Apparently Carhartt is back to sort of making jackets in the USA again. Last year they launched their “Crafted” collection of domestically-produced goods.
We were in the Flagship store on Cass this afternoon and they had a pretty decent selection. $189 for the Crafted Chore Jacket looked like a bargain compared to the Made in India “Detroit” Jacket at $129. It shouldn’t be a surprise, but the materials and craftsmanship on the Crafted jacket are clearly superior.
There are perhaps ~40 brands of automobiles reasonably on sale in the United States. This figure does - in my mind - include the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and McLaren. But not the strictly hypercar concerns.
Anyway.
There are too many brands. There is not need - and no customer demand! - for all of them to continue existing. And bear in mind that America does not enjoy all the exciting Chinese OEMs.
Jaguar as it was previously positioned had no opportunity ahead of it. The same likely goes for Maserati, for example.
I don’t think anyone has talked as much about Jaguar - what the brand should be, what the brand shouldn’t be, what emotional “ownership” they have over the brand, etc. - since June 12, 1988. Which was the day that a Silk Cut Jaguar won Le Mans after a 31 year drought, and nearly a year before my birth.
The Jaguar you and others knew is dead. But this new Jaguar might have a chance.
The car looks very imposing, and it will get attention on the road.
Some brands will continue to die off as they have in the past. RIP Saturn, Pontiac, Mercury, SOB, Plymouth, etc. I guess if there are people running that stuff that has actual luck and genius, maybe they'll keep brands like Jaguar alive.
What's odd about Jaguar for me is that I don't think their problem in the 80s and 90s was because their cars weren't considered cool and lacked desirability. They were just built pretty shitty. But during the 2000s and 2010s, they worked so hard at trying bring their cars towards everyone else in terms of style. Assuming they have some deep pockets supporting them, let's see what their next trick is.
Jaguar could have differentiated itself into a no longer common design niche with a curvaceous coupe or sedan or "shooting brake", things prevalent in its history. This is a DOA horror story. Sir William Lyons must be rolling in his grave.
MotoGP was at Motegi in Japan this past weekend. Who did I say to watch for? Marc Marquez, Jorge Martin, and Pedro Acosta? Who comprised the front row? Why, none other than Jorge Martin, Marc Marquez, and Pedro Acosta (in that order). Track records were SMASHED during practice and qualifying on the newly resurfaced track.
The next row had Bez from 4th, Alex Marquez 5th, and Digiantonnio 6th. Bastianini had his best qualifying to date during his woeful KTM tenure in 7th. Ai Ogura, disappointingly, starting down from 11th at his home GP.
Before the sprint started Bez took the unusual choice of a medium rear tire over the soft.
At the start of the sprint Marc makes another fantastic start to dive bomb turn 1 and seize the lead. In this position he would lead, without challenge, the rest of the sprint. A part of the reason for the lack of challenge is that his brother careened into Pedro Acosta and Digi, both of whom could have been threats. Alex would serve a double long lap penalty for reckless riding during the main event, and this dashed Pedro's chances to fight it out for the podium.
Those three riders out of the way, Bastianini, Ogura, and Moreira all had superb mid to late race pace and passed Bez on his poorly picked tire. Bastianini ran down the front runners and was close to passing Jorge Martin, whose soft tire shredded itself and lost serious time in the last few laps. In the last lap, however, both Martin and Bastianini were clearly on the green and were demoted which put Diogo Moreira in his first sprint podium with a silver medal. Martin held on to third for a loss of 5 points to Marquez and almost half his points lead gone.
In the race proper Jorge fought off Marc's expected turn one aggression and managed to open up a fairly healthy lead of nearly a second. Acosta started poorly and fell back to 8th and failed to recover from there. His only gain was from Alex Marquez serving the double long lap penalty. Bez took over Pedro's spot and held it from there.
At one third race distance Marquez began closing the gap down and at half race distance would stand up Martin with a smooth block pass. With Martin's momentum gone Marc would open a three tenths lead within a few corners. Martin then could not keep up with Marc's race pace.
Marc took the 37 points haul and closed the championship to 2 points between himself and Martin.
The only other truly notable ride in the race was Bastianini's who once more displayed incredible pace and surged to fourth place. A few more laps and he may have been on the podium. Where has this Enea been for the season?
