- Hagerty Community
- About JDHilton
Turn on suggestions
Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type.
Showing results for
JDHilton
Intermediate Driver
since
18-07-2020
2 weeks ago
29
Posts
27
Likes
551
Minutes online
2 weeks ago
2 Likes
My sister-in-law worked at Cadillac engineering at the time, and said they never could solve the water leaks with the convertible top - they kept getting wet at the carwash. I always suspected that, like Jaguar and a lot of others in those pre-Six Sigma days, Pininfarina built no two bodies exactly the same.
... View more
22-05-2022
02:26 AM
1 Like
or you could get into Jack's taunting spirit and give it a Screaming Chicken
... View more
22-05-2022
02:16 AM
1 Like
the odds are even that I installed the wiper motor in that car. All my questions about the Granada/Monarch/Versailles were answered when I read that Lee Iacocca had ordered the product team to squeeze $200 out of the cost - then, when they'd done it, gave them back $50 to add bling. I still have a jar full of defective wiper and pivot install screws, but even knowing better, I yearned to take one home. Dove gray over red.
... View more
22-05-2022
02:02 AM
1 Like
How on earth were you actually able to keep up with traffic on those hills? I remember having to drop down to 3rd in my '83 Tercel wagon out there, and I bet I had more horsepower (58?) than you! (Your daughter will someday be grateful, if she isn't already, for all the funny stories she can tell at your expense.)
... View more
22-05-2022
01:57 AM
2 Likes
let us know if you make it - and if the odo keeps climbing after you do. I've been in two Toyotas (well, one was a Vibe) that crossed the threshold and decided, enh, at this point, who's counting?
... View more
29-01-2022
12:51 PM
1 Like
I did the math when I bought my first hybrid (a Civic with a manual, now THAT was a rare bird) and it had the same carbon footprint as a pure BEV powered from Michigan's grid at the time - but it took me wherever and whenever I wanted to go. There may indeed be the time you envision when BEVs charge faster and go longer between charges, but as Aragorn said, "this is not that day." And in the meantime, we have places to go and work to do.
... View more
29-01-2022
12:32 PM
"ESG kabuki" - a little esoteric, but still, brilliant. Thanks!
... View more
29-01-2022
12:29 PM
I'm on my third hybrid, after an interval with Honda Fits when my daughter's dog got old (the flip-up back seats, a step, and a dog bed spared his legs and my back). Even compared to the Fits my current-gen Prius is thrifty with gas (mid-forties at 75 in single-digit temperatures in a recent road trip), brakes (after the Civic and first Prius, I'd forgotten how often non-hybrids needed them), and carbon footprint. Feels real to me.
... View more
29-01-2022
12:10 PM
now THAT is a precocious child!
... View more
29-01-2022
12:08 PM
1 Like
My family had you bracketed, as my ex-field-artillery father would have said: '63', '64', and '66 Ramblers of various varieties. Dad loved the '66 Ambassador for its V8 and power brakes, supposedly so sensitive you could put an egg on the pedal and stop without breaking it.
... View more
29-01-2022
12:02 PM
1 Like
That's possible, but it sure looks to me like an omission designed to force people into (much) higher price points.
... View more
24-01-2022
09:36 PM
1 Like
The scrappers did tremendous damage, but the city never seemed to care much about them. Last I knew, the penalty for fencing in Detroit was only having to SELL the stolen merchandise back to the victim. (Happened to a nonprofit where my daughter worked.)
... View more
24-01-2022
09:27 PM
2 Likes
my favorite speeding story came from a friend who was driving across Wyoming in the 1990s. With his Sentra buzzing along, he sailed past a big American sedan only to realize too late it was an unmarked cop car. The cop just waved as he went by!
... View more
24-01-2022
09:18 PM
3 Likes
THAT is a great American photo - thanks for the smile (and for enjoying that Imperial)
... View more
24-01-2022
09:16 PM
1 Like
I was pinged at 6 over back in the 1980s. My folks'Plymouth Valiant, Michigan plates, and when the cop asked what I did and I said, "I build cars," he asked, "race cars?"
