New Year’s Eve, the night when all the amateur drunks are out on the road. These seem fitting. (We’ll do Travel Thursday on Friday again this week.)
Shot: From the Laphroaig Whisky channel, a tour of the Laphroaig distillery.
Chaser: “Space Driving Tactics”. This has nothing to do with Star Wars (though if you want that, I assume you’ve seen Ian’s video) but is instead a 1971 driver’s ed film about the importance of allowing space so you can react to the drivers around you. This seems especially important on a night like tonight.
Another thing I’m trying to avoid using too much is the “Timeline – World History Documentaries” channel. But this popped up in the feed, and is relevant to my interests:
“How The Germanic Barbarians Annihilated Rome’s Legions”, a semi-short (49 minutes) documentary about the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest.
Bonus: To give folks a little variety, here’s a documentary about “The Black Ghost”, a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE with a 426 Hemi that was a street racing legend in Detroit.
I’m not a huge gearhead, and definitely not a big Mopar guy, but I have to say: that is one nice car, with a great story behind it.
Bonus #1, from the same channel: “Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons – The Land Speed Battle Of Bonneville”.
Bonus #2: It seems to me like a lot of folks talk about Breedlove and Arfons, and rightly so. But it doesn’t seem like folks remember Gary Gabelich and the “Blue Flame“. I actually do, because the American Gas Association took out full page ads in National Geographic promoting it. At the age of (mumble mumble) I thought a rocket car was incredibly cool.
“Break The Record”.
Bonus #3: Throwing in one more, because these are all short-ish: “The Budweiser Rocket”. Also, this is a little more contemporary than the others.
I know I’ve said in the past that I don’t want to post a lot of “Forgotten Weapons” stuff, because I figure if folks are interested, they already subscribe. I’m making an exception here because:
a) This is a pretty recent entry.
II) Smith and Wesson.
3) Australia, Australia, we love you, amen.
Specifically, a Smith and Wesson pistol-carbine made for the South Australian Police.
Bonus #1: I actually thought about posting this yesterday, but couldn’t find it in my recommendations. It popped up again today, and this is some real history: “Hannibal’s Elephant Army – The New Evidence”.
Bonus #2: For some reason, I’ve been getting a lot of car repair videos in my feed. Especially ones from “Precision Transmission”. I thought I’d post this one because I shared it with some other folks privately and it seems like they enjoyed it.
“Nitrous doesn’t play well with others! Especially when you have pretty much stock unit.”
Today’s historical video is dedicated to Iowahawk and his fans. Iowahawk may already be aware of this one.
“Wonderful World Of Wheels”. According to the YouTube notes, this is a cut-down version of a longer documentary about car culture in the 1960s. Among other things: Fabian racing go-karts, “Big Daddy” Roth and George Barris, John Derek, and narration by Lloyd Bridges (whose lungs were apparently not bursting for air).
Bonus:
Okay, not really. I just threw that in for giggles.
“Rubber For Industry”, a Firestone propaganda film from the 1940s. After all, you can’t have wheels without rubber, can you? (Well, technically, you can, but they have limitations.)
This isn’t actually a random YouTube recommendation. I ran across this by way of a post from McThag – I thought it was a while back, but apparently it was earlier this year. Time flies when you’re locked down.
I’m not a big car guy, and I was never much of a “Motor Trend” fan. As I’ve written before, “Car and Driver” during that late 1970s – early 1980s period was my jam. “Motor Trend” seemed to be “Who Spent the Most Money On Advertising With Us”, and “Road and Track” was the magazine for 50ish guys who drove MGs painted British Racing Green while wearing tweed jackets and dapper little caps and looking down their nose at the rest of the car world.
But I digress. “Motor Trend” apparently had a YouTube channel. One of their features was “RoadKill”, where, as I understand, the two hosts bought crappy cars, fixed them up to the point where they were minimally driveable, and then went on road trips with them. Hilarity frequently ensued.
This particular video amuses me: in this case, they bought the world’s worst Corvette, with the intention of driving it from Florida to Bowling Green, Kentucky…
I think even my non-car people readers should get some amusement out of this, as the Corvette in question is astonishingly bad. The fact that it doesn’t have a windshield is only the start of the troubles.
Bonus video: according to the person who re-uploaded this video, “Motor Trend” moved their content off of YouTube and on to “Motor Trend On Demand”. But other people have uploaded more “Roadkill” videos, if you find the idea of two guys patching up crappy cars and going on road trips oddly appealing. Here’s a playlist.
