I have been on vacation for 61.5 hours now, and so far went through Hot Springs Arkansas, and now I am in Nashville. One of the things I really wanted to see in Nashville was the Lane Motor Museum, home of all kinds of interesting vehicles. I was not disappointed. So here are some cars, and some light snark.
This is the 1982 Cub Commuter. It has a surprisingly roomy and comfortable interior for you and your action figures. Why would you have action figures in there? Because a woman would not be in there with you. Even if you were not a virgin, you would revert to one upon receiving the keys for a 1982 Cub Commuter.
This handsome devil is a SAAB Sonett. This was the affordable European sports car I lusted after as a teenager. I did sit in one at some point in the late 1980s. It did not have adequate clearance for my gigantic Brussels-sprout head, which made me sad. As such, I did not buy it. If I were more of a Richard Hammond sized-person, I would have bought it.
This magnificent thing is the Gyro -X. It was incredibly ambitious, and it does work. It is basically an enclosed motorcycle (two wheels one front and one back), the wheels you see at the back are a kickstand for when it is not running. To remain upright while in use, it has a massive gyroscope in the front that works similar to an SST Evel Knievel bike. Want to turn your Gyro X and go around a corner? It pushes the gyroscope left or right. The car would bank and turn accordingly. This was restored by the Lane over a period of years, and they have an informational video about how it works. It’s a glorious machine. It even had two fuel tanks at the back to remain balanced, instead of one big one that could slosh.
Here is a picture of that massive gyroscope at the front of the Gyro X. Once that spins up to an unholy RPM, you are off! And hope nobody knocks into it while you are driving. That’s a lot of energy right in front of your frank and beans.
This is the last car for now. This Citroen doesn’t have a glandular condition, it has a gasification system that turns coal into combustible gas to run the car. It took a while to build up enough gas, but it was better than walking. I will do a longer piece on this one, because it is super cool (to me, at least). It was one of those WWII (or World War Eleven if you are a congress person with a vagina whose name rhymes with “crowbar”) innovations that went from backyard idea to full production model.
That’s it for now! I took enough photos to do two pieces on the Lane Motor Museum itself, and a longer piece on the Citroen above. I do influence anyone in the Nashville area to have a visit. It is well worth your time.
Don’t forget to stop at Monell’s.
Get well soon, SugarFree!
Neat.
I’ve seen other articles on the Lane. It looks like a fun place.
BTW – ZWAK’s article on Belfast in the AM links is worth the read. I finally got to it.
Saab’s are cool, I don’t care who you are.
At the Saab club meet in Carlisle (which I am working on an article about), I was talking to an owner of a Sonett and asked him how long he has owned it.
“That’s kind of a sad story, I’ve owned it for 23 years, but it’s only been driveable the last 5 years.”
I told him that’s not sad, sad would be if it still wasn’t on the road.
Saabs are cool. I still resent GM and Obama for killing them.
You could almost say its a saab story.
If the story was set to a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set rhyming scheme, you could call it a saab sonnet.
Myaffordable European sports car I lusted after as a teenager was the Opel GT.
whose name rhymes with “crowbar”
Alternatively, “have the IQ of a crowbar”.
That’s an insult to Crowbars. They are very clever tools.
I am wondering how a gyroscope would affect doing Dukes of Hazzard stunts.
Good question. Seeing how it is a giant SST racer from the 1970s, I would think it would be excellent at ramp jumping.
That Gyro-X is wild.
The pent up energy from this gyroscope would be interesting.
I recall someone experimented with a mechanical form of regenerative braking some years back. They used a fly-wheel to absorb the forward momentum normally scrubbed off from braking to re-accelerate the car.
Report was that the gyroscopic torque broke things and the spinning energy made for a potential time-bomb.
I do influence anyone in the Nashville area to have a visit. It is well worth your time.
Seconded.
They have a Steyr car and a Birmingham Small Arms (BSA) car.
Those were not out when I visited. They are about to open another wing, which is exciting. Then more of the full collection can be on display.
Oh?
I might have to make another trip.
The Steyr car was on the main display floor when I was there. The BSA car was in the garage on the side.
it has a gasification system that turns coal into combustible gas to run the car
I’d rather have the one with the front end sawed off, which is pulled by horses.
Silly Brooks, you can’t run horses on coal.
Lack of access to petroleum made Germany heavily invest time and resources into using coal to power vehicles and equipment. Most of the Third Reich was powered by synthetic gas derived from coal.
This is as good a place as any to plug this guy again.
