for free on your phone” and GM can go DIAF.
I didn’t know they were adding that bonus. I’ll have to look into it.
Mine is a hackable 2016, so maybe some of the worst stuff can be shut off? That being said, I think the whole Onstar system is pretty cool. But the data should be mine. From what I understand, I own the car after all…
It’s EV only, for now. The real reason is to chase recurring revenue (lol, who is going to subscribe to their shit) and to monetize customer data that Apple and Google get now.
Wow. That’s brutal. Nice move, GM. And I was kinda liking the Lyriq, in a sadly and totally asexual way. But, it didn’t look bad, and it actually fits all 6’4 of me, which is unusual in the world of combovers.
Read this before you go any further:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CadillacLyriq/comments/15ynpym/my_experience_after_one_month_of_owning_the_2024/
Wow. Just wow. Looks like they’ve released an early beta. I’ve always been a bit of a tech gambler, so let me know when the release candidate is ready.
Of course the toadys at C/D give it a 9/10.
I borrowed a Lyriq for an extended test drive, and it had visibly crooked door panels. The charging port—a convoluted, power-opening thing that didn’t need to exist—also broke.
I wasn’t impressed.
“If a boot the car in safe mode…” WTF the future is stupid.
The EVs are asexual. No personality. It doesn't matter how much torque they have.
I wonder if your typical EV customer is more open to subscriptions.
Bugmen LOVE subscriptions. God only knows why.
I despise subscriptions. In a perfect world I'd sell ACF as one book a year.
the comments section would be horrible if we had to mail every one in
Subscriptions are great because they garner the highest multiples.
Subscription = software, in the eyes of many investors.
Didn't the volt also harvest data?
Yeah, but how are you gonna get busted for "inappropriate acceleration" in a Volt?
It's getting harder to separate the art of the smart, hardworking underlings over there from the stupidity of their superiors. While the former is pushing out modern E39 M5s and 458s, the latter is out there giving delusional interviews about transitioning the firm into driverless electric tech and subscription services (read: taking the wheel out of our hands, giving away all competitive advantage, and actively working towards the worst possible future.)
As a volvo tech I'm utterly shocked at the dismissive attitude of our management. When I queried about how they expect to out sell Tesla with a tiny range challenged CUV, all I got was "because it's a Volvo", to which I replied what does that mean. I never seen a suits mouth open and close rapidly without saying a word before he shuffled off to a meeting. I'm appalled that being an Auto manufacturer nowadays is akin to being an outcast. WTF
According to my GM dealer buddy, his dealers across the mid south are livid about this pivot from ACP and AA. Said buddy has also been told by upper management that studies are showing people spend too much time interacting with their vehicles interfaces and GMs software will save lives :eyeroll:
No, people are going to go back to those cheap Amazon phone mounts on the dash to use proven, simple to use, software.
I'm guessing that not one of those tips is, "In these circumstances, firewall the throttle and steer around the crash occurring directly in front of you."
The gutless porker still weighs less than the Ford. Or apparently some people's mothers.
The Porsche/Audi EVs are quite light for electric pigs. May also be why people complain about the range, but as an around town golf cart who cares!
Granted I'd only think of one to commute or roll around Miami, but it would be a Polestar2 on a cheap lease, never a 70k+ Audi or Porsche
Polestar2 gives me strong 2012 Dodge Avenger vibes. And in no way is that complimentary.
It's a little tall, but as a former Volvo owner, I see it more as an S60 hatch. It's basically a lift back XC40 with a lower body
You just put into words what I’d been trying to verbalize for the last three years. Yes, the proportions are very Dodge Avenger. Thank you.
What weighs more, the Porsche or Jonny + his wife + her boyfriend(s)?
I've met Mrs. Jonny, she's not overweight, which is admirable. And I think Jonny is losing weight himself. If you wanna beat a stock LEAF up Pikes Peak, every pound counts!
Just won’t let that stellar drive up Pikes Peak go, at least he beat the stock Leaf in his factory prepped 1/4 million Porche, therefore he did not have to deep throat a Mossbueg… 😆😆😆
I assure you that losing any sort of competition, let alone a motorsports competition, matters not one bit to him. Rarely have I have met a man with so little of the masculine compunction to WIN. At the age of eight my son was a fiercer racer than Jonny or any of his cohort.
I don't know exactly how much courage I'd be able to muster in an actual race (racecars cost money, after all), but I do know with absolute certainty that I wouldn't want to lose.
I'd be terrified of binning it and being on the hook for a large six-figure sum, or at least destroying something that the Porsche guys worked hard to prep to race.
CompelledCompunction
I don’t think it’s a “problem” that he was/is slow in that car, but it’s the fact that he won’t shut up about all the simulations he went through, all the details of the road that only a true racer would notice and know AND YET HES STILL SLOWER THAN A LEAF.
But to be fair he seems to talk about everything in the same manner I mean just look at his weight loss journey… he somehow makes it more annoying than that comment Sherman made here how we all need to wear three piece suits when we leave the house just in case we meet potential clients
sherman speaks from experience
johnny speaks from his asshole
Everything you need to know about Jonny can be summed up in one sentence: prior to writing about cars, he was deeply involved in craft beer.
Craft beer guys are definitely worse than sourdough bread girls.
I actually like sourdough bread.
I live in craft beer mecca. I'm surrounded by these nerds on all sides!
its all coming together now
When you said 'gutless porker', at first I thought you were talking about someone who, er, crashed a pace car...
Interesting points about who is/isn't dialed back at Mercedes. Definitely would not put it past Toto to dial Lewis back given how the departure apparently went down. We likely won't know for sure until we see how Lewis drives next year, but maybe it is a combination of (a) dialing down, (b) lack of effort from Lewis (not something he hasn't done before), and (c) his age catching up to him?
