Guest Post by Uncola
My first car was a very pre-owned, 1971 Ford Thunderbird. I was only 14 years old when I bought it and I didn’t even have my full driver’s license. Since I only had my driver’s permit at the time, my dad had to accompany me on the first test-drive. The ’71 T-bird is by no means considered a “classic” in the way that a Chevy “Chevelle” would be viewed today, but, back then, I thought it was pretty cool.
My bird was calf-shit brown with a white leather interior. It was a 2-door Hardtop with a Thunder Jet 429 V-8, Cruise-O-Matic tranny, an eight-track player and it had very unique amphitheater-like, curved rear seats. By today’s standards, it was a giant land yacht of a car and just opening its heavy driver’s door was harder than bench-pressing my maximum weight at wrestling practice.
One time, when my parents were out if town, two of my buddies and I decided to take an illegal road trip to a nearby state park. On the way back I put the pedal to the metal on a long, straight and narrow blacktop. At 98 miles an hour it started to sputter and cough, then after a burst of bluish black smoke exploding from its aftermarket glass packs, we took off faster than Neil Armstrong heading moonward.
At 115 MPH, I remember the hood was shaking more violently than Hillary Clinton off her meds during a stump speech and we went gliding over a slightly elevated culvert that seemed more akin to the first flight of the Wright Brothers. When I slowed down, I looked over at my two friends and they were pale as Michael Jackson’s face in the moonlight. On another timeline, I’m sure we all died that day. But in the here and now, I never felt so alive. I was 15 years old. In fact, even to this day, that is the second fastest I ever traveled at ground level. The first fastest was on a motorcycle, but that’s another story.
I suppose first cars are like first loves. They are never forgotten. I have many other memories in that car ranging from nervous first dates to cleaning up buddy puke from its seats and floorboards. In the end though, I sold it sputtering on 7 cylinders for a mere few hundred bucks.
In the years that followed, I always drove “American”. Mopar (Dodge), General Motors and Jeep. One time at a Christmas party someone was telling my wife about how much they just LOVE their new Honda and I overheard my lovely bride proudly tell them: “Oh, my husband would NEVER consider buying a foreign car.” And, it was true.
A few years back I sold a 1985 Jeep CJ-7 hardtop with a lift kit, a retro-installed 350 Chevy V-8 and a three-speed tranny. With that weird combination it was no wonder that damn thing only got 12 miles per gallon. But I couldn’t complain because that was still better than what I got with my aforementioned Thunderbird. Anyway, the guy that bought the Jeep farmed 2500 acres half a state away from me and, after we were done with the test drive, looking under the hood and crawling under it, he looked over at me and said: “They sure don’t build ‘em like this anymore.” To which I replied: “Nope. They sure don’t.”
That reminds me of another time over 25 years ago, when in order to pay the bills, I took a job selling Chryslers and Chevys. That was quite an experience and I did it for several years with some success. I had a lot of repeat customers and the matriarch of a large clan who considered me as their car expert, told me one time: “You know, as far as car salesmen go, I believe you are as honest as one can be.” I looked at her and said: Thanks. I think?” and she laughed.
My favorite customers back then though were the old codgers. More often than not, when I asked them what kind of vehicles they would consider, they always had an opinion. They also had the same opinion when it came to foreign made cars and it usually went down like this:
They: “Need a car (for me, or wife, or offspring or grand kid). What’s cheap today?
Me: “Depends. Whattaya wanna spend?”
They: “Not a lot”
Me: “OK. How about this Toyota over here?”
They: “What? Japanese? Hell no! They paid me to kill them bastards in the war!”
Me: “OK. I guess that also rules out that Volkswagen over there, then. Hmmmnnn….”
And the union guys? Fuhgeddaboudit! If I showed them something foreign made they would think I WANTED them to get their assess kicked when they drove up to the local UAW hall.
Indeed, they were all just like me and would NEVER consider buying a foreign made car.
Unfortunately, “never” is not a very long time after all.
Within the span of just a few decades, Chrysler bought Jeep, Daimler Benz bought Chrysler AND Jeep, then in 2014, BOTH Chrysler and Jeep became owned by Fiat; General Motors became Government Motors, and the first Afro-American U.S. president also became the first president ever to fire the CEO of an American company .
