And this came to mind. We mostly talk about cars, but sometimes we talk about life. Today I brought my 90 year old dad lunch. He was driving himself and fairly independent until about a year ago. Now he is not, eyesight, joints, old age. Last night I asked him what he wanted for lunch, he said McDonald's, two spicy chicken sandwiches and an apple pie. After I got off the phone I was smiling and chuckling to myself. My wife asked why, I said, "dad wants McDonald's for lunch." All she could muster was a "that's gross" or something to that effect.

I was just totally tickled, not many benefits to getting older, but not worrying about the long term health effects of diet is a small but significant pleasure.

Out of a sense of duty and comradery I enjoyed guilt free good lunch of bad food with him. It was a nice day.

Token car related content, drove the IS300, first hot day this spring, AC is dead. Do not care, it can be fixed.

Subaru Crosstrek. I have not purchased a new car for years. People talk about the experience being horrible. I had never felt it was great before, but truly much worse this time. We set the price, sticker plus a small doc. fee, in normal times that would seem bad but right now about the best you can do.

Then a guy was going to call me about extended warranties and other services. I am having the car delivered so this was over the phone. He sent me a cafeteria list of warranties and ad ons. If I would have bought them all it would have added 10 grand or about 33% to the purchase price.

He went through all the terrible things that could happen to the car, both in and out of warranty. Three years of extended bumper to bumper was nearly three grand, down to two when I didn't bite.

I said no to everything, patiently explained that we were already at twice the car budget we started with, and I wasn't inclined to plunk down more today unless he wanted to offer three years extended for a grand.

He also threw out the "nobody can work on cars these days" thing, after a couple of those I told him I had a lift in my garage and I had rebuilt engines, transmissions, painted cars, and done most anything else you can do on a car. When he was still talking I said I had owned my last car I bought new 15 years ago and had spent less than $1000 on repairs over all that time, and I was planning to keep the Subaru for a long time and assumed it was a quality vehicle that wouldn't need a lot of work done. I didn't go ballistic, just matter of fact, that one made him backpedal a little.

Anyway, point isn't that I didn't get talked into anything or made some decent points, it is that after the conversation, him going over all the terrible things that could happen to the car, tree sap staining the paint, TPMS sensors, he wanted me to pre-buy service "at a discount" etc. and we talked the price of that.

Anyway, after the conversation with the guy I felt like I had not just spent a lot of money on a reliable vehicle, I had spent a big wad of cash on a money pit. Did not leave a good feeling about the experience at all.

I don't remember much beyond an attempt to sell paint treatment or something when we bought the Honda way back when. But it was way back when, maybe I have blocked the memory.Colored Text Here

It seemed appropriate for the Oppo-verse at this place and time, plus made me chuckle.

Veri tight autocross course today. Like mostly first gear tight, I could kind of horse the car around by sort of controlled skids. Great fun.

Found this in the 3 for a dollar bin at the used toy store. Looked like it had a pretty nice shell, inspired by youse guys here, I thought I would redo it.
As Found:

Disassembled:

Stripped

Blessed (or maybe about to be eaten) by Lord UPPU

I was going to paint it red, but didn't have any suitable red spray paint, then I remembered I had some black, and very appropriate, spray paint

Done:

Added to Display

Went to a diecast show today, think it is the first time I have gone to an exclusively diecast show, though I have been to many Swap meets and such where they are for sale. Anyway, by far the coolest thing I saw was this collection of malaise era Matchbox cars:

Here, let me enhance a little

Why yes, you are seeing Vegas, Chevettes, Matadors, a LeBaron Woody Wagon, a Pacer, a Mustang II.

It almost seemed like a crime these were being pieced out, should have offered them as a set. And I felt if I was going to buy one I should probably buy one of each. Was there ever a more unloved set of misfits than this motley, emissions strangled crew? I passed, I am sure they will haunt my miniature dreams for years.

On the plus side I did score a VW Type 34 Convertible an Aston Martin and some other uncarded bits for a quarter a piece.

And some carded Matchbox and Hot Wheels for a few dollars more.

Nice siting walking the dog today at lunch, unrestored C2 Corvette. Local classic car dealer sign in the truck, assume it will be for sale soon, but didn't see anything on their website.

Bonus Doggo Pic

Wrote a couple weeks ago about an oil leak on the IS300. Thought I was going to have to pull the timing belt and pulleys.

Started digging further, found a missing washer in my oil change container. Turned out to be the oil drain plug washer for the IS. Because their was still oil streaks/residue from before I changed the valve cover gaskets a few months ago, I thought the oil was dripping from up above the oil pan.

Since the fix of my washer snafu I put the top of a pizza box under the drippy parts. One week, no drips, only caveat it has been very cold.

And.. power steering hoses on the Porsche were leaking where they attached to the fluid reservoir. No matter how tight I clamped they still seeped. Replacement hoses were like $100 bucks. I snipped the end of the hose, but then they wouldn't fit over the flared fittings on the bottom of the reservoir. Anticipating this I warmed the houses up with a heat gun until they slipped on. A week later still dry.

Triumph oil leak update-- still leaks.

Most all the old gang seems to be here and I can edit comments to infinity and beyond.

