Mittwoch Musings

October 10?! Once again, Mittwoch (“Middle of the Week”) is the German/Yiddish word for Wednesday.

Based on the specific “referrals” to the site, and as far as I can surmise, yesterday’s out of context post title (Mutant Zombies) may have attracted one or two readers who might not otherwise have read Disaffected Musings. Were any regular readers put off by the title?

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From Ambrose Bierce: “A conservative is a statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal who wishes to replace them with other evils.”

Bierce also said, “Politics is a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”

Bierce was a renowned writer/poet and a journalist who served in the Union Army for virtually the entire Civil War. In late 1913 he traveled to Mexico in an attempt to experience the Mexican Revolution first-hand. He was never seen again.

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Even noted finance publication Barron’s has taken note of the restomod industry. Long-time friend and Disaffected Musings reader Robert sent me this link. The article is about restomod Mustangs by a company called Revology founded by Tom Scarpello, a long-time auto industry veteran. What I found interesting and amusing is that the tone of this article makes it seem like Scarpello invented the idea of the restomod, even though that actual word is not used. Of course, restomods have been around a long time. Maybe people who read Barron’s have no idea.

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I’m still in a moratorium on writing about or showing C2 Corvettes. (Technically, I guess I just violated the moratorium.) I have been re-reading More Than They Promised, a history of Studebaker, by Thomas Bonsall. If I didn’t want to push away the rapidly increasing number of readers I would show a lot of charts from the book. These charts, on things like sales data and assets, fascinate me, but I’m more than a bit of an oddball as any regular reader knows.

Five-ish years ago I would not have had any interest in a car like this:

This is a photo (by yours truly) of a 1932 “custom” Studebaker St. Regis. By custom I mean the car has a non-standard body that includes extra-long doors. Most people think of Studebaker as a lower-price make and, of course, that was the reality for much of Studebaker’s existence. However, the real world is almost always more complicated than our distillations of it. People who engage in what I call impossible distillations of reality are usually off the mark.

This car is quite handsome in person, but one would not expect to see too many museum pieces in a state of squalor. Once again, if you are a car aficionado please do all that you can, within your means, to support the hobby. That might include membership in an automobile museum.

October 10?!