Random Thoughts Thread

[Robert Hall]

Just now, dfelt said:

They stole their name, they should sue!

Heh-heh..I have no idea what the name means, but he's from Egypt..have to ask him. 

[David]

4 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

Heh-heh..I have no idea what the name means, but he's from Egypt..have to ask him. 

Depending on the web you read, evening caller or Morning Star, seems to have many meanings. Be interested to hear what he thinks his name means.

[Robert Hall]

5 minutes ago, dfelt said:

Depending on the web you read, evening caller or Morning Star, seems to have many meanings. Be interested to hear what he thinks his name means.

Be interesting to see what VW says it means...this CUV is called 'Tharu' in other markets.

[balthazar]

Another bland generic FWD/4-banger appliance CUV boredom pod.

[balthazar]

Glazier Stove Co, Michigan, 1901 ~

Edited December 9, 2019 by balthazar

[David]

5 hours ago, balthazar said:

Another bland generic FWD/4-banger appliance CUV boredom pod.

Yet your boredom Potato is others Hot Tomato.  

After all VW has been serving the peoples auto from the beginning. LOL

[David]

Very cool tech, Ford and McDonalds are using Coffee Chaff to create auto parts. Hope people love the smell of Coffee.  

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/ford-mcdonalds-coffee-plastic-car-parts/

[daves87rs]

21 minutes ago, dfelt said:

Very cool tech, Ford and McDonalds are using Coffee Chaff to create auto parts. Hope people love the smell of Coffee.  

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/ford-mcdonalds-coffee-plastic-car-parts/

Should wake us up in the morning....

[Robert Hall]

38 minutes ago, dfelt said:

 Hope people love the smell of Coffee.   

One of the best smells in the world...that fuel that starts my day, every day...

[Drew Dowdell]

[David]

Nations Largest Trucking Firm Celadon to Declare bankruptcy by Dec 11th and strand as many as 3,200 truckers across the nation. In 2019 640 trucking firms have declared Bankruptcy among one of the largest turn downs in Freight industry as only 175 firms declared bankruptcy in 2018 due to a reduction freight in the country for the last 11 months.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/an-american-trucking-giant-is-slated-to-declare-bankruptcy-—-and-it-may-leave-more-than-3200-truck-drivers-stranded-and-jobless/ar-BBXXdx6?li=BBnb7Kz

[David]

ROFLMAO, Canada sure likes their Snow, Columbian Snow for Xmas! 

 

[ocnblu]

Better than the original! 

 

[balthazar]

20 minutes ago, ocnblu said:

Better than the original! 

Check the date ::

On 11/22/2019 at 12:18 AM, balthazar said:

It looks like it was built with cardboard and a few cans of spray paint.

No; it doesn't look better. The problem is; it doesn't look worse.

Edited December 10, 2019 by balthazar

[balthazar]

Crap modern design : wonky front overhangs, poor greenhouse-to-body proportions, janky fascia profiles, poor cohesiveness front-to-back, arbitrary surface treatments, too many body seams.

Edited December 10, 2019 by balthazar

[ocnblu]

Well I can't understand a word he's saying, but here it is, an exclusive preview of the 2021 Dodge Neon!  😉

 

 

 

[ykX]

10 hours ago, balthazar said:

Crap modern design : wonky front overhangs, poor greenhouse-to-body proportions, janky fascia profiles, poor cohesiveness front-to-back, arbitrary surface treatments, too many body seams.

Way to go comparing RWD platform to FWD, comparing coupe to sedan.  How about comparing apples to apples?

[balthazar]

I'll give you the FWD aspect- tho the majority of cars on the road by volume today are FWD; most have this proportion.
The 2-dr aspect is immaterial tho; the BMW and the lexus have identical greenhouses. In fact the B-Pillar barely moves:

[Robert Hall]

Funny for the old you chose a '49-50 Merc, a lumpy humpy that looks like a bar of soap...very boring design, IMO.   Not a high point of past design, IMO...