MotoGP is in Indonesia this weekend where Marc Marquez has historical scored 0 points during the races through mechanicals, self-caused wrecks, or injury. Jorge Martin, on the other hand, typically does well.
We'll see what if Marc can manage the damage well or if this is a doomed track for him.
There are two main cars featured in this article and both look like ass inside and out and I’d rather keep the cars I’ve got over each of them. I might prefer to walk over each of them. Fucking yuck.
Also Daniel Golson has taken a break from guarding whatever bridge in West Hollywood he currently lives under by asking passerby’s to answer me these questions three to slobber all over the Jag’s knob on VWVortex. No word on whether this is in return from some PR guy slobbering all over his knob, or more likely, allowing Golson to slobber on the PR guy’s, but guaranteed some kinky faggot shit was involved.
OT: I am officially in the market for a replacement for our Odyssey. What I want: reliability, CarPlay, SUV size similar to Lexus GX or LX, preferably under $50k. Something used of course. Nothing newer than 2025 because screens. I won’t taint your opinions but I’m finding this is a very difficult way to spend $50k. And Yes, there are a few Lexus GX/LX/LandCruiser that meet this requirement. By few I mean not many I can find near SW Ohio.
The new Jag is awful. I don’t know who they think is going to buy it. Why the hell can’t they just make a modern (reimagined if you will) XJR and XJS with some ICE displacement options?
I am generally of the mind that drunk drivers should be hammered (yep) by the law on the first offense. Illegals should be put in a catapult (a large catapult) and aimed at their origin. As far as I am concerned drunk driving is attempted murder. Should the limits be reasonable? Yes. Are they reasonable now? Probably not.
I got to own 2 E30s and 1 E46 while living in Germany and for a while thereafter. To me that was Peak BMW. Sad!
"BMW used this revamp as an excuse to remove the manual transmission globally; it wasn’t required by emissions or regulatory standards but why not do it?"
Sucks when they all just give up on the diehards. Good for Porsche for still supporting manuals even though it's a bit boutique-ish. I guess they're just letting us all know where they stand with manual enthusiasts. As a fan of old Land Rovers, I had to go through that same break up... "Why don't you love me anymore??"
At some point, they're saying: our MBAs came back and told us, we really don't want your business anymore. Sorry.
So the Bahrain? Malaysian? GP was quite unpredictable, which can be a good thing, but it can also make F1 start to feel like NASCAR with their “commercial cautions.”
Also, is it me, or does the rear of that 3 series look like it’s already been crashed?
The dragstrip situation is affecting a good handful of people I know. Not all from the standpoint of racers but other associations; namely with Dragway 42 in West Salem.
A few years back a very well known shop - Big3 Racing, suffered a fire that more or less gutted the facility along with many high dollar cars.
They ended up moving the location and building this MASSIVE undertaking at Dragway 42 that coincided with the recent renovations to the facility itself. Talking warehouse size dyno rooms with 4 separate machines, 20 lift service areas, machine shop, fab, storefront etc
According to the rumor mill (and the auditors site) they sublease the property beneath them. It’s a really wild setup with an available track on grounds to test etc. I really hope they’re able to retain the track or at minimum their buildings through all of this mess.
FWIW we still have Khunle and Quaker City locally which are NHRA 1/4 mile tracks. A friend owns Pacemakers and there’s also Magnolia - another “outlaw” track. These have been 1/8 mile for awhile given the recent popularity of No Prep racing and ive already seen a lifetime worth of accidents to argue why it should stay that way.
I’ve not competed in years now but I see alot of younger friends still full force after it. Really unfortunate all around.
Virginia is a grotesque and disgusting place, as attested by these highlights:
1 - The place is so heavily forested there's no view, especially from the highways. No fields, no farms, no lakes. Just fucking trees, dense as an upturned hairbrush. You could drive through the middle of suburbia, right outside Richmond or Newport News, and think you're in the middle of Alaska.
2 - Everybody with money hides their manicured estate behind a hundred yards of trees, leaving visible from the road a motley collection of starter junkyards, collapsing single-wides and the occasional "eh, it's okay...I guess" house. For a state with money, it does one HELL of an impression of an impoverished rural backwater.