I think it's B and C, maybe even mental apathy more than age. But I do agree with Jack that they're letting George go more now that Lewis is clearly a lame duck which just increases the gap
I was looking at F1 records for winning last weekend and Hamilton is so far out in front of everyone else in race wins it makes me wonder if the whole thing is getting old to him. What else does he have left to accomplish?
become relevant again
He's doing a real bang-up job of it.
Cash more and more bigger cheques. He’s gotta be eyeing T.Brady’s recent commentator contract.
I don't think Toto would do A, and I don't think he would have with George last year accept maybe a split strategy because of reliability data. No way he we do anything to jeopardize a single constructors point.
Heavy sedans aren't race cars, no matter how many angry pixies you stuff them with. GM sucks a way bigger wang than I thought, but I'm not surprised. Anywaaay,
Big changes coming to Formula Drift this year! Fortunately, I was able to listen to the latest 2hr long “Outerzone” podcast episode, where FD co-founder and solo-president Ryan Sage lays it all out. The tl;dr if you don’t want all the details is as follows: single run qualifying is no more. Instead, the top 16 or 24 drivers (based on previous round’s result and how many show up to the next one) will be locked into the main Top 32 bracket. The rest of the entrants (44 this year) will battle through their own Top 16 or 32 to fill the remaining 8 or 16 spots in the main with no bye-runs. Round 1 will use the 2023 points results for the “locked in” 16 or 24. This means that if all 44 drivers show up, 20 of them will battle to populate the bottom 16 main spots. The goal is to provide more action for the audience, provide incentive for driver improvement, and lower tire consumption overall. Also of note, is the addition of 2023 Drift Master’s European Championship, uh, champion, Conor Shanahan! He isn’t running all 8 rounds of FD, but it will still be interesting to see how he does over here after dominating in Europe. Those are the highlights, and you can feel how you will about them. Keep reading for nitty-gritty and opinions if you’d like!
Drifting competitions are done via “battles,” where 2 drivers tandem drift the course, then switch positions (lead/chase) and go again. Lead drivers need to run a line assigned by the 3 judges, fill all outer zones, and hit all inner clips. Lead drivers also need to have a high degree of drift angle, lots of flare on transitions, and have a run that is actually chaseable. If the lead driver does a shitty lead with many corrections and mistakes, it becomes difficult or impossible for the chase driver to do his job. Speaking of the chase driver, his job is to mimic the lead car. Chase drivers need to follow the lead’s line, angle, anticipate the transitions, and keep as close “proximity” to the lead car as possible (also called “penetration” if you want a laugh). The judges then decide who did the best in each position. If no decision can be made, either because each driver was perfect or because they both sucked, a “one more time” is called, and the drivers go back for fresh tires and run again. The main competition starts with 32 drivers and eventually results in one winner. Championship points are awarded based on which level of the bracket a driver makes it to, with 100 points going to the winner. For 19 years, the Top 32 was entirely filled out by solo qualifying runs, where the driver’s goal is to run their best “lead” run possible for a score out of 100. They had 2 laps back-to-back and the highest score of the 2 was what they took. During that time, the number 1 qualifier for a round got 3 bonus points for the championship. For 2023, this changed slightly. Number 1 still got 3 points, but all drivers only got ONE lap to qualify- initially. If a driver ran a complete lap and got a score, that was their score. Failure to make a complete run on the qualifying lap would allow them to run again, but with the highest possible position now being 25th. This was often referred to as the “not-so-great-eight” by announcer Jared DeAnda. The bottom 8 drivers were those who simply could not earn a high enough score on their first lap, and drivers who did not complete their first lap at all due to either a mistake, or a mechanical issue. The goal of this was to eliminate 1 or 2 drivers as they had 33-34 entrants in 2023, but this resulted in some very wonky top 32 battles, and played with the championship points in interesting ways. Some top drivers who suffered mechanical problems qualified poorly, and battled another top driver immediately which is not “supposed” to happen. Things are much different this year.
In 2024, qualifying will also be done via BATTLES! There are 2 ways this goes down depending on how many of the 44 Pro1 drivers or 48 ProSpec drivers enter a given round. For rounds with 33-40 entrants, the top 24 drivers are locked into the Main Top 32 bracket. 25th-32nd and the rest will be placed into a top 16 qualifying bracket, modified by a random number system to keep this bracket mixed up, and battle for the bottom 8 spots in the Main Top 32 bracket. For rounds with 41 or more entrants the system is similar, but only the highest 16 drivers are locked in, and up to 20 drivers have to battle it out to fill in the bottom 16 spots instead of 8. There are many interesting results of this massive format change. From the driver’s perspective, you have more opportunities to learn by doing more battles at every event. You use fewer tires; one solo qual lap would burn an entire pair, battles are 2 laps. You are also able to provide more value for your sponsors because you’re now featured in more actual competition over the weekend. I think the biggest thing a driver should be thinking about is the fact they know exactly who their first battle will be weeks ahead of time. The bracket for Long Beach is set right now, and the event doesn’t happen until April 13th. This is important for drivers to think about because they can find footage of their opponent and study it over and over to develop a strategy. From the audience perspective, this is exciting because the solo-runs were boring and the whole of qualifying was often tedious to watch (almost as tedious as this is to read, maybe). Instead of watching 5 drivers flounder for every 1 exciting run, we get to watch tandem battles all the way through! I expect this to really separate the wheat from the proverival chaff as well. The stakes are higher and the implications are greater, so the drivers will have to give their full effort from the very start.