Old Studebaker truck driving in the snow at Christmas for reading my sappy post, and a story to go with it. An old lady in a big Lincoln backed into to me (flesh and blood me, not in the car me) while I took this picture. Luckily she was backing up slowly like a little old lady and I just heard someone say stop (passerby) and felt a firm steady push on my leg. I tapped her trunk to let her know I was there, she drove off without saying anything.

I went to Savannah, GA, this week and had a chance to visit the State of Georgia train museum. While the trains were cool I was more interested in how they kept them running.

The first feature was the working turntable and roundhouse.

More than just a way to store trains, steam engines work better going forward, so they were used to turn the engine around. Steam engines also needed a lot of service and maintenance that would be performed in the various stalls at the roundhouse.

The turntable itself was first turned by human power, and, according to the guide, so well engineered and balanced that a small child could turn it when it didn't have a locomotive on it. They upgraded to steam power, then electric.

The machine age shop had a steam engine that turned a shaft that ran through the shop up high. The shaft turned belts that connected to a large assortment of industrial sized powered tools, with various sizes pulleys for different gearing and speeds.

Should mention that the boiler room and steam engine were in a separate building, two reasons, one, in the summer, in Georgia, a steam engine would make a building very hot, second, a boiler under pressure can blow up spectacularly.

There was also a blacksmith's shop and a big dining room in the shop, keeping the maintenance shop going was very labor intensive.

The shop was fascinating, but my favorite part of the tour was the old passenger car they had open. I made a few passenger train trips in pre-amtrak days. Even though the trains and train stations were getting a a bit shabby by then, the sights, sounds and smells (diesel, I am not that old) on the trains and in the stations fascinated a kid who loved mechanical things. Going in to the old passenger car stirred up very fuzzy and pleasant memories of riding a train for the first time.

Fun fact, the toilets dumped straight into the track, you weren't supposed to use the toilet within 15 minutes or so of getting to the station as you would stink up the city and the station

The little guy below was inoperative, a yard engine, it was in use from when it was built in the 1800s until it was retired in the 1950s. I believe the guide said it weighed 44 tons.

They did have an operating steam loco, said the temperature would average 130F and above on a hot day as you worked shoveling coal onto the fire grate. Stay hydrated train workers!

@AkioOhtori Despite never having owned or driven one, I am pretty well convinced that the Maserati Biturbo is probably one of the worst cars built in the last 50 years as far as reliability goes, the one you have posted sure looks nice, and seems like a deliciously awful wonderful idea. The only Biturbos I have seen in the wild were probably less than five years old and already very broken and worn out cosmetically and mechanically. Good Luck!

Is this the same trip that you were planning the route across Nebraska and South Dakota?

@Krusty-Walnut I am feeling kind of opposite, don't like any of them, top is the worst (simply garish) middle least objectionable. I don't know what models they are SUVs have proliferated a lot, not really my thing and I can't (don't care to) keep track of them all.

@pyroholtz Wasn't aware of the Disturbed version, tried to listen with an open mind, it is certainly not bad, but didn't wow me, have to go with Simon and Garfunkel, but I grew up with them spinning on the 33.333 RPM turntable and their sound and style is kind of ingrained into the memory banks.

Will add that I generally prefer the original version to a cover, unless Linda Ronstadt was singing it, she rocked some great covers of iconic artists tunes, Neil Young, Elvis Costello, etc.

@Dr-Zoidberg Probably the last thing on anybody's mind but mine, but seeing old IS and new IS together a question popped into my head. Old IS was a little tight in the back seat legroom dept. Is new IS better?

@MUSASHI66 I am old and a bit overweight, but have played basketball most of my adult life, and still get out once every couple weeks. When I was young and less well off, I generally bought whatever was in my size on the clearance shelf, and never really got out of that habit, but do remember scoring a pair of sweet Air Jordans many years ago. My only "vanity" shoe purchase, conning my mom into a pair of these Adidas three stripe green shoes that the rich kids were wearing at my school and she could really not afford on a teacher's salary. I totally get where you are coming from.

@HoustonRunner Great looking wheels, I like the black painted lug area too, not the silver disc.

@sampsonite24 I anticipated this being about the weird little bike/snowmobile hybrid things that seem to turnover faster on BaT than they did when sold new.
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@davesaddiction All sorts of cars I really like on there, like every one of them.

@Exage03040 A lot of hate for the choices today, while neither is a car I would ever actually buy, I don't think they are that terrible. I don't think the Jelly Bean styling of the 90s has aged that well, with a few exceptions, but this isn't one of them.

I was very much all team Cadillac until I saw the interior, damn, that bright accent two tone thing they were doing in the early 00's (BMW did it with Z3s too) just never worked for me, reminds of a cheap Pepboys/Walmart seat covers.

That said, the light colored leather in the Buick doesn't look too good either.

Give me the Cadillac, now I need to take my nap, Doris, please hang up my Sansabelt slacks so they don't wrinkle and wake me up at 4:15 so we can make it to Red Lobster before the crowd.

@orneryduck I don't generally go for the huge wheels thing, but those solid wheels on the Pontiac are interesting, the rest of them are bad to want to scratch my eyes out bad.