My friend Bennett went out and found himself the high bidder for a 1950 Hudson Hornet at an auto auction last weekend, and asked the boys if anyone could help him get it home. I love an adventure, so I met him at his storage facility and we drove down into D.C. to pick it up. He’s got a good hauling truck and a heavy-duty trailer with a winch, so the actual recovery was pretty drama-free.
When we got it back to the storage lot, we had the first real opportunity to look it over, and realized it was very complete. Someone had pulled the original Hudson straight-6 out and put a Chevy 350 in with an automatic transmission. It was done well as far as we can tell, too—they put time and effort into the wiring, welding, and engineering. It has a new gas tank, driveshaft, and exhaust, so we figured what the hell and tried turning it over. With a new battery and some gas in the bowl of the carb, it fired right off. So we put some extra gas in the tank and kept it running long enough for the fuel pump to draw from the tank, and it idled on its own happily. Bennett tested the transmission, which appears to shift cleanly.
So this brings our record of dragging-shit-home-from-an-auction-and-getting-it-to-run to 2 for 2; the plan for next weekend is to bring a couple of guys back over and see if we can cruise it around the parking lot.
There are a lot of “Will it Run??!?!”-style videos on YouTube these days, which all follow the same basic format: a guy (they are usually guys) drives or flies somewhere to find a long-abandoned car in a field or barn, spends 3/4 of the video trying to get it running and driving with a minimal set of tools, and then spends the last 1/4 driving it halfway across America to get home. They are hugely popular for reasons I can completely understand: they involve older cars, the host explains what they’re doing, there are usually one or more catastrophic things wrong with the car they must address, and there’s always something that breaks on the way home. I love these videos because I like old cars, I appreciate learning how to fix things, and I love road trips. I would love nothing more than to do this for a living—but I’m not a good enough mechanic yet. Much of what I’ve learned from these videos has come in handy as I’ve gotten the Chrysler and the Travelall running, fixed the brakes, and worked my way through the other systems.
Anyway, there are a lot of these out there now, and I like some more than others. As with podcasts, it’s all about the host; some people are insufferable and rub me the wrong way, and others I enjoy spending time following. I just found a new one with a guy who split a major revival into two parts: a get-it-fixed half and a get-home-but-visit-interesting-places half. The car in question is a beautiful rusty 1960 Impala, abandoned for years, and he manages to keep it running across the country as he checks out some really interesting landmarks. Subscribed.
When I was a kid I watched all the James Bond movies and dreamed of building my own secret lairs inside a volcano or under a mountain or floating out at sea, where I could dock my yachts and helicopters and do Rich People Things. I’d build them out of LEGO or blocks and spend days designing them and building stories around how I’d defend them and where I’d put the helipad.
Poking around on a new military history site the other day, I followed a rabbit hole that led me to a site documenting the transfer of US surplus warplanes to foreign countries after WWII. In the late ’40’s the US gave some amphibious scout bombers to Uruguay, who based them on an island fortress outside Montevideo. It’s an island big enough to host a spacious hangar, outdoor apron, and seaplane ramp, some barracks housing, and not much else. Looking at the pictures and some YouTube video tours of the abandoned facility, all I can think of is that this would make a stellar Evil Lair or secret mission base. If I had stupid Jimmy Buffet money I’d see if Uruguay would sell it to me, then fix it up and base my amphibious planes there. One thing is for sure: I’d put new glass in those giant hangar doors and skylights and have the most AMAZING living room anybody ever sat in.
I’ve been playing The Division 2 for quite a long time now, and it got stale months ago but I haven’t seen any new games that I’ve been interested in trying—until now. Bethesda, the developers behind Fallout 4, are about to release a new game called Starfield, which is a space-based explorer/shooter/dogfighting game that sounds amazing by all accounts. I tried another well reviewed space-based game a while back called No Man’s Sky, which wound up being very repetitive after about ten hours or so, so I’m hopeful this one has the detail and storytelling I enjoyed in the Fallout series. It’s out next week, and I do believe I’ll give it a shot.