A New War on Classic Iron?

YamahaRick · Full Member Joined: Dec 01, 2008 Posts: 85

SO raise your hand if you caught the press conference about the auto industry yesterday. I was in the ER so I as a captive audience for as I normally pay little attention to those(8 years of constant lies will do that to you). I can say I really dislike the new press secretary.
I am however very glad I caught yesterdays thrashing of our domestic auto industry. I'm not Rick Wagoner fan, tho I'm a huge GM guy. He is an arrogant ass who needs to be knocked down a peg but the whole deal was BS fom the start. What about The dicks from AIG using our money to pay unearned bonuses? Why not their heads.
The fact is I kept gettin madder and madder sittin there watchin that thinkin OK now thats not a bad idea, and theat one sucks but hey at least there is a plan at work here.
Then I heard a phrase I hope to never hear from a gov't official. I paraphrase:

"Incentives to get older less efficient vehicles off the road and purchase newer more efficient ones."

Ok, at first blush doesn't sound that bad, but hears a little piece of history.
California, every Hot Rodders dream and bane of our existence at the same time went down this road a few years ago. What started out as tax incentives to get older junky cars off the road(and bikes)turned into an all out crusade against classic iron of all stripes. They literally were going into peoples backyards and trying to cite folks for having old cars whether registered or not to MAKE them get rid of their classics. Projects, daily drivers, parts cars etc. It was a big Orwellian nightmare for thos of us who choose vintage tin over the new plasti-crap. I was in AZ at the time and I had a lot friends who went thru the ringer over this thing. Court appearances, attorneys, money, all to try and prove why the state shouldn't confiscate and crush your 68 Camaro.
Plus all those pricks with a Boss 302 rottin away in the backyard who won't sell because they will get to it "someday" decided that a 2K check was all they needed to get off their dead asses and send it ot the crusher. THousands upon thousands were lost forever due to this gov't endorsed war on "inefficient" vehicles. Bikes were not saved from this either, it was just not as publicized. They will not be this time either.
Now they're talking about doing this on a national scale. God forbid.
I'm writing my congressman right now. I suggest you do the same.
Let them know that hey its an interesting idea but their had better be some protections for those who are not interested in "upgrading".
I personally go to the mattresses on this issue. THey can have my Classics when they pry my cold dead fingers from around the handlebars.

xsjohn · Posted: March 31, 2009, 10:49 am Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

""""""""They can have my Classics when they pry my cold dead fingers from around the handlebars.........""""""""""

And they will....along with your guns too .......... which they can even see from the air now........so forget burying them.....especially when the neighbors will rat you out if you piss them off with just a phone call.......(history does repeat itself)

Wait till Obama and his team get through......nothing stopping them now.....and think about how much fun the new Flex Fuel and Hybrid cars will be to work on in our driveways........as if we aren't having so much fun with the last bunch of crap mandated cars........

Old trick...first sold to the public as a way to clear junk cars from the streets and landscapes......soon incorporated into their agendas like everthing else....(like free trade and soon all the jobs were sent overseas).....must have it titled and inspected with a current tag.......once on that list the massacre takes place..........with just a stroke of the pen from these Fruit Loops.......actually it's way past pitch fork time.........

xsjohn

YamahaRick · Full Member Joined: Dec 01, 2008 Posts: 85

I know I can count on you John. Well I think you're right about pitchfork time.
If not the right tappin our phones and readin our emails its the left takin our guns and cars. Geez. WHy is it we cannot sustain a viable third party in this ocuntry? Its mystifies me really.

jimmythetrucker · Full Member Joined: Mar 12, 2008 Posts: 1283

We can't build a viable third party in this country because too many people like xsjohn won't vote for anybody who isn't a Republican -- or a Democrat, as the case may be. As far as I'm concerned, people like John are getting what they voted for. Too bad the rest of us have to get it along with them.

xsjohn · Posted: March 31, 2009, 12:30 pm Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

............people like John are getting what they voted for.............

Admittedly I didn't vote for Ross Peroit like I should have....just didn't want Clinton in there so I copped out....didn't help though...the big guys wanted free trade and the US be damned....and I sure didn't vote for this current mess........

xsjohn

Barbara · Posted: March 31, 2009, 1:18 pm Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

Worm ranting and personal attacks aside, we can't sustain a third party in this country because the two major parties are in bed with each other, and have agreed to keep the rest of us out of the castle.

Simple. We get the illusion of a democracy, and they get the approval of the real masters of the country, the private banking industry that controls the Federal Reserve---private banks to whom the USA owes trillions of dollars in interest for borrowing our own money.

Look at your dollar bills. They aren't the Silver Certificates that we once had and Kennedy tried to reintroduce; they are "Federal Reserve Notes". Don't be fooled by the word "Federal", these things aren't from the elected officials---they are promises from a group of private banks to make good on our debt. And anything they don't like, doesn't happen.

