Oh, god! I remember doing a similar trip in a buddy’s ‘83 Cavalier to Vermont for a MLK day ski trip. He insisted he got better gas mileage when the heat was off, and this was after we all agreed to pay for gas/tolls since he was driving!

This Vanagon is not funky, it’s an abomination. Wow! M+S tires, must be a Syncro! Nope. That gee-gaw above the windscreen, is it a Westy? Nope. All the seating, must be great for the family? Nope, no seatbelts.

In VT where I ski a lot, it’s not uncommon to have a -20F mornings a few times a year. I’ve learned from friends and experience to silicone the door seals, put -25F washer fluid in the reservoir and carry extra, Rain-X the windscreen, full synthetic in the oil sump, carry gloves for handling the gas pump, keep both a…

Yes! A few months after I got my license, I was stopped by a Federal Park Police after he saw me skidding my ‘75 Torino in their (empty, by the beach) parking lot. I’d get up to 25 mph or so, brake hard, then steer out of the skid. After I explained what I was doing, he told me to stay on one side of the lot, while…

I rented an SUV in Denver to drive to Breckenridge - they gave me an Escape, which I have never driven before. Eisenhower pass was complete carnage with a flipped Excursion (whee I got 4WD!), and two rolled 18 wheelers among the assorted wrinkled fenders. After scanning the dashboard for some sort of AWD switch, I…

Double-chinned neck, big belly, small hands that can’t reach up that far...

Out of my last four car purchases, yes only one seemed to get it. I think the difference is he was a professional car salesman. Worked at the dealership for seven years or so, and another prior to that for about ten. He knew that getting everything done for me in 20 minutes left him plenty of time to sell another…

Around 1983, I was walking down sixth ave in NYC when a chariot being driven by a man in a gorilla suit went by. Maybe 15% of the people who saw it reacted.

LED lights don’t attract mosquitos. At least those at the entry doors of my house don’t.

Back on the 80s, when being related to a cop helped, I was a passenger in a car puled over on a local parkway (speed limit 50 mph). The driver’s father was a corrections officer. This is how the conversation went :

Australia got the fun people to populate the continent. The US got the puritans. The US lost.

I’d say it was 20+ years of media consolidation, single-viewpoint media channels, and the eroding of journalistic ethics has brought us to this, but Edward R. Murrow’s investigative news program, See It Now, was displaced by the gameshow, The $64,000 Question, in 1955 because of complaints from those it investigated.

My multimeter is used 29% of the time to test for DC voltage, then 70% of the time to test continuity. When I use it for the remaining 1% tasks like ohms, micro Farads, etc, I go to YouTube, get mixed results, more confused, then punt.

I seem to remember the ‘83 Trans Ams having “four wheel disc” labels on the exterior door handles. Probably because they couldn’t fit it on the back.