As I said earlier, the season doesn’t start for another month, so I may not have updates again until the week before, where I summarize the finale of 2023 and paint a picture for the beginning of 2024. I may not be able to watch some of these events live, but I will catch up and bring the results and drama here to ACF every Wednesday once we’re rolling!
Wouldn't it be easier to just see who can make it all the way down Manhattan first?
Now that you mention it, the NHRA should consider running some street events too.
Street Outlaws!!! Tonight after Amish Mafia
You could do street drag racing without the fake drama and false pretense of illegality. It would be cool enough to see Clay Millican run down "xy road" in "ab city" anyway.
Amish Mafia was unintentionally hilarious. Levi vs. Merlin. Classic.
i'd watch soccer before i'd watch drift. it takes talent. so does fly fishing
If I'm honest, that's how I feel about F1. I'm not asking you to watch drifting, no one has asked me to watch F1; or soccer, or fly-fishing.
That's a lot of words to bother typing in a comment section. Maybe start your own blog and build a following?
Not a bad idea! In the future these will be much shorter, so I'm not sure it would be sustainable for just FD. Maybe I could use it for other things as well! I had a lot I wanted to say for background and context this week, so I typed this all in a Google doc on a computer during some free time, and then just copy/pasted it here when the post went up.
Like Silentsod's Moto updates and Sherman's everything else updates I thought your info was cool. Honestly I would rather read about racing and maybe watch the vehicles getting prepped than watch more than a few minutes of any kind of racing, on tv at least.
Guest post!
good chance to add pics and video links as well
Damn son, that could verge on indulgent! I don't think it would be appropriate for me to have entire guest posts about FD here, though. I should start my own blog and do full length recaps, but for ACF comments a brief summary of highlights and final standings is plenty.
After reading Jonny’s press release rewrite, I would like to let slip that he is a useful idiot AND a useless idiot.
how about just an idiot
Calling Johnny an idiot makes idiots look bad
Every time something comes out about how terrible modern cars are, like delivering your telemetry straight to your insurance company, I can hear my S2000 get more valuable. At least I feel happier about it.
That being said, I filled out an app with both American Collector and The Hag That Shall Not Be Named, and both spit back the same-ish number, $750/yr for stated value of $25k (probably slightly optimistic but not outrageous). Which is almost 2x what I pay USAA for regular insurance on it now. In the spirit of the Open thread, can someone either A) sell me on why I should double up the price to insure a Honda with chipped paint and 120k miles that’s old enough to drink, or B) reassure me that I should just save my $400/year (about 2 Direzzas shipped and mounted) and USAA will likely more or less make me whole should the unthinkable happen to my really pretty mainstream old used car anyways. Unfortunately neither option will likely stop the 4-5 spam calls I’m now getting a week from each company.
Use the savings to buy a Personal Umbrella Policy, which everyone should have. You can get $1mm in coverage on top of all your other policies for $300 or so a year. A must in this litigious world.
Check and check. I got one of those years ago when I had a rental house. Exact coverage and basically same cost as you said. Also have a valuable personal property policy for my wife’s jewelry.
Forgot to mention, the other impetus for looking into this is I will ideally, theoretically, in the next 12 months have a vintage motorcycle I will also need to insure. Not sure USAA will want a piece of that one too. Just liability, I’ll only have like $3500 into the thing.
Good man. I’m going to sell my old Corvette this year so then I’ll be done with Traverse City forever. I, too, only have liability on my 2007 3 Series wagon. Cheap insurance is the best part about old cars you don’t really care about. When I moved from IL to NC my car insurance dropped by two thirds.
How old is your Corvette? and also fuck TC I hate that place.
Silver 1965 coupe with the 350 hp L79.
c2 supremacy
If you can insure with USAA, do so. They're the best choice and always will be unless you're trying to insure a Delahaye or Patent Motorwagen.
I’m with them now. Their auto coverage is good but their homeowners coverage is atrocious, like $4k to insure my home in no-natural-disasters IL.
We had an earthquake 13 years ago!
Get back to me when an earthquake tips over Pritzker’s Sub Zero on him as he’s reaching inside for a turkey leg.
Typical Illinois. You’re obviously subsidizing someone else with that ridiculous rate.
They seem to have some issue with those of us in MI.
USAA won't do motorcycles anymore. They will shuffle you over to Progressive.
Check Grundy for the S2000. I pay lees than that for my 83 911 with an agreed value of $65K.
I have a $5MM umbrella - money well spent.
DEAR GOD. FIRST THE WATCHES AND NOW YOUR BUYING BLING UMBRELLAS!
I own one umbrella, which i bought from the former J. Press store on Madison Avenue during a rainstorm in NYC.
I have had it for over a decade, and I still use it frequently.
I have multiple umbrellas, which I got for free at auto show media previews from companies like Rain-X and State Farm. Not as nicely made as your J. Press, I'm quite sure, but better than those cheap single-use bumbershoots sold on NYC sidewalks during rainstorms.
I typically keep one in the car. It's not as fancy as the umbrella Rolls-Royce puts, spring-loaded, in their door jams, but it keeps me dry. That gives me an idea, next year, if I'm fortunate to still be around to cover the Detroit Autorama, I'm going to suggest to some custom builders that they take a look at stuff like the R-R umbrella and the special compartment for a set of golf clubs one can find on cars from the '30s.
Rolls Royce and Skoda! Such a clever idea putting an umbrella in the deadspace inside a door.
Surprise and delight from the consumer for such a simple feature. I'd much rather have an umbrella nook in the door of my next car rather than yet another cupholder.
Fighter pilots don't use umbrellas. Ever.
It's a rule.
Though, I'll admit to having second thoughts as to that rule's validity during monsoon season in Korea.
