Quartz City

It’s one of those modern myths you always hear rumors about but never really see in action. Someone has a Les Paul goldtop hidden under a bed for forty years or there’s an old barn out back that has a rare car sitting in it. Still, on occasion it does happen…

Reader Dan Veneman recently shared with us an interesting little barn find. It appears his buddy recently inherited a ranch in Salida, California, that included a 75,000-mile 1956 Ford Thunderbird.

Let’s not forget that amazing 180 car find in a Portugese warehouse. Sadly, most of these barn finds are languishing in the “I’m going to fix it up someday” category.

Franklin Avenue notes that California license place numbering has incremented up to 6xxxyyy style numbers. Not necessarily a big deal itself, but there’s a greater question that has remained unanswered and it’s something that’s been nagging me for years. I’m serious here, as a Californian this irritates me to no end…

When the HELL is California going to stop using that horrid script font? That Mistral font knockoff screams “I’m a logo for a dubious 1980s Redondo Beach nightclub/cocaine front for yacht rockers and their Magnum P.I.-style red Ferrari 308s!”

How come Oregon, Nevada and Arizona can consistently have terrific looking license plates but California can’t? Even the better looking California plates, the whale, Lake Tahoe, and the new Sierra Nevada one are ruined by that awful font.

Attention California DMV! It’s time to solve this blight upon our highways. There are several metric tons of graphic designers in California who could use some work and some sort of competition is in order to finally pound a stake into that ugly script.

P.S. While you’re at it, why not offer new replicas of the classic yellow-on-black plate? (Make ‘em reflective so the CHP will be happy). Nevada offers something similar with their 1982 plain blue plate replica. Nothing kills me more than seeing a classic car with a current-style license plate on it.

P.P.S. A plate redesign does not mean you can splat your state URL on it. Indiana, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and Michigan all do it and each one looks like a civic cry for help.

Unlike the 7-series convertible, this 5-series pickup truck spotted in Glendale doesn’t look it’s going to kill the occupants in a crash.

It looks like the big unveiling of the 1957 Plymouth Belvedere time capsule in Tulsa went awry today because of an accumulated 50 years of water damage. I’ll try to avoid making some obvious jokes at the expense of Tulsa, but when confronted with a quote like “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Miss Belvedere” from an event organizer you just gotta kick out some of that denial. I wonder if anyone back in 1957 thought that those hopes and dreams of the future would amount to nothing more than a pile of toxic mud and rust.

After looking at some photos of the burial site in front of the Tulsa courthouse, I wonder if the sprinkler system for that lawn was particularly zealous? Near home, there’s some sprinklers that run so often that the adjoining sidewalk never gets dry, even in summer.

Lorna of Lornamatic attempted to purchase a new BMW and encountered a Catch-22 of identity uselessness and privacy holes. She was requested to submit a thumbprint along with copies of her personal data, but none of it is checked for validity - just thrown into a box apparently. She canceled the deal and walked away, but wasn’t able to have her personal data returned (even though no valid contract was signed).

See also: security theater

One of those days, they’re going to fix them up. No, really.

This Challenger R/T has been sitting in this same spot for 12 years or more. The owner will not sell and says he will fix it up someday. This should be our state’s saying. Don’t know much about the car except it is going to waste and it is a shame.

Sometimes there’s more to the backstory…

Here is a 70 4-speed Roadrunner found dying on a farm in Concord, NC. car was last running in 1989. Owner says it belonged to his son that was in the Air Force that was killed in a freak auto accident in 1990. Engine had locked up. Car has major rust inside floors and trunk. Quarters are shot, battery has leaked acid and completely rotted the inner fender. Doors are the only thing worth something because they are not rotted. Not for sale. Just a memorial soon to go back to the soil it came from. It was a B5 Blue with blue interior.

Audi has some fun with a speed camera in South Africa, but what I zeroed in on is that fantastic 1972 Buick Riviera boattail merrily cruising along. I used to own a 1972 Riviera years ago and I’m pretty sure that South African one is a 1972 since there’s no vents on the trunk lid. Nice to see one so far from home in such great condition. Can’t tell if it’s right-hand drive - it’s pretty rare if it is.

P.S. Attention Autoblog: 228K for a 369 x 417 picture is friggin’ ridiculous! Do you just not know how to optimize a jpg for the web, or do you just like wasting money on bandwidth? Even a basic Photoshop “save for web” drops it down to 32K.

1. Aaron Koblin’s “Flight Patterns” - alternative visualizations of US air traffic.

2. Op-Art artist Bridget Riley

3. The iPod edition of the Yule Log

4. The second wave of retrocars, especially the concepts for the Dodge Challenger (I’ll take one in “Vanishing Point” white please) and Lamborghini Miura.

5. The Friends Of Eddie Coyle. This turned up on one of the cable networks a couple days ago and annoyingly it’s not on DVD yet. I started watching it because of Robert Mitchum, who’s terrific in it, but the movie’s real star is the grimy New England industrial autumn - lots of faded overcast grey, brown, flat green, battered strip malls, faded cars from the 70s, - barely a blue sky or primary color to be found. It’s a hell of a cracking good 70s-era existential noir movie too.

1. The Fall on “Later with Jools Holland.” I kinda liked Holland way back when he was the snarky new wave guy that would randomly show up on MTV’s old “IRS’ The Cutting Edge,” but now he an old smug self-importance Paul Shaffer-type who insists upon inserting his boogie woogie piano into every act on his show. M.E.S. would just murder the guy and the Fall’s performance was indeed great, but my favorite part came at the beginning when all the guests perform together in an attempt to out awesome each other - only the Fall jump up and down like a band of sinister muppets.

2. Mapping Toponymy. Where regional differences in name for topographical features like “hollows,” “coves,” “-burg,” etc. are actually mapped out.

3. The AMT Piranha. As seen in the Man From U.N.C.L.E. The closest thing there was to a Hot Wheels car you could actually drive.

4. Big Bugs. Just what the web site says - giant insectoid sculptures.

5. Wrong Is Right. You want to give this movie more credit than it probably deserves… Middle Eastern shenanigans, dictators who suddenly can’t get the CIA to return their phone calls, suicide bombers, a president who becomes emboldened after being perceived as a wimp, a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and a media who’s only interested in which side will give them the best ratings. Add in the usual supporting cast of 80s-era parody actors (Leslie Nielsen, Dean Stockwell, Henry Silva) and it should add up to a forgotten movie twenty years ahead of it’s time and at least a short list candidate for a “in the footsteps of Dr. Strangelove list.” Well, kinda sorta. After recently watching it for the first time since it was released, it doesn’t seem quite as sharp as I remember it being but dorky comedies like this and Deal Of The Century are a damn sight better compared with the shrill pound-you-over-the-head tone of current war satires like Lord Of War.

Still, bonus points for the sight gag of Sean Connery throwing his hairpiece out of a helicopter at the end. Double extra bonus for casting a young Jennifer Jason Leigh as a child who poisons her parents for a reality show.

About that new car I mentioned awhile back… It’s a new 2004 Ford Thunderbird. I’ve been in love with them since that J Mays show awhile back and what with Ford discontinuing them this year, what the hey? Now to figure out how to wire an iPod into the stereo.