Ford, for example, makes something like $10,000 in profit on each F-Series truck, way more than the $2,500 pretax profit on your average vehicle.

I’m no fan of Gawker – especially the recent gay-escort-blackmail-craziness. I’m no fan of Kinja either, which seems purpose-built to annoy and obstruct users. However, I love Jalopnik. This is good stuff. Never stop.

Usually I’m not interested in hardware nostalgia - they’re just tools to do a job, and we replace them when we have better tools, or the job doesn’t need doing any more - but the Vulcan is a beautiful piece of engineering.

For the van-fans: That’s a GAZ, license-built with old Ford Transit tooling.

Have we checked all the usual suspects?

Those roll-down doors are awesome. Somebody should make those now for offroaders. With zip-off windows/mosquito nets.

True; and the ease of fuel transfers has led to widespread use of “asparagus” staging, which is a lot harder to take advantage of in real life. Nonetheless, it’s still a surprisingly realistic environment in which to get to grips with orbital mechanics, the rocket equation, rendezvous, staging &c.

195,000 miles on a W220 is just the warmup. My current one is way beyond that, and I still hoon her every day.

Get a small pot of dark red paint, and write “I WILL KILL AGAIN”, with your fingers, or maybe use the whole hand. It doesn’t have to be very neat. Then lay the flooring on top, and hope that the next homeowner will have an interesting surprise, a decade or two hence.

It’s unfortunate that there are developed countries where “health insurance” is needed in order to get a vaccine.

Do you remember when Audi design was about more important things than just adding LEDs and creases to every surface? Just look at this. Look. It’s such a clean design. The metalwork does everything that you want an Audi to do, no more, no less.

Kerbal Space Program is surprisingly realistic. You can tinker with a lot of different approaches in KSP to see what staging, what rendezvous &c works well.

Whatever you do, don’t pay list price.

Well, the UK has no shortage of its own military-surplus trucks :-)

Posted twice; starred twice. Cool old photo.

Bringing more technology just makes an expedition easier, which undermines the challenge.

Bringing more technology just makes an expedition easier, which undermines the challenge.

Putting such a high-quality ad on Craigslist is like serving foie gras at McDonalds. And then hundreds of potential customers will walk up to the counter and ask stupid questions like “Does foie gras have meat in it? I’m a vegetarian”.

* Brown? No.

They’re an incredible feat of engineering. It’s a shame they’re no longer available in several markets. I miss my old one and would love to buy another.