Quite possibly the pilots didn’t even know anything was amiss at the time. (That makes sense. A tire and wheel that big may be Final Destination stuff to a human, but it’s but a tiny percentage of that sky whale, a long way from them, and fell away cleanly in midair...)

My (mis)understanding is that United Tech Ops is a maintenance outsource for other operators, and has a big maintenance base at SFO.

I think of gun safety as a set of concentric circles. (You can use the Swiss cheese metaphor that became well known during the pandemic if you prefer.)

Possible ND contingent on a very close inspection to tell whether its California origins did indeed spare it from rust (as well as other potential Achilles heels). Even by the standards of an era when rustproofing was not what it is today, it infested these lovely cars easily.

Even in corner cases from the bridge-out jumps and semi-trailer-convertible-making slopes of Olympus, you have to ask whether somebody handed him a Sharpie at a meet-n-greet or it was actually a car used by him or featured in the movie or something... and, again, some proof that it is just that and not a forgery.

Celebrity provenance doesn’t mean much to me even if documented (and I understand that without a paper trail it’s pretty worthless even to those buyers who do care about it).

Shouldn’t be hard at all to put either original vacuum wipers or electric replacements back in, if needed (maybe at registration for its native Arizona) or just take it to neighboring NM where there is no safety inspection at all and hardly any coefficient of jank that you won’t actually see on the road.

presented by a private seller despite being offered by what’s obviously a dealer or consignment shop.

The recent 300 (which I rather like; I guess one man’s de gustibus is another’s disgusting bus), especially in its first generation, is an even more direct reference to the initial few years of “letter cars” in the mid 50s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_300_letter_series

It may not have much horsepower but it has all the gears, in a multi-stick system, some of whose settings might invoke other functions like lockers, that you have to actually study. The net result is sometimes described for simplicity’s sake as a “20-speed.” I think typically you set forth in third on the main gearbox …

Definitely not the top picture. Maybe not an all-time beauty, but “Those were the days, my friend” runs through my head when comparing it to the bombastic overstatement of most pickups today.

I prefer the looks of the sculptural first generation, but these Peak Disco models have a nothing-exceeds-like-excess attractiveness all their own. Where I live, age makes it exempt from what little smog check we have, so the underhood malaise could be given the Simplify and Add 455 treatment.  The price is a fair…

Should have been “three of them older than today’s offering,” as everyone’s brain doubtless autocorrected from context.

Not long ago a friend whose plus-cab Dodge with an eight-foot bed helped us haul some eight-foot-long stuff, and we had to do it with the tailgate down because of the thickness of his bedliner. Not what we considered optimal, but the cargo, the tailgate, and, with the help of some common sense load securement, the…

Prices on these are all over the map, and as a single-cab 2WD it should be low on the resale pecking order, but it looks decently well kept, not too modified other than the bags and the big-screen stereo, and not that high in mileage. A lot of the cheaper comps turn out to be high milers or have an accident history.…

It appears to have sold, though at what price, we hardly ever find out.

Frustratingly, the seller doesn’t provide any background on the car at all.

And of course neither manufacturer is responsible for what passengers bring in their carry-on (or carrion as the case may be) luggage.

If I’m not mistaken, Boeing delivered this plane to Continental in 1994, so whoever had last touch on that part of it, this might be hard to tie to either their choices in materials or their current manufacturing woes.

Every time I think I am sufficiently cynical about how they take advantage of the insufficiently wary consumer, somebody points me toward the next level down...