The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

[cjforumadmin]

http://www.bangshift.com/blog/The-LA-Times-is-Out-to-Crush-Your-Hot-Rod-This-Story-Will-Make-You-Mad.html

[BlackoutSteve]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

I think it's so ironic how Otis Chanlder, the publisher of the LA Times from 1960-1980, was such a lover of muscle cars and had probably the most awesome collection of genuinely rare American Muscle ever!
There is no way this crap would be coming out of his newspaper if he were still in charge.

He owned one of the only two ZL1 Corvettes. -The white one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Chandler

http://www.target.com/American-Muscle-Cars-Chandler-Collection/dp/0760310858

[yogreasygramma]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

Indeed, it does make my blood boil to read this communist propaganda crap.

To wit, "When the federal government announced the rebates of up to $4,500, Chris Hurst said, it looked like the perfect time to unload his gas-guzzling 1981 Ford F-150 pickup. Hurst, who lives in the Sierra foothills north of Fresno, was surprised to discover his truck was too old to qualify.

"If we could have gotten that rebate, it would have worked perfectly for us," said Hurst, who is now trying to sell the vehicle, equipped with Ford's biggest V-8 engine, for $1,600."

So he's unhappy he couldn't be on the receiving end of a socialist wealth distribution campaign which is also incidentally designed to rid us of our freedom of movement. His lack of luck in having a truck that doesn't qualify in no way makes it morally right to tax the people to pay him one dime! Also, it's too bad he never learned proper English grammar.

Another gem:

"Baker is trying to sell a brown 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass SS with a broken air conditioner and rusty fenders for $1,200.

"It's just an old car with 101,000 miles on it," said Baker, who hopes to join the ministry in the near future. "It is not a classic.""

Well, if he has a genuine Cutlass SS, I suppose it's worth far in excess of $1200, even in its rusted-out condition.

[BangShift McT]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

Absolutely amazing. Point out that SEMA assist groups who "make everything from Model T tires to AMC Gremlin upholstry". Never thought about replacement body panels? Never thought about crate engines, wiring kits or yes, even the interior specialists? Narrow minded asses.

(This, by far, has been my most controlled non-use of the F-bomb. It was real hard here... >)

[Monster]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

This is America and everyone is entitled to their opinion and freedom to express it.

.. and my opinion is that this is the worst piece of crappy journalism I have read in a long time.

[38P]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

Here's part of what I sent to one of the alleged journos via e-mail (feel free to copy, modify and e-mail to them if you like)

I found your article to be highly one-sided and biased toward the state-sponsored vandalism of low-priced vintage vehicles. The free market, not some taxpayer-funded welfare program ought to decide which vehicles survive and which do not. Short-sighted schemes such as ?Cash for Clunkers? corrode the free market. They also breed welfare sucklings who depend of borrowed-tax-money funded handouts. This dampens personal industry and self-reliance.

Of course the real intent of these programs is to drive people out of the automotive hobbies. As General Phillip Sheridan proposed in 1866, ?Kill the buffalo and you will kill the Indians.?

It?s the same with vintage automobile interests. Basic economics teaches that as costs and barriers to participation rise, fewer chose to participate. If the power-mad environmental lobby can deplete the supply of affordable ?vintage? donor and potential collector cars, the price of used replacement parts will necessarily skyrocket. In some situation, this could cause severe damage to the aftermarket. These state-sponsored vandalism plans also hurt vehicle resale markets and many small businesses who depend on servicing vintage vehicle market niches.

Nor do public relations ?puff pieces? supporting vehicle scrappage like yours take into account the entire ?life-cycle? cost to the environment of a vintage vehicle. Virtually all of the energy and pollution costs of producing a vintage vehicle have already been ?amortized? to the environment. And such vehicles have a limited impact on air pollution, notwithstanding the handwringing claims of ?experts? at CARB. The comparison of the Malibus is most unfair, given both the rarity of such models for regular transportation use and the infinitesimally tiny amount of ?pollution? of most current new vehicles. Most chain saws, motorcycles and lawn mowers probably emit several times the ?pollution? as the imaginary new Malibu ? and are much more common than a vintage 1960s collector car ? but they are not singled out for venom and slack-jawed demonization. Based on their cumulative effect (e.g. vehicle miles driven), many, if not most, of the vehicles destroyed in Cash for Clunkers plans are NOT ?some of the most polluting cars.?

These wasteful plans are indiscriminate. They sweep up fairly common-place utility models as well as rare milestone vehicles which have the misfortune to be at the low ebb of the depreciation cycle and in the custody of greedy, welfare-loving ?appliance motorists.? However, to true students of automotive history and design, any pointless destruction of potential collector or donor vehicles is an irreplaceable loss to future generations of motoring enthusiasts.

Much like a ban on ?Saturday Night Specials,? Cash for Clunkers disproportionately attacks the lower economic classes. It is therefore elitist in effect.

Cash for Clunkers programs also disproportionately affect affordable V8 powered vehicles. Some have described them a as a ?war on V8s.? Given the coming hikes in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (motivated in part to placate a minority of California enviro-socialists), fewer RWD V8s will be produced and the few that survive will become significantly less affordable. Thus, one of the apparent aims of Cash for Clunkers plans is to limit the availability of traditional V8 performance vehicles.

Undoubtedly the most radical of the greens (and some allegedly ?objective? journalists) will not be satisfied until vehicular liberty is decimated. A world of slaves to public transportation and/or electric micro-golf cars is their nirvana. I suspect that is your goal as well.

