Hello, summer. Hello, summer storms. Hello, barbecue weather, sunburns and swamp ass, mosquitoes at sunset and pounding down water so you don’t turn into human jerky. Hello every form of racing imaginable, car shows by the ton, and our busy season here at BangShift. We’re all in for the fun, but every now and then you just need to stop for a moment and take a breather. While you’re cooling off, get a bit of Scrapple, our reconstituted and slightly roasted newsbites that just barely made it onto the page. Then get back out there and send us photos of the good stuff you guys find!

1. The jokes write themselves, I swear it!

Outside of the world of Grand Theft Auto, traveling by a legitimate jetpack is just about non-existant. Just about. There is one company, Jetpack Aviation, that has a functioning system, and apparently one of them has been requisitioned for use by Oscar Meyer’s “Super Hotdogger”, a masked jetpack pilot who will fly you a tasty weiner to….ok, I promised no jokes….

Weiner utility belt. Flying weenie delivery. Air Weiner.

2. No award for you!

That neat statue is the Axel Springer Golden Steering Wheel award. Consider it the German equivalent of the Golden Calipers, if you will…automakers in Europe fight tooth and nail to gain one of these awards. Well, not this year…for 2018 there will be no Golden Steering Wheel award, and that’s due to the conditions of the German auto industry. Dieselgate, the arrest of Audi’s CEO, fines, investigations and more have pretty much convinced the publishing house that nobody deserves the statue this year.

They aren’t wrong.

3. Get down with your bad self (and dad bod).

Well, it’s not the Hellcat 300 that we were hoping for, but any news from Chrysler is good news, seeing how the brand is on death watch regardless of what FCA’s CEO says. In this case, it’s a small gesture: the “S” package, Chrysler’s street-dress black-trim package, is now available on the Pacifica Hybrid. So you can claim the hybrid card, haul around people, and nail the look of a family man desperately trying to be youthful via a minivan…one of the better-looking ones in years, but a minivan nonetheless.

4. Honor among thieves

Ford recently cemented the deal to purchase the Michigan Central Station, which has been pretty much abandoned since 1988. The 500,000 square foot former train station is destined to be a technology campus that will be vital to Ford’s electric vehicle and autonomous programs. But to many in Detroit, the building has a deeper history, and shortly after the purchase was complete, a thief who has a love of the building wanted to offer up his prize, to allow it to return home. The clock that used to be above an entryway had been in private hands for over twenty years, but was recently returned by the possessor, who was grateful that the clock will be returning back to the building.

5. Nobody is ignoring the whole Dieselgate thing yet, but keep trying.

You know what makes people forget about one of the most widespread automotive screwups in the last half-century? Racing achievements, that’s what! This Jetta is going out to Bonneville to attempt to earn a record in BCG/G, hoping that the 2.0L turbo-four will have enough oomph to crack past 208 MPH. Meanwhile, the I.D. R race car driven by Romain Dumas ran Pikes Peak in 7:57.148, the first sub-eight minute run up the 12-mile sprint to the top of the mountain.