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David Burge Profile picture
David Burge
@iowahawkblog
Karma's janitor
164 subscribers
Mar 22 • 7 tweets • 5 min read
Internal combustion, electric, steam? Old hat, been there done that. Today's #DavesCarIDService salutes some mad geniuses who REALLY thought outside the box when it came to alternative vehicle power. Starting with Ron Main's rubber band-powered "Twisted" land speed record car.

Car-wise I was kinda jaded, thinking I had seen it all, until I saw this latex propelled green energy machine debut at 2008 Bonneville Speed Week.Image Yep, you read that correctly, rubber bands. The SCTA (Southern California Timing Association) land speed record book has hundreds of classes for different body types, engine displacement, wheel counts, and power sources. Which leads to a lot of innovation, and craziness. Main owns a number of those records, including the world's fastest Ford Flathead V8 at 302 mph.

And what's more innovative than inventing your own rubber band powered class? That was the intention with Twisted. Under the hood: a battery of 150 industrial rubber bands, the kind used to secure cargo on pallets. Anchored to a set of gears that could be wound up with an electric motor.

How to keep them from binding, though? The following content is for mature audiences only. Rubber, as we all know needs to be lubricated, and a team crew member was designated to apply friction-reducing lubricants. Main referred to him as "the fluffer."

How did it do? SCTA measures speed over flying mile, but allow for a vehicle assisted push start. The goal was pretty modest, 30 mph, but the biggest challenge was to sustain rubber band power for that one mile. Sadly it wasn't going to happen that first year, which was also the last year Twisted appeared there. The rubber band class record remains vacant, in case you want to attempt it yourself.Image
Mar 16 • 25 tweets • 10 min read
Time for #DavesCarIDService to get back on the road again! During SXSW this week, I lucked into a little behind-the-scenes access at the Luck Reunion music fest at Willie Nelson's Luck Ranch outside Austin. Lucky me!

That included a couple of the more notorious vehicles around: Willie's tour buses, including the original Honeysuckle Rose. Sorry for the blurry cell phone pix, maybe it was due to a contact high, I'm not admitting anything.Image
Image Here's a more competent photo of the "Honeysuckle Rose II," a Canadian-made 1990 Eagle Model 15 with custom interior by Florida Coach, and murals by an artist name "Rainmaker" (this is a car ID service after all). Willie's original tour bus was a 1983 Prevost that was totaled, without him in it. The various Honeysuckle Roses were all Prevosts:

I: 1983-90
II: 1990-96
III: 1996-2005
IV: 2005-presentImage
Mar 14 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
"We're not allowed to say <thing> in this country."

"But you just said the thing you said you weren't allow to say, on a podcast with a million listeners, and literally nothing happened to you."

"Oh so now I'm not allowed to say that I'm not allowed to say the thing?" I wish to clarify to all who are confused over this issue: others pointing out that the supposedly forbidden thing you said was 100% factually wrong, and you are obviously mentally ill and/or retarded, does not constitute "censorship"
Mar 11 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
JFC here comes the tech bros again with their robo fetish Image MIT genius: my prototype $50k robo-man does the work of the three hired hands that Kansas farmers use to harvest their wheat fields, according to the Wizard of Oz

Silicon Valley VCs: here's $3 billion
Mar 11 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Top B1G serial killers (minimum 2 deaths):

1. Jeff Dahmer OSU
2. Ted Bundy Washington
3. Ted Kaczinski Michigan
4. OJ Simpson USC
5. Donald Miller Michigan State *Bill Ayers (Michigan) disqualified on a technicality. Due to incompetence his bomb only accidentally killed three friends
Mar 6 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
So I watched 'Pepe Le Moko' (1937) with Jean Gabin and joked to my wife that maybe he was inspiration for Pepe Le Pew, and it turns out that was actually the case and now I don't even know what to think anymore Image
Image It's literally the movie where 'Let me take you to zee Casbah' comes from
Feb 26 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to my opinion posts.

I am going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: stealing pies from window sills and crashing trucks into liquor stores is bad I am aware that this change in editorial policy will be seen as abrupt and controversial, and may result in anger, mass boycotts, and loss of followers. But it is time to provide a voice to the reported silent majority of those opposed to pie theft and liquor store crashes.
Feb 19 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Stupidest, most brazen banana republic vote buying idea ever conceived. Every cent of waste cut should go to deficit reduction. This is like having $100k of credit card debt, canceling your Netflix subscription, and then celebrating your newfound fiscal restraint by going on a Disney Cruise
Feb 14 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Man, AI is somehow even more shit when it doesn't have any actual images to train on "Grok, make me a picture of Hitler thunderdunking on Michael Jordan"
Feb 14 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Oh man, that's an absolute tearjerker. Godspeed Orient-Macksburg High School. Since I left many moons ago, many of the schools in the Old Country have closed/consolidated. Back in the day, Cooper DeJean's alma mater was 3 different schools: Odebolt-Arthur, Battle Creek, and Ida Grove. Now all consolidated as OABCIG.
Jan 19 • 29 tweets • 12 min read
For every yin there's a yang. Yesterday's #DavesCarIDService indulged in some balmy tropical midcentury ad escapism from the frigid temps. But there are some hardy insane people who actually embrace this suck, so as a thematic bookend I offer some more ad images that put a happy face on the nonsense.