Here’s something I haven’t done before. Remember the days of auto stunt shows? Guys jumping over cars? Demolition derbies?
“So You Want Thrills!” No, that’s the name of the movie, not a statement of fact. Featuring Jimmy Lynch and his Death Dodgers. And what do the Death Dodgers drive? If you said “Dodge cars”, take two gold stars and advance to the next blue square.
That one is from 1948. Our bonus video is from the early 1980s, and alsp features Chrysler/Dodge cars: “The Hell Driver Formula”.
That’s something I wish I could have seen when I was younger. Unfortunately, there really weren’t any tracks in the Houston area where a team could do this kind of driving. They did do a stunt show/demolition derby in the Astrodome when I was young, and I remember going to that at least once: the high point for me was the guy who sealed himself in a coffin and blew himself up. There was also a car jump involved, as I recall, but (odd as it may seem) space in the Astrodome didn’t allow for a truly epic long car jump.
(They were doing these shows in the Astrodome at least up until 1985: a Wikipedia search reminded me that Karel Soucek, a “Canadian daredevil” who went over Niagra Falls in a barrel, was killed during one of those shows.)
Oh, what the hell, one more: “Paul Riddell’s Imperial Hell Drivers”. I think this is from Canada, eh? Oh, wait, I’m sorry: I checked Wikipedia, and it is actually from a show in Quebec. Apologies to both the Canadians and the Québécois in my audience.
Mike the Musicologist pointed out to me the other day the most 70s thing ever, at least according to MeTV:
(That reminds me: Hi, Saturday Dining Conspiracy regular who shall remain anonymous but likes “Xanadu”! Hope you guys are doing okay!)
Now, I will concede that this is probably the high-water mark of the 1970s: as Hunter S. Thompson said about the 1960s, “that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” But here’s another vintage slice of peak 70s for you.
If you’re unemployed, it might even help you find a job…selling cars to women.
On a historical note, this may explain why Chrysler needed that bail out…
Today’s bonus video, which actually might be suitable for those of you who are homeschooling your children: how does an oil refinery work?
…I’m gonna go have me some fun!
And what do you consider fun?
Fun, natural fun!”
–Tom Tom Club, “Genius of Love”
Now that I’m on indefinite home confinement (like the rest of Travis County) I’ve found myself not just reading more, but also watching more crap on YouTube.
“Crap” may not actually be fair. I’ve enjoyed the USCSB videos for a while now. AOPA’s Air Safety Institute videos are educational as well. And, yes, I’ve been watching my share of Ian’s videos in these times of struggle. Shamefully, I’ve also been watching clips from “Bar Rescue”.
My point, and I do have one, is: some interesting things have been showing up in my YouTube recommendations, and I thought I’d start highlighting those. At least, until the crisis passes.
Rules: I want to keep them short, and ideally want to pick ones that people haven’t heard of. So no “Surviving Edged Weapons”, because that’s close to an hour and half and has been highlighted on Red Letter Media. But I think at least some of these will be vintage police training videos…
…let’s start with this one, “Vehicle Ambush: Counterattacks”. If for no other reason than that awesome 1970’s wakka jawakka opening soundtrack.
Tomorrow: I’m trying to decide if I want to go with Jack Webb (although I don’t think the video quality is all that great) or possibly a vintage US Navy training film. (Nothing about VD, though.)
Hattip on this to Lawrence, who also pointed out that Mr. McNally did a guest shot on “The Greatest American Hero”. He actually did guest shots on a small hand full of TV shows, including “Salvage I” (that sounds like a “blink and you’d miss it” appearance), “CHiPs”, and “The Young and the Restless”.
Speaking of hattips, great and good FOTB Borepatch sent over an obit for Albert Uderzo, co-creator (with the late René Goscinny) of Asterix and Obelix.
A couple of quick things from the weekend that I’m just now getting around to:
Catherine Pugh’s sentencing hearing in the “Healthy Holly” scandal was last week. The government is asking for five years. Her lawyers are asking for a year and a day.
But she claims this isn’t “a gift that she had to report under the city’s ethics laws”, even though accepting gifts from your underlings is questionable in any environment, and possibly illegal under ethics laws.
Also, and I say this without snark, having been in this position myself recently: Mayor Breed, if your 18 year old car is going to cost $5,000 to fix, maybe you need to be looking at another car instead.