are we screwed?

herd/beehive mentals

Yes,but do the hicks write mesages on your car?..Or do they just take it out on you?..I dislike the notion that if you have an older vehicle of any kind,you hate the planet.You don't care about the environment.You're in cahoots with Al Qaeda and the Cali drug cartel...No,I just like a car with a little more character and style than a big metal slug on wheels.

 

wives

My wife and I share the opinion that stationwagons are the REAL men's cars!!!Fold down the back and back-back seats,toss in a mattress,a few pillows and a blankie---and you end up having way more fun then you can in the backseat of a Corvette. ...women...

 

I'm a big time hick who enjoys the big trucks and what-not, and would like to have one, but a wagon is a bigger priority. Besides, I have a soft-spot for the big vintage barges that just puts a truck on the backburner.

And I get the business from my buddies with all their big trucks and what-not, but I just don't care. We were sitting at my buddy's place the other day and they were complaining that the sunlite of the chrome on my car was blinding them. Miles of chrome beats anything a pickup has to offer.

 

I propose a job-creating counter-attack! Lobby your senators and congressmen to use some of the infrastructure money to build up a conversion industry to retrofit the older cars with cleaner technology. Why would So Cal or Arizona need to scrap a perfectly good body if a new powertrain could be installed?

The emissions generated to scrap the car, and then build a new one are more than retrofitting!

You'd have a whole new industry, that would keep quality classics running for decades more, AND you'd keep the repro parts manufactures employed. That's a WIN-WIN, that you could pull off while the big-three are in dire straits!

It just makes no sense to throw away a good body, burn the plastic and rubber, smelt the metals (aluminum, stainless and copper are really toxic to melt down for reuse, sheetmetal is the easiest, but cast iron needs more carbon from... COAL, a real emissions pariah!).

Drop a clean powerplant in it, for about $5,000 to $10,000, instead of paying $40,000 plus interest for a Tupperware car! More affordable! More secure for the families without credit (whose fault is that?), No way to keep getting around affordably to find freakin' work or do some cash job.

It's time to get them thinking for the little guy, and not just the CEOs.

They get the Greenie awards, we get to keep running.

There's lots of newer engines we can fit into our cars, and there's lots of greener and even Hybrid systems that can be fitted. Up here in Canada, 3 provinces have already signed onto the California strategy. Mine is one of them. So far, my car is ok. But they don't even ask the public for input, so I pester our Premier (Governor) and my MLA (Local congressman) with emails about options. Sometimes they write back and thank me for my input. Better than doing nothing about it. I still want to see pictures of restored classics for the next 20 years, and see them on the road.

 

Norm, this is already allowed in California.

 

You mean, you can actually do something in California? Everything I look at in magazines is always not allowed in California, or is known in California to cause cancer, yada, yada, yada.

 

two stories

(1)Back when my car was a 77 Dodge Aspen wagon(no woodie)A young co-worker with an Eagle Talon asked,"Why would anyone want wood on their car?Wood is so NOT car!" I just stood there,perplexed,wondering if History classes taught that cars used to come with a lot more wood in them,anymore.Not just on the exteriour and in the interiour,but in the frame and body as well.
(2)Overheard a conversation where someone was asking another,"Why would anyone want chrome on a pick-up truck?You get one little dent and you can see it a mile off!" And I thought,"Oh,and you don't see the dents in these new fangled bumpers?" Oh,that's right,new fangled bumpers just rip right off and the styrofoam underneath flies out all over the place!..

 

sounds good to me

People ARE holding onto their cars longer these days.That IS one of reasons for the current auto sales slump.And,because of all that consumer activism in the past,the bodies ARE lasting a good long time.I have also thought of making my 86 Colony Park an electric or a hybrid.And,even doing that to older wagons as well...Here in California,the trendies like to turn up their noses at SUV hybrids(unless they're Toyota Highlanders,of course.Escapes and Mariners are crimes against humanity)complaining that different trendies want to have their cake AND eat it too.By having both a hybrid and an SUV.All in the same vehicle...A big trend allready going on,down here,is the conversion of MBZ diesels to bio-diesel.Haven't seen any other diesels doing that.Some power generators for movie companies have gone bio-diesel...So,obviously,there IS a market there to be had.Making it catch on,for the kinds of cars WE like,seems to be the problem.

 

Yes Virginia...

Some things still ARE allowed,BUT the list of allowable things to do DOES seem to keep getting shorter,all the time.

 

"Here in California,the trendies like to turn up their noses at SUV hybrids(unless they're Toyota Highlanders,of course.Escapes and Mariners are crimes against humanity)complaining that different trendies want to have their cake AND eat it too.By having both a hybrid and an SUV.All in the same vehicle..."
umm ....yeah.. i drove an escape hybrid when i worked for ford, it got 34mpg around town during the 2 days i had it....and i even touched 40 at one point....it does better than my wifes 08 focus!

 

those hybrids

from what I've been reading,the Escape and Mariner hybrids actually get better mpgs than the Highlander hybrids and compare quite evenly otherwise,but that the age old tales of Toyota's superiourity have people thinking that the Ford and Mercury products are crap right off the end of the assembly line.GMC/Chevy have a full size hybrid SUV that's been catching flak on local L.A.TV "news",as well.

 

I pity anyone who tries to open a gun store there.

 

that subject as well

In the Greater Los Angeles Area,most are gone.Sporting goods stores that do have guns only have long guns and ammo.The only real gun stores left,it seems,are the ones at the shooting ranges.And there's movements afoot to eliminate some of those.Even the LAPD had to close down the outdoor shooting range at their Elysian Park Academy a few years back,due to neighbour complaints of noise.There are a few ranges with clout,however,I don't see closing down anytime soon.And while they're in plain sight,you might not see them if you didn't know they were there.Several are in areas of town where noise doesn't matter and there's no neighbours.Or they're not actually in town,they're up a side canyon in the hills.

 

Its getting scary everywhere. Its almost becoming a bad thing to be a true blooded American in some parts of the US. Looking at that picture that Squire Don had of the protesters, just looking at that sent chills down my back.

Untill our IL gov' was kicked out of office, he wanted to mandate "green lanes" around the Chicago area tollways/expressways, looking at LA as a somekind of model. In Blogos eyes, he wanted the far left (kinda ironic) to be only for hybrid type cars/trucks and if the gas only cars/trucks wanted to use the lane, they would have to pay double the toll charge.

Chicago traffic is already a mess, why screw it up even more. I don't think the gov Quinn that has stepped into Blogos shoes is going to be any friendler to cars that use gas.

The ONLY real good thing here in IL, once a car reaches I think eaither 20 or 25 years old, its emmisions exempt. But most cars don't make it past 20 years old, due to the large amounts of salt used in the winter.

 

thoe lanes and stuff

Congressman Tom McClintock(republican representative for some of the San Fernando Valley)has been trying to get rid of the "carpool lanes" here in Southern California,for years on end.Along the lines of'(1)None travel the full length of any freeway.And most end just as they get to sections usually troubled by rush hour traffic.So,they're actually useless.(2)on the few toll roads we have here(they ARE talking about making more of those)when there is traffic congestion,they really don't help.And so,they're actually useless.(3)was totally against letting Priuses and other alternative fuel vehicles into the carpool lanes with only one person in them.Thought motorcycles should be excluded too,as they just seem to weave thru traffic anyway.Especially when it's all stopped up. The "far left lane" types,of which I am,on some issues(just not these ones,apparently),usually get their way,however.There ARE more of them and they ARE all about priveleges and rewards for "doing the right thing".Even when there's proof that "the right thing" they approve of,really isn't working the way they say it is.