Not a fighter pilot, but I know I look cool when I am brooding and rain drips from my brow.
Umbrellas don’t have The Right Stuff?
I need an umbrella. Do you have the single fold or the double?
Was just a little travel umbrella; I doubt they still sell the same item.
he uses it to cane the poors
That's what I use my umbrella for.
Thanks, I almost shot gin out my nose. :D
Yeah, the next time you rage out and kill someone that will really come in handy during the ensuing unlawful death lawsuit!
The thought process was that I was mostly likely to need something like that in the event of a multi-car (and potentially multi-expensive car) crash.
It's probably the most likely reason to need one for anyone who drives and doesn't start fights.
Lexus owner rear-ends altima driver. Hilarity (but not for lexus owner) ensues
On that note probably time to upgrade mine
I’m thinking a scenario like “GT3 and McLaren/Ferrari/etc. are driving in the mountains and GT3 driver rear-ends the other car - two totaled cars, injuries, etc.”
But did you smoke cigars with your insurance agent?
No, I can’t stand the guy actually!
That’s too bad because if he sold you a $5 million policy, I’ll bet he loves you!
He didn’t sell me anything - I wanted it!
I play in the shallow end of that collectors pool. I think you might be shocked at how little damage your insurance will total your vehicle for.
When I was in NY, agreed value insurance, with some restrictions on use and storage, was a big money saver.
In Idaho it was more expensive than my regular coverage would have been.
I’m sure they’d total my car out. But I guess the question is, how hard would I have to fight with USAA to get the $22-25k the car is worth? I had them total one car already (wife hit a deer in a 7 year old 125k mile Jetta) and they were more than generous with the payout (gave us $7500 for a car that would probably net $4500 on a trade in). So I guess I don’t necessarily see the value in collector insurance, given that it isn’t hard to evaluate S2000s (BaT and CnB are full of them).
USAA gave me $35,000 for a 4-year-old truck with 80,000 miles on it. I don't think you'll be unhappy with what you get for the S2K.
Key word is truck. Those have value as tools well beyond 100k, the sports car, even a rare one like an S2k will likely be tougher for a non-speciality insurer.
I think there's still enough mainline auction data to support the value. In five or ten years the volume won't be enough for the insurers to feel good about paying the right amount of money for it.
I'm not sure about s2ks, but the value of e9x m3s is all over the place. When I totaled my 2008 e92 they wanted a nearly exact comp for age and mileage. My insurance initially offered $10k less than what I thought it was worth (30 vs 20). I managed to split the difference with them after some arguing. I was probably too optimistic with my valuation, but what they paid definitely doesn't make a replacement easy.
All that said, I wouldn't double my premium to cover that gap.
S2000s are super simple because there are zero configurations. It’s your year and mileage, with maybe a slight variation for a rare color. That’s it. There are no options aside from dealer accessories (if I had an OEM hardtop I’d get a rider for that). There are the CR models, which if I had a low mileage one I’d get collector insurance for that (they’re 6-figure cars now shockingly) but a standard car? Nah. Simple.
The thing that bothered me when I got an agreed value quote from the hag awhile back was they only offered annual premiums with no regard for the car being put away 3-4 months a year. Fine if you live in Florida, less so for me in the Midwest. Made the real cost per driving month much higher than comparable coverage from a traditional insurer.
"they only offered annual premiums with no regard for the car being put away 3-4 months a year"
Because their jet needs to fly 12 months a year.
Duh.
I have to say I’m glad it didn’t work out, being both a paid member here and a customer of theirs would have been a paradox almost on the level of enjoying Lieberman or Brownell’s written work.
I don't feel that way, for what it's worth. There are good people still working there. I know, because I hired them. As for the rest, lizard people are gonna lizard.
Your hires are still putting out good content, but the other new stuff is press release territory. Grace and Nate still mostly MIA.
I think employing me took all the institutional courage they had ever possessed in a single wild spurt, like an 18-year cicada shoving itself out of the ground just long enough to reproduce.
The other day I saw an article about a topic I found interesting. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed to see that my interest was shared with BB, whose byline was on the piece.
I just read an old Hemmings article you wrote on the Aerovette. I really enjoyed it as there’s not much written about that car. I would still love to know its dimensions to compare it to the C8.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed my work.
The Aerovette is longer and lower, the C8 is wider.
Aerovette:
Length : 188.5 in | 4788 mm.
Width : 71.6 in | 1819 mm.
Height : 42.5 in | 1080 mm.
Wheelbase : 95.5 in | 2426 mm.
C8:
Length: 182.3 inches (4630 mm)
Width: 76.1 inches (1934 mm)
Height: 48.6 inches (1234 mm)
Wheelbase: 107.2 inches (2722 mm)
You both like old fat women
This is well known
Not old fat women in general, just one who has gotten a bit broad across the beam over the years.
I admit that I have a Hagerty agreed value policy on the ‘96 Jaguar XJ12; it is what it is.
I have one on my Bronco as well.
Yeah it’s already baked in. But also a quirk of my having an umbrella policy is that I can’t lower premiums on my car for winter anyways (put in storage) because it would cause a coverage gap or something. So it doesn’t really matter to me.
Not defending it, but I bet they payout on storage related accidents as much or more than driving ones for most of their clients.
Mice.
My 2001 S2000 is insures for $24k agreed value with Hag. Half of what American family charged and probably be totaled at $12k. 173,000 miles btw. I love Hondas.
My policy with the bagel company renews in June and the quotes you got are not giving me a warm and fuzzy feeling about what my new premium will be. Mine floats around 780/yr including the dumb quarterly because I can't find it in myself to call them and tell them I just want the insurance. That is for 35k on my E36.
