Or, a bumper sticker that says ‘Your argument is invalid. I have a tank.’

Historic armored vehicles as a hobby is in a league of its own. It’s not just enough to be able to have the cash to buy one, you’ve gotta be able to transport it and insure it. A couple owners I’ve met needed to rent or buy semis and lowboy trailers to move these things around.

Someone get Speedycop on the line, here’s their next Lemons project.

Didn’t look that energetic relative to the rest of the vehicle, to be honest, though some retention wouldn’t be a bad idea. If a pedestrian was close enough for that battery to be an issue they might have greater concerns, like the rest of the car, and whatever it hit in particular.

Eh, problem with that reasoning is that plenty of accidents involve innocent drivers/bystanders who may not have had any control over the outcome of the accident. Drunk or distracted drivers suddenly veering into oncoming traffic on a two-lane road, or blowing through a standing red light don’t give a whole lot of…

Not necessarily. While ship naming is up to Congress, it seems typically even for Presidents there has to be notable reason to get things named after someone. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Nimitz are fairly obvious ones, but others also have reasons. George H.W. Bush was a…

Pretty much, they come up with a pool of names and run it through a focus group. I’ve got it on pretty good authority that the pool of names for the focus group used for what we know as the Chevy Traverse was pooled from northern MI towns like Traverse City, Kalkaska, and yes, Gaylord.

Kia Santa Fes, clapped out Grand Caravans and Grand Prixes are strong contenders. The first are usually confused how they found themselves behind the wheel, the other two tend to show a total disregard for traffic laws, written or no. 75 in a 45? Check. Making a left hand turn from the right turn lane? Yep. Passing in…

There’s a bit of a fudge factor involved, so for example you can buy a $600 car, sell off $400 of unneeded parts then add $300 of go-fast bits; going over the $500 just nets you penalty laps. Also, keep in mind safety items (cage, tires, brakes, etc.) are not counted in the $500 budget. The judges can be bribed with…

That’s just how manufacturing is, especially in the Just-in-Time age. Sounds like this was in an auxiliary building, so no reason to stop the line. A friend of mine was a manufacturing engineer at a final assembly plant elsewhere in SE MI and had a worker suffer an aneurysm and died on the line. Work stopped just long…

More true than you think, before there were dedicated EMS/ambulance services where I grew up the funeral homes handled emergency medical transport, usually with the same vehicle. Not unimaginable that some might have taken their time getting to the hospital in the hopes of generating some new business.

Turns out the guns were the friends we made along the way.

I had a maroon ‘95 Roadmaster wagon, still miss that car. These look to have been terminal rot cases at the very least, so going out with a bang is probably the best that could be hoped for.

FWIW, Flint is the regional medical hub (2 major hospitals and only trauma centers within reasonable distance for a couple counties), has a number of colleges and universities, and since it sits on three major freeways still has some manufacturing in the city and tons more in the surrounding suburbs. Outside the…

Sounds like NJ and MI might have had the same civil engineer design some of our roads postwar. Supposedly a bunch went over to Germany to study the autobahn after the war ended, but I think we got the one who got sent to Berlin in late 1945 by mistake.

Fair points. Affordable efficient vehicle are a niche that definitely needs filled out more. I also think American buyers need to wean themselves off full-size vehicles where they’re not necessary. I know many coworkers who are single or empty nesters but keep buying pickups and full-size SUV/CUVs to keep up with the…

Well, they’re doing the best to meet those demands. There isn’t some magic that will make an all-steel V8 pickup get the same economy as a sub-compact, tow a mountain, and cost $20,000. So you use lighter materials and use forced induction with a smaller engine to get that fuel mileage up.

To be fair, most automakers do have many more options for EVs and hybrids available than they did in 2007, and overall new cars and trucks are more efficient than they were in 2007 thanks to improvements in engine and material technology. The problem is that consumers collectively have the memory of a goldfish and…

Yeah, that all goes back again to the turn of the century bigotry about those What Came From the Wrong Bits of Europe, namely the Catholic countries like Italy, Sicily, Poland, etc. When my grandparents married in the late ‘40s it was something of a big deal in their communities since my grandfather was a Catholic…

It’s more recent than that, even. My paternal grandfather’s side of the family is Polish, and black hair and an olive complexion run in the family. My grandfather told us he used to catch a lot of guff because of this. He was in the Army during WWII and one incident in France he and a buddy had a little too much…