As far back as Jefferson and Washington, leaders have warned us about the power inherent in a "Federal Reserve Bank" system. Various politicians have tried to stop it, to no lasting avail. Look at Kennedy---he began issuing Silver Certificates, and in a few months was dead. Maybe coincidence, I don't know, but I do know that the Fed immediately began withdrawal of Silver Certificates from circulation, replacing them with Reserve Notes.

Think about it---what better for a controlling interest than to have the people ranting and raving and fighting among themselves? Keeps us all busy, and if we fight each other, we can't make waves that disrupt the flow of money and power to those who want it. Thus the two-party system.

And sometimes I think they use California as a test-bed.....like with classic vehicles, or banning gas-powered lawn mowers in L.A.

Weird times, weird times......

jimmythetrucker · Full Member Joined: Mar 12, 2008 Posts: 1283

xsjohn wrote:

............people like John are getting what they voted for.............

Admittedly I didn't vote for Ross Peroit like I should have....just didn't want Clinton in there so I copped out....didn't help though...the big guys wanted free trade and the US be damned....and I sure didn't vote for this current mess........

xsjohn

It NEVER helps, John. Yes. You did cop out. And yes, you did vote for the current mess by voting Republican in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008. You might as well have voted for Democrats. The mess we're in wouldn't be any worse.

wesleyonoel · Full Member Joined: Oct 02, 2007 Posts: 60

Again............who is John Galt?.................. Wes

woodman · Full Member Joined: Oct 12, 2008 Posts: 256

For the 23 million dollar pension Rick Wagoner got they could knock me down as many pegs as they want. They probably did the guy a favor if GM goes in the crapper.

xjwmx · Posted: March 31, 2009, 3:55 pm Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

Barbara wrote:

...like with classic vehicles, or banning gas-powered lawn mowers in L.A.

Weird times, weird times......

If gas mowers and old cars are banned in L.A., then the industry behind the movement supplies the alternatives. It isn't an ideology driving it, although promoting an ideology drives its acceptance. Good, bad, hard to say maybe. Seen it from both sides, though.

metalredneck · Full Member Joined: Aug 04, 2008 Posts: 308

We have three parites in Canuckistan, and it is still a clusterf**k! The auto giants are a spoot in the wind compared to the fistrape the banks are dealing out.

YamahaRick · Full Member Joined: Dec 01, 2008 Posts: 85

MRN you do have a conflicted gov't as well. I cant ever keep up with whats going on up there. It gives me headache. Lesser of 3 evils anyone?

fasteddie · Posted: April 1, 2009, 12:22 pm Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

An incentive for trading in an older vehicle sounds like a step in the right direction, however it should never be mandatory. Unless of course said vehicle continuously fails an emission test. It kills me, all of these government decision makers who are totally clueless and making tough decision in warp speed. My pet peave is these elected officials who run on the platform of creating jobs. Give me a break. Companies create jobs, not elected officials!

jayel · Posted: April 1, 2009, 12:34 pm Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

I've talked to a guy in Texas on another forum with a Suzuki T500 two-stroker he gets pull over for smoke, gee who'ed a thunk it! a 35 year old two cycle that burns oil, it's just like pre 64 cars don't have to have seat belts, if it was legal then it's grandfathered in now, you can't buy a street bike now without a battery because it has to be able to light up the tail lamp without the engine running (since 1973), so technicially if you change your 73 or later over to a magneto ignition (battery less) you're in violation of federal law and no longer street legal

BigGeorge · Full Member Joined: Apr 13, 2008 Posts: 267

[quote="fasteddie"]An incentive for trading in an older vehicle sounds like a step in the right direction, however it should never be mandatory.

The incentive was the brainstorm of big business and government. The idea was if big business could somehow get the less pollution compliant vehicles off the road, then they could continue to pump more or at least the same amount of pollution into the atmosphere daily without the government breathing down their corporate necks. Someone came up with a formula of how much a vehicle pollutes in a year. Using that formula big business figured for every vehicle it could remove from the roadways they could put an amount equal to the amount the vehicle was polluting back into the air and not change the air quality thus making everyone happy. The government actually backed that idea 100%, so big business went about offering cash incentives to people to send their vehicle to the scrap yard to be crushed....The govt did not take into account that alot of these vehicles were idle projects in someones back yard that hadn't run or polluted anything in many many years. This gave big business the oppertunity to pollute even more but now with the govts blessing..Hot Rod or one of those magazines actually did a big article on this and even rescued a 68 6 cyl camaro to prove that after a good tune up it didnt pollute any more than any other vehicle............BG

xsjohn · Posted: April 1, 2009, 3:32 pm Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

BigGeorge....Very good post ....