Thank God for Ford! Wait a minute. On Wednesday September 2014, 2016 Ford’s CEO, Mark Fields, announced to the world:
“Over the next two to three years, we will have migrated all of our small car production to Mexico and out of the United States,”
Although, bad as that sounds, we should take heart that Ford has decided to “invest $9 billion in U.S. plants, with about half going to 11 facilities in Michigan” and not be concerned that “Mexico has seen a 40% increase in auto jobs since 2008 to 675,000 last year while the U.S. saw only a 15% increase in the same period to more than 900,000, according to the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.”
To me, that sounds a little like: “Hey! It’s not all that bad! I shot the sheriff, but I didn’t shoot the deputy!”
Henry Ford, the eponymous Founder of Ford Motor Company once stated:
“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”
Today it seems his company has a new girlfriend and has decided to sell his first love “sputtering on seven cylinders” for pennies on the dollar. You’d like to think, with all the brain power at Ford Motor Company they could figure out a better way. After all, Henry Ford also said:
“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”
Evidently, like its competitors, Ford has decided they can’t do a thing.
It’s ironic. Henry Ford’s lovechild was the first automotive endeavor to represent America’s rise. And now, it remains the final holdout during America’s steadfast decline.
Well, it was nice while it lasted. At least we have the memories.
Jobs for the North American Union but not for Americans.
People may have thought the NAU was still in the talking stage.
Clearly they are mistaken. We will get “American”/US jobs
back when the Chinese retool and start up factories in the US.
And the wage/benefits will be on par with those in Mexico.
We don’t like to hear that kind of version, but it is the likely
outcome.
Put an end to this, vote Trump.
There are no more ‘national’ car manufacturers. When the axles are made in one nation, the transmission in another and the US made windshield maker is a Chinese company how do you call the car ‘Made in America’. A Toyota may have a higher domestic content than a Buick ( which GM wants import from China).
The boss of Fiat, itself a troubled auto company, says he needs to make 6 million vehicles per year to survive. That’s almost 10% of global new car sales and there are more than 10 major auto manufacturers. I don’t like what Ford is doing and I hope Trump throws a monkey wrench into their plans but Ford has to play by the globalist rules of the game unless those rules are changed.
And Trump may just change those rules.
They are only investing in new plants here in the states because of the chicken tax. If not for that, they would move production of trucks and SUVs to Mexico as well. It saves thousands per car to build them down there. That is either more profit for Ford or a lower MSRP or a combination of the two. Either way it is profitable to move production out of the US except when it comes to trucks and SUVs because of the chicken tax.
The ‘Chicken Tax’ will disappear (25% import tax on foreign pickups) if the TPP and TTIP get passed. Don’t know what will happen if the foreign countries agree and Obama signs, not CONgress.
Hey knuckleheads , the shareholders of Ford don’t owe you anything. They are seeking to maximize their profits. That’s the deal. Making money.
The shareholders owing anything isn’t what the issue is, what Ford owes America as an American corporation with all the special privileges and protections that come with that status is.
Anon, props for putting things in perspective. Bb, go get your head examined. Uncola, meant to comment on your last one, this one is even better. I’m shopping trucks right now (literally, at the dealer). I love fords. But watching that POS who calls himself CEO talk, i’m going to shop around, something i had no plans on doing.
Thanks Star. Be careful out there. Buyer beware. If you want the salespeople to leave you alone just tell them you can’t buy ’til next month for whatever reason. They’ll give you a card first, then you’ll be ignored more than a Hitchhiking Hasidic Jew watching bb’s FedEx truck drive by.
On the other hand, if you really want the salespeople and management team to work really hard for you, tell them you have a great credit score and you would buy TODAY for the right vehicle and the right deal. Do that and they will cling onto you tighter than a Secret Service detail helping “Her” climb a flight of stairs.
Good luck.
…you’ll be ignored more than a Hitching Hasidic Jew watching bb’s FedEx truck drive by.
…you’ll be ignored more than a beaner bumming a ride, a jungle bunny on a journey or a Hasidic Hymie hitching a ride on bb’s brand-new bucket of bolts.
Glad to see ya back. You were gone for awhile. I thought Billy might have butthurt ya a while back. Did you take a vacation? Or have you been helping Stucky remodel his kitchen
I didn’t tangle with Billy. SSS trashed him. Old Billy is like a black hole, a lot of education has gone into him but it was for naught as there is no light there.
My boss always said we should consider the source of shit we hear. SSS is an officer and a gentleman, Billy is a grunt.
That said, I wished him well, it’s always nice to know a fellow TBPer is doing alright.
