Plan B Forum

This is the best car ad since that tiny FIAT 500 accidentally got one of those little blue pills in its gas tank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsGrFYD5Nfs

I've seen three of replicas of the Benz Motorwagen. I dunno, the one at the Smithsonian may be a real one, and the one at the Petersen Museum may have been the same one that used to be at Harrah's. It was very crude, but I guess it got the job done, at about 5-1/2 MPH...

Yet it is very nice. Dunno about the feminist sub-text. There are many who argue that the bicycle did more to liberated women. I think that route she used is marked for tourists today. I saw the two wheeled job as well as the tricycle in the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart. There I actually sat in the W196 race car. The guards were not so protective as they seem to be today.

And in case anyone is interested, the Fiat dealership in New Castle Delaware, right next to the Toyota dealer and across the street from the Wilmington airport) is a beautiful big building with a 'For Rent" out front.

snailgate

Burning Petard wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 28, 2020 12:48 am

And in case anyone is interested, the Fiat dealership in New Castle Delaware, right next to the Toyota dealer and across the street from the Wilmington airport) is a beautiful big building with a 'For Rent" out front.

snailgate

I could have told them FIAT was not going to be well accepted before they even opened a single dealership. I don't think Alfa Romeo is either.

I've had an Alfa and two Fiats. I loved the Alfa but have to admit that it rotted away dreadfully. British roads with winter salt - maybe an Italian body was not made for those conditions.

My first Fiat 127 I bought used in Libya. I took that thing everywhere including a lot of off road stuff and it never let me down. Well OK it got bogged down in the sand a time or two but that wasn't its fault. Roughly the color of the pic below.

The second one I bought new in the UK, largely because I liked my LIbyan one so much. Again, no trouble. Fiat gets a bad rap. A friend of mine had the old-style Fiat 500 around 1970 which, because few of us students had cars in those days, saw a lot of action. Plenty of room for four friends. A friend and I were hitch-hiking around Europe (summer 1968) with backpacks, sleeping rough and basically doing a tour of European breweries. Somewhere between Heineken and Holsten we got a lift with a pair of Israeli soldiers on a similar tour. They had rented a Fiat 500; and Sid and I with all our gear and the two soldiers with all their kit fitted comfortably. Comfortably might be a stretch but we managed. But what I have seen of the current version of the 500, I would not fancy driving one on American roads. And I like small cars.

I had a college friend whose father offered her a choice between a new Fiat 128 (I think it was a 128. This is an almost 50 year old memory.) or a VW Bug. She chose the Fiat against my recommendation. How many Fiat 128s do you see on the road today? I see VWs of that era all the time. IIRC the 128 had a 20K mile recommended timing belt replacement interval. Granted, timing belts were a fairly new thing. God forbid your FIAT had an oil leak. An oil soaked belt wouldn't come close to to 20K.

See https://www.allacronyms.com/FIAT/fun Some of these are too kind.

Maybe they kept all the good ones on the other side of the pond.

I am just impressed that they managed to keep the archival film in such good shape.

Long Run wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 28, 2020 9:29 pm

I am just impressed that they managed to keep the archival film in such good shape.

The film cans were hermetically sealed and kept in a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnalls' porch since 1888 until just recently....

You don't s'pose it was shot some 130 years after it happened? Naah, the film must have been kept in the salt mine in Hutchinson KS, about 45 miles from here.

From Wikipedia:
Underground Vaults & Storage Gallery

While the 26-acre facility is a secured site in another area of the Hutchinson Salt Company mine not open to the public, Underground Vaults & Storage (UV&S)[26] has replicated the look and set-up of its operation for the Kansas underground Salt Museum. The company is internationally known for its highly protective, secured storage capabilities, including being home to the original camera negative of many movies, like Gone with the Wind and Ben Hur, as well as television show masters. UV&S also stores medical records, oil and gas charts, and a host of other valuable documents and other materials from all 50 states and many foreign countries.[27]

Businesses prefer this storage because of the constant temperature and relative humidity, the high security level created by “shaft only” access, and the mine's safeguard from natural disasters like tornadoes, floods, hurricanes or earthquakes. Underground Vaults and Storage and the Kansas Underground Salt Museum have been loaned several artifacts and actual costumes from popular movies. The temporary exhibit includes such notable memorabilia as Batman and Mr. Freeze costumes from Batman & Robin, James Dean’s shirt from Giant, the Snowman from the 1998 film Jack Frost, and Agent Smith’s costume from The Matrix.

And then there's this 20 year old SF Gate story: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tre ... 778029.php

I toured the mine as a kid. I don't recall that they mentioned doing the storage thing, but it is a 60 year old memory. I was impressed by all that salt, and how dark it was when they switched off the lights. Each "descendant" got a printed certificate saying that we had made the trip. Mine was pinned to my bedroom wall until I left for college.

Edited to add: I almost forgot. Complete computers from US Censuses since 1980 are stored there too.

We watched the movie "Enola Holmes", probably on Prime, last weekend. It is the story about Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes' much younger sister. She's the only one of the Holmes kids to have a reasonable first name.

There are a couple of good sequences where a Benz Motor Carriage is driven.

I expect we will see more of Millie Bobby Brown. The kid is a pretty good actor.

Have you seen Stranger Things?

MGMcAnick wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 17, 2020 11:40 pm

We watched the movie "Enola Holmes", probably on Prime, last weekend. It is the story about Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes' much younger sister.

Bilge. There was no sister in the canon.

MGMcAnick wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 17, 2020 11:40 pm

We watched the movie "Enola Holmes", probably on Prime, last weekend.

I hear she turned out to be gay.

Should have stayed at home yesterday...

I always enjoyed this ad: the Indian guy with his Hindustan Ambassador who longed for a Peugeot 206.

Gob wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 18, 2020 11:19 am

Should have stayed at home yesterday...

BoSoxGal wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 18, 2020 2:13 am

Have you seen Stranger Things?

No, but I understand she considers Stranger Things to be her "big break". I think she's only beginning her acting career.

The Best Car Advertisement That Never Existed


-"BB"-

Oh it existed all right; but it was not created by DDB (Doyle Dane Bernbach, VW's ad agency at the time) nor was it paid for by Volkswagen. It was a visually spot-on replica of the VW ads DDB was running at the time (1972), but it was produced and published by The National Lampoon, at no cost to VW. (The Lampoon had to recall the magazine and issue an apology: “Even if Ted Kennedy had driven a Volkswagen he wouldn’t be president today.”) Ironically, the fake ad may have actually helped VW to sell some cars.

This is my favorite car commercial of all time. It perfectly captures the joy of driving that Cabrio on a summer night. https://vimeo.com/141594401?ref=em-share

(Is there a way to link Vimeo vids?)