Who's been reading?

It seems that someone out there from Grand Forks AFB has been checking this blog out, and they found it by doing a Yahoo search for "Dorri Williams".

That's me!

If you know me, drop me a line.

Oh and Happy New Year!

The junkyard that time forgot

While traveling home after visiting relatives for Christmas, I ran across this gem of a junkyard.

It's located in Boaz, Alabama. I stopped at a used car lot nearby and asked about it. I was told that it's owned by an old man. He never seems to do anything with any of the cars, but they are all "for sale". The problem is that the asking price for any of the cars is more than they are worth.

More pics here, here, here, and here.

I think I need to make friends with this old man. I wonder if he has any heirs?

Merry Christmas

I sincerely hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas holiday.

Blogging will (probably) resume Tuesday or Wednesday.

Just how realistic is GT4?

For the three or four of you out there that don't know what GT4 is, Gran Turismo 4 is the most recent installment of one of the most realistic racing games out there. Exclusively for the Playstation 2, GT4 has over 700 (!) cars to choose from, including classics.

I've read about how realistic the driving experience was, and some have gone through the trouble of comparing GT4's Nurburgring to the real thing, but I wanted to do a little scientific testing of my own to see how it stacks up to reality.

So I saved up enough money (in the game) to buy a Delorean, took it to the track, got it up to 88 MPH, and. . .

Nothing.

Bumer. I guess it's not that realistic after all.

What Dorri wants for Christmas

Dorri finally decided what he wants for Christmas.

He was looking through his Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog and there it was - right in the middle - the M400 Skycar.

From the ad:

• The M400 Skycar is the world's first personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, designed to elevate individual drivers above the headaches of commuting and the dangers of highway travel.
• In development since the 1960s, the Skycar has completed successful hovering flights, and its first manned, un-tethered flight is planned for Fall 2005.
• Developed by Moller International, the three-wheeled, folding-wing craft is designed to be as safe, affordable, and easy to use as an automobile.
• Travels at 350+ miles per hour and achieves an environmentally friendly 21 miles per gallon on alcohol, a cleaner fuel than gasoline.

According to the builder's website, the Skycar will cost around $80,000 (about the cost of a luxury automobile) after it reaches mass production.

Unfortunately it isn't being mass produced just yet, in fact there's just the prototype for sale now. The pricefrom Neiman Marcus? 3.5 million dollars.

Dorri still wants it. And Dorri still doesn't like it when people refer to themselves in the third person.

What were they thinking?

Tonight I went with a friend (Stephen) to Easley, SC (motto: all our streetlights are yellow and we don't know why) to pick up his new Scion xB. I noticed immediately upon entering town that all the streetlights were yellow (see motto). A few minutes later, one of the streetlights turned red. That's when I noticed that that particular streetlight was actually a traffic light. Then I started cursing vehemently (i.e. with vehemen).

They were the exact same color.

I cannot come up with any possible reason for the city of Easley to intentionally make their streetlights the same color as a yellow traffic light.

Any ideas?

Looking for a few good engineers?

Joe Sherlock knows where you can find them.

Time To Go: General Motors Corp. is suspending contributions to its 401(k) savings plan for salaried employees and paring back severance benefits as it prepares for more white-collar job cuts in the coming year. Ford suspended 401(k) matching contributions for employees in June. I bet that every young, talented employee from these two behemoths is actively looking for a job elsewhere. This will leave both companies staffed with no-talent deadwood. The death spiral is picking up velocity.

This only furthers the nail in GM's (and Ford's) coffin.

Pop Quiz

1. If, while driving, you approach a traffic light that is not operational (no lights lit) you should:

A. Continue driving as if the light were green.
B. Treat the traffic light as a four-way stop.
C. Slam on your brakes as hard as you can and slide off into the ditch.
D. Trade in your car on the largest SUV you can find so you don't have to worry about it.

The correct answer is, of course, B.

If you answered A, you probably live in South Carolina.