3 - Ruthless, predatory and frankly self-righteous traffic enforcement, bringing to mind C.S. Lewis' infamous tyranny of the do-gooder. 20 over gets you a ticket in a modern state but Virginia has a rather medieval view of law & order, so you get a court summons to go cosplay a corporate CEO and prove you're innocent.
4 - Prosecutors assume all defensive shootings are avoidable, even the good ones where you have a permit and the cops say you're clear, and there exists neither formally-codified Castle Doctrine nor Stand Your Ground Law, only a "preponderance of case law supporting such."
5 - No public gun ranges, the assumption being that if you like to shoot, you either own land yourself, know someone who does or belong to a hunt club.
6 - Every house built since Reagan left office is in an HOA neighborhood, way the hell out in East Fuckington County, in the ghetto or a million bucks. And in a place like Hampton Roads, "good neighborhood" and "bad neighborhood" depends on which particular street you live on. Which means the whole place is one giant bad neighborhood the size of Chicago.
7 - Junkyards and garages keep bankers' hours. Try getting your car inspected after 5 or buying a used tailgate on Saturday. Just try it, I dare you.
8 - And let's not forget the Democrats, who're slowly turning the state into California, but without the economy.
OT: Made in USA edition.
Apparently Carhartt is back to sort of making jackets in the USA again. Last year they launched their “Crafted” collection of domestically-produced goods.
We were in the Flagship store on Cass this afternoon and they had a pretty decent selection. $189 for the Crafted Chore Jacket looked like a bargain compared to the Made in India “Detroit” Jacket at $129. It shouldn’t be a surprise, but the materials and craftsmanship on the Crafted jacket are clearly superior.
The Jag, as a Brit, leaves me somewhere between sad and depressed.
That seems to mirror the general status of Britain lately.
As an American cousin and an anglophile, I say this with sympathy.
Indeed!
JLR will soon learn that catering to a certain group with this new design will not result in long-term excitement or any meaningful sales increase.
Then again, looking at JLR’s owners, they are probably incapable of learning anything.
The J of JLR is a triviality.
The LR - really the RR - carries the rest of the company.
JLR = Just Land Rover
There are perhaps ~40 brands of automobiles reasonably on sale in the United States. This figure does - in my mind - include the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and McLaren. But not the strictly hypercar concerns.
Anyway.
There are too many brands. There is not need - and no customer demand! - for all of them to continue existing. And bear in mind that America does not enjoy all the exciting Chinese OEMs.
Jaguar as it was previously positioned had no opportunity ahead of it. The same likely goes for Maserati, for example.
I don’t think anyone has talked as much about Jaguar - what the brand should be, what the brand shouldn’t be, what emotional “ownership” they have over the brand, etc. - since June 12, 1988. Which was the day that a Silk Cut Jaguar won Le Mans after a 31 year drought, and nearly a year before my birth.
The Jaguar you and others knew is dead. But this new Jaguar might have a chance.
The car looks very imposing, and it will get attention on the road.
Some brands will continue to die off as they have in the past. RIP Saturn, Pontiac, Mercury, SOB, Plymouth, etc. I guess if there are people running that stuff that has actual luck and genius, maybe they'll keep brands like Jaguar alive.
What's odd about Jaguar for me is that I don't think their problem in the 80s and 90s was because their cars weren't considered cool and lacked desirability. They were just built pretty shitty. But during the 2000s and 2010s, they worked so hard at trying bring their cars towards everyone else in terms of style. Assuming they have some deep pockets supporting them, let's see what their next trick is.
Jaguar could have differentiated itself into a no longer common design niche with a curvaceous coupe or sedan or "shooting brake", things prevalent in its history. This is a DOA horror story. Sir William Lyons must be rolling in his grave.
F1 trivia from @F1BigData
If Antonelli scores 17 more points than Russell in the next 3 GPs, he will be crowned world champion in Mexico.
Points scored in the last GPs:
Alonso – 4, Norris – 2
Racing Bulls – 13, McLaren – 10
Only driver with more podiums than Max is Antonelli
It’s been almost 4 months since Max finished a race off the podium.
"The pasted-on Neue Klasse looks are, in my opinion, a bit of an improvement on what came before."
Damning with faint praise.
Still, you're right about car vs crossover buyers. At least the new drei-er is a car. For now.