First up: a 1957 Oldsmobile 98 Fiesta coupe, the same car seen in yesterday's thread starter luxuriating in seaside splendor.Image
Image Me, I lean 100% to picture #2. Whatever cold-hardened Teutonic-Viking-Midwestern blood ever once coursed through my veins has been utterly diluted by years of wimpy Texas winters. Even in Texas though there are those who can't wait for a ski getaway to the Colorado slopes (often to the chagrin of Coloradans).

Looks like this goo-goo eyed couple is headed for hot cocoa at the lodge in a 1960 Dodge Dart Phoenix.Image
Jan 17 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling Jews Hey y'all where kin I talk to one of my fellow Rabbis? My name is Reverend Rabbi Travis... Garlandstein, yeah that's the ticket Image
Jan 16 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This is America's revenge against China for Covid Image Tik Tok: Pearl Harbor

Homeless Tik Tok garbage people flooding Chinese apps: Hiroshima
Jan 13 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
They need to hire me to cover the groovy teen culture scene What are the latest dance crazes sweeping the Pro-Democracy teen world? Our Youth Beat reporter Davey Burge shows you all the new steps Image
Jan 8 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I see the California Kindling Preservation Act is paying off again I only pray that this won't affect the California High Speed Rail project
Jan 4 • 13 tweets • 7 min read
V6? Don't make me laugh. V8? Mid. V12? Wannabe. Today #DavesCarIDService salutes the V16 - starting with a happy birthday to the OG Cadillac OHV V16. Introduced January 4, 1930, this bad boy was Caddy's top of the line power plant throughout the Great Depression.

It was Cadillac's answer to Packard's "Twin Six" V12 that set the standard for no-holds-barred luxury car cylinder excess in the 1920s. The development cost was astronomical. Only 4000 were ever made, and all those cars are very collectible today. And all lost money for Cadillac and GM, but no biggy - it was purely a prestige play.Image
Image While Cadillac's V16 was the first offered in a passenger car, it wasn't the first one produced by a car maker. That distinction belongs to the Duesenberg brothers, who developed the beauty Model H (#1) as an aircraft engine during WW1.

Caddy's moonshot in the Cylinder Wars would not go unchallenged. Down the road in Indianapolis, rival luxury car maker Marmon quickly debuted their own V16 (#2) in 1931. These are much rarer than the Cadillac, with only 6 survivors known. Oddly one of them is in a hot rod (#3, #4).Image
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Dec 21, 2024 • 36 tweets • 11 min read
A happy #davescaridservice Winter Solstice to all who celebrate! I don't, because frankly the whole winter business is not my cup of tea. Literally leaves me cold, not unlike this unfortunate 1959 Buick convertible in a vintage LIFE magazine shot. Image On the upside, at least the sunset has stopped receding, and the coming snow and ice give me a chance to hone my car ID chops. But not even the brutal snows of Chicago can obscure the mighty tailfins of a 1959 Cadillac 4 door hardtop. Image
Dec 17, 2024 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
I watched the Netflix movie "Carry-On" last night and my god it might be the worst thing I have ever watched I watched the whole thing, but the last 80% basically hate-watching to see how many ludicrous action movie tropes they could stuff into it
Dec 1, 2024 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
As the Thanksgiving weekend winds down and your leftovers disappear, I would like to commemorate the season in a very #DavesCarIDService way: with a salute to Mayflower-themed Plymouth and Native American-themed Pontiac.

#1: 1946 Plymouth hood crest
#2: 1929 Pontiac ornament Image
Image Both Plymouth and Pontiac were relative latecomers to car making, and both were corporate-created brands aimed at a similar market niche. GM created Pontiac in 1926 as a low priced companion brand to Oakland, and Chrysler created Plymouth in 1928 as a low price alternative to Dodge.

And they were both created with a distinct branding identity: Plymouth redolent of proud Mayflower pilgrims, and Pontiac of proud Native Americans. "Pontiac" actually comes the Michigan city where the plant was located, but they played the Native American connotations to the hilt.
Nov 29, 2024 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Is there a German word for the hatred of other people enjoying things I guess it would be freudeschaden
Nov 27, 2024 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
RIP to the great Jim Abrahams, of Zucker-Zucker-Abrahams fame. At the U of Wisconsin, they founded the Kentucky Fried Theater, that led to their first movie.

Later they returned to Madison and funded the absurdist Pail & Shovel Party to run for student government, with a campaign promise to bring the Statue of Liberty to campus. They made good on it with a replica on frozen Lake Mendota, and also installing over 1000 plastic pink flamingos on the campus quad.

Hail and farewell to a great Badger and a great prankster.Image
Image btw the movie "AIRPLANE!" was based on was the forgettable 1957 melodrama "ZERO HOUR!" It's apretty hilarious to watch now because you realize AIRPLANE! mostly follows it scene by scene but with added gags. Image