The only way I get 35k out of my car is to total it, if I'm being honest. So, I buck up and pay the man. Unless you have close 50k into your S2k, I picked double the declared value because that is about what I'm into my E36 for, I'd say you're fine sticking with USAA.
The only thing to note is if you add a second vehicle to your bagel company policy with the same primary driver your premium usually drops, I know that was the case when I got quotes to add other vehicles to my policy.
Regarding GM: Ugh... I have a 5V Blackwing and it came with a complimentary data plan when I bought it. The app disclosed serious acceleration events and forceful braking - every single drive. Perhaps I'm not the typical Caddy driver, but those are nothing compared to my times on the track.
And now I know that data is out there somewhere. I'm sure a future insurance company will deny me for "undisclosed" reasons. Which module can I rip out to stop this?
Put a Faraday cage on your shark fin. Like the tanks in Ukraine!
They used to make this easy; the first day GM advertised Onstars ability to have law enforcement remotely shut down your car, I located the module in the trunk of my G8 and removed it.
Now I think it’s much more difficult/interferes with other systems. Still would do it if someone found a way though.
Here’s OnStar’s guide to locating their module. “…you might want to disconnect from the system for personal reasons.” Ha ha ha!
https://guide-onstar.com/where-is-the-onstar-module-located/
The big question is, is GM using this module currently on a new car like yours, or is there another module buried somewhere that’s transmitting? I suppose you could remove the module and see if the app data stops. Please let us know if you find out.
When I have some spare vacation, I'm going to subscribe to the Toyota TechInfo site and figure out where to unplug the antenna to my Lexus' onstar.
I’ve done some digging on this and found a great write up on disabling OnStar on a Camaro. Apparently this also applies to a C7 Corvette, too. This may be a model for other makes. https://www.camaro6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=467634
The author of this fix claims that just removing the antenna doesn’t mean that the unit is not still transmitting, the signal is just not being amplified. I’m a technophobe and this is getting into tinfoil hat territory, but it seems to make sense.
The fix seems to be pretty easy just by removing a circuit board from the OnStar box in the passenger footwell area. The good part is that it doesn’t affect other functions on the car, only OnStar. Apparently on some Chevys just removing the OnStar fuse kills direction and temperature functions, and maybe Bluetooth and other dashboard functions. I’ve seen a fix on a Chevy Silverado similar to this Camaro fix, and on the video it is shown that everything stills works afterwards except OnStar.
One note, it appears that C8 Corvettes have the OnStar functions totally integrated into the car’s electronics and the Camaro fix would not work. Also, there are two transmitting antennas under each front fender, requiring fender removal to get to. Chevy really really wants your info. F them.
One more note about OnStar, only 10% of new customers pay for it after the free subscription ends on new cars. The customer reviews online mostly trash it. It’s also not cheap. YMMV.
Perhaps the most horrifying AI video yet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjHtjT7GO1c
I'm sure the many genius-tier devs gathered here can still outperform this software code generator when it counts, but if it's this good at coding, then why would we assume that it can't do other, bureaucratic make-work (ie 80+% of all knowledge work) jobs?
Hard not to see in this the portents of the apocalypse of the knowledge worker
Believe it or not, programming is easier than "natural" language. The more open-ended a language is, the harder it is to write.
But the main reason not to use this "AI coding" is that a human being will have to read every line for compliance and safety. Many of us can code faster than we can read other peoples' code.
They'll put this shit in production without review, some one will die because of it and they'll say "How could anyone know this would happen!"
Airbags killed lots of kids sitting in the front seat, and the “safety” goons got away with it. Big Government doesn’t care who AI kills. Government has a long list of collateral damage victims they don't care about for all their desired beta testing.
While Eaton was developing the first practical airbags, they were quite open about the fact that they could be dangerous for small humans.
That tragically didn’t filter down to consumers.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/06/automotive-archaeology-where-eaton-crash-tested-the-first-practical-airbags/
"Years later, in the mid-1990s, when concerns over the deaths of 52 children and petite women caused by airbags were prompting regulators to consider warning stickers or even eliminating mandated airbags, Carey, by then retired, mounted his own personal public relations campaign to defend Eaton’s invention. He said that their earliest research showed that unbelted or out of position children could be at risk, something they didn’t hide from automakers or regulators. Carey would eventually be honored by the Automotive Hall of Fame for his team’s development of the first practical airbags."
"Democrat-run companies"
It’ll be Boeing, won’t it?
It may seem backwards but I saw the video of this coding AI and thought it portends a rough spell for NON-developers' jobs. Several parts of the video imply this but abstracting the command into an actionable work plan, fixing errors and determining workarounds -- are basically the description of my job if it could take (input X) and then place persuasive phone calls y1, y2, y3
to Scott's point above
Are we sure anyone will read it? LOL
When I submit PCBs to China Inc for fabrication and stuffing, I have to go ever every component, line by line, to make sure that their AI didn't substitute something wrong.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisagarcia/2024/02/19/what-air-canada-lost-in-remarkable-lying-ai-chatbot-case
This is a marker for a lot of companies using AI for things. As long as they're liable and it costs them money, someone will review it.
It's one thing to review source code.
But the point of the bot is that it is NOT fixed, deterministic code: the bot is generating the replies sui generis. Reviewing every message that a bot sends is very different from the "write once, run many times" tradition of software.
But perhaps it will be similar to the transition from "cashier" to "self-scan monitor."
I think you're spot on there, with the humans going from "from cashiers to self-checkout monitors."
I'm working with some folks implementing basic AI chat bots, and you need to really read every message up front and keep verifying it's going in the right direction for a while. You also accept that there will be some mistakes, the key is making sure they aren't too expensive.