I drove over to Laughlin, the old lady said she wanted to go to Santa Barbara. I prefer Las Vegas. She said she likes water and the Colorado river in Laughlin is “the cleanest river in the country” as the riverboat captain said.
BTW, a couple of deplorables, Trumpists who look forward to the day when old El Coyote gets deported, tried to jack my elevator at Harrah’s. I pushed the button and waited the 10 minutes it takes for one of the six elevator doors to open and this old couple comes around the corner and waltzes right in. I walked in after them and the old biddy tells me the elevator doesn’t go to my floor.
I could have launched into the spiel about being part of a national blog with a readership in the hundreds and thousands even. But I chilled and said, oh, I have not been paying attention, I simply get on any elevator that opens up. I got no reply from the old deplorables. I thanked them as I got off on my floor.
You must have missed the Billy and SSS kerfuffle. It was an embarrassing thing to read. It reminded me of the time Julien Sorel challenged the henchman to a duel. He kept telling the oaf, your card, sir? I despise you.
The muledriver didn’t know that at that point a gentleman would be obliged to account for himself and kept on arguing. Billy kept on haw-hawing and taunting the old man after SSS told him definitively that Billy was a such and such.
But then again, Billy has always been like that old redhead Uriah Heep, torturing David Copperfield’s horse with his foul breath.
I don’t miss much there El Commando. No one throws shit like an old dog. When it comes to dudes like SSS, Billy, Llpoh, Admin, etc – I can never tell what’s bigger, their brains or their balls.
You’re right of course. However when the interests of the company directly conflict with the interests of the country, then don’t be surprised if the country takes steps to protect their interests.
If Nissan can build it’s trucks here and have more then 50% of the truck’s parts also made here-and they’re Japanese!-then Ford can forego some profit, either with an import tariff or paying American workers to build their trucks.
The days of allowing corporations to eff us over to pay higher dividends to their shareholders while millions are out of work are over.
One aspect of Mexico’s advantage is that it is not a regulatory nightmare. Trump has promised that is one of the first things he will do, that is to ease the regulatory burden our businesses face.
His plans to increase domestic energy production will also make the United States a more attractive place to manufacture.
Further, he plans to reduce the corporate tax to 15% and to allow companies to immediately expense their investments.
But if that’s not going to win Ford over, fine. They’ll pay the tariff and that’s gotta be accounted for somewhere in their business.
And we don’t owe Ford’s shareholders anything, either. In fact, if we wish, we can tax their company right out of business.
Just something to keep in mind in the real world.
Anonymous is bb .My smart phone just had another stroke.
I remember UAW members criticize me when I broke down and bought a foreign car , well tough shit you did it to yourselves and here are some facts ! 1) all American car manufactures started using percentages of foreign products from steel , engines , wire harnesses and much more and then have the nerve to tell the layed off steel worker and electrical worker to buy their product save my job well back stabbing scab why didn’t you strike when the closed the foundry that made engine blocks and brought that engine in from Mexico that you installed or the harness from Korea or China that you installed . I thought we had a brotherhood where we watched each other’s backs , guess I was wrong ! My family had 2 UAW Members and 2 steel workers guess who kept their benefits and retirement thanks to a bailout and guess who got the shaft !
Government and big money pitted us against each other just like the race issue being used now and guess what , it’s going to work as always we will be pointing fingers in this circle jerk economy and the big rats get all the cheese
This image is posted on the wall where I work (I have no idea if that is actually a Ford truck):
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Figure On Repairs Daily…
will become even more true.
I had an old 2 door 69 Ford Fairlane with a 302. I loved that car. I totaled a brand new GMC Jimmy with it when I hit one in the passenger side directly between the front and rear wheels. The impact pushed the entire passenger side of the Jimmy cabin at least two feet towards the driver side. Although my Fairlane only suffered a small dent to the hood, a small dent to the bumper, a broken fan shroud and a loose rf fender that slid rearward slightly, the insurance co totaled my Fairlane because the could not locate a hood for it. They totaled it, paid me and let me keep it with a clean title. I continued to drive that car for a couple more years before moving overseas. I wish I still had it!
When I was a senior in high school, I drove a POS 1973 Chevy Vega (lemon yellow) which was fondly remembered by everyone who helped me keep it running as a “wreck looking for a place to happen.”
In preparation for college (1979) , I shopped for a “better” car and one of the vehicles I tested was a 1970 Mercury Cougar with enough horsepower under the hood to get 120 in the quarter mile. (I know. I tested it on the ride.) It was an awesome car, well taken care of by the old couple selling it, but I passed because as soon as my father saw it, he said “you planning to put it up against the drag racers outside of town this Saturday?”
