Time for a quick update from the inner sanctum of Car Talk Plaza.
First, I wanted to thank everyone for your patience as we accomplished our migration to Discourse. Like every big change, I know it takes some time to get used to a new interface, new features, and all those little surprises. The migration went really well from our point of view, with little downtime. And, Discourse is already proving itself on our end as a reliable, sturdy platform for our future.
Thanks for all the thoughtful feedback you’ve given so far. If you have additional suggestions, I’d welcome them. We’re slowly but surely working through a punchlist of items to tweak and new features to add. One of our top priorities right now, is promoting the ability to be emailed about new discussions about your car. We think that’ll be a great service to Car Talk fans in the years ahead.
I wanted to take a moment, also, to introduce you to John Goreham. John is a long time auto writer and a pal of ours at Car Talk Plaza. You can read his stuff on the here on the Car Talk web site, at Bestride.com, TorqueNews.com, and GM-trucks.com. He’s also written for the Boston Globe and U.S. News & World Report, among others. (I’m telling you this stuff, because he’s too modest to do it himself!) As I guess is obvious, he’s kinda passionate about cars. He’s also lucky enough to test and report on vehicles each week, which keeps him current.
As the Car Talk Community grows in importance on out end, John is going to serve as a link between the Car Talk editorial folks and the Community— looking for great ideas and discussions that we can share with our broader community, article ideas where we can link back to the community, and other areas where we can cross pollinate things a bit. He’ll also be chiming in and answering questions from time to time, too. His username is
gorehamj.
ditto on the emails thing.
I would not want that for me either, but having that option for anyone to select would be logical.
I do not need to be so immersed in Car Talk as to have it hounding me day and night.
I just check in when I’m at work once in a while, that’s all. If I want to see it, I open the page.
I was a bit wary of the new format but as the bugs get worked out and I get more familiar with it, I’d say it is at least as good as the previous software if not better. More time will help that.
Welcome, John, to the web of automotive discourse. May you enjoy the stay as much as the regulars here. Just be careful of a few topics, synthetic vs conventional oil, ABS braking systems and rust. Any or all will elicit copious discussion, keyboard clicking and hand waving!
Yeah, I don’t want any more emails either but it might be helpful to email some of the old posters to invite them back again. It seems like we have lost quite a few lately.
I would be against sending emails that would reach people who have been absent. It is not that hard to be here if someone wants to be. I won’t use the name but one who was here sometime ago that just kept pounding on the same subject and wrong at that has been driving people crazy at another forum. The moderator there has threatened blocking them.
John, another welcome to the forum! Doug M above mentions you have some expertise with the GM Truck division. I was wondering if you understand why they make their trucks so BIG? They’re huge, taller, wider, and longer, or at least seem so, compared to trucks of even the late 1980’s. One of my neighbors has a small truck of that vintage parked in his driveway and he was forced to put a big sign on it “This Truck Is Not For Sale” b/c he was getting his door knocked on by people driving by wanting to buy it b/c it was a smaller sized truck, which seems not available any more.
Hey thanks @GeorgeSanJose. I think all the cliches are part of it. At work, the jobsite, the country club, the local watering hole, the Chevy guy does not want his Silverado to be smaller than his buddy’s F-150. Another part of it is all vehicles seem to have grown in size. Take the Accord for example. When I was in college my buddy had an Accord that was the size of today’s Civic, and it had been smaller that that in its early years of production. There is good news though! GM has brought back the “midsize” truck as I term it. The Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon sell out each month, and have for over a year now. Fans are passionate about the new Colorado/Canyon twins and GM even went so far as to drop in a Thai’-made Isuzu diesel engine that the fanbase wanted. I’m no fan of diesel, but if a smaller truck, made with key parts from outside the U.S. can succeed, perhaps things are starting to change in the truck world? Honda’s new truck has an interesting twist. It can haul sheetrock and plywood flat in its truck bed, but its peers can’t. Oh, Oh, that likely means the Canyon and Colorado will in their next generation And on we go ever larger.
Thanks for asking @Barkydog! That is a Mazda Miata race car. I was at Skip Barber’s “Intro to Racing” school at Lime rock. It is an NC generation Miata, meaning not a brand new one. I think there are only a couple hundred of the new ones built so far. I’m a big fan of the Skip Barber and other driving schools, but I have never raced. Once or sometimes twice per year I get to go on-track at media events and I took the class to keep myself from being “that guy” that crashes the fancy sports car. So far it has worked.
Used to be a local auto talk radio show with Paul Brandt. I think he did some instruction at the Skip Barber school, or he talked about it quite a bit anyway.
Ha ha. Interesting that you talk about Brainerd and Northern Minnesota. I had a Duluth office and a Bemidji office and they were clearly Northern MN, but talk to the Brainerd folks and they consider themselves part of Southern Minnesota (some anyway-I was corrected). I dunno, I still consider Paul Bunyan and Brainerd, northern but I just don’t say that to anyone there anymore. Yeah I played Maddens a few times in a friendly tourney and had a few good drives, but then embarrassed myself.
If they feel that way, they should get the ball rolling, and try to get the state legally split, into North Minnesota and South Minnesota. There’s already plenty of others . . . Dakotas, Carolinas
And on we go ever larger.