As many of you may know, the Carolinas have recently been hit with a rather severe ice storm which has left many people without power. I was appalled by the number of drivers who blithely continued through signals without power, wholly oblivious to the fact that there were other drivers aproaching from the crossing street.

When researching this post I discovered the reason for the ignorance of SC's driving population; nowhere in the SC Driver's Manual is this subject addressed!

How many cars do they think I can drive at once?

Why does it cost more to have liability insurance on two cars than it does to insure just one? I can't wreck more than one car at a time.

It should cost the same to insure (liability and collision only) 37 (just an example) cars as it does to insure just one.

I understand that comprehensive coverage should be on a per-car basis. The risk of damage other than that caused by wrecking (tree falling on it, etc.) increases linearly with the number of cars covered.

Why do the insurance companies charge more for multiple cars?

Because they can.

Howard Stern vs. Bob Dylan

For some reason, it made national news when Sirius Satellite Radio announced that Howard Stern would have a show starting in January 2006.

I wonder just how many customers will choose Sirius over XM just to hear Stern?

More importantly to Sirius, how many will choose XM just to avoid the Stern?

I would have thought that that last question was a bit silly, except that when Hyundia did a survey of its customers to see which they prefer - XM or Sirius - they found that many customers did not want Sirius simply because they didn't want to hear Howard Stern.

Hyundai then decided to go with XM.

So far this year, Hyundai has sold over 400,000 cars in the US, most of them with XM radio.

To further plant the nail in the Sirius coffin, XM recently announced that Bob Dylan would be hosting a weekly music show for them.

I doubt that will cost them any subscribers.

More possible projects (when will I find time?)

A friend recently loaned me a copy of a book called How to Build a Cheap Sports Car. After reading through it, we decided to take stock of all the myriad parts cars we either have or have available to us.

Stephen has a 1989 Jaguar XJ-S with no interior (and I mean NO interior - there isn't even a dash or steering column in it) and no engine/transmission. This car already has the motor mounts and tranny crossmember for a smallblock Chevy conversion.

He also has a low-mileage 1984 XJ-S with just about every body panel bent (building collapsed on it), but a good engine and tranny and interior.

I have a 1985 Corvette that was wrecked in 1988 and has been parked since. It has no interior to speak of (windshield missing and lots of rain), but has an excellent drivetrain.

I also have two 1982 Yamaha Seca IIs, one of which is pretty close to running.

Stephen also has a plethora of old Opels. I'm not sure why.

The original plan was to swap the interior from the '84 Jag into the '89 and put a SBC (possible from a wrecked Vette) into it. He then could sell off the Jag V-12 and IRS to recoup some cost. I was planning to find an old Trans Am to drop the Vette engine (and IRS if I was feeling plucky).

We could still do that. If we put a different SBC in the '89 Jag we would then be left with a front and rear Jag suspension, a front and rear Vette suspension, and a Jag V-12 and Vette 350.

Sounds like a recipe for 2 Lotus Seven inspired LoCosts.

Of course we'll probably never get around to it, but we could.

Sorry. . .

What with Christmas and all, I haven't found the time to blog lately. Rest assured I will be back.

Let's let them fight it out.

On page 92 of the January '06 Motor Trend, they write about the Bugatti Veyron 16.4,

"It'll score you the best parking place at any restaurant in the world."

On page 100 of the same magazine, they write about the Pagani Zonda F,

". . . it'll snare you the world's best parking spot anywhere, any time."

So, which is it?

Here's what I propose. You buy the cars (the Bugatti and the Pagani), and you drive one, I'll drive the other and we'll meet at the nicest restaurant we can think of. I'm not talking McDonald's here, we're going high class. Maybe Cracker Barrel. Then we'll just see who gets the best parking spot.

Inspired by Croak's recent post, Why ego-surfing is dangerous, on The Bavarian Falconblog, I decided to do a little ego-surfing of my own. My results were more pleasing than Croak's.

Here is a short list of some folks who have linked to my site, mostly found using Technorati's who links here feature.

