I keep wanting to join the BaT comments but I don’t have the time to really contribute, but I often learn something when I do read them.

CaB has, I think, more of a niche than BaT. I have very wide ranging tastes, and while I like the idea of specializing in modern classics, I also find perusing that site to be kind of boring - it tends to be a lot of ten year old German luxury cars. Cool cars, but not really interesting to me because there are three…

Driveline sounds. The grinding of a bad throwout bearing, and the crunch of bad synchros or mistimed shift. The weird rumbling of a bad U joint that only happens at a very specific RPM in second gear.

I know this is a classic but I also feel that this was a very localized fad. I don’t recall ever hearing this back in the day.

It’s usually an accessory drive belt, like for the power steering and water pump, A/C, alternator, etc. It usually means it’s loose and worn out. 

I’m with you on the BOV, because it’s almost always followed by a rusty Subaru or some other shitbox being driven far to aggressively for heavy stop and go traffic.

• I’m also bugged by Kurt’s trip-wire alarm system. Seems like if you’re hiding dozens of bodies you need a more active security system because a camera can only tell you that someone has already found the dozens of bodies you’re hiding.

I can’t tell if this guy’s ramblings were attempted sarcasm or something. I don’t want to reply to him directly because I don’t have the time or bandwidth to deal with any more insanity today.

GM’s basic cars of the time had one or two advantages over everything else - their values dropped so much that after a couple of years they were the cheapest thing going, and GM would offer financing to a Golden Retriever if it could fill out the forms. So they were everywhere because almost anyone could afford one.

I…

This shows you exactly how cities and suburbs developed here in the States, especially here in the Midwest, during the postwar years. City streets were usually laid out on a grid pattern (often paralleling a rail line or two), with houses built on lots along these streets just outside of the town center. As more…

A lot of that has to do with the fact that the Cavalier, Neon, and Escort were terrible cars to begin with in ways other than their performance. The NVH on the Cavalier and Neon is hilariously bad compared to something like a Civic from the 80's much less the then current one. The interiors were also worse and they…

You’ll note that he rode his bike to the abandoned one. I imagine that mightve been too bulky to deal with, along with the Ti bike. Also, running an angle grinder would probably attract even more attention. 

Work shirt with an oval name patch, clipboard with complicated looking forms on it, well used tools, and an air of “Hey, I’m just doin’ what I was told”, and you can take as many ATMS out of convenience stores as your van can carry. 

I was once shopping at a Walgreen’s drugstore, and the woman ringing me up was one of those types who does a running commentary on your purchases (kind of like the Target Lady character Kristen Wiig did on SNL), and at one point she said “Oh, you must also really like the DP”.

I was buying a Dr. Pepper.

My folks had sequential plates at one time, and both sets began with the letters BG. At one time they were on a green car, so of course it was known as “Booger”

Naming a car after the letters on the randomly assigned plate is a very British thing to do - I feel like every time I read a British classic car magazine,…

That’s funny, there was a guy on the Miata forums who’s handle was “Hakuna”, and I always wondered if he had that for a vanity plate.

Yep. Or another one like “Our Man In Japan” only somewhere else.

I’ve often argued that the best Top Gear episodes eliminated the studio entirely and did a long form film, and The Grand Tour proved to be exactly the same. Especially since the studio bits of the latter seasons of TG were almost always the worst parts of any episode, and were absolutely the worst parts of GT.

So, to actually answer your question: a boat trapped in ice is going to be subject to immense pressure, as the ice itself constricts and moves about (waves continue under the ice, so it’s always moving a bit. It’s not like solid land even though it feels like it when you walk out onto it). Consequently the boat is…

I know its been a week, but didn’t Angela send her to a woman who runs a shelter? I’m thinking of a young woman at the bar in the first episode.