The Junkyard Find Tirades(TM) of Crabspirits

I’ve been visiting junkyards and sharing what I find here on TTAC for several years now, and one of the best things about doing the Junkyard Find series has been reading the crypto-novellas (each a little story about the junkyard car I’ve photographed) penned by our own Crabspirits in the comments. We’ve already talked to Mr. Crabspirits about doing some writing for us under his own byline, and he says he’s up for it, but there’s no need to wait in order to enjoy his stuff. I’ve gone through some recent Crabspirits Junkyard Find Tirades™ and assembled them here for your reading pleasure.

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Ahmadinejad's Peugeot 504 Not As Cool As Jerry Brown's Plymouth Satellite, But Still Cool

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has but one redeeming quality, and that’s his taste in daily drivers… and now he’s selling it! Yeah, he’d probably prefer to load the thing up with drums full of a VX/ BZ cocktail and crash it into a Tel Aviv nursery school… but, still, the story makes me want to rant about downscale “Man of the People” vehicle choices and the love/hate relationship I once had with my own 504.

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I Bought My First Tow Truck At The Age Of Five

The Butthole Surfers’ song Pittsburgh To Lebanon contains one of the all-time greatest blues lyrics: “I bought my first shotgun at the age of three.” Now, I can’t match Gibby‘s feat, but I can say that I owned my first tow truck at the age of five.

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  • SCE to AUX All that lift makes for an easy rollover of your $70k truck.
  • SCE to AUX My son cross-shopped the RAV4 and Model Y, then bought the Y. To their surprise, they hated the RAV4.
  • SCE to AUX I'm already driving the cheap EV (19 Ioniq EV).$30k MSRP in late 2018, $23k after subsidy at lease (no tax hassle)$549/year insurance$40 in electricity to drive 1000 miles/month66k miles, no range lossAffordable 16" tiresVirtually no maintenance expensesHyundai (for example) has dramatically cut prices on their EVs, so you can get a 361-mile Ioniq 6 in the high 30s right now.But ask me if I'd go to the Subaru brand if one was affordable, and the answer is no.
  • David Murilee Martin, These Toyota Vans were absolute garbage. As the labor even basic service cost 400% as much as servicing a VW Vanagon or American minivan. A skilled Toyota tech would take about 2.5 hours just to change the air cleaner. Also they also broke often, as they overheated and warped the engine and boiled the automatic transmission...
  • Marcr My wife and I mostly work from home (or use public transit), the kid is grown, and we no longer do road trips of more than 150 miles or so. Our one car mostly gets used for local errands and the occasional airport pickup. The first non-Tesla, non-Mini, non-Fiat, non-Kia/Hyundai, non-GM (I do have my biases) small fun-to-drive hatchback EV with 200+ mile range, instrument display behind the wheel where it belongs and actual knobs for oft-used functions for under $35K will get our money. What we really want is a proper 21st century equivalent of the original Honda Civic. The Volvo EX30 is close and may end up being the compromise choice.