• Autoblog linked to me with this post: Auto Express Questioned on Exclusive First Drive of Veyron. This is the one that resulted in the most traffic to my site. I had over 1700 visitors link over from Autoblog that day.
• Greg Epps, of the BMW e28 535is weblog has written about my site here and here. It's always nice to hear good things about yourself, and I've enjoyed reading of his suspension work on his Bimmer.
• Things Magazine gave me a mention for no good reason here. (Scroll down a bit, I'm in the 'other things' section. I'm still not sure just what Things Magazine is.
• Joe of My Ford Dreams gave me the compliment of being listed in his post, Some Blogs Worth Looking At. Thanks Joe.
• Julian of the Montesa King Scorpion Blog wrote about my project bike here and here. He was not pleased with my plan to turn the bike into a supermotard.
  

Several bloggers have paid me the compliment of listing If it's got an engine in their permanent links sections.

• .:Ride:.
• Grant's Auto Rants
• The Bavarian Falconblog
• Ben's Car Blog
• Car Blogs . . . A Research Project

Thanks, guys!

Rocket Racing League (!)

I don't usually post "look what I found on the internet" type posts, trying instead to come up with some original content.

That being said, look what I found on the internet!

Rocket Racing League.

That's rockets, and they're racing, in a league!

This is so freakin' cool, I can't find the words.

From their press release:

The Rocket Racing League is an aerospace entertainment organization which combines the competition of racing with the excitement of rocketry. The RRL is dedicated to providing safe and thrilling experiences for families through live events, television broadcasts and interactive technologies . . . the league's mission is to serve as a technology accelerator in the areas of airframe, propulsion and spacecraft design, and reach for the future to inspire the next generation of spaceflight enthusiasts.

The Rocket Racing League is scheduled to have its first race next September. That's less than a year from now!

The rocket planes will have fuel aboard for approximately 4 minutes of powered flight and 10 minutes of gliding, after which they will land to refuel. These ain't no pushrod V8s here, boys. The races should last about an hour each.

Read more at www.rocketracingleague.com

The only thing that could possibly stop me from watching the first race on TV is if I can be there in person. See you there!

Hydrogen is NOT a fuel

This has been bugging me for quite some time.

Everyone seems to view the (Hydrogen fueled) fuel cell as the savior of our petrochemically-starved future.

Not gonna happen.

Wanna know why? Read on.

Hydrogen (large scale) is no more a fuel than the rechargeable battery in your iPod is. It is an energy storage medium.

Small scale (most of what we use now) it is a fuel, but we get it from methane, which is a fossil fuel.

Large scale (what we would use in the cars clogging our country's freeways), we would have to get it from electrolysis of water.

Electrolysis is very simple: just run a current through water and the O2 will collect on electrode, while the H2 will collect on the other.

The problem with this is that we can only get from the H2 as much energy as we put into the water to crack it. Less actually, as nothing is 100% efficient.

There is a very understandable (amazingly) report prepared by the US Department of Energy available here. Check it out and come to your own conclusions.

What's the real improvement?

Seth Godin posted today a diatribe against the automotive industry regarding their refusal to improve the fuel economy of their vehicles.

I agree: better fuel economy is a good thing.

What I disagree with is this argument:

I continue to be puzzled by the car industry's ongoing fight against better mileage (Bennington Banner - Headlines.) Imagine how moribund the computer industry would be if processors never got faster. You'd only buy a new computer when your old one got too dusty.

He is stating (indirectly) that gas mileage of cars is equivalent to processor speed of computers.

It is not.

Processor speed of computers should be compared with horsepower of cars, which has increased dramatically over the past two decades.

Other aspects of the average automobile have dramatically improved as well. Consider the following case. In 1995 the MSRP for a Toyota Corolla LE was $16,848. That car had 105 horsepower and got 27/34 city/hwy mileage.

Two complete redesigns later, the 2005 Toyota Corolla LE's MSRP is $14,990. It has 25 more horsepower and gets 5 mpg better in town and 7 mpg better on the highway.

If you figure in inflation, it's a lot cheaper.

And better.