Since my hometown beau was the king of the drag racers with his 68 Road Runner (hey… you said “MOPAR” and that brought it all back), I realized that my father was right. The car would be run into the ground long before I could graduate and get it to college.
I settled on a 1978 Datsun pickup with a 5 speed. It kept me out of trouble.
Well, for the most part.
Why would Ford announce this move on the eve of Trump’s coronation? Isn’t he the candidate who promised to slap a huge tariff on foreign-made goods coming into the USA? The guy who promised to build a physical wall to keep Americans in and a legal wall to do the same to American companies? Why would they boldly go into the land of rapists and killers?
Is it because the communist government of Mexico is very accommodating to American manufacturers with regard to environmental protection and labor relations? Where the factories and mining companies can pollute at will and nobody says a damn thing? Where workers have few rights except to a minimum wage of about 8 cents American per hour?
Why would Ford and all those aircraft parts and assembly plants leave McMansionland to go to a place where people live is shacks and work long hours for subsistence pay? I just don’t understand. Am I missing something?
My guess is that Ford’s Strategic Planning team believes it would be best to make the move before the the wall gets built? Just a thought there El Cadastre…
Unedited,
WTF is a cadastre? That was a disaster.
Try caudillo, carnal, comandante..
Ch words are better; chorizo, chile, chicano,
I’m really impressed with your performance here. I bet Maggie feels like an ass now.
https://youtu.be/i9QEAtcz3o8
ca·das·tre: /kəˈdasˌtər/ noun
noun: cadastre; plural noun: cadastres
a register of property showing the extent, value, and ownership of land for taxation.
PS – Maggie is cool. I really liked her comment above. Bygones are bygones as far as I am concerned.
Your not missing a thing a CEO has no patriotic duty to anything but the bottom line so paying good Union scale wages with good health insurence retirement vacations well fuck you . He can pay a quarter of that to a lobbiest who will buy enough politicians to allow the product now produced with child labor or abusive labor practices who will intern promote a bull shit trade deal , dip shit Americans will believe it and then the CEO and the board will split up what would have been the wages and benefits of American blue collar workers and the children of the CEO will ask : Daddy how did we get a new jet ? And he will lie and answer : I worked very hard for us to have this ! TRUTH He cheated thousands of working families out of their livelihood and retirement by bribing politicians and us super dumb fucks not only stand for it , we buy the bull shit that all Union American workers were overpaid well if so then teachers fireman policeman and any other government employee you make too much and we can hire 3 illegals for half what your sorry ass cost get ready elitest your time clock is running out !
Ford announced this a year or 2 ago,before there was a trump involved.
Henry Ford paid his people $5.00 per day, when the average wage was about $1.50 per day. This was done in order to stabilize his workforce, but was also done as Ford believed that his workers should be able to afford his products.
Henry Ford realized that paying people a decent wage would come back to reward him immensely. Of course, the wall street banksters howled in protest, stating that Ford’s high wages would “destroy capitalism” as they knew it…Henry Ford mistrusted banks and knew of their destructive potential. His writings have stated as such.
Henry Ford had a great part in establishing a “middle class” and was instrumental in helping quell the “class warfare” that was evident in other parts of the world.
Our present “race to the bottom” with the implementation of the fraudulent H-1b visa program has made native-born Americans second-class citizens in our own country. The “pointy-headed intellectuals” in our “business schools”, colleges and universities have lost sight of the fact that a well-functioning economy requires a consumer base that is able to afford the consumer products available to them. It helps to have the products produced by the very consumers that eventually purchase them…in today’s business schools, the stockholder is looked upon as the one entity that must be “stroked” at all costs…the balance that is required for an economic system to flourish is ignored…a well-functioning economic system is like a three-legged stool that requires consumer/employees, investors/consumers.employees, and financial backers, also consumers,employees,investors to properly function. Take the employees/consumers out of the equation (with the siren song of cheap imports) and you have the mess that we are in today…
I’ll take the 12 year car loan for 300 Alex,it’s over boys and girls!
What the corporations want (and the banksters approve of) is for EVERY job that can possibly be outsourced, be gone from America and be handled by third world slaves.
For every current service job the answer is to import workers from the third world to do it. In less than a generation, they are well on their way to achieving this.