Great historical stuff; cars, airplanes, motors, racing and combinations thereof.
By the authority vested in me, I hereby confer upon Ezra Klein an honorary Bubble Test score of 0
https://x.com/charlesmurray/status/2064665934040596858?s=20
Bonus Robby Soave.
OT- I’ve discovered a new level of Concur hell. Our TA has a customized instance of Concur that we now use. It’s even worse. But still have regular Concur for expensing.
I got used to and even liked the old version of Concur before one of the recent facelifts. It worked reasonably well and I could book travel easy enough. The last update took a big shit on UX. And the TA skinned version… Along with an even crappier UX, the rates displayed aren’t accurate. I’m going to blow my travel budget and shrug.
I do like that I can search for travel that’s out of policy. Sometimes I build trips in international first and suites at luxury hotels for fantasy business trips. So far I’ve hit cancel before booking.
So you don’t concur with Concur?
For better or worse I don’t travel much anymore.
Concur hell – at least you do not have to convert accurately to the penny euro to lei. Also I don”t know about other companies but when a colleague went to Taiwan he discovered Taiwan currency was not covered by the tool.
The furthest I might be asked to legitimately travel would be Utica.
Even then there’s no real reason I’d have to.
We’re not allowed to attend conferences or other events. Well, we could take vacation time and pay our own way, but you’re talking business funded travel.
Why would you want to go to Utica?
Taiwan currency was not covered by the tool.
Probably to appease Xi.
Why would you want to go to Utica? – to pick up chicks?
The state’s backup datacenter is there. The primary is in Albany, so they put the secondary someplace at least a little ways away in case of natural disaster clensing the earth.
It’s not surprising that Concur’s “upgrade” is worse. It’s now owned by SAP, German for shit software.
For better. Traveling is exhausting – for work OR pleasure.
You mean “Scheisse Anwendung Produktion”?
My son, PhD and all, is a climate believer – however, he is a passionate advocate FOR nuclear power generation. He and his wife are expecting baby #2 by the end of this month.
They both live in a bubble. That sentiment is common on the Left.
My grandchildren are Climate Change deniers, until their kids are grown and gone, then they will be Climate Changers again. They need more labor saving stuff right now.
This magnificent thing
Is it somewhere behind that purple atrocity?
Looks red to me.
That’s not a bubble, it’s a bathysphere. Hermetically sealed and impenetrable.
I am eating at Guy Fieri’s Flavortown. I love it.
If OMWC knew he might hiss like a vampire.
Nashville is home to Maneet Chauhan’s restaurant.
*drooling*
i always knew you was low class
“They said you was high class but that was just a lie”
/E. Presley
Speaking of bubbleheads
In interviews earlier this week, environmental groups that supported Steyer’s campaign said their hopes were fading that the general election would feature the most climate-focused candidate to ever run for the office.
“It would have been lovely to have a sustained and intelligent debate on how climate is affecting all these other pocketbook issues in our state,” said RL Miller, president of Climate Hawks Vote Political Action. “But, at this point, I’m trying to cycle through the stages of grieving, and accept what is not going to be.”
Oh, no. Where will we get our doom mongering?
So many millions of dollars wasted because people refuse to believe!
In the more immediate term, environmental groups say Steyer’s defeat represents a lost opportunity to reach millions of voters with messages about how climate change is contributing to the affordability crisis by raising housing and health care costs.
They argue that while statewide polling from organizations like the Public Policy Institute of California shows climate and environment as a low priority for voters compared to the economy, Steyer would have had an opportunity to connect the dots for those who respond more positively to climate policy when it’s clearly linked to affordability issues.
“It is incredibly important when you have somebody spending millions of dollars messaging on the issue of climate and clean energy and affordability,” said Matt Abularach-Macias, California Environmental Voters’ political and organizing director, on Monday. “That is really powerful in shaping public opinion in the minds of California voters.”
Those climate policies are all about promoting affordability for the working man.
Or… maybe it’s just possible the public are starting to realize what a complete line of bullshit that is.
USA Toady headline:
“Casual Drinker? You still have a 1 in 25 risk of dying, study says.”
Your odds of dying are a whole lot better than that.
Where has this latest neo-prohibitionist bullshit been coming from? Is it just another aspect of Zoomers and Alphas being scared of their own shadows?
Getting dietary advice from the government experts is worth every penny you’ve paid for it.
It may be part of the whole 3rd Great Awakening thing that may still be going on.
So 96% chance I haven’t died yet?
Pretty good odds
People say that, but I’ve lived my entire life and never even died once!
