I was once a young man in high school with college aspirations.

I think we need - nay, deserve! - some sort of collaboration between Mercedes & David. I don’t care if it’s a wacky roadtrip involving absurd vehicles, a relay of shitboxes from place to place (maybe some horse-trading involved), or an insane wrench-fest with an unreasonable, arbitrarily-imposed deadline/goal.

David Tracy would have it running in a couple hours with a can of starter fluid and some pliers

To paraphrase Cat Stevens (ahem, Yusuf, with repsect)

Not going to lie this article had a beater vehicle and an abandoned vehicle. I thought it was going to be written by David Tracy.

I recently took a junker of a $900 minivan on a road trip through Tennessee.

I agree, but there are a lot of people out there who want to make a quick buck, regardless of how much damage they do. It isn’t unusual to hear about people trying to steal copper wire not knowing it’s live, and getting electrocuted. Similarly, not unusual to hear about hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage for…

Well, if you are driving 60 y.o. cars with zero safety features on iced over roads, then yes, life may wind up being very short!

Have you tried refining your search to bias ply?

My niece and nephew (6 and 8) were playing around in my ‘97 Ranger, enjoying the novelty of the fold-down rumble seats in the extended cab, and were just completely flummoxed by the manual windows. Just amazed.  Then the niece’s eyes lit up as she connected the dots and said, “Oh, so that’s why they call it rolling…

Listen here, kid. I’m gonna need you to grab that feeler gauge over there and set the points gap while I drain the rear diff.

I grew up in Upstate NY, most people there would love to have a beat up old Jeep as a winter rat.

Tracy is going to grow up to be some wide-eyed kid’s weird uncle. I mean, the kid is going to go to school, and he is going to have stories.

Pentagenarian

You, my friend, desperately need to check out former automotive journalist/complete freaking nut Tony DeFeo's YouTube channel Uncle Tony's Garage.  They built a /6 powered Miata that will make you weep with misplaced joy.

Stop trying bring (questionably) rational thought into this!  The argument falls apart when the replacement is a pentagenarian Mopar.  Now support your argument with a nerdy physics formula or be gone!

Expense account receipt - on a napkin

Ah, but can you shoot a boxing glove out of a firearm?

This is unironically one of my favourite lines in film history. It’s perfect. 

At least give William H. Macy kudos for delivering this line absolutely deadpan serious: