My Cars

Took my cars out for a photo shoot the other day.  Here’s some of my favorite shots.

Some Facebook stuff.

This one’s just for you Lisa:

And this one’s for fans of old cars like me:

2015 Ford Mustang Preview

One of the secretaries at a school I used to work at has a brother who works for Ford Motor Company in Michigan.  Even after 8 years, knowing what a Ford fanatic I am, she still sends me any cool updates or previews she gets from her brother.

I got an email from her, with a picture, that simply said:

“First picture of much anticipated 2015 Mustang is now released.”

So, for you Ford enthusiasts, I’m passing on this information.

---

Oh, and happy spring break for all the students and employees of Granite School District!  I know I’m going to enjoy it.

---

Almost a decade of difference.

For those of you who don’t have a wing named after you at the Henry Ford Clinic, the Ford LTD and the Mercury Marquis are really the same car.  Literally, the Marquis is an LTD with Mercury makeup on.

Which is why these pictures of my two cars are really comparing oranges with oranges.  The blue orange is my 1969 Ford LTD, the white one was built almost a decade later, my 1978 Mercury Marquis. 

Can you see the differences that almost 10 years of design changes made?  Can you see the similarities that prove these two cars are very closely related?

Which one do you like better?

The LTD conundrum is exposed.

…. Maybe it’s just me, but if you produce a website about classic cars, you really ought to get the basic facts right. And with cars, especially old cars, the year is not just a trivial detail. Even if the title of your website is “Les voitures classiques en Bulgarie”. (“Classic cars in Bulgaria”, and I didn’t even have to use Babel Fish to translate that.)

…. Anyway, the problem with the picture was that it claimed to be a 1970 Ford LTD, when it was really a 1969. Now, you’ve probably just said to yourself “who cares?” Well, I guess I do. There are some differences between the two years that make, at least for me, the 1969 preferable.

1. The ‘69 has the horn ring, the ‘70 has it in the center bar.
2. The ‘69 has the ignition switch on the dash, at the bottom.
3. The ‘70 has it on the steering column. The ‘69 has nicer inside door handles.

Click on picture to see it full sized

 

…. You have now completed your course work in LTDS 6970. If you’ve read this far, I give you an “A”. See you in LTDS 7172 next semester.

- Professor Max

 

Ford Fanatic or normal human being?

If you can identify what is wrong with this picture, then you are an official L’Adunata Ford Fanatic.  If you can’t, then consider yourself lucky.  You’ll never be forcibly committed to the Henry Ford Clinic.

Click on picture to see it full sized.

What the hail?

or Good thing it was the day before Labor Day; The tale of 5 hours without power.

It started out a nice warm summer day in the lazy little city on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Sunny and warm, it was 76F by the time I got my butt out of bed around 9 am, completely oblivious to the drastic changes that would occur in the next 24 hours.

Bleah! I sound like a really pathetic 3rd rate novel. Let's cut to the chase, at 4:30 pm yesterday it was 84F and by 5:30 it had hit 63F (today's high is supposed to be 63F, tomorrow 72F). Welcome to Utah in the fall.