I’m assuming it was Range Rover or similar. Why in the world would you let your PM’s car even have an active cellular module?
https://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/other/china-put-secret-tracking-device-on-the-pm-s-car-four-years-ago/ar-AA25dTpa
The part of the car containing the geolocating device had been installed by the vehicle’s manufacturer, reports at the time said.
Yes, and by all means, do not disclose said manufacturer or why a presumably special order vehicle would contain unvetted parts.
From AI – “During his tenure as UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s primary official vehicles were the heavily armored Jaguar XJ Sentinel and the Range Rover Sentinel.”
So a JLR product of some kind.
Probably to appease Xi.
The car pictured is a Jaguar XJ (r) but the same supply chain as land rover.
The article implies that it was embedded in an object that would not normally be opened. So is this part specific to the armored vehicles? or did CN just put trackers in every part that was scheduled to be delivered to JLR?..
then it goes on to bitch on the number of cellular devices in the car, but that isn’t the story.
I ordered a replacement air suspension reservoir for my RR sport… it arrived with a bad weld, and I’m now working on a warranty claim… perhaps it also has a tracker in there.
The quote is from the Daily Mail… you can assume the UK prime minister.. just like if the NYTimes talks about the president, you don’t go “of Uganda?”
My LR3 had three compressors replaced under warranty.
We discussed this a couple of weeks back.
Although I just put in the 3rd compressor.. (in 13 years)… it was more because I didn’t have time to put the problem compressor on the bench and let the car sit for 2-3 days.
to JLR the compressor is a “single part” if it has any issue.. replace compressor.
The second compressor was because the exhaust valve wouldn’t seal… what it really needed was a new o-ring kit.. but AMK doesn’t service their compressors. There are aftermarket o-ring kits.
The last compressor just needed a good clean as the exhaust valve was sticking closed…(I only know this after fully debugging it on the bench at home) but at $120 I just bought a new Chinese one as I couldn’t keep the car on the lift for days as I debugged the real issue.
The ultimate of this is the circulation pump for the Kohler hot tub I have…
Motor doesn’t work… debug to motor thermal limit switch. (resistor, broken) (bypass with jumper to make it work)
Kohler: Sta-rite pump #1234 is a single part to us.. replace pump
Sta-rite: motor is AO-smith #5678.. replace motor.
AO-Smith. That part?.. thermacon #55-66?
Order Thermacon #55-66… $0.45… but only commercial orders..
So I had my father’s company submit a PO for 0.45 to source the replacement part.. plus probably 5$ shipping.
0.45 to source the replacement part.. plus probably 5$ shipping
LOL.
It wasn’t in the Digikey catalog… so we couldn’t add it to a regular order…
I’ve had shipping as an oversized cost on single specialized parts. Still better than no part.
I would also rather fix it correctly rather than take the long term risk of an over-temp failure (Fire!!)..
I’ve also needed parts from Grainger… they want the commercial business ID.. even if you are paying cash… I was able to use essentially defunct businesses that were still in their database to complete the transaction.
A Chinese tracking device was discovered in the Prime Minister’s official car, MPs have been told.
Prime Minister of WHAT COUNTRY, you fucking incompetent retarded hack?
To be fair, the writer was writing for a domestic outlet and MSN picked the article up for distribution on the internet.
“It is not clear which of the three Tory prime ministers that year – Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak – was being targeted.”
All of them?
Probably every owner of a JLR product in the world.
Just to be sure.
Dear TPTB,
I just submitted an article for review. Two of the links are being automatically formatted as “WordPress Embed” and I can’t figure out how to make them plain URLs. If you could fix them I would greatly appreciate it.
Oh! I did figure that out. If you want the full link in, activate the Text mode, and copy it in. Then don’t touch it again. When you leave Text mode, it will be a naked link. Not an embed, or hidden behind a word like I do.
I lived at Ft Campbell for almost six years.
I only learned about this museum about six months before I got out of the army and never got down there sadly.
I bet you skipped the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, too.
I’ve been through Paducah twice in the last 10-ish years and wanted to go there both times and both times they were closed. Unfortunately, my mother did not want to stay until it WAS open.
That sounds fortunate to me.
We went up there, went to the mall which was 90% dead and laughed at the quilt museum billboard.
Your comments on this…
https://x.com/kunley_drukpa/status/2064583454365257955
w0t?
I haven’t seen too many ugly monasteries. Maybe my tastes just run that way.
Those architects aren’t in the habit of making crap.
Western Digital is asshoe.