Reminds me of when my girlfriend and I moved to Calif for a couple pf years in the 80's...I had a 6cyl (200ci) 68 Mustang which was clasified as a Hot Rod for insurance and hers was a early Pontiac Lemans straight 6 with a 4 barrel that was not classified as a hot rod which probably was somewhat...

Then we had to have NOX stickers plastered on the windshields for 80 bucks each....they put some contraption in the vacuum lines and the things would hardly run.....after leaving the masacure my girl friend was in tears on the side of the road.......I barely ambled up.......a third person stopped to lend some help.....noticed the sticker and opened the hood ...cut a ball point pen in half and snatched the device out and joined the vacuum lines back together correctly ........then said "your good to go and welcome to Calif"......smiled and got in his car and left......

xsjohn

BigGeorge · Full Member Joined: Apr 13, 2008 Posts: 267

xsJohn I remember those cars so well... The ford straight 6 was as bullet proof these Yamahas we now ride and the Lemans had what I think was called a PMD 6 .... My girlfriend at the time had a 1965 Mustang convertable with the 200cuin 6 and a 4 speed standard trans... It was special ordered that way....
Sounds like the pollution device they put in the line created a huge vacuum leak...You damn sure know when ever govt and big business get their heads togeather no good can come of it........BG

xsjohn · Posted: April 1, 2009, 4:01 pm Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

My 80 Yamaha is the newest vehicle I personnaly own.....the other is a 69 Chevy C10 350 straight drive no power steering.....huge steering wheel and a bitch to turn....would hate to think they will get them both..........but wouldn't supprise me with this bunch......Al Gore may make a personal visit to my place for the slaying......guess I would be a poster child for non-green (brown)........but it takes a lot brown to make green...if that makes since...another oxymoron no doubt....

SMUCKFOG.......loved that bumper sticker in Calif.......(turn it around)

The NOX device was a piece of foam with a vacuum line barb on either end....

xsjohn

BigGeorge · Full Member Joined: Apr 13, 2008 Posts: 267

I live in the rot belt. Thats the rust belt but 100 times worse. Nothing here survives the salt unless you hide it away for 6 months out of the year. In this state a 69 chevy c10 is but a distant memory to most, rekindled occasionally when passing a farmers field where one has sat rusted in half for the past 3 decades... When Al Gore finishes with you John send him to me. I got a nice big icicle to shove up his ass while we discuss global warming in my -30 degree barn.........

xsjohn · Posted: April 1, 2009, 5:18 pm Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

....All this being witnessed by Barney Frank of course.........

xsjohn

jimmythetrucker · Full Member Joined: Mar 12, 2008 Posts: 1283

YamahaRick wrote:

If not the right tappin our phones and readin our emails its the left takin our guns and cars. Geez. WHy is it we cannot sustain a viable third party in this ocuntry? Its mystifies me really.

What blows me away is the stupid bastards who cut everyone's wages while they shipped most of our jobs overseas want us to keep on buying as much stuff as we used to even though we make only half as much money.

I can remember when a brand new Corvette cost $6,000. Today they cost what? $60,000? A Volkswagen then cost about $1,600. Today . . . .

It doesn't seem to occur to these miserable shits that the reason I run around in an old, junk pickup truck is because I can't afford a new one. I mean, if they thought about what they're doing they'd GIVE me a new truck. But they don't think about it. They want me to take out a car loan that I can't afford, go broke trying to pay for it, and then apply for a government bailout.

I guess all the attendant paperwork makes work for a lot of other worthless people -- the educated offspring of congressmen and senators -- who would otherwise be a burden to their parents.

xsjohn · Posted: April 1, 2009, 6:53 pm Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

Expensive cars with 5000 dollar front ends don't help our insurance rates either......but the American public has to have fancy instead of practicle..........if it looks good you must be a better person........

xsjohn

penn71911 · Posted: April 1, 2009, 7:05 pm Post subject: Re: A New War on Classic Iron?

I'm in the same boat jimmy... I have my 82 xs, which I ride 12 months out of the year, then I have my 77 K5 Blazer which costs me about $50 a week in gas (at $2 per gallon).... this is the way I look at it, IF I had to drive the truck all the time... that's what? about $200 a month in gas... can't buy a new truck AND put gas in it for that, I'm still saving money... as I pollute... they don't like it, buy me a new one...

As it is, I get 51 mpg on the yammie and it costs me about $4 a week... so what? they wan't to take my old yammie so I buy a 30 year newer bike that gets LESS mpg? Crazy people with no clue writing laws...

jimmythetrucker · Full Member Joined: Mar 12, 2008 Posts: 1283

Somebody in D.C. heard me yelling! See here.

What Happened to 650rider.com?

Yamaha xs650