Tom1200
PowerDork
12/21/23 1:57 p.m.
This popped in my head today.
Many years ago when the SCCA started allowing tin tops in the Production classes there was much ado. One of the British car stalwarts wrote in SportsCar Magazine about how the Japanese cars were weak and the constant twisting loads of racing would cause them to oil can and rendering them unsafe.
I thought this was the biggest whooper ever; suggesting that 60s British cars were more structurally sound than 20 year newer Japanese cars.
Naturally I wrote a rebuttal to SportsCar which they wisely never published.
"I think a toyota solara would make a great time attack car"
camopaint0707 said:
"I think a toyota solara would make a great time attack car"
That seems more like inspiration for someone's next Challenge car.
ShawnG
MegaDork
12/21/23 2:27 p.m.
Every time my mom, who was an ER nurse. Told me about a girl coming to the hospital in labor who had no idea that she was pregnant.
Mndsm
MegaDork
12/21/23 2:41 p.m.
The Toyota mechanic- who worked FOR Toyota, who should theoretically understand how FI and things work having worked at a number of various dealers and having had extensive training- telling me I should "cam" my speed3 very first thing. He is now a teacher at a high school shop class. You know what they say......
In reply to Tom1200 :
I have one: The fact you just casually dropped that oil can reference from SportsCar. JG and I still bring it up.
“Can’t take that car on track. It’ll oil can on ya.”
02Pilot
PowerDork
12/21/23 4:10 p.m.
From a student whose paper I just found word-for-word as the first item in a Google search: "But I didn't plagiarize anything!" There have been many variations on this theme, several just this semester, the latest being "But I didn't use AI!" when their work has tripped a 90+% certainty of complete AI authorship in three different checkers (and is clearly not their work - after fifteen weeks of instruction that becomes fairly obvious).
The latest one was talking about Honda 250 Scramblers (in particular, my 1964 model)
The guy says, "I found one like this in England and it was only $2500, but they wanted $15,000 for shipping. Too much for me."
I didn't say anything, but I knew he didn't know what he was talking about. He was a plumber. To no one's eventual surprise, he didn't know anything about plumbing either, to the point the company and the city are currently having top-level discussions about how to fix all the E36 M3 he did wrong. The city says, "Well, it's not our problem. You won't get a pass on your permit until it's fixed." Mind you, this was replacing the water pipes in the entire house.
I worked in the auto industry, parts supplier to all the OEMs. We're having a meeting with representatives of a Japanese manufacturer and the Quality Mgr makes a comment that "someone said our quality is fine". The head Japanese honcho asks him who said it. QC Mgr responds with "I don't know....you guys all look the same.". That was around 4:00PM. At the 8:30AM staff meeting the next morning the Plant Manager announced that we were looking for a new QC Manager.
BMWs are very reliable (referring to a modern bmw)
Tom1200
PowerDork
12/21/23 4:35 p.m.
David S. Wallens said:
In reply to Tom1200 :
I have one: The fact you just casually dropped that oil can reference from SportsCar. JG and I still bring it up.
“Can’t take that car on track. It’ll oil can on ya.”
For the life of me I wish I could remember the guy's name; he was fairly well known at the time.
I'm glad I'm not alone in remembering it.
Still remember it–and still use the term. That had to have been, what, 25 years ago? More?
Mr_Asa
UltimaDork
12/21/23 4:38 p.m.
This one time I was online and a bunch of guy started talking about a car "oilcanning" as if that was a phrase that made sense
Tom1200
PowerDork
12/21/23 4:43 p.m.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
Might be as much as 30 years ago.
In college, I worked a weekend job at a restaurant on the river south of Daytona Beach. One day during a particular part of the year when we used to get a lot of tourists from the deep south, I sat a table and took their drink order (not something I usually did as the hostess but I needed to to buy some time bc the waiter was on a smoke break). The customers were a few adults and a young toddler. I forget what the adults ordered, but I'll never forget the mother's thickly-southern-accented order for the toddler:
"... and the baby will have a Mountain Dew."
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:
This makes me want to punch someone in the face.
Dad and I walking back to my 1986 535i (the car he ordered when I was born and drove for 18 years before I bought it from him) after a hockey game and the 10 year old kid in front of us walking with his mom exclaims "That is the UGLIEST car I've ever seen!", I replied with a loud enough for them to clearly hear me "Thanks!" as we walked up to the car lol.
I knew a guy in the '80s who had a '70 Plymouth Superbird. 440 6-pack with a 3 speed auto. He was proud of it. He didn't drive it. It sat in the showroom of a long ago closed AMC Jeep dealership that he either owned or had a hand in. One day my dad and I stopped by there and I was curious about it so he was happy to show it to me. "225 mph" he said with a straight face. When I appeared doubtful, he got the book out on it where "225 mph" had been highlighted with a yellow pen. What it really said was that the body had been wind-tunneled to 225 mph. I didn't have the heart to tell him, and he wouldn't have appreciated hearing it from a kid barely old enough to drive, that there was no way a car with a 727 Torqueflite, 3.54 gears, and 28" tall tires was going to get anywhere close to that.
A lot of people thought those wing cars had magical powers. But the truth is they were garden variety Road Runners and Chargers with stupid looking aero packages for homoligation
Javelin said:
Tom1200 said:
In reply to David S. Wallens :
Might be as much as 30 years ago.
1993 was 30 years ago...
I could have gone all day and not been reminded of that
In reply to Nicole Suddard :
My wife has a lot of family from 'bama and it was well known about a set of cousins that the old man would put the toddlers to bed with a baby bottle full of Pepsi. Then they had teeth issues.......
Tom1200
PowerDork
12/21/23 5:48 p.m.
Javelin said:
Tom1200 said:
In reply to David S. Wallens :
Might be as much as 30 years ago.
1993 was 30 years ago...
I've been an SCCA member since 1989 and that bit was in SportsCar after I'd started road racing the 1200 in 1991 but before I ran the Miata in Showroom Stock in 1995.
And yes we are old.................
Mr_Asa said:
This one time I was online and a bunch of guy started talking about a car "oilcanning" as if that was a phrase that made sense
Surely, you have used one of these?