YEARS ago, I bought a MyCloud. Some not-enough years after that, WD said, “Oh, hey, we’ve deprecated your box.” Well, what *I* heard was, “We bricked it, sucker.” I shrugged and moved on with my life. In the last year or so I’ve put a new NAS on my shopping list, and then a series of fortunate events led me to notice that my TV sees my NAS. Oh. Well okay then! I can put movies on it. Yay. THEN I was like, I got that fucker so I could access certain files while I was out and about because I am not fucking paying for Dropbox to have out-of-the-house access to my ebooks, music, movies, etc.
ANYWAY. Through persistent asking of questions I don’t know how to ask but ChatGPT can interpret, I am now able to access my NAS outside the house on my phone.
Somebody slap a gold star on my forehead and tell me I dun good.
So, good news, Moj, though I didn’t understand a word of it.
It means I worked out a particularly vicious knot that had been wearing a hole in my brain for years.
MeToo Fourscore.
I worry about security issues with making services like that accessable externally.
It’s behind a password.
Me too as I explained below.
That is pretty cool.
Keep in mind if you can access it from outside your network so can somebody else.
Depending on vulnerabilities of whatever your NAS is running you may be able to bypass a proper login. Your need for security vigilance goes up significantly.
All right. Your and UCS’s advice is noted down in my trusty notebook. Yes. It’s paper.
You dun good.
I inadvertently bought a LG top loader washing machine about 10 years ago (Kenmore). Surprisingly no problems at all till this week. Now after slightly flooding the laundry room I’ll be replacing the water valve solenoid assembly. Let’s hope my troubleshooting skills for appliances are sufficient. I’m glad I didn’t find out after starting a load and heading to work for 6 hours, as the results might have been more problematic.
I have a Speed Queen and so far no issues. But I fixed my old dryer a half dozen times. When I finally couldn’t repair it, I went to the appliance parts store where I buy parts, and bought a used one. I only asked which one was easiest to repair. “That one right there.” SOLD.
I have to admit, other than the control board, the system is relatively simple. Similar to working on a modern car, sensors and actuators are what goes, but as long as they are cheap and easy to access, it doesn’t take much to service. Now taking apart the motor and tub require tools I don’t have.
A speed queen will likely be my next washer purchase, these two Kenmore products are so far ok. 10 years for an appliance before service is pretty good these days.
My Miele dishwasher has dual inlet valves in series to handle this sort of failure.. you need both of them to fail open to cause a water problem.
the downside?.. if either fails closed (happens much more often).. it won’t fill..
I’ve put in 3 valves so far in 19 years. the last one did tell me that there was a leak in the main recirculation pump that wasn’t enough to trigger a code, but left salty residue all over the drip pan.
Our dishwasher started slow leaking until enough water accumulated to trigger the water detection. Missus wanted to replace it with a wifi enabled inflation inflated plasticized new model. I put a replacement seal on the leaking connection.
I had my own useful AI interaction today. I used to wear a Garmin watch (I got tired of it), but I have some heart rate data from hockey games saved. I uploaded screen shots to Grok and asked how I can train off-ice to optimize for games. I’m currently strength training 3x a week, so it had me add one day of steady-state cardio, and one day of intervals (sprints, etc.). I thought I might need to add something like this, but it gave me some nice details. It was cool how it could read a heart rate graph.
Her vagina’s name is Nomar? Slow Car? Mopar?
Oooh! Unexpected Top Gear vibes fresh on lunch! Ooh.
Phenomenal topic and timing.
Sean….
https://nypost.com/2026/06/10/us-news/55-kids-teens-charged-in-hersheypark-opening-day-brawl/
[redacted]
That Citroen is damn sexy. That’d be my villainous vehicle. And on normal errands, too. Gotta let folk know who ya are.
Nithya Raman even LOST her own district (CD-4) to Spencer Pratt and Karan Bass, but you expect us to believe she beat them BOTH by winning 40% of the vote in the rest of the city by mail-in ballots? 🧐
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2064088167234355334?s=20
If Trump doesn’t get his boys on the blatant fraud, I’m gonna be pissed.
Burn it all down, mates.
UK needs more common sense hooligan control.
Nithya Raman even LOST her own district (CD-4) to Spencer Pratt and Karan Bass, but you expect us to believe she beat them BOTH by winning 40% of the vote in the rest of the city by mail-in ballots?
Los Angeles is 100% Democratic Socialist or farther left. Experts agree.
*Why do I think Pratt was jumping for joy when word came that he had lost?