Road crews in Michigan salt the absolute everloving fuck out of everything from about mid-October to early or mid-April. Once the rot gets its teeth into the metal it’ll go quick. Wheel arches and rocker panels seem to go in about five years here for am average daily driver, if you’re extra diligent (weekly or so…

Saw a really bad one the other week just south of Flint, late ‘90s Tahoe with severe rollover damage on top of the usual rust and near-bald tires. Side glass replaced with plastic sheet and windshield replaced with what appeared to be top from a glass table (beveled edges and all) taped in place.

The Donahue-Penske 1967 Trans-Am Camaro also deserves to be in the pantheon of great cheats. They acid-dipped the factory steel body to shave ~400 pounds, and when structural integrity became a concern, they added a full-body roll-cage to serve as sort of a space frame.

If it has been sitting there for decades, any surfaces contacting/buried in the soil, galvanized or not, are probably going to be toast. Probably not quite as bad as some, though.

‘65 Bonneville I think

GMC is for the demographic where a Suburban is too prole and an Escalade too gaudy. Seems to be mostly foremen and middle managers who need to tow the boat to the lake twice a year.

I agree, and I don’t think the transition from horses to automobiles is a wholly fair comparison. The state of public transport has been in a long decline and is arguably worse than a century ago for large swaths of the US, and we have more population less densely distributed outside urban centers. On top of this…

This is good Jalopnik.

The old LT1s aren’t bad engines, they’re just not really good for adding power. They had reverse-flow cooling (cylinder jackets cooled first) so they could run at higher compression (10.2:1 IIRC). This means they’re not great for adding forced induction, especially as all non-Corvette LT1s only have 2-bolt main…

Thanks for the reminder of another vehicle that’s rusted away faded from Michigan roads in the last few years without me noticing. I can’t recall the last time I saw either an S-10 or Ranger of this generation moving under its own power.

This is a big reason I support driverless cars- senior citizens. My paternal grandparents really started to go downhill once they weren’t able to drive anymore and were stuck at home. They couldn’t do they things they wanted or needed without family there to help, and it was an extra burden on the rest of the family…

It can be. I understand noise from sling swivels or other accessories, loose magazines or slightly loose rounds, but I think the most nonsensical case I saw was in season 2 of Fargo with a side-by-side shotgun IIRC.

pickledherring4lyfe

Maybe not as bad as some, but my old Roadmaster wagon had a couple of these. Several years ago at Thanksgiving, I drive out to a relative’s place the night before the holiday. I stop to get gas, and when I start the car again the low coolant light stays on. I swear, get out and look underneath. Looks like a minor…

Continuously sh-clack cycling sh-clack pump sh-clack action sh-clack shotguns sh-clack for sh-clack dramatic sh-clack effect. Or just pointing a gun produces clicks and other metallic noises.

Hoopty only begets more hoopty.

Don’t forget the schoolbus race.

I find this to be a pretty good tell of how they think. Listens to classic rock exclusively, disdains anything recent? Good odds they’re not too introspective and not all that open-minded.

Fair enough. My hill is using loose and lose correctly.

The battle was lost about a decade ago or so, I think even in 2007 then the cultural inertia was too great for the dozens of us (metaphorically speaking) that care about the usage to overcome. I recall similar discussions online back then.