There, now for the full story. Yesterday was a warm day, I had the swamp cooler on cooling down the house, had done a load of dishes, couple of loads of laundry and was working on changing my seating charts. (Kids are idiots, they show me in the first week who needs to be separated from who. If they were just a little more subtle, they could get away with stuff for a lot longer.) Around noon I got a call from one of my old roommates inviting me over for a bbq around 6, which I accepted. Around 2:30 I got a call from my little brother reminding me of an old Ford show that was going on in Park City, suggesting we take a couple of my old Fords up there. I told him I had to be back by 6, but then again so did he so we decided to go. He, his wife and kids and I all headed up there in Old Blue and the Battlecruiser, looking forward to a little relief from the heat. It was beautiful up there. We went through Park City, didn't find the Ford show, went further up the hill a way and then came back. We'd been told that it was in The Canyons (formerly known as Park West, because it's just a few miles west of Park City) on Friday, then in Park City on Saturday, so we decided to see if it had headed back to The Canyons for Sunday. Yo, it was there, right at the foot of the gondola ride up to the resort. By this time it was almost 5:00, but we decided we had enough time to check out the cars, and the kids needed to stretch their legs anyway. We spent a little bit of time looking at the cars, there were some really nice ones, and then decided that since the gondola ride was free, we'd take it for a quick ride, the kids were kind of hinting they wanted to ride it. We rode it right over my cars, got a couple cool pictures from right above them and then the storm that hit SLC hit us. A 20 minute round-trip ride on a gondola seems a lot longer when it's cold and raining, although the ride back was better because we were going with the wind, so the rain wasn't hitting us as hard. And at least it wasn't the worst part of the storm, which hit on the ride down Parley's Canyon. They were in Old Blue and I had The Battlecruiser, so we decided to just part ways and head straight to our respective bbqs, since it was almost 6 already. Well it's about a 30 mile drive from The Canyons to Salt Lake City, most of it along a stretch of I-80 that was recently repaved. Nice, smooth road, but it seems that new pavement has something in it that, when mixed with a heavy rain, comes out of the pavement like a big sheet of frothy soap. It was slick as snot. On a road that I would normally travel between 70 and 80 MPH, I found myself slowing down to 50 MPH at times. Just a wee bit scary, but I made it, although a bit late to the bbq.

The bbq was great, even sat out in the hot tub in the rain. Which was a mistake because it was so relaxing that I was falling asleep by 9 and headed home. I became a little worried about the possibility of no power at my house when I got to the intersection of 13th East and 17th South and the power was out there. No signal lights. Fortunately most of the people there understood the concept of treating it like a 4 way stop, so there was no big confusing mess there, and I made it through the intersection smoothly. That area is actually on a different circuit than my house, so I wasn't positive I was out of power, but having lived here for 15 years, I knew that the probability was high. Yep. Total darkness. Good thing I keep a lantern, with good batteries, in an easily accessible spot. It really wasn't totally dark in the house, the moon must have been out, or the lights from the city were bouncing all off the clouds, because there was enough of an eerie light throughout the house for me to get around easily. (I can make it around the house in total darkness, but a lot slower.) The house was a little warm for sleeping, and I love listening to the rain anyhow, so I went and layed out on the futon on the back porch. I dozed, listening to the rain, traffic and other sounds of the city, until it got too cold and damp and then I moved back into my room. Opened the window up all the way, still listening to the rain and went to sleep. Until the accident out in front of the house. I heard the crash and then the sound of screeching brakes, and thought it was weird, because usually the smash comes after the brakes. So, I got up, went out there to see what had happened, couldn't figure out what exactly had happened but saw enough people walking around to know that they didn't need any assistance. One car was filled with high school aged guys, who were all high 5'ing each other like they had just accomplished some astronomical feat. Um, yeah, You got in a wreck. Cool. They couldn't have been going that fast, the cars weren't that badly damaged, so I don't think it was a "thank God we survived" kind of high-5. Ah, well, whatever. The cops showed up and I went back to bed, just to be woken (is that a word?) up around 2:30 with the sound of air conditioners kicking on at the apartment complex next door. I was really, really glad that this was not a regular night where I had to work in the morning, I would have been too worried about getting up on time (no alarm clock) and getting enough sleep that it would have been really frustrating. Instead I just kind of faded in and out of sleep all night. And woke up to a hail storm this morning. Yup, had to flip on the heat. So, in the last 24 hours I went from a swamp cooler on full throttle cooling down the house to nothing because of no power to heating up the house because it was 50F outside. Yes, I do love living in Utah (and that's not even sarcasm).

Back of Beyond Ranch

Went up to the property this weekend, 90% of the whole family was up there at one time or another. Had a lot of fun, relaxed a lot too. Didn't do much, and you can get an idea of the whole weekend by looking at the pictures here.

