Some of the best stories out there are the ones that reach deep inside you. Sometimes, the words, even about some silly facts about cars, relate to something in your life. Sometimes, the story takes you down memory lane.
Jason wrote about how many cars have standard features that you never actually see in the wild. This triggered some memories within Jason J Lukawitz:
When I was a kid, my parents went out to purchase a car, initially they came home with a pea green Chrysler wagon, I really have no clue as to the model – but – I know it wasn’t the Volare rather MUCH bigger in size. They only had that car for 24-48 hours, not sure the reasoning behind it being at our house (I was only 4-5 years old at the time), but it went away shortly after being acquired.
If I had to guess, the dealership may have “rolled” the car absent full credit approval, my parents where high credit score types in those days, but regardless of the “why” it went back, the return trip was in a Baby Powder Blue Mercury Monarch with contrasting dark blue vinyl roof. (And no Torch – it wasn’t a manual!).
Shortly after that purchase, we went Great Adventure in New Jersey ( I think it’s now Six Flags ) and drove through the animal safari wherein a group of monkeys mounted the car in a pseudo sexual guided destruction event whereby they shredded the vinyl roof into long 2-3″ wide strips the length of the roof.
My parents were livid, forget the whole “travel at your own risk” signage at the entrance, they Demanded reparations for the damage to the car, and when they didn’t receive them, proceeded to “glue” and repair the roof using different vinyl repair kits on the market in that era.
Those repairs didn’t last, soon the strips of vinyl would flap in the wind as travel was made in the car. A funny side note, this was the car my parents decided to start enforcing a seatbelt rule, so young me used scissors to cut away the rear passenger lap belt, my mom catching me in the act, but the belt itself already cut nearly halfway through, that being an endearing feature of the car until such time as it burnt to the ground one day as my father drove home from work.
He was fine, the Monarch – totaled.
Oh the memories this site brings back, I’m starting to feel like my membership fee is going towards making me feel old!
-Jason
Matt wrote about how Stellantis wants to beat Chinese cars by selling diesels. Then he asked about what powertrain you’d like to see come back in a hypothetical world of no emissions controls. DialMforMiata:
I’m not going to do Stellantis’s homework for them.
Brian wrote about how people are installing an Infiniti app into their GM vehicles to make their stereos sound better. Iotashan made this funny observation:
I’ve reached out to both GM and Nissan about this phenomenon.
Do you want to get the software banned from GM vehicles? Because this is how you get the software banned from GM vehicles. See “My Bad: While Reporting About How People Are Selling CarFax Reports On Etsy, I Got All Of The Listings Removed“
Mighty Bagel:
GM Marketing is currently drafting a email to GM Infotainment as we read this to get installation of this app blocked on all GM vehicles for ‘Security Reasons’.
Have a great evening, everyone!
I’m waiting for an article about tire blowouts at highway speeds.
I have a great memory-lane-style tale to share for that occasion. 🙂
Our ’74 Country Squire also ended up with a shredded vinyl roof that flapped in the wind. No monkeys involved though, just a combination of a relaxed view of build quality coupled with relentless Colorado sun.
Wow, I always heard stories about the monkeys and vinyl roofs, just vague enough that I wondered if it was an urban legend. Apparently it was a thing.
Also, calling it Great Adventure definitely establishes Jersey credentials.
When my family went camping in Canada when I was a kid, we went to Safari Africain, which was a (at least partially) drive-thru safari park. The baboon area was a separate fenced area. There were the warning signs, and a sign saying to drive thru at like 5 mph.
As soon as we entered the area and the gates closed behind us, the baboons started coming over, and onto the car. No vinyl roof on the Ambassador, but some of them started picking at the dead leaves and seeds from the wiper well and eating them. Then yanking up the wipers to get more. Then tearing off the chrome strip on the trailing edge of the hood (or possibly the lower edge of the windshield, I was young). At that point my normally calm and easygoing father was pissed, and he started gunning the car forwards and slamming on the brakes to get the mucking fonkeys off the car. It finally got them off, we exited the area, and we got out to see the damage.
Beyond the trim destruction, one of the bastards had taken a dump on the roof.
I guess it pays to keep the debris out of your wiper wells.
I’ve been binge-watching a bunch of FailArmy videos on YouTube lately and I am convinced I don’t want to live or even visit anywhere with monkeys and bears.
I went to Safari park a long while ago with some friends, and while the monkeys ignored the car I was in, they decided the rubber strips on the roof* of my friend’s car deserved to go, and several of them almost managed to rip them off.
Fortunately they weren’t damaged and we managed to re-attach them.
*(I think they were to cover where a roof rack would attach)
My Mother also had this car, bought new after her Pinto got totaled, so probably a 77 or 78 model.
It shit the bed in 1982 and was replaced with a Datsun B210 hatchback. It’s amazing to me that cars back then were so disposable, and 4 or 5 years was considered an acceptable lifetime for a vehicle. The Datsun managed 250K miles and ten years, the last few of which were under my older brother’s stewardship, wherein he proceeded to wreck the thing with half assed repairs and fixes, ultimately cracking the block in half when the straight water in the block froze because he couldn’t “afford” coolant.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in regards to the coolant.
OR, and hear me out, don’t give a car to someone who has already proven they are incapable of maintaining it after the first car you gave them 🙂 I might still be salty about it because the Datsun should have been mine.
Backstory, Dad gave my brother a Triumph TR4A, that never ran for longer than 3 days at a time, so clearly giving him a second car to keep running was a good idea.
This reminded me of a childhood auto experience in Ireland . I was maybe 5 and we had no car but my father borrowed a ratty split-window VW from a neighbor to visit a relative in a rural area . In the early fifties the roads were primitive as was the VW.
We were driving along a narrow country lane at maybe 25 mph when an enormous pig came out of the hedgerow . To me it looked like a hippo . We broadsided the pig.
The VW had the crash resistance of a Kleenex box but the pig was like a Sherman tank. Result: No headlight, front all stove in, Pig : Slight cut in its side, shook itself and strolled away .
I do not share Jason’s love of old VWs
Sounds like the reason VW put in a remote trunk release later on. With that and slightly better aim you could get the pig in the frunk and have a pig roast for your friends and the owner. Preferably not gasoline flavored from the pig hitting the gas tank too hard.
“does anyone else smell bacon? Liam and Connor, you better not have brought home another frunking pig!”
Everobody knows only shrimps are allowed in the frunk.
Edit: Right after posting this, I flipped back to the front page and the Ford Frunk Shrimp lady was there!
I don’t think you want to know what a deer did to the front of a 1996 Cadillac Fleetwood at about 35mph
But did you die?