Posts from ‘Humor’
Worst Car Commercials: The 80s
Is this a scene from the worst car commercial of all time? Read on…
For as relatively new a form of communication as television is, the content broadcast via that medium ages incredibly quickly. In terms of style and language, it may be difficult to tell a book written in 1920 from one penned a couple of decades later. Television history, however, is well defined by rather short epochs, and none is more easily recognizable or uniquely self contained than the Eighties.
Meet Doc, and His Million-Mile Civic
Darrell “Doc” Gould and his (almost) million-mile 2008 Honda Civic
One of the best perks of my job is visiting on-air with WGN radio host Nick Digilio as a guest of The Nick Digilio Show. A fixture of Chicago overnight radio, Nick’s show is a late-night entertainment oasis in a sea of repetitive news, pre-recorded political blather, and infomercials.
It was once possible–and relatively common–to push-start cars with automatic transmissions.
Back in the “good ol’ days,” push-starting a car was a fairly common occurrence. In fact, the skills necessary to push-start a manual-transmission automobile were once considered common knowledge. Interestingly, “Money Saving Facts for Car Owners,” a handy informational booklet/DIY guide that was published around 1960 by Allstate Insurance, doesn’t even cover the process for manual-transmission cars, the authors presumably assuming that everyone knew how to do that. Instead, a handy chart in the booklet (which we’ve excerpted below) covers only the details of push-starting cars with automatic (and semi-automatic) transmissions.
Once home to sleazy bars and adult-entertainment venues, Rand Road outside of Palatine, Illinois, is now populated by a dozen or so small used-car dealerships.
The village of Palatine, Illinois, isn’t much worth knowing about unless you live there. A relatively contemporary Chicago suburb today, the community dates back more than 150 years, though it was best known for most of its first century as a lightly used rail stop utilized mostly by local farmers.
They’re almost exactly the same color, but each shade of gray has a unique name. Check them out.
The older and crankier among us have long lamented that all new cars look alike. If we’re entirely honest about it, we must concede that our grouchy acquaintances aren’t completely wrong. Certain safety and aerodynamic considerations have, to some extent, tied the hands of vehicle designers, giving them a little less leeway when it comes to shaping a modern car or truck.
The wonderful thing about bad movies, especially bad action/adventure movies, is that they are often redeemed (at least partially) by something utterly absurd.
What kind of car owner would you have been in 1959? Take this handy quiz and find out.
Sometime in 1959 or 1960, Allstate produced and shipped to policy holders a delightful booklet of helpful car-care hints. The digest-sized, 96-page publication, titled Money-Saving Facts for Car Owners, is packed with useful information, including a chapter on the wisdom of using premium gas, and another that deals with checking your fan belt.
An excerpt from Money Saving Facts for Car Owners, a booklet published by Allstate Insurance circa 1959.
Question: When was the last time your auto-insurance company mailed you anything other than a bill?
We suspect this Coupe DeVille has fallen into the hands of an ungrateful heir.
Some time ago, I wrote a piece about the unlikely vehicles I still see on a regular basis. You can check out that list here. One car I neglected to make note of at the time was the Cadillac DeVille–specifically front-wheel-drive-era DeVilles.
5 Reasons Why You Still Need to Learn to Drive Stick
T-shirts bearing this design can be had at Redbubble.com.
The manual transmission is dead. I refuse to acknowledge any evidence to the contrary. The fact is, autonomous technology—even semi-autonomous technology—is completely incompatible with the manual transmission, and that is where the industry is headed.
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