I'm no fan of custom cars, they are usually weird and only of interest to the individual that designed them, but I do find this '61 Olds that popped up on Hemmings today rather appealing...love the skegs...interesting custom taillights that eliminated the round light cutouts in the decklid corners.   But the grille is no improvement over the recessed shaver elements stock grille, IMO. 

[ykX]

I think the beauty and proportions are very individual.  I am not a big fan of cars designed in 60-70, huge land barges.  A lot of them have very awkward proportions, too much chrome.

[Robert Hall]

1 hour ago, ykX said:

I think the beauty and proportions are very individual.  I am not a big fan of cars designed in 60-70, huge land barges.  A lot of them have very awkward proportions, too much chrome.

It's definitely individual, depends on one's own reality context.. 50s and before seem like they are from an ancient world before my time.  If I were 75-85, maybe I'd like them more...I can appreciate seeing them in museums or at a car show, but nothing from before the 60s really connects to me--it's from someone else's era.

On the other hand, cars from the 60s through the 80s, are recent enough that I remember seeing them on the road in quantity growing up and rode in/drove some of them...I like the longer, lower wider styling of the mid 60s to the late 70s, with around 1965 and 1971 being sweet spots, IMO.  There is a lot from the 80s I like also... 

Edited December 10, 2019 by Robert Hall

[David]

52 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

It's definitely individual, depends on one's own reality context.. 50s and before seem like they are from an ancient world before my time.  If I were 75-85, maybe I'd like them more...I can appreciate seeing them in museums or a show, but nothing from before the 60s really connects to me--it's from someone else's era.

On the other hand, cars from the 60s through the 80s, are recent enough that I remember seeing them on the road in quantity growing up and rode in/drove some of them...I like the longer, lower wider styling of the mid 60s to the late 70s, with around 1965 and 1971 being sweet spots, IMO.  There is a lot from the 80s I like also... 

I wish I was more aware of cars as I would have told my Grandma to give me her 71 or 72 2-door Orange Buick Skylark hard top with fake white roof and big block V8. She drove that car like hell on wheels and it was a blast. Would love to have it now.

[balthazar]

3 hours ago, Robert Hall said:

...nothing from before the 60s really connects to me--it's from someone else's era.

Isn’t ‘your era’ 70s-80s tho, and not the 60s?

We’re the same age bracket; I’m not 75-85 and I can appreciate design from the 50s & 40s. Good design, commonly done by one artist rather than a committee.

No one in my family or friends or neighbors had 40s-50s vehicles when I was ‘coming of automotive age’. 

Always good to look outside one’s own bubble. Art transcends time.

[ykX]

I am actually in my mid-forties now and I like cars from 40s and 50s.  Don't like much from 60s (except Mustang and Camaro), Like very little from 70s and 80s. 90s and up are more to my liking.

[Robert Hall]

13 minutes ago, balthazar said:

Isn’t ‘your era’ 70s-80s tho, and not the 60s?

We’re the same age bracket; I’m not 75-85 and I can appreciate design from the 50s & 40s. Good design, commonly done by one artist rather than a committee.

No one in my family or friends or neighbors had 40s-50s vehicles when I was ‘coming of automotive age’. 

Always good to look outside one’s own bubble. Art transcends time.

60s less so than 70s-80s, certainly..but there were still a lot of '60s cars around when I was growing up and a bunch of them in my family.  Having two Baby Boomer siblings helped also, I'm sure...I like a lot of 60s music as well. 

I can certainly appreciate things from before my time--my house is from the late 60s, I love art deco/streamline moderne/MCM architecture, love classical music and going to the symphony, going to classic rock concerts, going to museums.....I can enjoy looking at older cars at museums or car shows, but would probably find them disappointing to drive. 

[balthazar]

Cars -as design- are no different than art, architecture, or music.

[David]

I appreciate all things but like @Robert Hall stated, much belongs in the books or museums and I like moving forward into the future. Prefer things to change much faster than they are. As I would love to be in space moving between planets and seeing our Universe. 

[oldshurst442]

I like...cars.

I like 1920s and 1930s cars.  Some of them.  

I like some 1940s cars.

I LOVE 1950s cars.

I LOVE 1960s cars.

I LOVE some 1970s cars. Others from the 1970s, not so much.

I like some 1980s cars. Cars from my teenaged to adulthood years will always have a special place in my heart just because that is how it is.  

I like some 1990s cars and 2000s all the way to today.  But the art of designing beautiful lines is all but gone. Different times.  From how we as a people and society view the automobile all the way to how engineers and designers have to comply with aerodynamics for fuel efficiency and for safety.  Design could still be beautiful, but we as a society appreciate that aspect a lot less as we as a society now view the automobile as a nuisance but necessary appliance. We dont value it more than we have to.  

We use to see it as freedom, now we see it as a burden. 

I love older cars because one could see and correlate the sign of the times in those older cars.  As I LOVE rock-n-roll, I could see rock-n-roll in those 1950s fins.  As I love airplanes, one could see the rise of the jet age in those 1950s and 1960s cars. 

The streamlining in the 1960s cars just gives those cars such beautiful, sleek lines.  When designers got away from the fins and the bulky fenders, the cars got so low and wide and lean and long.  Its the opposite of what is happening today.  Cars are becoming massive, and tall and high.  Ive said in the past that our SUVs and CUVs are starting to resemble late 1930s to 1940s cars. Only that they are not as long therefore this current crop of cars look frumpy as compared to the 1930s and 1940s cars.

@Robert Hall said that the 1940s cars look like a bar of used soap.  Well, he aint wrong, but that trend started in the 1990s all in the name of aerodynamic fuel efficiency's sake.  And its gotten to where our current crop of cars resemble one another because computer calculated aerodynamic efficiency anywhere in the world will always come to the same conclusion as to which shape is the most efficient whether it be at GM in Detroit or GM in Korea or Tesla in California or Mercedes in Stuttgart or Nissan in California or Nissan in Japan...

The artist designing cars gave way to a generic computer program.  

Not that there arent any interesting designed cars nowadays, but you got to admit, there were far more intersting designs back in the day...

Kinda like music.

Over the radio waves nowadays, its all formulaic sounds that rule...gone is the musician. Enter human psychology sound engineers with marketing  executives with a computer background deciphering what set of musical notes will please the general population  the most and voila...superstars with no ability to play any musical instrument, nor sing, but they look good, and sell "music" to folk, but also peddle their faces and bodies to other useless commodities that are marketed and produced in the same vein as their "music"...  and those "celebrities"  last a little over 6-7 years until the newest, freshest, cutest face comes along...

 

So yeah...we could move forward...as fast as we could. @dfelt

But that does NOT mean that moving forward actually means we as a species are actually moving forward, if you know what I mean...

 

Edited December 10, 2019 by oldshurst442

[ocnblu]

5 hours ago, dfelt said:

I would love to be in space

I thought you were tho

[Robert Hall]

A couple great looking late 60s formal roof coupes...the roofline of the '68 Cadillac Coupe de Ville and the '68 Impala Custom Coupe are very similar...look at the length of those quarter panels and rear decks...

[balthazar]

My brother has his Firebird engine back from the builder. Gonna be zippy! ~

[ocnblu]

Whoa... spunky!

[daves87rs]

I like cars from every decade...though it may have taken a little while for some!

Was not a big model T era fan...but now they are a fave of mine. 🙂 Maybe it’s an older and wiser thing?Just happy to enjoy them......

[David]

12 hours ago, balthazar said:

My brother has his Firebird engine back from the builder. Gonna be zippy! ~

Any Dyno Spec's?

[balthazar]

He said it put out 1,169 HP.

[trinacriabob]

On 12/10/2019 at 1:59 PM, balthazar said:

Cars -as design- are no different than art, architecture, or music.

Bingo. 

(Probably a little bit more art and architecture than music.)