So, in the near future, when anyone orders a pizza, it’s made by who knows who and delivered by who knows who. The same goes for all the other local services we use. It won’t be poor White People doing these services. They will be slaves in a mine somewhere.
You all have to understand that “they” (TPTB) expect us eventually to be gone. Gone….bye-bye….so long….don’t bother to write. Gone forever. Hitlery as much said so in her ‘deplorable’ speech.
We’ll be in concentration camps waiting to die and America will be a place where Arabs, Niggers, Spics, Gooks and Red Dot Indians live. A few cracker-ass mother-fuckers will be allowed to survive to run the machines and fix things, but that’s it.
That’s the plan. Now….How are you going to deal with it today? Knowing the end game (and you have to know by now), what are you doing right now to either resist or in any other way prepare for this future?
I keep telling you….you don’t have enough food and ammo.
Lysander. Sometimes i hate to see something so bluntly put. Not today. Nice comment
Me too.
Globalism won’t be complete until you’re earning the same wage as a guy in a loincloth in Bangladesh.
Before I peruse the replies…
We called the Thunderbird “Thunder Chicken”
My first car was a 72 Olds Cutlass with a “Rocket 350” stated the air cleaner lid. Heavy, but nearly as much as the land yacht as Jims. It was quick.
1985 was a bad time to buy a car…sure 350 cubic engine but they were low compression, small valve heads and a flattened bumpstick that still sucked fuel.
The 350 in the CJ was rebuilt & modified from an ’82 Suburban. The Edelbrock 4 Barrel Quadrajet didn’t help my mpg to say the least. The guy that bought it from me didn’t drive it as much and I’m fairly certain that’s why the Saudi economy downturned soon after I sold it. My next Jeep will be an inline 6. But I’m helping kids with college now, so no hurry. TEOTWAWKI cometh anyway.
“And Trump may just change those rules.” ~Anon
Ha Hah Hah Bwaw Bwahaha. Chumps high end neck ties were made in China.
Fuck it. Why would you be loyal to American companies when those same companies and their lazy, selfish, crooked union workers were screwing you? The companies made shitty cars and the workers made them shittier by sabotaging the product, like hiding coke bottles inside the door so you never knew what was causing that strange rattle. If a foreign car is cheaper and more reliable, like a Toyota, then I say buy the cheaper, more reliable car and enjoy it. Rewarding a company with your hard-earned money purely because they’re domestic is stupid; earning your money should be as hard for them as it was for you, anyway.
Don’t believe me? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125229157
“Sex, Drugs And The Assembly Line
How bad was it? Rick Madrid built Chevy trucks at the plant. “There was a lot of booze on the line,” he said. “And as long you did your job they really didn’t care.”
A car moves down the auto assembly line at New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota that produces Toyota and Pontiac vehicles.
Madrid said he drank when he was mounting tires. “I’d bring a thermos of screwdrivers with me.”
And it wasn’t just drinking and drugs, Madrid said. People would have sex at the plant, too. If you’re wondering how people kept their jobs, here’s why: Under the union contract workers practically had to commit fraud to get fired.
Some workers hated management so much, they sabotaged the vehicles.
They put Coke bottles inside the door panels so they would rattle and annoy customers. Absenteeism was rampant.
Billy Haggerty worked in hood and fender assembly. He said so few workers showed up some mornings, managers didn’t have enough able bodies to start the line: They would ” go right across the street to the bar, grab people out of there and bring them in,” Haggerty recalled.”
All cars in the 1970s were crap. The Japanese cars “fit and finish” WAS much better. The quality of the build of Japanese cars FORCED the U S automakers to improve themselves–a good thing…
However, Japanese cars of the day rusted out FASTER than roughly equivalent American iron. I know of people who bought new Datsun pickup trucks. Within two years, both the beds and bodies were rusted through…not just surface rust, but large holes…
When it comes to drivetrains, Japanese cars required more precise and frequent maintenance. The close tolerances of their engines and transmissions saw to that.
One could take an American car of the day, which received virtually no maintenance–the engine oil like sludge, and the automatic transmission fluid black and burnt, not red, and the cars still ran OK. You would not get away with that in a foreign car of the day…
I make no excuses for the American cars of the day…improvement was sorely needed…but Japanese cars of the day, while being assembled with closer tolerances, still had their problems.
@ anarchyst: +10,000. Amen to that. Thou speaketh da truth right there. It has definitely been amazing watching the improvements through the years all throughout the automotive industry.