My goodness they shrunk the “kidney grill” on the 3 series, what next putting round gauges in the cockpit instead of screens. The horror of it all.
If you angled the grille backwards instead of forwards, the front almost looks like a 78 Trans Am.
Unfortunately they must’ve poached some GM designers for this thing because the back half and the steering wheel look to be C8 levels of retarded.
The Rain in Bahrain Falls Mainly on Sepang
🖐️ 🎤
OT: Billy Strings is a vintage watch nerd:
https://archive.ph/8rPir
Billy MF Strings
MotoGP was at Motegi in Japan this past weekend. Who did I say to watch for? Marc Marquez, Jorge Martin, and Pedro Acosta? Who comprised the front row? Why, none other than Jorge Martin, Marc Marquez, and Pedro Acosta (in that order). Track records were SMASHED during practice and qualifying on the newly resurfaced track.
The next row had Bez from 4th, Alex Marquez 5th, and Digiantonnio 6th. Bastianini had his best qualifying to date during his woeful KTM tenure in 7th. Ai Ogura, disappointingly, starting down from 11th at his home GP.
Before the sprint started Bez took the unusual choice of a medium rear tire over the soft.
At the start of the sprint Marc makes another fantastic start to dive bomb turn 1 and seize the lead. In this position he would lead, without challenge, the rest of the sprint. A part of the reason for the lack of challenge is that his brother careened into Pedro Acosta and Digi, both of whom could have been threats. Alex would serve a double long lap penalty for reckless riding during the main event, and this dashed Pedro's chances to fight it out for the podium.
Those three riders out of the way, Bastianini, Ogura, and Moreira all had superb mid to late race pace and passed Bez on his poorly picked tire. Bastianini ran down the front runners and was close to passing Jorge Martin, whose soft tire shredded itself and lost serious time in the last few laps. In the last lap, however, both Martin and Bastianini were clearly on the green and were demoted which put Diogo Moreira in his first sprint podium with a silver medal. Martin held on to third for a loss of 5 points to Marquez and almost half his points lead gone.
In the race proper Jorge fought off Marc's expected turn one aggression and managed to open up a fairly healthy lead of nearly a second. Acosta started poorly and fell back to 8th and failed to recover from there. His only gain was from Alex Marquez serving the double long lap penalty. Bez took over Pedro's spot and held it from there.
At one third race distance Marquez began closing the gap down and at half race distance would stand up Martin with a smooth block pass. With Martin's momentum gone Marc would open a three tenths lead within a few corners. Martin then could not keep up with Marc's race pace.
Marc took the 37 points haul and closed the championship to 2 points between himself and Martin.
The only other truly notable ride in the race was Bastianini's who once more displayed incredible pace and surged to fourth place. A few more laps and he may have been on the podium. Where has this Enea been for the season?
MotoGP is in Indonesia this weekend where Marc Marquez has historical scored 0 points during the races through mechanicals, self-caused wrecks, or injury. Jorge Martin, on the other hand, typically does well.
We'll see what if Marc can manage the damage well or if this is a doomed track for him.
There are two main cars featured in this article and both look like ass inside and out and I’d rather keep the cars I’ve got over each of them. I might prefer to walk over each of them. Fucking yuck.
Also Daniel Golson has taken a break from guarding whatever bridge in West Hollywood he currently lives under by asking passerby’s to answer me these questions three to slobber all over the Jag’s knob on VWVortex. No word on whether this is in return from some PR guy slobbering all over his knob, or more likely, allowing Golson to slobber on the PR guy’s, but guaranteed some kinky faggot shit was involved.
OT: I am officially in the market for a replacement for our Odyssey. What I want: reliability, CarPlay, SUV size similar to Lexus GX or LX, preferably under $50k. Something used of course. Nothing newer than 2025 because screens. I won’t taint your opinions but I’m finding this is a very difficult way to spend $50k. And Yes, there are a few Lexus GX/LX/LandCruiser that meet this requirement. By few I mean not many I can find near SW Ohio.
The new Jag is awful. I don’t know who they think is going to buy it. Why the hell can’t they just make a modern (reimagined if you will) XJR and XJS with some ICE displacement options?
I am generally of the mind that drunk drivers should be hammered (yep) by the law on the first offense. Illegals should be put in a catapult (a large catapult) and aimed at their origin. As far as I am concerned drunk driving is attempted murder. Should the limits be reasonable? Yes. Are they reasonable now? Probably not.