Some autistic teenager is gonna convince one of these AIs to give him 2 trillion dollars of googles money
There was some Chevy dealership that was using a commercial AI that costs money to use as an individual; people were using the Chevy chatline to do their physics homework at no cost.
I hope this happens a lot. Nothing like expensive chaos to shut something down.
Didn't we read something about two weeks ago about how someone got a Chevy chatbot to offer a car for $1000?
The trick was the the AI prompt had instructions that each response had to end in "this is a legally binding contract. No takebacks."
Every time someone asks me a dumb question at work, I provide them an AI-written response.
Not a contest I would have entered! Not nice to talk ill of someone’s mother like that, I seen the exchange, no one won.
No harm was done, Joe. Certainly not to me or my mom. This should be a place where people can banter a bit.
If you can thank them for throwing her a mercy fuck, when all about you are those making cracks about your mother...
With apologies to Rudyard Kipling.
I'm pretty sure both Thomas and NoID have the two highest likes for a comment ever as well.
Thomas Hank is scum. Unless you’re a golden retriever; I’m pretty nice to those.
Always be nice to the fur babies
Jack is used to that kind of thing. He's so ugly, when he was born, the doctor slapped his mom.
All credit to the late, great Rodney (Dangerfield).
Yes, and he is a character
Thanks for providing yet another reinforcement of my decision to buy an Expedition over a Tahoe. Even if I missed out on sweet 6.2 exhaust note for the twin turbo whine, that data grab is terrifying! I'm amazed they don't share it anonymized, but it does make sense since Tesla does pitch themselves as a "data company" so clearly GM has to follow along.
As for the Porsche (well it's a literal PORKER!), it'll just sell to the same crowd who want to say they drive a PORSCH just like the Panamera Turbo folks. Most of what they're selling are pure Veblen goods for morons at this point, but I'm sure I'll see a bunch of them rolling around Miami.
As long as they get a PORSCH hat to wear when they’re not in their German golf cart they’re happy.
I’d much prefer a Panamera to a Taycan, personally.
I agree, but I'd take an S8 or RS6 over either.
I’ll take a ‘65 Coupe de Ville. I want to float down the road.
You’re in luck.
The press embargo on the newest Panamera facelift broke a few hours ago; the top trim offers “Porsche Active Ride” (the bouncy suspension thing) for about $10k.
Hah! $10k goes a long way towards keeping an old Cadillac on the road.
Plus the Panamera has no swagger, I just couldn’t be seen in one!
On a drive thru Orange Co once upon a time Mrs Scout saw a Panamera and commented, “A Porsche with 4 doors is stupid and wrong.”
shes right
keep her
Robert Farago has a recent post on his substack about the end of privacy. He notes that it isn't difficult to identify people in allegedly anonymized data sets.
Worse than that - nevermind Lexis/Nexis, the US government is likely buying GM's data.
I had better get back to dieting and diligently working out because I will definitely end up in a re-education/labor camp once the commies take over.
Wrong. Accumulate mass so it takes longer to starve to death.
I was angling more towards being prepared to help lead the resistance. I'm not a tough mother fucker, but if pushed hard enough I could be. A labor camp would absolutely be a hard enough push!
MotoGP kicks off with some reasonable competition between the sprint and the full length race.
Saturday's sprint had last years' championship runner up and sprint dominator Jorge Martin on a Ducati rode to an easy first place with Brad Binder on his KTM in second (he also did well last year in a number of sprints), and somewhat surprisingly for me Aleix Espargo on the Aprilia coming in third (!). Bagnaia ended up in fourth which was an okay, but not great, start to the weekend.
During the Sunday race Bagnaia was back in form and managed to lead just about the entire way for first place. Jorge Martin battled it out with Brad Binder for second place but couldn't match his pace over the long haul with a couple of errors seeing him manage the ride to third instead of throwing the bike away in a stupid incident which, I thought, showed him maturing as a competitor. Just taking the points instead of trying and pushing too far. This means there's a 3 point spread between first and third going into the next race with Bagnaia at 31, Binder with 29, and Martin at 28.
I'm hoping KTM stays competitive, but Miller's early crash due to cold tires (?) from a strange delayed start sequence means the spotlight and weight is all on Brad.
Pedro Acosta, who has a hype train running moved nowhere in the sprint and learned a valuable lesson about tire management in the full race. He went from 8 -> 9 and worked up to 4th position before it became clear he had used too much tire too early and rapidly fell back through the pack to a 9th place finish.
Marc Marquez finished 5th and 4th riding a year old Ducati and it was, frankly, nice to see him be competitive without risking everything or looking like he was on the absolute limit all the time.
ETA: MotoAmerica ran the Daytona 200 and I watched about half the events.
Newcomer to King of the Baggers, Troy Herfoss (?), immediately looks strong on the Indian but played the race tactics poorly and Kyle Wyman took first in both due to unforced errors. In the last lap of the last race Herfoss looked over his shoulder and took his bike OFF LINE and scrubbed entirely too much speed.
I still don't like the supersport Daytona 200 format though several riders ran out of gas at various points which was good for laughs (not for them).
I haven't caught up on the Super Hooligans but there should be a broader bike variety than last year with a Triumph Triple and an MT-09 both in the field. In the meantime - Indian is walking away with the most points on the factory FTRs again.
Thanks for the updates on not-GP racing as well! When I do watch a race recording, it's always King of the Baggers. 3 entries in Super Hooligans sounds interesting now though!
I only caught that the MT-09 was dumped early on in one of the races :\ Shame, but the variety should be interesting.