I’ll bet they wished they’d shown up on time and done a better job… and that those jobs they hated so much were still there for their children. The kids working 3 jobs as servers and baristas to pay off 6-digit college loans would surely be glad to have cushy union jobs that required relatively little work, and paid well enough to buy a decent house and newer car, and came with lavish benefits and 3-6 week vacations.
We took it all for granted, didn’t we? And those who sabotaged their products just to annoy the company are, I’m sure, very sorry they killed the golden goose by their greed and sense of entitlement. But it’s a quite a bit late for regrets. We Americans made our choices in the 60s and 70s, and our children and their descendants will have to live with them as far out as we can see.
It is apparent that you never worked on an assembly line in an auto plant…The assembly process is split into “operations”…It was very rare for an individual line worker to have only one “operation” to fulfill. More often than not, one worker would be required to perform SIX operations while the line was moving…not an easy task. Back in the day, the worker could not stop the line…quality suffered as a result.
In most cases, the auto manufacturer gets its money’s worth out of the line worker. Ergonomics, presently more important than in years past, was not looked upon as being necessary…in addition, most of the old auto plants were not air-conditioned…
Soon, the Industrial Age will be over. Everything will be produced by robots or 3rd world collies/slaves, and each of us will be given a monthly allowance to keep us coddled.
That’s what the last 240 years was for.
Nietzsche was right.
Hey dumbass, what is the meaning of that last statement? I don’t recall Nietzsche saying anything about robots, unless his Superman was about robots or his Will to Power was about the industrial revolution. Did you mean to cite Jules Verne or Isaac Asimov?
My first car was a 948cc Austin A35. Slow but very economical, and (apart from the rust problems associated with a 15 year old car in a seaside town), pretty reliable.[img
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Sumptuous interior too – all the “go faster” accessories . . . . .
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Wild Phil. Kind of looks like the old Crosley. But what did you wear on the other foot?
Government and Banksters. Like every other problem, those two things are the root of every evil we face today. Banksters support Government, Government does not indict Banksters – see Wells Fargo latest fraud. Ford, and frankly everyone else, down to your neighbor would make far more money if they were 1. Not STOLEN FROM in currency debasement – inflation – on a massive scale. 2. Were allowed to keep what they made, rather than Ford having to pay lobbyists (protection money), practice environmental arbitrage (outsourcing) etc and you having to pay taxes to the IRS (protection money to keep guys with guns from arresting you). YOU would have more money to buy their truck, car, SUV etc. and THEY would have money for their shareholders. The key to solving ALL of these problems, is getting rid of the parasites between the bid and the ask. It really is that simple. The rest will fix itself.
The last car we bought new was a 2009 Huyndai Tucson that was “discounted” $5000 in 2010 because it was a year old and unwanted because it had a 5-speed transmission. We let the car dealer talk us into financing it for us and when we got the paperwork in the mail, we discovered we’d purchased extended warranty, rust protection and they’d made it a 72 month loan.
I didn’t even wait for Nick to get home. I drove down there, chewed the manager’s ass in front of customers and wrote them a check for the agreed-upon purchase price.
Since then, we only buy used cars from private owners. We just picked up a 2015 Jeep and got it for about 10K under blue book. Cash is king when dealing with private sellers. This is our third Jeep and even though I like the electronic gizmos, I miss the old days when you could open the hood and know what you were looking at.
Oh, and GilbertS? Long ago, while living in OKIE land, I read a book by Brian Bosworth (The Boz) and he claimed the same thing about the GM plant in OKC… putting things in doors and fenders to annoy buyers.
All UAW protected workers. Ran it right into the ground.
@ GilbertS & Maggie: “putting things in doors and fenders to annoy buyers.”
One time I sold a new Camaro to a guy that later complained about a weird knocking in the driver’s door. When the body shop pulled off the door panel they found a golf ball and written on it were some small words in red magic marker.
It said: “How long did it take you to find this?”
True story.
“I tested was a 1970 Mercury Cougar with enough horsepower under the hood to get 120 in the quarter mile. (I know. I tested it on the ride.)” —— Maggie
Well. Ahem!! Perhaps you FELT like you were doing 120. Or, perhaps, you’re just remembering wrong, or slightly exaggerating, or enjoying some poetic license.
Cuz, I gotta tell ya, I don’t believe there is ANY American muscle car that can do 120mph in the quarter mile.
