By Greg Kachadurian
I haven’t had to crowdsource my 10 o’clock news spot in quite a while, but with the SEMA show dominating headlines this week, I don’t have much to talk about. There is certainly a ton of cool stuff to talk about from that show, but it’s more than I can manage on my own. Jeff talked about two of the cooler reveals, such as the V8-powered Bronco DR and the electric crate motor-swapped Ford F-100. For the rest of the good stuff that OEMs unveiled, Jalopnik has you covered there.
But let’s hear from you – if you saw something, drove something, acquired something, broke and then fixed and then broke something, or just did anything in general that you want to share with your fellow hoon, sound off.
Have a good weekend.
Ross Ballot
Took a deposit on the m5, at more than 95% of my ask. To the guy in Florida who told me that since he’s an M car collector, he knows the market, and the car is valued at 37k tops, EAD.
Did a lot of wrenching on it this past week to replace suspension components that were identified by the dealer on inspection (and some that the dealer missed, sigh). Alignment is scheduled for Wednesday, buyer flying in a week from Sunday, if all holds.
if you don’t mind me asking, what was the ask? now’s definitely the time to sell an E39.
45k
My wife and I are still debating buying a new car – haven’t figured out where to charge it yet (our 35° driveway isn’t winter-happy and a heated driveway would break my scroogey spirit). This last week, we were supposed to test drive the Mach E, but didn’t have the time to do it. My thoughts are stuck at Hongqi anyway. Norway is the only European country who gets this coloss. It’s designed by Giles Taylor, who did the RR Cullinan just before the “red flag”. While I’d consider the Rolls-Royce boring, obscure Asian luxury is right up my alley. Lots of people have pre-ordered them, and I almost crashed the one time I have seen it so far. Translatable articles: 1, 2.
Why would you need to heat a 35° driveway? That’s not even freezing. Not in Metric Fahrenheits OR regular ones.
Interesting looking vehicle. Would it cause any problems at work if you showed up in one (you work in government, right)?
I believe he means an angle of 35 degrees. Which seems really really steep.
Scoutdude is correct, it’s the angle. At its steepest, my driveway would register as avalanche prone (>30°) and no authority would allow anyone to build like that today. But we have to adapt to it every winter. Wasting electricity to heat it is not in our interest.
I think the biggest problem with showing up at work in a Hongqi would be during wage negotiations; they’d just point out the window. At the municipal level I work at, there’s not that much political sensitivity.
The wage negotiation issue is part of what I meant about your government position. Foreign luxury cars that share design DNA with Rolls Royce tend to make people think you make too much money, and if your paycheck can’t support that, the assumption is envelopes of cash that mysteriously show up…
I assume a winch mounted at the peak of the driveway is out of the question? Just kidding– that’s damned steep!
That’s my plan A, but I don’t even need to ask my neighbour at the top…
Definitely an interesting car. I did find an English version of their website. A couple of things I find interesting. 1 that the rear side air bags are only on the top model. 2 that on the mid and top trims it has both a driver status monitor and a driver emotion monitor. I assume the first is to make sure you are in the driver’s seat and not asleep which is a good thing. I’m not sure though why the car needs to know your emotion and what it does in response.
That’s odd, it’s a function that is not mentioned on the Norwegian sites and brochures. But I think it’s a common functionality in Chinese market cars. Nio has an offering here, too, that brings their Alexa/Google/1984-like system with it. The car has a headlike screen that, as I understand it, reflects the driver’s mood. Very strange.
When it comes to options, there’s a few odd things missing – like a type 2 charging cable costing extra. But airbags are included here. There’s also a Norwegian market only frunk insert. Media reports say that most people buy higher trim versions costing over 90k$, not the cheapest ones which are 1/4 more attainable. It’s more money than we want to spend either way. An incredibly interesting offer nonetheless (and kind of an expensive gamble).
One of my coworkers just bought a house that came with three SBCs (two 283s and a 305), has no use for them, and has offered them to me for free. I also have no use for them, therefore I’ll probably end up with them.
wait wait wait wait… that’s amazing, and you’re the last person who needs those, haha
I suppose I could take them to a Lemons race and offer them as prizes and/or penalties.
If the house came with three SBCs and your coworker doesn’t need them, what is s/he swapping in instead?
I don’t know. The last time I asked too many questions about an engine swap I wound up doing far too much of the work.
Went for my first long-ish drive (nearly 4 hours) Covid lockdown to visit my father, nothing exciting but good for a change of scenery
Return trip today with a bit more end-of-weekend traffic including a few who would slow down unnecessarily at any bend then speed up at overtaking lanes. A diesel pickup is unfortunately not the best thing there, something with a good amount of grunt could have taken advantage of short overtaking opportunities that just weren’t possible today.
Funny, just coming home, we rented a cabin this weekend. A BMW did the same thing in front of us. When he finally stopped to let the line of cars behind him pass (it’s an area with close to zero traffic, so every “line” is an issue, even three cars), everyone was blinking with their hazards to thank him. My kids looked at the driver and he seemed perplexed…BMW dude did not let traffic pass, he stopped for some other reason, I guess?
Still no resolution on the accident and we’re coming up on a month after the fact. Hoping it doesn’t come down to having to take them to court. Not sure which would be more painful, small claims court or just fixing it myself.
I’ve been shopping for first generation Boxsters to replace the BMW. I figured it’s the last chance at an affordable Porsche. They probably are not going to be cheap for long.
Did my winter tires today (and the first oil change I’ve done myself in a bit over a decade). Everything is just crusty enough (or in the case of the rear drums, something that could have been pulled from the wreckage of the Titanic) that I’ll be amassing supplies over the winter to do a thorough cleaning in the spring. Even the hub-centric rings on rears required a bit of persuasion.
Nice to be able to do it all myself again though. My son seems extremely intent to help out as well, which will be nice once I can trust him to listen for more than 30 seconds.
I went junkyard hunting and came upon a brown-on-brown Silver Spur. grille and Spirit of Ecstasy missing already, of course, so I nabbed the center console and what I assume are seat and mirror switches. the switches make an absolutely beautiful click. I’ll see if I can get a few bucks for the console on eBay, and I’ll find some use for the switches.