This morning I was behind a pickup truck that was somewhat customized, but that wasn’t the interesting thing about it to me. What was interesting was that it appeared to have some sort of law enforcement ID stuck to the rear window (it was definitely a private vehicle, not a police vehicle).
I thought of two possible reasons for this:
Just a general way of trying to get out of tickets, an attempt to say something like “Hey, I’m in law enforcement, too, and we take care of each other, right?”
I could see that the driver was black, so it might also be “I’m one of you; you don’t need to treat me like I’m a threat, like some other high-profile incidents involving black men during traffic stops.”
I suppose there could be some actual, official reason for it, but I’ve never seen it before.
I have heard advice that it’s better to drive on the rim until you can get somewhere where you can safely pull all the way off the road, than to get hit by a car while changing a tire on the shoulder.
Absolutely but not the case this time. It was on the outskirts of the airport with big wide roadways and you can see for miles. Great place for ‘urban’ coyote or hawk spotting, come to think of it, still within Chicago. It’s also rigorously patrolled by Department of Aviation tow trucks since it’s airport grounds.
Reminds me of a phone conversation I imagined, after seeing a grinning male teenager drive by me on 3 tires+1 rim. It was Sunday morning.
Her: Wanna come over?
Him: I can’t. My truck only has 3 tires. How about tomorrow?
Her: My parents went to church. They’ll be gone for 2 hours.
Him: On my way.
As a person that has done a LOT of 4-wheeling. And made many river crossings, If you need a snorkel that high, it’s just gonna float for a minute, and sink.
Acura NSXs (for North America; they were Honda NSXs in other countries) were manufactured from 1991-2005 and were designed to compete with Ferrari and Porsche. The NSX was Honda’s first supercar. NSX stands for “New”, “Sportscar” “eXperimental”. Brazilian Formula One World Champion Ayrton Senna helped refine its design, especially its chassis rigidity and cornering/handling capabilities, and Senna also tested the NSX at the famed Nürburgring Grand Prix race track in Germany. The NSX has a mid-mounted, transverse V6 and it had the world’s first production car engine with titanium connecting rods, forged pistons, and ultra high-revving capabilities (8,300 RPM) – traits usually associated with track and race engineered cars. More than 18,000 NSXs were sold worldwide during its 15 year production run.
Today in Mountain View, CA, a 4th-generation Honda Prelude produced 1991–1996.
The Honda Prelude was manufactured through five generations from 1978-2001. This 4th-gen example was a bargain performance car in its day and was one of the best-handling cars available at a low price. It still is, if you can find a good, used example then you can get Honda reliability in a low-cost, sporty car.
Honda is resurrecting the Prelude for its 6th generation beginning this year (2025) and it will serve as a replacement for the discontinued Civic and Accord Coupes.
And the opposite happened a few years later, when people in the know could save money getting a used Pontiac Vibe instead of a used Toyota Matrix, even though they were the same car, both with Toyota reliability.
I think that snorkel may be standard on that vehicle. Very useful in the supermarket parking lot. I spoke to the driver and started asking her questions about it and she just smiled and said it’s her husband’s car.
I didn’t realize that it has BWM engines. They’re also making an electric model. I wonder if they’ll keep the snorkel?
This evening I saw a second generation Toyota Mirai on the road. The Mirai is Toyota’s fuel cell powered car, and in the US I believe it’s only available in California. I used to occasionally see a first generation model around my neighborhood, but I’m pretty this is the first time I’ve seen a second gen one in the wild. The second generation has a more upscale, almost Lexus like look to it, while the first gen looked, well, kind of like a Prius.
Since the only byproduct of the fuel cells is water, it periodically dumps water onto the road while the car is stopped, something I witnessed while behind it at a red light. Maybe I’m being immature, but to me it kind of looks like the car is peeing when it does that.
This morning on my way to the office I saw a light blue 1960-something Ford Galaxie 500.
The photo below was not taken today; it was taken almost five years ago, on my last day at the office before the COVID stay at home orders, in fact. But it looks identical to the car I saw this morning, so I suspect it’s the same car.
I forgot to post this on the day I saw it, but last Friday I was in line at the In-N-Out drive thru, when I heard the “beep beep beep” of a truck backing up from behind me. Except when I turned around, the beeping was coming from a Honda Odyssey minivan that was backing out of a parking space. At first I thought it must be coming from some other vehicle, but the beeping stopped as soon as the minivan’s driver shifted into drive, so I am certain that’s the vehicle it was coming from. I’ve never seen a humble minivan with a back up alarm like that before. It was definitely interesting.
On the drive up to a remote mountain lodge in NH I spotted a Honda Acty mini truck in someone’s driveway. I’ve only seen Mitsubishi trucks of this size, but it’s cool to see another brand. No pictures today, but it looked like this:
