FR-S Owner Catches Guy Dumping Dog Crap On His Car insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® FR-S Owner Catches Guy Dumping Dog Crap On His Car

First off: who does this? What sort of jackass goes out of his way to collect his dog's feces, gingerly carry it across the street, soft widdle hands shielded by a plastic baggie, and then dump it on a total stranger's car? Again: who does this?

This video was sent to us by one of our Manhattan-area readers, and the car is an FR-S. He got tired, somehow, of finding steaming piles of dog crap on his car, so he placed a dash cam in the car to catch either the human jerk or weirdly fetishistic dog.

I asked if there was any possible justification for why this guy is dumping dog shit on his car — not that any reason would justify this sort of cowardly, callow act, but still. Here's what I was told:

I work in the Google building at 8th ave and 15th street. Yesterday morning I came out to find a large wad of shit sitting on my car. Now, sometimes the homeless will use the space between cars as a toilet stall. Originally I thought this would be a video of a homeless guy upgrading to the first class toilet (score!)

No such luck. Probably just an angry automotive fan. Never seen him before and can't think of anything I've done to warrant his attention. There's no doubt he went out of his way to target my car, but that's not my usual spot and I haven't had a vandal incident in a few months.

Over the years I've had several cars vandalized here. My miata had a brick thrown through the windshield in two places, cigarettes placed on the roof to burn through.

I've also seen plenty of other cars messed with in the same area. In one case, every mirror on every car for four blocks had been smashed off. So far the FR-S seems to attract more problems. In other areas (far from here) it's been egged, splashed with liquids, spit on.

Possibly one of those most hated cars out there? The forums are filled with vandalism stories.

I'm pretty baffled. Aside from the inherent wrongness of messing with someone's ride, why pick on an FR-S in particular? They're relatively small and unobtrusive on a city street, they're not particularly expensive or showy, they're a blast to drive — what's the trouble here? Is there something I'm missing?

Or maybe Admiral Houndcrap there is just a colossal dickhead.

FR-S Owner Catches Guy Dumping Dog Crap On His Car

This Is What It's Like To Drive A Car At 633 MPH insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® This Is What It's Like To Drive A Car At 633 MPH

This Friday marks the 30th anniversary of Richard Noble breaking the world speed record at Bonneville in 1983 with the Thrust2 blasting through the salt flats at 633.468 mph. Now, his team aims for 1,000 mph with their latest record car, the Bloodhound SSC.

The British team started the Thrust2 project with £175 in their pocket back in 1979. But that wasn't their only problem. After successful trials in the UK, they went to Bonneville in 1981 only to find it washed out. The next year, Bonneville was under two feet of water once again. The team improvised and continued at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, a dried out lakebed that offered 12 miles of perfectly flat baked mud which perfectly suited their solid wheels. But guess what: after a few runs, it started raining. The British were followed by their clouds.

The team returned in 1983 and made 11 runs as they learned how the car handled at speeds above 600 mph. After the record was set, when asked why they did it, Noble famously replied: “For Britain and for the hell of it.”

So, if traveling between 300 mph to 550 mph in a car actually feels boring, and stopping from 633 mph is like being sucked into the earth, what will it be like to brake the 1,000 mph barrier with the latest car? Still, if somebody can do it, it's this team.

Richard Noble went on to direct the Thrust SSC campaign which, in 1997, culminated in RAF fighter pilot Andy Green becoming the first person to break the sound barrier on land. Their record of 763.035 mph still stands.

It's worth noting that Richard Noble will be here, Friday afternoon, answering your questions LIVE on Jalopnik. Better get those questions ready.

This Is What It's Like To Drive A Car At 633 MPH

Uncertainty Will Probably Spike Car Sales This Month insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Uncertainty Will Probably Spike Car Sales This Month

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?

1st Gear: Why Oh Why Would You Be Uncertain?

For some reason, Americans are slightly uneasy about their future and maybe not as willing to buy a new car as they were say, oh, a month or a year ago. I wonder what it could be.

Seriously, though, per The Detroit News the expectation is that sales will be down as much as 4.4%

“Labor Day sales clearly pulled ahead from September volume and resulted in a lackluster month,” said Jesse Toprak, senior analyst for TrueCar.com, which estimated the 4.4 percent sales drop, in a statement. “The uncertainty in the financial markets also finally caught up with auto sales, causing some hesitation for big-ticket item purchases. Nevertheless, the fundamental drivers for the market demand are strong and we should have no problems reaching 15.7 million unit sales this year.”

Part of this is also due to the fact that some of the sales from the big Labor Day weekend landed in August and there are two less "selling days" in September this year.

2nd Gear: Chrysler Up 1%!

Chrysler managed to hold on to its streak of up months with a 1% year-over-year increase, according to Automotive News, thanks to an 8% increase at RAM, 3% at Dodge, and 2% at Chrysler.

Fiat was down 24% and Jeep was down 5%.

By this point, they'd thought the new Jeep Cherokee would be for sale so that they had any sort of increase is probably a good sign.

3rd Gear: GM Is Also Moving Those Trucks

The newer Silverado and Sierra may not be the most exciting trucks ever built, but GM fans are lining up to replace them at such a high rate that one of the suppliers can't keep up with the demand says Bloomberg.

As the article points out, each new truck is an $8,000 to $10,000 profit for the automaker, and with a new Ford F-150 coming out next year now is the time for GMC and Chevy to collecting as many truck buyers as possible.

The issue appears to be with the popular 5.3-liter V8, which produces a lot of power and much improved fuel economy.

4th Gear: At Least We're Not Europe

Europeans aren't buying cars and now, even older professionals who could buy a car are now holding off or buying motorbikes or whatever.

If you want an insight into how Europeans feel and what the future of Europe is, read this Wall Street Journal report.

Some industry executives and consultants warn that Europe's economic crisis isn't just sparking a temporary downturn in car sales, but is also accelerating a more fundamental decline in consumer appetite for cars—a decline that may presage more plant closings, job cuts and economic pain well into a broader recovery.

It's possible that with an improvement in the European economy buyers will start buying cars again. Or they won't. Ever again.

5th Gear: The Curious Case Of Unions In Non-Union States

I should warn everyone that this Bloomberg column is written by an analyst at the Heritage Foundation and so you can chalk up all of it to a big business, heartless conservative, anti-union bias.

But if you move past that expectation, there's an interesting angle that I think is worth considering in the whole UAW/VW in Tennessee drama.

German law requires “works councils” in which management and labor groups meet to collaboratively sort out workplace issues. Consequently, there is a works council at every Volkswagen plant — except the one in Chattanooga. Now, under pressure from IG Metall, the German union, Volkswagen AG (VOW)’s headquarters has decided it wants a works council in the U.S., too.

But there’s a hitch. U.S. labor laws prohibit companies from discussing working conditions with employee representatives — unless they belong to outside unions. In the 1930s, Congress feared businesses would create bogus “company unions” to keep union organizers at bay, so it banned “management-dominated” labor organizations.

This outlaws even innocuous employee-involvement programs.

While I think asking for a reform of this law is possibly a delaying tactic, this is another law that at least requires some review.

Reverse: This Baby Has Everything…

On October 1, 1908, the first production Model T Ford is completed at the company's Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit. Between 1908 and 1927, Ford would build some 15 million Model T cars. It was the longest production run of any automobile model in history until the Volkswagen Beetle surpassed it in 1972.

[HISTORY]

Neutral: Is The Government Shutdown Impacting You? Your Buying Habits? Are you going to ignore this or are you going to let it change your behavior?

Photo Credit: AP Images

Uncertainty Will Probably Spike Car Sales This Month

Chris Young - Aw Naw insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Chris Young - Aw Naw

Traffic sucks, so why not start your morning off with some music? You provide the toast and we'll provide the jams.

I understand if you're dragging your feet this morning. You're bummed about the state of the union, and need a rowdy 'murican country jam to pump you back up.

This is one of my favorite new ones, in all its popcorn party-song glory.

Chris Young - Aw Naw

For $3,500, Shala Stay or Shala Go? insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® For $3,500, Shala Stay or Shala Go?

A Shallow Vet is an animal doc that you’re really not sure you want anywhere near fido. In contrast, today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Shala Vette is a custom fiberglass buggy by the famous designer Dick Dean, and you need to decide if its price makes it a dog.

You know why we don’t do motorcycles here very often? It’s because you guys freak out over them. Once the furor died down a bit, yesterday’s 1970 Kawasaki A1SS did manage to roll away with a 60% Nice Price win. Good times indeed.

Do you lay in bead night after night, pooled in sweat, staring at the ceiling and unable to sleep because of your lamentation of a world bereft of a vehicle that is a mashup of a C3 Corvette and Disneyland Autopia car? Well, change those sheets and stop counting sheep, because today’s 1969 Shala Vette is here to put your mind to rest.

S

Dick Dean was born Richard Dean Sawitskas, but was dubbed Dick Dean by a syllabically challenged Autorama announcer, and the shorter version stuck. A graduate of Pasadena’s prestigious Art Center, College of Design, where he studied under none other than Strother MacMinn, Dean opened a customizing business in Michigan after a short and unhappy stint at a steel mill.

It wasn’t until hooking up with George Barris in 1959 that Dean’s fortunes took a turn for the fortunate, and he started to make a name for himself. After moving to California, Dean worked his way up to running Barris’ Kustom City shop where he oversaw the creation of a number of custom creations for which Barris of course took all the credit.

S

One of Dean’s interests was Dune Buggies, having built a number of Meyers Manx cars, and eventually designing his own Beetle in disguise, the gull wing’d Shalako. That car led to Malcolm Bricklin commissioning Dean to develop the former Subaru importer’s namesake folly. Before that however, it led to the object of our attention today, the Shala Vette.

What the heck is a Shala Vette? Well, it’s a dune buggy that looks like a kiddy car version of the C3 Corvette. As such, it’s a fiberglass body on a shortened VW platform powered by a VW flat four... out in the back.

Only about 10 of the Shala Vette bodies were ever made, and while they turn up for sale from time to time rarely do you find them in as nice a shape as this one. Yeah, that’s pretty subjective as this Shala does evidence its age as the gel coat appears dull and there is wear on some of the hard edges.

The interior is a plastic tub on the VW's waffled floor and into that have been placed a pair of vinyl and fabric seats, probably donated from a van. The ad claims the pan underneath all that is free of rust and it appears that the car has disc brakes up front, which is a plus.

S

The seller also says that the car runs and drives despite having been in storage for the past ten years. If its owner hasn’t maintained its non-op status then the cool gold-on-blue California plates may not be presently usable. ’69 was the first year those were made available.

Dean oversaw a lot of custom cars for TV shows and the movies, and you might remember the Shala Vette from the 1975 trashploitation flick, Death Race 2000 where a heavily modified one was piloted by the star and mortifyingly embarrassing death experiencer David Carradine.

S

While it’s cartoonish in the extreme, the Shala Vette has a provenance, and seeing as this one’s apparently in drivable shape - albeit with what looks to be a grab bar instead of a windscreen - that begs the question, what is it worth?

The seller of this Shala is asking $3,500 to take it off his hands. You now need to vote on whether than’s a deal or not. What do you think, is this Dick Dean custom worth that kind of cash? Or, is this Shala’s price a shall not?

You decide!

City of Angels Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a fixed-price tip, and remember to include your commenter handle.

Related

For $3,500, Are Two Wheels Good?

Kawasaki’s motto used to be that they would let the good times roll. Motorcycles are pretty rare here on Nice Price or Crack Pipe, but then this A1SS … Read…

For $3,500, Shala Stay or Shala Go?

How Do Gas Pumps Know When to Stop? insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® How Do Gas Pumps Know When to Stop?

If you've ever put gas in a car, you'll know that the pump magically knows when to stop spewing fuel into the tank. That's super useful, and safe too. But how does it know when to stop?

Is it witchcraft? Psychic powers? Clever guesswork? Or, you know, some simple but incredibly smart engineering? Watch this video and find out! [YouTube]

How Do Gas Pumps Know When to Stop?

Why The Made In America Nissan Leaf Isn't All American insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® Why The Made In America Nissan Leaf Isn't All American

Welcome to Must Read, where we single out the best stories from around the automotive universe and beyond. Today we have reports from Green Car Reports, University Herald, and the Hemmings.

S

Great little explanation from our friend John Voelcker over at Green Car Reports.

The 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car is assembled in Smyrna, Tennessee, for North American sales.

In fact, Nissan got a low-interest loan for $1.6 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy to make that possible.

So why does every 2013 Leaf carry a window sticker saying that its U.S. and Canadian content is just 15 percent—while 80 percent of its parts content comes from Japan?

S

It might be lost, but the Allante is far from forgotten. It's always at the front of my mind.

In the early 1980s, General Motors came to the conclusion that it needed a halo car for its Cadillac brand, something that could stand toe to toe with the likes of the Mercedes-Benz SL. Such a luxury convertible would feature comfort without sacrificing handling, would wear a European-styled skin and, perhaps most significant of all, would attract younger buyers into Cadillac showrooms. Initial dialogue with design firm Pininfarina took place in 1982, and General Motors soon gave approval to a project code-named “Callisto.” In 1987, the car jointly developed between Cadillac and Pininfarina would debut as the Cadillac Allante, and it would go on to have a profound effect on both Cadillac and General Motors.

S

Now this is interesting stuff.

For many decades, we have been relying on fossil resources to produce liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and many industrial and consumer chemicals for daily use. However, increasing strains on natural resources as well as environmental issues including global warming have triggered a strong interest in developing sustainable ways to obtain fuels and chemicals.

Have a story we absolutely have to read? Send it to tips at jalopnik dot com with the subject line "Must Read."

Why The Made In America Nissan Leaf Isn't All American