Arguably the fastest muscle car is the ’65 Shelby Cobra 427 S/C — killer engine AND very light ….. it does the quarter mile in 12.5 seconds @ 118 mph. The Cougar ain’t no Shelby!
http://www.zeroto60times.com/vehicle-make/shelby-0-60-mph-times/
Was your test drive in the FAST Cougar …. the Eliminator? If so … “the quarter in 14.4 at 99.88 mph” …. which is quite respectable for such a big and heavy car.
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The whole auto industry is crazy.A lot of people don’t plan on buying any new vehicles.They just cost too much. I did have a better opinion of Ford when they didn’t get any bailouts.But now? Forget it.
Buy a used vehicle and spend a few bucks getting it fixed up and stay out of debt.
LOL… I am caught in the hyperbole of my memory. I admit I may have been exaggerating.
I don’t know if it was an Eliminator, but it did look quite a bit like that except was dark maroon.
As for the MOPAR issue? A Barracuda with a 440 under the hood was the most powerful thing I ever drove. That was my cousin’s car and he would bring it out to send everyone else home.
Drag racing outside town was BIG in my high school years (late 70s) and I find it hard to believe that you don’t think many muscle cars can get beyond 120 in the quarter mile. What about the “goat”… 1969 GTO?
I actually put a Holley carburetor on my 73 Vega to make it run better. (It didn’t.)
Love the look of that car, btw. And I really, really, really wanted a muscle car back then. But, Pop was right. I didn’t need to be in the fast car bidness.
Maggie in high school on the way to pick up her boyfriend for a date. In that era, the hairdos were bigger than the engine blocks:
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Unmolested, Maggie looks like the kind of girl moms warned about. Eventually they all turn into their moms. Since she knows how bad girls think, she is now very protective mom.
Works on us dad’s too, Tarded. They say daughters are God’s revenge on dudes. And, so far, it looks like I picked the wrong year to quit drinking.
Unprepared, my daughter said she and her friends would each jump up on a guy’s shoulders and they would battle the other girls in this fashion. I did not need to know that.
OMG, an old man should not have had that much fun, though. My daughter asked me to teach her and her friends how to drive. Imagine a car-full of teenage blondes. I was living the life of Stucky, the guy who had two girls under each arm during spring break, riding around with these totally insane girls.
Fast forward to the time I gave the beautiful blonde and her friend a ride. I wisecracked about having two blondes in my car. Her friend actually believed me and said, you can scratch that off your bucket list? Ain’t nothing more pitiful than deluded middle-age girls, ya know?
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And you are right about the “big hair” fad. Here was my attempt at Farrah’s mane. And I never claimed to be one of Charlie’s Angels.
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DANG! I wasn’t too far off. Lucky guess.
She cropped the pic so we don’t see the smokes and beer. Is that a juvie outfit?
“and I find it hard to believe that you don’t think many muscle cars can get beyond 120 in the quarter mile. What about the “goat”… 1969 GTO?” ——– Maggie
’69 GTO? Nope! The fastest Goat is actually the 1967 GTO — [email protected].
120mph is really really tough to do. Even modern muscle cars, like the monster engined 1997 Viper GTS clocks in at 116mph.
Here is a link referencing a list from Muscle Garage showing the 50 fastest muscle cars of all time. Nobody hits 120mph.
http://www.chevyhardcore.com/news/the-top-50-fastest-muscle-cars-of-all-time/
Sometimes when I close my eyes and think of Stucky, this what I see in my mind:
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I’m not blue.
I’m not bald.
And I ain’t skinny!!!!
But, yeah, I do have big hands.
That’s offensive to me because Herr Stuck looks more like Schwarzenegger. You couldn’t be more wrong if you suggested he looked like Katt Williams.
Okay, Stucky… I won’t argue the point, since I’m resurrecting memories from almost 40 years ago. But, while we might not have gotten 120 in the quarter, there were many times I saw the speedometer buried (max was 120) during the one mile stretch of road my old “beau” raced on in that 68 Road Runner (383 in it… not a Hemi)
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With a couple of dealer mods, the Sunbeam Tiger, a little British sports car with a factory Ford 289 did 120mph in the qm.
Like the Shelby, the Tiger was a little rocket ride!
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“I don’t know if it was an Eliminator, but it did look quite a bit like that except was dark maroon. ” —– Maggie
It probably wasn’t an Eliminator …. which came in 4 colors; Orange, Blue, Yellow, White.
http://eliminator.mercurycougarregistry.com/definition/
Mags,
My friend in the AF had a 68 Road Runner, also not the Hemi. I’d drive it from time to time. I absolutely love that car … probably my second favorite muscle-car after the GTO — esp. The Judge.
bb described a car like the one I had, a ’73 Charger, 383. Metallic Golden Brown with pinstripes and Brougham top.
