Re: LAUNDRY. That TV series when they attempted to re-enact daily life in 1900 and found that the most popular laundry soaps used then are banned now for being toxic substances? Forget mere drudgery...you could be putting your very life at a risk and not know it.  Now we don’t have to play dirty to get clean.

My sister and I live in western North Carolina. I once helped her take delivery on a car in Atlanta.  I fully expect to have to journey far and wide to replace my current car myself (it runs, but there are too many things wrong with it for it to pass inspection and the registration runs out next month!).

1986: Northbound on US19 in Pinellas County, Florida. Very hot, bright afternoon. Was in the fast lane going on the overpass near what was then Clearwater Mall...get nearer to the crest and suddenly all the traffic ahead of me stopped! I hit the brakes—no anti-lock then--since part of my inertia was VERTICAL the front…

Scion coupes. Bonus if they ever made an AWD version.

Another part of me is arguing for Ford (Mercury) Capris, Mitsubishi (Dodge/Plymouth) Colts and stuff from overseas that never got sold here.

Fuel prices have spiked too. AvWeb.com just reported that Jet Fuel prices in some parts of the US are north of $7/gallon, in some places it’s cheaper to get Aviation Gasoline or Sustainable Aviation Fuel...but even then you’re paying about 50% over and above what auto gas sells for.
I subscribe to a news service about…

I bet Knoxville was a poster child for this trend, in what was done there prior to the World’s Fair 40 years ago. Old downtown buildings were re-clad in Malaise-tectural metal and glass and old factories and neighborhoods were torn down to make room for an arena, parking, a police headquarters, parking, an art museum,…

I have to nominate the Baltimore street course. Nothing much wrong with it conceptually, it was all in execution. The fact that there were light rail lines crossing the end of the main straight. The horrible pavement that could be ripped off by cars with aero downforce. The rough chicanes and narrow chutes.
Of course…

Earlier this week I’d seen a headline in one of my e-mail technology newsletters about how badly a war in Ukraine would derail worldwide electronics production.  A lot of vital raw materials come out of there.  I think things will get even worse before they ever get better.

Who sez you can’t hear a picture?

I had a dream that somebody took a chassis like this out from under a school bus and built a huge “personal luxury” car on top of it.  Had a love pit in the back instead of just a bench seat.  Styled after the boattail Buick Rivieras.

There are still a number of US retailers who stock “grey market” goods.  Maybe not national-level ones but a lot of regional ones...mainly because of merchandiser-importer third-party suppliers.

In Florida there was a place near Orlando doing this and so the state had enough of the baloney and revoked their incorporation as a town. All the officials had their jobs taken from them permanently.  Just a datum.

The Nissan Toys/Van Halen commercial was done by Will Vinton & his studio, who also did the Pigeons commercial in the same campaign. Oprah Winfrey had the crew on her show for an episode all about special effects.

Several years ago there was a shop I knew that did EV conversions and I considered taking the plunge with my Prizm.  Problem was that the out-of-pocket cost for the conversion wouldn’t be paid off at my relatively low level of use for DECADES.  Now the price of the job exceeds the market value of the vehicle.  If I’m…

My sister’s Toyota Tacoma.  The shape of the jumpseat is completely wrong and I’m an average size adult.

A Panther Callista that took three trips to the Golden Corral buffet on “all you can eat” night.

But the sedan did sort of exist. The ‘55 Biscayne show car.
https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/sucp-0605-biscayne-concept-restoration/

Okay, it was you guys.
https://jalopnik.com/watch-an-airplane-get-can-openerd-and-stuck-under-a-bri-1847809367

I thought I’d heard a story earlier this year about an airplane fuselage stuck under a bridge or overpass while being moved by train, and expected this story to be about that one.  But now I can’t find the actual story.  Well, it’s probably around somewhere, and if it isn’t this particular airplane, I’ll find out…

A weird parallel from South America was Ford’s Corcel, which was a Renault that Ford of Brazil continued to build after they’d acquired Willys’ factories—and their licenses. The Corcel was restyled and re-engineered with Dearborn help and wound up roughly in the same class as EXP/LN7.