Still don’t have a new computer. I’m posting from my phone.
Cristy Lee’s increased screen time was the best part of the recent telecast of the Barrett-Jackson auction from Mohegan Sun.
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FYI
Sometimes we make decisions and sometimes decisions are thrust upon us.
I was going to take a break from posting starting this weekend, but my old (9 years) computer has just given me the blue screen of death, so I may have to buy a new computer and that would still mean not posting for awhile.
“It is only when machines fail that they remind us how powerful they are.”
Clive James
Wish I Had Room For This :(
From Bring A Trailer (the link):
A 1966 Studebaker Daytona Sports Sedan! A very rare car, being sold supposedly by the third owner. Only 8,947 1966 Studebakers were manufactured; the Encyclopedia of American Cars let me down here, a rarity, as it doesn’t have production figures for this particular model. The seller’s ad claims “This 1966 Studebaker Daytona Sports Sedan was produced on January 11, 1966 and is an unrestored example believed to be one of the last 905 examples built at the Hamilton, Ontario plant.”
This car is all original including its Chevrolet-built 283 cubic inch V-8. Studebaker’s Canadian-built cars in 1964-66 had Chevrolet engines as the Studebaker engine assembly ceased with the closing of the South Bend plant. As I write this the high bid is $10,250 and only ten minutes left. I wish I could bid on this…
Postscript: this car sold for $10,750. Given Bring A Trailer’s buyers commission is only five percent, all in the lucky winner paid $11,287.50. I think that’s a bargain, but I have an unhealthy obsession with defunct American makes, in case you hadn’t heard. 🙂
Autonomous Cars? Not So Fast…
Please read this story from CNBC.
Dual-Ghia
This picture of a 1957 Dual-Ghia convertible is from this Hemmings post.
I posted this as a comment there:
For old guys like me, the word “hybrid” in an automotive context means a car like this or an Iso Grifo. I saw a Dual-Ghia in person at a Barrett-Jackson auction my wonderful wife and I attended and it may have been my favorite car there. The car just exuded magnificence. I lament the lack of variety in today’s automotive offerings. “Progress” may be good, in general, but like virtually everything else in life, “progress” is not ALL good.
This car was priced at $7,500 new in 1957, a little more expensive than a Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz and way less than a Continential Mark II that had a list price of close to $10,000. The drivetrain was a Dodge engine, which could be a hemi, and a PowerFlite automatic transmission. Carrozzeria Ghia, based in Turin, Italy, supplied the bodies and the interiors.
In my previous blog I posted about the Dual-Ghia. It probably took me two to three months to fully recover from the shock of having that blog removed by the Evil Empire, of having lost six years of thoughts and hundreds of posts. As I keep writing, I believe I have good reason to be a disaffected man.
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/5:2014cv02329/277540
Escape From Auschwitz
From this article:
“On 20 June 1942, the SS guard stationed at the exit to Auschwitz was frightened. In front of him was the car of Rudolph Höss, the commandant of the infamous concentration camp. Inside were four armed SS men, one of whom – an Untersturmführer, or second lieutenant, was shouting and swearing at him.
‘Wake up, you buggers!’ the officer screamed in German. ‘Open up or I’ll open you up!’ Terrified, the guard scrambled to raise the barrier, allowing the powerful motor to pass through and drive away.
Yet had he looked closer, the guard would have noticed something strange: the men were sweating and ashen-faced with fear. For far from being Nazis, the men were Polish prisoners in stolen uniforms and a misappropriated car, who had just made one of the most audacious escapes in the history of Auschwitz. And the architect of the plot, the second lieutenant, was a boy scout, to whom the association’s motto ‘Be prepared’ had become a lifeline.”
The four men were Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanislaw Gustaw Jaster, Josef Lempart—the “officer” doing the screaming—and Eugeniusz Bendera. Not that it matters, but the first three were Polish and I have read that Bendera was Ukrainian or Polish, depending on the source.
Over one million people died in Auschwitz, 90 percent of whom were Jews. Never Forget! Never Again!
ZR-1
First…one of my favorite college professors would, on occasion, recite something he heard growing up in China. “It doesn’t matter what color a cat is. Any cat that catches mice is a good cat.” People who obsess about diversity just for the sake of diversity are focused on the cat’s color and not its mice-catching ability.
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From Automobile Magazine comes this article comparing the 1990 Corvette ZR-1 to the 2019 ZR-1. Really, which one do you think is better? From the article, a picture of the 2019 ZR-1:
This ZR-1 has a top speed of 215 MPH, which is limited in order to stay within tire safety standards. The car is powered by a 755 HP/715 LB-FT of torque supercharged V-8. I found this passage amusing: “Coming into turn 1, the car was beyond 150 mph, still accelerating hard as I entered the brake zone. I pushed the stop pedal hard, and the ZR1 dutifully spit my eyeballs out of my head.” The writer, Andy Pilgrim, was driving this car on Road Atlanta.
Chevrolet claims the ZR-1 will accelerate from 0 to 100 MPH, not 0 to 60, in 6 seconds. A six-second time 0 to 60 is damn quick, believe me. The ZR-1’s 0 to 60 time? According to Chevrolet, 2.85 seconds! By the way, the 1990 ZR-1 had 375 HP, 370 LB-FT of torque and could accelerate from 0 to 60 MPH in a shade under five seconds.
OK, so nobody really needs to own or to drive a car like this. In my opinion, life is too short to always be responsible. In general, I believe that virtually no behavior is always appropriate. Have some fun! Be good to yourself! As I have written (too) many times before, if you like performance cars, buy one if you can afford it or they might not be available for long.