In the pictures you'll see references to Rossi Draw and Lost Draw. Our property starts out on the east side up on a ridge covered with pine trees. As you move west you run into a little valley we call a draw because it's not really big enough to be a valley. Mostly just a runoff area filled with sage brush and a few trees. Then you go up on another tree filled ridge, down into another draw and finally the western side is up on a third ridge. We call the first draw Rossi Draw because it's on the parcel of land we bought first. The second draw, which is on the parcel we bought a year later or so, we call Lost Draw, um, thanks to me. From the name of the draw you can probably guess what happend for it to earn that name. While we were looking at the first parcel of land, thinking about buying it, we walked up to the upill boundry of the property. The two draws converge before the property line, so we were completely in trees. For some reason I headed out to the car early, and ended up in the wrong draw, frantically yelling for muy brothers. I could see the main road, it was summertime and the road was only 3 miles or so away, so it wasn't a life or death, call the Search & Rescue guys kind of situation, but it would have been a long walk down to the road and then back up once I found the right entrance. Anyway, just as I was preparing for the long haul down to Route 40, I heard my brothers looking for me, and they were so happy to see me that right then and there they decided to name it Lost Draw in my honor.

Car 54, where are you?

As soon as you saw that title, did you think "Good Lord, he bought another car!"? If you did, count yourself in for 7 new blog kharma points.

I first saw this car about 3 years ago in the Shopko parking lot. I fell in love with it then, but it wasn't for sale. so what could I do. Nothing, except admire it from afar. Six months ago little bro' sees it in the K-Mart parking lot and gets to talking with the owner. Tells him about my LTD addiction and gives him my cell number in case he ever wants to sell it. Well, the guy held onto the phone number for the six months, because 3 days ago he calls me and tells me that some guy gave him my number and said I like old LTDs. We talk, I go look at it, we settle on a price and I get the money. $2,000. It's a 1972 Ford LTD Country Squire with a 429 CID Police Interceptor engine in it. The guy babied it, oil changes every 2,500 miles, ran only premium in it, and it looks and runs like he was telling the truth, plus according to the title he's owned the car since October of 1979. Dual exaust, the interior is excellent, not a single tear in the cloth apolstery and the carpet is even clean, like that could be it's original color clean. The original AM/FM radio still works, although I don't have any 8-Track tapes to see if the player works. Looks like I'm going to have to take a trip to the D.I. It's beginning to show some rust in a few places, but just surface. He already told me that I'm going to need to replace the ball joints, which are relatively easy on these older cars. The only other problem I can see is getting the back door to work properly, the one that swings out and folds down too. Well, it used to swing out, but the window didn't go down, so Danny and I tear into it, get the window to go down and then try to fold it down tailgate-wise. Big mistake, it kinds got stuck between swing out and fold down. It's closed, so I can drive the car, but the tailgate won't open either way. Overall, though, another good deal....

Convertible Time of Year.

I can't imagine not having a convertible. They're great and you might think there's nothing better for the summer. Au contraire, mon frere! The best time for a convertible is right now. Slightly cloudy so you don't have the sun beating down on you or in your eyes. Cooler days, because no matter how fast you're going, 110 is hot even with the top down. Now, summer evenings are kinda nice, but for daytime it's got to be spring or fall. And early fall and late spring afford the greatest comfort zone for the convertible - nights are not too cold and days are not too hot. So give me a call one of these weekends and we'll go cruising in the beast, she's got 5 working seatbelts now.

For Sale

Click HERE for details

Liking a Republican Governor was bad enough - but this is intolerable......

Did you know that if you click on any of the pictures here - you'll get the full sized version? Now you do.

.

I've had a hard week this week. First I read about Gov. Huntsman's top three items on his agenda for next years predicted surplus, and the thought "I could vote for this guy" popped into my head. Not only is "tax cut" not even on the list, but teacher salaries, healthcare and pollution are the top 3 things he wants to spend the money on. What? A far cry from "take 2 aspirin and go back to work" Bangerter and backstabbin' Leavitt. If he backs up his words with actions, any Democrat that runs against is going to have to work hard to convince me to vote for them. And that hurts.

.

Yesterday I'm looking for parts for my LTD convertible and come across this - the new Camaro concept car. Not a big fan of GM, and since the '70 change have never liked the Camaro. Oversized outside and undersized inside, given one I would have just sold it to get a Mustang. Now they come out with the new Camaro, which is a flashback to the ones of the '60's. (Click here to see the comparisons). This is a Camaro that I could actually see myself owning. If I could get past the feeling of cheating on my beloved Mustang......