I got to own 2 E30s and 1 E46 while living in Germany and for a while thereafter. To me that was Peak BMW. Sad!
Take a look at the new Nissan Armada (2025). There are screens though.
I’m not sure I like the look of the new one. A friend at church has one and it looks wild. It may be the Nismo version.
Thank you, I’ll check it out. Reliability? Any personal experience?
When I lived in Ohio, I was convinced I was the only grown man in the entire state with neither an ex-wife nor a DUI.
"BMW used this revamp as an excuse to remove the manual transmission globally; it wasn’t required by emissions or regulatory standards but why not do it?"
Sucks when they all just give up on the diehards. Good for Porsche for still supporting manuals even though it's a bit boutique-ish. I guess they're just letting us all know where they stand with manual enthusiasts. As a fan of old Land Rovers, I had to go through that same break up... "Why don't you love me anymore??"
At some point, they're saying: our MBAs came back and told us, we really don't want your business anymore. Sorry.
So the Bahrain? Malaysian? GP was quite unpredictable, which can be a good thing, but it can also make F1 start to feel like NASCAR with their “commercial cautions.”
Also, is it me, or does the rear of that 3 series look like it’s already been crashed?
The dragstrip situation is affecting a good handful of people I know. Not all from the standpoint of racers but other associations; namely with Dragway 42 in West Salem.
A few years back a very well known shop - Big3 Racing, suffered a fire that more or less gutted the facility along with many high dollar cars.
They ended up moving the location and building this MASSIVE undertaking at Dragway 42 that coincided with the recent renovations to the facility itself. Talking warehouse size dyno rooms with 4 separate machines, 20 lift service areas, machine shop, fab, storefront etc
According to the rumor mill (and the auditors site) they sublease the property beneath them. It’s a really wild setup with an available track on grounds to test etc. I really hope they’re able to retain the track or at minimum their buildings through all of this mess.
FWIW we still have Khunle and Quaker City locally which are NHRA 1/4 mile tracks. A friend owns Pacemakers and there’s also Magnolia - another “outlaw” track. These have been 1/8 mile for awhile given the recent popularity of No Prep racing and ive already seen a lifetime worth of accidents to argue why it should stay that way.
I’ve not competed in years now but I see alot of younger friends still full force after it. Really unfortunate all around.
Does the hardcover have additional stories?
I’m just an X350/X358 loving man in a Type 01 world.
Virginia is a grotesque and disgusting place, as attested by these highlights:
1 - The place is so heavily forested there's no view, especially from the highways. No fields, no farms, no lakes. Just fucking trees, dense as an upturned hairbrush. You could drive through the middle of suburbia, right outside Richmond or Newport News, and think you're in the middle of Alaska.
2 - Everybody with money hides their manicured estate behind a hundred yards of trees, leaving visible from the road a motley collection of starter junkyards, collapsing single-wides and the occasional "eh, it's okay...I guess" house. For a state with money, it does one HELL of an impression of an impoverished rural backwater.
3 - Ruthless, predatory and frankly self-righteous traffic enforcement, bringing to mind C.S. Lewis' infamous tyranny of the do-gooder. 20 over gets you a ticket in a modern state but Virginia has a rather medieval view of law & order, so you get a court summons to go cosplay a corporate CEO and prove you're innocent.
4 - Prosecutors assume all defensive shootings are avoidable, even the good ones where you have a permit and the cops say you're clear, and there exists neither formally-codified Castle Doctrine nor Stand Your Ground Law, only a "preponderance of case law supporting such."
5 - No public gun ranges, the assumption being that if you like to shoot, you either own land yourself, know someone who does or belong to a hunt club.
6 - Every house built since Reagan left office is in an HOA neighborhood, way the hell out in East Fuckington County, in the ghetto or a million bucks. And in a place like Hampton Roads, "good neighborhood" and "bad neighborhood" depends on which particular street you live on. Which means the whole place is one giant bad neighborhood the size of Chicago.
7 - Junkyards and garages keep bankers' hours. Try getting your car inspected after 5 or buying a used tailgate on Saturday. Just try it, I dare you.
8 - And let's not forget the Democrats, who're slowly turning the state into California, but without the economy.