Mid 90’s. I had a 76 Ford Granada 4 door. It was white, with a burgandy interior and bench seats. I literally drove it to the top of a Mountain (Yonah), hit 120 (on the bypass here, over multiple mile) and used it like a small apartment. I could also work on it and I did. Best first car ever. I even fit 12 freshman girls in it for a trip to the liqour store.
Sot, They built them a bit smaller back then. Try putting 3 freshman girls in it now.
When I started as a very underling Med. Student, the Head of Accident and Emergency Medicine had one of these, in this two-tone colourway – an Austin Princess 4 Litre R – the “R” denoting the Rolls-Royce engine under the bonnet. Similar price to a “real” Rolls – Silver Shadow – but sufficiently different to be very noticeable. REALLY nice interior with the usual Van den Plas refinements.
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Not to mention Ford and Edison were patent thieves, getting other people to do their work and then taking the credit. Belong right up there with the industrialists at the turn of the twentieth century, who were railroad monopolists in the nineteenth century, who became software engineers at the turn twenty first century, and finally financiers in the twenty first century.
The twentieth century saw the worst democide the world had ever seen. Will the twenty first be the century of the police state and corporate globalism? It depends on what you believe.
I get it, Ford sucks because they are going to make cars in Mexico that are currently being made in the USA. Below the fold they did state that those assembly lines aren’t going away, they are going to making trucks & SUV’s now – USA USA USA!!! The entire story is less about outsourcing and globalization than the fact that sub $4…$3 gasoline has meant nobody is buying small cars anymore and “WE ARE AMERICANS AND WE DRIVE TRUCKS!” I shake my head at how short sighted we are as a nation (and world) but I don’t blame Ford in the least for giving the people what they want. When gas prices spike and people want more Focus & Fiesta models in the US then good for Mexico. I think in the near term a lot of the soon to be Mexican built vehicles will go for export outside of North America.
And full disclosure I drive a Mexican built Ford (Fusion) which thus far has been equally as good as the Ohio built Honda it replaced. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ford employs more American’s responsible for that vehicle than Honda does for theirs, regardless of where it’s screwed together, but the motive for my purchase was driving enjoyment. In the segment (4dr mid-full sizes sedans under $30k) it’s easily the best drivers car of the lot.
“the Colorado river in Laughlin is “the cleanest river in the country” as the riverboat captain said.”
Too bad it’s only 4 inches deep in places, and runs out miles shy of the ocean…but no worries — people can drink out of the fountains in Las Vegas!
Water may turn out to be a bigger problem than finance in our children’s future.
You’re right to say the river is only a few feet deep in some places. However, it is anywhere from 8 to 60 feet deep in that area. The water is clean because it emerges from the bottom of Davis dam and very little sunlight has hit it up to that point.
My wife was alarmed to see what I decided were two capybara swimming along the shore at the Harrah’s beach. Ordinarily, you only see carp swimming in the water. Still, you should have been on that river boat. The recorded tour said that every drop of water is accounted for and no water makes it into the Sea of Cortez due to the last dam built by Mexico to capture their portion, the last fresh water from the Colorado.
If you believe in evolution, the story is that Baja California is made up of the sand that came from the Grand Canyon. The river is also responsible for the more recent Salton Sea. The river with its tributaries travels over 1400 miles from the Rockies in Colorado to the Gulf of California.
While the narrative emphasizes the river history and the various dams built, the Sep 2016 edition of the Economic Development Journal Mohave County has a more general report: The Colorado River Compact divides the river basin into two sections, the upper basin – Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah – and the lower basin – Arizona, Nevada and California. The two basins each take 7.5 million acre-feet of water annually. Mexico gets an allotment of 1.5 million acre-feet of water annually per international treaty.
The lower basin has priority and receives up to 8.23 million acre-feet regardless of annual runoff. This is made possible by the 1956 Colorado River Storage Project that created a savings account of water in the Lake Powell reservoir.
Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona allows for storage of 26.2 million acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. That amount is 86% of the total 30.6 million acre-feet storage capacity of the entire river project. I believe SSS has covered this topic more thoroughly.
I wanted to get on the jet boat to Havasu but the wife said it was too hot. It was 106 degrees. So we stuck to the water taxis.