... View more
24-01-2022
08:59 PM
right here! https://www.reddit.com/r/instantkarma/
... View more
24-01-2022
08:55 PM
Chrysler didn't pay for that lunch itself - Lee Iacoca got the feds to slap a 25% (!) tariff on imported minivans - the same one that's penalized trucks for almost 60 years: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-02-17-fi-2955-story.html
... View more
24-01-2022
08:49 PM
One of the most valuable moments in my automotive education came when I tried to pass on a Wisconsin freeway in a rainstorm at 70 or so in my parent's 1962 Rambler Classic wagon. When I floored it and the engine-vacuum wipers stopped moving, it belatedly occurred to me that I was exceeding my vehicle's design speed for those circumstances. (The same car provided an equally valuable lesson on my first winter drive, when I turned a corner at the speed I did in summer and came to rest facing the far curb.)
... View more
16-10-2021
01:06 PM
that dipstick story is a jaw-dropper! Talk about NOT sweating the details ...
... View more
16-10-2021
12:55 PM
2 Likes
Back when pot was still illegal, a friend said she knew it must be time for the Ann Arbor Hash Bash when she saw Camaros lining up in the exits off US-23. David E Davis once wrote that we'd appreciate their styling more if we saw them as rarely as we did Ferraris.
... View more
16-10-2021
12:45 PM
Just FYI, the Honda Fit weighed in around 2,500 pounds - I still miss my two 2007s (bought a second after the first was totaled by a driver who mistakenly assumed I had a stop sign). I needed them when my daughter's dog got old - built a small step, flipped up the seat cushion, and he could walk right in - but C/D put the first generation on its 10 Best list for a reason - there really were fun to to drive.
... View more
16-10-2021
12:38 PM
Bargains on wagons were the one upside of the Pinto debacle - people were shunning them when the news broke, but with all that extra crush space, I figured I was better off than in my previous Dodge Colt coupe (the RWD original). I bought a used 1973 wagon, patched and repainted it, and drove it for years, then gave it to a neighbor who drove it for several more years before it finally rusted out completely (Michigan!). A friend who I steered to a 'used 72 (yellow, with the improbable combo of a stick and the "wood" trim) also enjoyed it for years.
... View more
11-09-2021
01:19 PM
1 Like
I'm still amazed at how badly the Magnum misfired - like the Germans, I'd totally misunderstood the market trend. They came back, of course, with full lines of premium SUVs, but I still smile whenever I see a Magnum on the road.
... View more
07-02-2021
12:00 PM
1 Like
My sister-in-law scheduled Cadillac's pre-production cars while the Allante was being developed. We both admired the looks, but she told me they never could get the tops to keep out water - I guess either Pininfarina couldn't build the bodies consistently or they got shook up on that 747.
... View more
21-11-2020
09:32 PM
1 Like
Back in the late 1980s one of my wife's brothers in California had an adorkable Honda CRX. As it got older, he passed on the another brother in Colorado. When it seemed to be at the end of its useful life, that brother sold it. To someone who never got a new title--and then had a beef with someone and tried to run them off the road. In a CRX. Its useful life was definitely over then.
... View more
03-10-2020
09:48 PM
1 Like
Recently, my only truck-owning friend had a bumper sticker that read, "Yes, I have a truck. No, you can't borrow it." On the other hand, 20 years ago, I asked an elderly black neighbor if I could borrow his truck to move a shed to another neighbor's house. By the time I got home, he had pulled into my back yard and was loading it up.
... View more
18-07-2020
02:47 PM
2 Likes
The Fit lives on in its cute-ute offspring, the HRV - same basic size and "magic seat," but taller and 500 extra cc's. Flip up the rear cushions and it's the perfect vehicle for old dogs - after I built a low step, mine could walk right it. Otto's gone now, but I still love my Ottomobile.
... View more
18-07-2020
02:37 PM
2 Likes
Scouts sold petty well in Michigan's Upper Peninsula when I was growing up in the 1960s. Some doctors even splurged on their Suburban-competitor big brother, the Travelall. I remember radio ads with the mini-jingle: "International Scout! Anything else .. is just a car."
... View more
18-07-2020
02:25 PM
Tony Lapine worked on Corvettes and (to my eye) improved on them when he designed the Opel GT not long after "Generous Motors," as he called it, sent him to Germany. But when I interviewed him in the early 1980s he never mentioned being inspired by the Pacer!
... View more
Latest tags
No tags yet