By Kamil Kaluski
When marketing and selling a new vehicle, it is best to show the potential customer what its abilities are. Pictured here is local Jeep dealer displaying its new V8-powerd Wrangler Rubicon 392. This monster, that comes with 33-inch tires and a suspension that two inches higher than the typical Wrangler Rubicon, has abilities that few buyers will reach. It is therefore appropriate to show those buyers that they shouldn’t fear rolling over a five inch rock. Well done, local Jeep dealer!
Last Call indicates the end of Hooniverse’s broadcast day. It’s meant to be an open forum for anyone and anything. Thread jacking is not only accepted, it’s encouraged.
Jeff Glucker
That dealership looks like it should be selling Harleys,
I remember when Hummer dealerships had test tracks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSY8FNlI65c
My first thought on that video, Shutup and Drive. Second was, sure would be nice if every trail was perfectly designed to the limits of my approach and departure angle.
Land Rover dealers did as well – our local store had one sitting out back that looked like it hadn’t been touched in about 15 years, right up to the point they tore the complex down for redevelopment. Then again, they also had the showroom decorated like an explorer’s lounge, a pretense the brand dropped some time around the Range Rover Sport came out.
In the first 45 minutes of my shift on Wednesday I received a promotion with a 5% pay raise, 6 months of back pay at that rate and a layoff notice. Hilarity ensued.
Today I applied for another job in the same company* that is paid even more than the one I was just promoted to / laid off from. Because they’re hiring during a layoff. Pandemic economy! Hilarious!
So, this is all to say I haven’t been surfing the web for car related content, or if I have I don’t remember, but something Hooniverse related did happen.
Today a workmate of mine asked me if I remembered posting a video (in, like, 2012?) to the internal list serve about a guy railing a race car around San Francisco, and what video that was. Getting laid off means archiving all of your work-e-mail content and so I was in a mood to search through all those ol’ e-mails.
It turned out to be Ken Block’s DC Shoes video from 2013, but that’s not the point**. I found a whole shitload of weird stuff I e-mailed to tips at hooniverse dot com. Evidently I went through a phase where I thought Jeff wanted to know about 2-wheel-drive-2-wheel-steering (both and) motorcycles and other gyroscopically challenging constructions.
I think a lot of them were e-mailed to Hooniverse and Atomic Toasters, that’s the only way I can explain some of them.
*I’m a slow learner.
**Although, when you’ve just been laid off, watching someone burn rubber all over this hippie/techie city is damned cathartic.
YouTube algorithms sometimes really hit bull’s eye…got this one thrown at me the other day, and I have been thinking about it all week:
Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast..
Have you fallen down the Fred Dibnah rabbit hole yet? The Queen of England did, and ended up giving him a medal for preserving British Industrial History. I’ve watched so much I find myself starting stories saying, “When I were a little boooy…” in a Lancashire accent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Dibnah
Ay, that looks like some time well-spent. Will be checking this out!
Dearest Mr. Batshitbox, that is one hell of a recommendation. The wholesomeness of episode 1 was through the roof, and I can’t believe how interesting all this stuff is. 27 years of work, with cancer looming in the background, really puts some urgency into this journey. Looking forward to the rest of it!
The earlier films about his steeplejacking days are far less slickly produced, and Fred is much more bashful. Also giant brick structures crash to the ground in nearly every episode, so there’s some visuals.
Being a television presenter and hero of the empire was really just something he did when he got too old to steeplejack.