[balthazar]

The white car is 1 of 704 Eldorado Broughams:

[ocnblu]

Four years later, I wonder where it is now?

[daves87rs]

Boy it is cold outside.......

[Robert Hall]

Supposed to be a heat wave today... up to 40.   Was a bit sunny earlier, but cloudy now.

Just a bit envious of my sister, she's starting a new 3 month gig in January in West Palm Beach.  No polar vortex down there. 

[David]

7 hours ago, ocnblu said:

Four years later, I wonder where it is now?

Probably a pile of Rust flakes based on the picture.  

[USA-1]

14 hours ago, balthazar said:

The white car is 1 of 704 Eldorado Broughams:

Can't save 'em all, but too bad the owners (how ever many there may have been) let that rare of a Caddy go to crap. 

[David]

At my Cadillac dealership, got the CT6 V on display and I have to say, that is one tight engine bay.

[balthazar]

Shock towers are pretty far inboard, relatively speaking.

[oldshurst442]

On 12/13/2019 at 1:30 PM, USA-1 said:

Can't save 'em all, but too bad the owners (how ever many there may have been) let that rare of a Caddy go to crap. 

I know what you are saying. And I feel your pain. Im a car guy too after all. And an American car guy on top of that.  But...lets be honest about this whole car culture thing. In reality, cars are meant to be driven (hard).  Cars are meant to be used and abused until that car can no longer give anymore and it ends up in the scrap heap.  We as enthusiasts dont like the term appliance and we as enthusiasts are able to sense which cars are really engineered as appliances and which cars are "special" but in reality, ALL cars are appliances. Even Corvettes and Porsches. And Ferraris.  

On the opposite spectrum of this. When people buy "non-appliance" cars, such as Ferraris and that 1 of 704  Eldorado Broughams, and store them to be garage queens never to see the road ever is not a good thing either.  Like I said, cars are meant to be driven.  (Not that you are saying otherwise...)

It takes (a lot of) money and/or time to restore these things.  Time is money even if you are a mechanic and a machinist... so I could understand why cars like these end up being barn finds... (and Im not saying that you dont understand this either...Im just stating the obvious and just doing my part in communicating and enjoying the conversations we have in here)

If I had a second chance at another career choice (I own a very successful hot dog and hamburger restaurant), Id wanna live in the US in one of those sunny and warm States...and Id learn to be a mechanic and machinist and yeah, Id restore old relics like that (on my own time and them sell them at auctions and stuff). But first, to move to the States, Id join the US Air Force and fly around....make Uncle Sam give me my wings, Make Uncle Sam teach me mechanics and machinery, then maybe possibly be a commercial airline pilot and hot rodder...  

 

Edited December 14, 2019 by oldshurst442

[ocnblu]

1 hour ago, oldshurst442 said:

I own a very successful hot dog and hamburger restaurant

Please post a menu.  You can block the name if you feel uncomfortable.

[oldshurst442]

9 minutes ago, ocnblu said:

Please post a menu.  You can block the name if you feel uncomfortable.

I will...in due time.  I promise. 

[ocnblu]

7 minutes ago, oldshurst442 said:

I will...in due time.  I promise. 

But I'm hungry NOW dammit.  Don't tease me, bro!

[ocnblu]

Been reading up on the new Ford Escape.  Like the Ranger, general consensus among reviewers is that the lower trim is the one to get.

It also sprung up that the 1.5EB in the 2020 Escape is a three cylinder.  And it sounds good, and is somewhat fun to drive.  It has a conventional 8 speed automatic, a precious feature with the rise of CVTs (although with a dial shifter, bleh).  I like the interior on the SE model, comes with heated seats and mirrors, and I like the look of the dash and door trims.  33+ cu ft of space with rear seats up is also pretty good.

Plus, Ford dealers are knocking the price down on the brand new 2020 Escape already.  A $29k Escape SE 4WD is going for $26k locally.

Edited December 15, 2019 by ocnblu

[balthazar]