Your story did a real disservice to all readers who hold a more balanced, historically-sensitive perspective in the war against automotive liberty.

[Scott Liggett]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

I remember when Cali Congress first tried to repeal the emissions exempt law for '75 and older vehicles. Most of their argument came from wishful thinking and not any fact at all that these cars were major contributors to Cali's air pollution. SEMA stepped up to fight the repeal, but the biggest contributors and the most damming evidence against such people came from California's association of emissions testers. They told state congress and brought proof that 81% of the gross polluters on the road in this state were in fact cars only 8-11 years old and in the possession of their second to third owners.

These people, obviously, were in the poverty levels of income based on the lack of funds needed to keep a car properly maintained and emissions clean. Cali has since then decided to help these owners with state backed funds to help repair these cars to get them emissions legal. While this seems like something logical and the right thing to do the power hungry environmentalists were working away in the back rooms to undermine those cars and owners. Over the past ten years, cars built from '76 to '89 have been required to run cleaner and cleaner. The maximum emissions required by the state has been slowly dropping on all these cars each year. (I've personally seen emissions testing print outs for my friends now dead '82 Cutlas and they've changed each time he had it tested.) This under the table changes are slowly making it impossible for owners of these vehicles to drive these cars in this state. Hence, the true goal is to get them out of those cars.

In personal opinion, I believe there is a certain of bigotry towards those older cars. With all bigotry, it's based on ignorance.

[BlackoutSteve]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

Does anyone remember a crusher HOTROD project, -not sure if it was The Crusher Camaro but it was a Camaro).. that was rebuilt with stock 327 or 350 engine parts correct for it's day, and passed the 1990s emission laws when it was finished?
I've got the issue in my stack of HRMs somewhere.

[Scott Liggett]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

Does anyone remember a crusher HOTROD project, -not sure if it was The Crusher Camaro but it was a Camaro).. that was rebuilt with stock 327 or 350 engine parts correct for it's day, and passed the 1990s emission laws when it was finished?
I've got the issue in my stack of HRMs somewhere.

DF still has it and raced last summer during CJTV's Drag Bash. I hear he and Chad have been wrenching on it and it may be in a future HRM mag issue. I hope DF does an article retracing the history for us that missed it's first outings in the mag.

[antmnte]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

PLEASE ! Someone write a rebuttal to this DOUCHE! Im tellin ya I cant do it properly I'll get way to emotional
and I live on the other side of the country. Find out his address and go do burnouts in front of his house.Have his Prius towed and left in a bad neighborhood.

[BlackoutSteve]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

Does anyone remember a crusher HOTROD project, -not sure if it was The Crusher Camaro but it was a Camaro).. that was rebuilt with stock 327 or 350 engine parts correct for it's day, and passed the 1990s emission laws when it was finished?
I've got the issue in my stack of HRMs somewhere.

DF still has it and raced last summer during CJTV's Drag Bash. I hear he and Chad have been wrenching on it and it may be in a future HRM mag issue. I hope DF does an article retracing the history for us that missed it's first outings in the mag.

Are you talking about the yellow "Crusher Camaro"? For some reason, I'm thinking of a red or orange 67 or 8.

[38P]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

Yeah, BOS, it was an orange Gen I Camaro. (Whoops!I was wrong. The graphic over at the HRM website clearly shows the "Crusher" to be yellow http://www.hotrod.com/projectbuild/1...car/index.html . . . but most of the photos were B&W back then, so I guess I just remember in orange . . . )

DF has written in (I think in his HRM column) that it's coming back for an encore soon. (http://www.hotrod.com/featuredvehicl...aro/index.html)

BTW, if the environmentalists and CARB bureaucrats really weren't anti-hot rod and generally anti-car, they would make compliance easier and cheaper.

Instead, they view almost all hot rodding as "tampering." They see all antique vehicles as "gross polluters." And they provide no alternatives or incentives to help vintage automobile enthusiasts enjoy their passion while minimizing and mitigating the environmental effects.

Maybe when DF brings back the Crusher Camaro, he'll do some sort of "green machine" version of it to tweak our know-it-all car-hating critics.

I'm not a GM person, but a reborn "Crusher" powered by a hybrid Tahoe powertrain** (turbocharged and converted to E-85***) would open a few eyes . . . . It would also be interesting to see how much CARB would hassle such a set-up.

**Yes, I realize that this driveline is virtually unobtainable for 99.9% of rodders and that hybrids are dependent rare earth metals that are becoming in short supply (See http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090831/india_nm/india420934) And I'm also aware of the complexity of such a swap.

***I'm aware that E-85 is often criticized as on environmental grounds, And it's not really available in Cali . . . But you can run so much more freakin' manifold pressure with it!

[dieselgeek]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

Maybe when DF brings back the Crusher Camaro, he'll do some sort of "green machine" version of it to tweak our know-it-all car-hating critics.

We could put together a 1000+ hp, streetable engine that could blow 2000+ clean emissions with simple and cheap parts. Would make a hilarious in-your-face article.

[38P]

Re: The LA Times is Out to Crush Your Hot Rod: This Story Will Make You Mad

Yeah, but the fun-hating, we're-smarter-than-everyone, know-it-all greens (think: those car-hating geeks that talked all the time like "Mr. Spock," rode the bus or drove a 25 h.p. VW Beetle, and presided over the Chess Club back in high school) will still dog it over "greenhouse gases."

Still, DF should show us the way and BUILD IT!