O'Hara looking a little shaky on the Challenger already and he had a mechanical over the weekend and then race 1 he caught a false neutral or blew a braking point because he about put the bike into a wall as I recall it.
Damn, that's pretty scary and also out of character. Hopefully it's just early season quibbles maybe?
He had to use a lot of run off at last year's Daytona 200 as well, hoping it's just getting back in the groove on the 600lb gorilla.
I rewatched - he did hit the padding on a wall but not at the fastest part(s) of the track.
Do you watch KotB for the rider talent or because the race bikes have a passing appearance to the street machines?
I like watching them wrestle 600lb machines around with no traction control or ABS and they regularly look like they'll be bucked off them.
I don't care about cruisers or have any personal desire to own one. I also understand these are bespoke bikes running prototype parts. Probably I will buy a cruiser for my wife since she wants to just breeze along on a bike.
Open Thread so:
I’m curious what our resident designer-commenter-Goth Adrian Clarke’s original article on the Rivian R3X was before it was very toned down by the editorial board.
Perhaps he'll grace us with that opinion.
The R3X media blowjob is almost as sad as the Tay Can thing. Imagine how sad the state of the new-car art right now is for people to get excited about a 4,000 pound Nissan LEAF just because it has the same rear rake as a first-gen Stanza.
It’s the equivalent to the SSR/Prowler/Thunderbird/PT Cruiser/S197 Mustang except for targeting boomers it’s targeting nerds from the 80s.
The new Santa Fe, of all things, is preposterous looking in person and is a good poster child for the current design language fad.
Almost all EVs are design failures.
The back of the Santa Fe is preposterous looking.
Agreed. My wife has a 2022 Santa Fe, and after seeing the new one asked who beat it with the ugly stick.
It's a PIG, and has less space than a Golf. I find it funny Audi announced the A3 "AllStreet" (aka allroad-lite) for Europe at basically the same time, since it's basically the same concept and actually you know, works...
I really don't understand the Rivian love, it's a small less capable truck with batteries that is functionally worse in every way versus the F150 Lightning, and yet they're getting all this love. Just reinforces how our automotive "media" has no understanding of what actually sells modern cars.
Bugmen LOVE cars that normal people don't have, can't use, or can't afford. The purpose of a Rivian is to announce that you don't need a truck.
Having said that, one of my gentleman neighbors, whose home is 2.5x the size of mine, just bought a Rivian this month.
So it's a Taycan?
That makes sense, they're all electric golf carts for cruising the neighborhood to me. I'm guessing your neighbor also has a real truck of sorts, or is he simply playing farm life?
He's the odd man out around here. He's been driving an X5. He dresses and acts like a suburbanite. Doesn't come to the township meetings unless he has a gripe. His wife is crippled and I think she likes being out here where she has more control over her environment than she'd have in a Columbus suburb.
Rivian offers a guilt-free truck or utility vehicle to people who would think twice about buying an SUV and wouldn’t be caught dead in a pickup truck. That’s a sizable TAM for them, as the only other “truck” in that space is the Honda Ridgeline.
Rivian is like Patagonia or Arcteryx outerwear - it’s “nice,” the have nots know it’s expensive and trendy, but it’s not ostentatious. You can drive a Rivian to work in (almost) any office job in America and not have it reflect poorly on your image as a good corporate citizen.
I understand that, it's basically a Taycan for those who need a truck or an electric Range Rover. I've seen quite a few go from Jeep Gladiators in Connecticut and the Northeast. Seems to have taken that role as the look at me "truck" for the Patagonia/Arcteryx crowd.
But as a company trying to expand the product line, I'm not sure what the smaller units do for them considering how much cash they burn already.
The R2 (Macan / Q5 competitor AFAIK) will be the volume model. Goal is to push ASPs down so that it can be a mass market vehicle - ~$45K on the low end IIRC.
It's cool, but it's 3 years out. Will Rivian be around then?
I get they want to go mass market, but it's far enough off to cause other trouble for them and potentially depress existing sales. I guess the finance types are the audience for this one.
I just learned of this now and I think it looks really good, the simple clean face works better here than on the big trucks, and far better than its competition (Blazer EV, Model Y, Polestar, all ugly ducklings). The weight of 4000lbs tells me they attempted to reign it in. I imagine they will sell like relative hotcakes to upper middle class city dwellers, and actual hotcakes if they can borrow a 2.0t from someone like Honda. I have less than zero interest in an EV powertrain, but I feel like we should be proud that an American company is beating Subaru at their game.
Then again I rolled through that McMansion-basher's blog and most things I saw made me say that's impressive, never seen that before. (Aren't McMansions supposed to be comformist? Why am I not allowed to have opera windows?)
Oh My God.
Went and read the editor's note on that piece. As if I needed any more proof that, with the exception of "Murilee," everyone who ever occupied the Jalopnik masthead is a contemptible loser.
Everyone responsible for the Rivian Omnirizon deserves to be publicly humiliated.
What's Ray Wert doing these days?
Carrying his wife's purse.
I said a few months ago that The Autopian was Jalopnik 2.0 and a few people staunchly disagreed with me.
After reading this comment, I found a pre-edit version of Adrian’s article. Why they felt the need to edit it and post an apology I don’t understand.
No disrespect to Adrain, but it was a pretty weak hot take in the sense that it was entirely inoffensive. I’d expect to hear this kind of design critique from him in the same way I’d expect Fernando Alonso to write an article saying that the Taycan Turbo GT drives like shit and Lieberman doesn’t know better because he also drives like shit.
I think it was a little too real for their comment section, and likely the Rivian PR folks who they desperately want to get drives from. The bit on Land Rover was spot on, as was the "if Rivian survives," but noone wants to be told they're wrong about the car BUSINESS. Especially online enthusiasts, who don't actually spend money. I'd argue with him about the nostalgic Land Rover being needed, but I'm also one of the even smaller minority who can and would put up money tomorrow for a real "old school" Discovery or Defender.
It hurts me to read it (Autopian). When they launched it I assumed it was going to be a series of David Tracey's Illiads and more Jason shitting in a plastic bag. But no, DT is on Lamborghini press launches in Spain and Jason hardly seems to be there at all.
Eh.
I think there are people at that publication who are genuine, good writers, and really do care. It’s about as good as it gets right now tbh.
Unfortunately, the business
model they have there also means they have big daddy Galpin looking over their shoulders to some degree. Or so I’d assume at least. Gotta toe the line at least a bit.
I see that Rivian has decided to make the face of the Michelin man their brand identity.
If Mom reads the free ones I imagine you should expect a phone call but I'm guessing this would be one of the more minor offenses you've bothered her with.
Of course Ms Spice is a formerly worldly slut of the first order who only now masquerades as a Lady of the Manor but she must have faced a mountain of pressure to dump Mr Horny. Let this be a lesson to all of us; Do whatever Bernie says.
Geraldine transformed herself into a doting Country Wife when she got with Christian.
Paige three girl to lady of the manor? No one really changes...
Looked like she could get chubby from her younger photos, went the other way...
Essentially, you are describing the perfect wife.
80% of soccer moms are doing the same.
Peep this video: https://vimeo.com/78296395
I grew up with the girl dancing in it. I remember when she got her clit piercing in high school, because she showed it to everyone in AP English when the teacher was out of the room making copies. I remember when she used to dance on tables in Buckhead bars while not wearing underwear. Et cetera.
She’s now a suburban wife and mother who owns and operates half a dozen Pure Barre locations and spends her free time posting about Trump (in favor), seed oils (not in favor), and her wholesome, family-oriented, Christ-centered lifestyle.
man what
The primary benefit of social media for me, at least, is seeing all the high school and college skanks pretend they have always been wholesome #girl/boymoms. WE STILL REMEMBER THAT TIME YOU SNORTED COKE OFF THAT STRIPPERS TAINT ASHLEY!!!
I bet she is still fun at a party. And fuck seed oils.
But linseed oil is still great.
Although I keep up with her - and many other (relatively) - high achievers from my hometown via social media, the last time I saw her in person was about 10 years ago.
Junior investment bankers (this basically applies to analysts and associates, the first two rungs of the job ladder) receive a meal stipend each evening. Assuming you’re working in the office past a certain time, you get $X to spend on dinner.
For us at the time, it was 8 PM and $30. What most people would do is go to Whole Foods a mile or so from the office and buy dinner and something that *might* (i.e., would) be groceries. I once expensed a 12 pack of sugar free Red Bull when I had to work all night on short notice.
On one group visit to Whole Foods, I bumped into this girl in the checkout line. She’s wearing slightly more than she is in the music video. We start chatting.
The other analysts in my group were curious how I knew her, obviously.
Skintight athleisure and pageant makeup.
seed oils are horrid things
“…Right there to move his lips up and down the shaft of this profoundly stupid disaster…” That’s just fucking brilliant.
Another mostly procession in Jedda. Happy to see Ferrari best of the rest again with LeClerq’s podium and Bearman’s very impressive debut. Lots of aggression against established drivers. The guy’s got balls.
What the hell is wrong with those RBs? Same engine as the Red Bulls but that chassis appears to be a piece of shit. Curious to see some inside scoop on that.
Elsewhere the INDYCAR season opener in Saint Pete also turned out to be a bit of a procession with Joseph Newgarden doing his best to imitate Max Verstappen by leading most of the race despite several safety car periods bunching up the pack. He just simply walked away on every restart. Young Pado O’Ward did his best to keep Joseph in sight and resisted the temptation to wreck another car, ultimately finishing second just ahead of the other two Penskes. I love to watch this kid drive, and if he’s matured enough to bring it home like this for the rest of the season, he’s got a good shot at the championship.
This is the first IndyCar season opener I haven't watched in forty years. I could stomach the spec racing if they'd at least get a new car every now and then. I won't put myself through any more aggravation watching fuel mileage racing in vintage equipment.
I doubt 12-15 year old Verstappen could have outraced Vettel! (Yes, yes, I know what you meant). Anyway, I'm not sure why you're dissing him. He did, after all, win the drivers' championship four years in a row, in much more closely-matched cars than Verstappen or Hamilton have had. Babe Ruth being the greatest Yankee doesn't make Lou Gehrig any less great. It was also a completely different era of the sport. Cornering Gs have nearly doubled, pit stop times halved, and the number+precision of parameters the team and driver can monitor and adjust on the fly has gone up a hundred-fold. What would now be considered accurate simulators didn't exist, nor did accurate CFD.
a) I'm not sure 12-year-old Max Verstappen couldn't have given Seb a run for his money!
b) I'm not trying to compare training and skills across generations so much as I'm noting that Max simply makes far fewer mistakes. As an example, I don't believe he's ever crashed his codriver out of the race while leading the WDC. Seb was just HUGELY inconsistent in his ability to work traffic and make smart decisions.
I shall confess here, at my own peril, that this was perhaps the only thing I found interesting in Newey's book. Namely, his description of how different drivers he worked with approached the car, and the driving process, including the feedback they would focus on/provide. Of course, even that was "washed" many times through "appropriateness filters" before being put to page. But it was, to me, one of the more informative aspects of the book, such as it is.
I’m a big Seb fan but I can’t disagree with you. He just went down the drain in his final years.