QOTD: How Much Would You Pay for a Replica Movie Star Car?

Motor1 brings us a report of a replica 1975 Ford Gran Torino that has popped up on Bring a Trailer. It's a replica of the Gran Torinos that starred in the Starsky and Hutch TV show.

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Stars and Their Cars

Robert Avrech is an Emmy Award winning screenwriter who blogs at a site called Seraphic Secret. He has a post up about the automobile and freedom and since Robert is an avowed political conservative you can probably guess how he feels about things like taxpayer funded high speed rail and government regulations. If advocacy of limited government gives you the vapors, you might want to skip over his text, but Avrech is a part of the entertainment industry, lives in Los Angeles and knows the fashions and trends in his own industry.

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Elon Musk Buys 007 Submarine, Will Attempt To Make It Functional

Elon Musk, the real-life Tony Stark of our times, has quite the extensive résumé: Founder of PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors; billionaire investor of projects and businesses such as SolarCity and the preservation of Nikola Tesla’s lab; inventor of the Hyperloop rapid mass transit concept; 007 cosplayer…

Yes, you read that right: Musk is a huge fan of the man who loves his martinis shaken and his women to have double entendre naming schemes. So much so, in fact, that he now has one of Bond’s most awesome vehicles ever conceived.

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  • Zerocred Automatic emergency braking scared the hell out of me. I was coming up on a line of stopped cars that the Jeep (Grand Cherokee) thought was too fast and it blared out an incredibly loud warbling sound while applying the brakes. I had the car under control and wasn’t in danger of hitting anything. It was one of those ‘wtf just happened’ moments.I like adaptive cruise control, the backup camera and the warning about approaching emergency vehicles. I’m ambivalent  about rear cross traffic alert and all the different tones if it thinks I’m too close to anything. I turned off lane keep assist, auto start-stop, emergency backup stop. The Jeep also has automatic parking (parallel and back in), which I’ve never used.
  • MaintenanceCosts Mandatory speed limiters.Flame away - I'm well aware this is the most unpopular opinion on the internet - but the overwhelming majority of the driving population has not proven itself even close to capable of managing unlimited vehicles, and it's time to start dealing with it.Three important mitigations have to be in place:(1) They give 10 mph grace on non-limited-access roads and 15-20 on limited-access roads. The goal is not exact compliance but stopping extreme speeding.(2) They work entirely locally, except for downloading speed limit data for large map segments (too large to identify with any precision where the driver is). Neither location nor speed data is ever uploaded.(3) They don't enforce on private property, only on public roadways. Race your track cars to your heart's content.
  • GIJOOOE Anyone who thinks that sleazbag used car dealers no longer exist in America has obviously never been in the military. Doesn’t matter what branch nor assigned duty station, just drive within a few miles of a military base and you’ll see more sleazbags selling used cars than you can imagine. So glad I never fell for their scams, but there are literally tens of thousands of soldiers/sailors/Marines/airmen who have been sold a pos car on a 25% interest rate.
  • 28-Cars-Later What happened to the $1.1 million pounds?I saw an interview once I believe with Salvatore "the Bull" Gravano (but it may have been someone else) where he was asked what happened to all the money while he was imprisoned. Whomever it was blurted out something to the effect of "oh you keep the money, the Feds are just trying to put you away". Not up on criminal justice but AFAIK the FBI will seize money as part of an arrest/investigation but it seems they don't take you to the cleaners when they know you're a mobster (or maybe as part of becoming a rat they turn a blind eye?). I could really see this, because whatever agency comes after it has to build a case and then presumably fight defense counsel and it might not be worth it. I wonder if that's the case here?
  • 28-Cars-Later "Around half of that money comes from the Department of Energy to help internal combustion engine suppliers retool to make EV parts."So, pay them to dispose of their current presses/equipment to choke future parts availability, then most of them become insolvent when EV doesn't happen. Brilliant!"Another $50 million provides grants of up to $300,000 for the companies to make their factories greener and improve cybersecurity.""$300K isn't squat to renovate anything in an actual factory or hire new SecOps folks/add to an IT dept (best I can think of is some developer training/conferences on more secure coding). Depending on how one would qualify, this is either a bribe to the owners so they'll dance whatever tune comes out of Washington, or just free money to selected parties (i.e. subservient to D.I.E.).FJB - May he live at least another 40 years in the most excruciating pain possible.