Ah, the wonderful world of parts markup. Something I’m familiar with.

Also:

Tough to say, as doing the marshal thing has gotten me onto the racing surface at a lot of venues, from street courses to legends.

Because it’s probably a unibody and thus doesn’t have a separate frame to mount the cab and bed to.

I’d say by the time it got to you, any bugs present had been sorted. :) Also, my experience there was in 2001/2002. It’s entirely possible that by the time they got to making your truck, things had evolved. There were a lot of good people there really tilting at that windmill when I was in the plant 1-2 weeks a month.

Also, one of the reasons the guys in Saltillo busted hump was they knew there was a long line of people waiting for a position to open if someone wasn’t going to play ball — and playing ball was also how you got to move up to sector supervisor or foreman, etc. Ostensibly, there was/is something union-like there, but…

Don’t get me wrong — I spent a lot of time in my 18+ years in the business working with UAW shops, and most of them were very on the ball. Which is what made the experience at SLN so jarring. I honestly didn’t think that sort of attitude existed in the industry anymore — it had certainly been almost entirely…

Let me put it this way: At the end of the line at SLN, there was a grate over the hard steel between the two parallel wheel conveyors. On my first visit to SLN, it was full of fasteners that had fallen out of trucks. I’m not talking about the little taillamp screws from the last assembly station, either. Cab bolts.…

Waiting for someone to post Spank’s Harley-powered PriusHog, which needs Much Moar Supercar chassis, but had the big V-twin sticking out of the hood.

I rarely ran into this situation during my tenure at Ford (‘90-’98) or GM (‘07-’08), and then only at manufacturing facilities. The leased office block in Troy that was my primary GM location was shared by Daimler, Chrysler, and BMW, so really wasn’t a big deal that I drove an F350 daily. I took a little crap about it…

Huh. Well, everything about that car is weird, so why not this, too?

I don’t believe that’s a window. I think it’s a batten to prevent the top from flapping.

Its existence (and, with a an edit, destruction) were immortalized in the song “Big Butter Jesus” by Heywood Banks.

Temporary workers? Oh, wait, Los Angeles. Cobo is a union shop, so not so much with the temporary workers for NAIAS.

Oooh... *dual* 20-gauge sheet metal body panels... just like the OEM doors.

Huh. I hadn’t checked up on it lately, and had bought the story. Thanks for the pointer.

Wasn’t that one also 7/8 scale?

For reference, from the February 1992 Car and Driver. (Bonus sidebar on Randy Lanier)

Or, as described in the text, hydraulic power for the props.

Not making excuses for the driver who stopped on the pavement — hell, I’d have likely been asking the standard “what the hell was he thinking?!?” question while trying to flag the daylights out of it (while I’ve had a comp license, I’ve been a marshal far longer) and willing the other drivers to pay attention (which…