Vehicle designed to be DIY'er Servicable?

I do remember some import trucks in the 1970’s having seats bolted in the bed. But what does that have to do with chickens?

That sounds like a Subaru Brat

As for chickens . . . earlier I said among other things, that’s where the chickens come in. I believe the tax was targeted against other countries exporting low cost chickens (or maybe it wasn’t even whole chickens, could have been chicken thighs, chicken guts, etc.) to the USA. Those were taxed, so that the american buyers would support the american chicken industry, not the chicken industry in another country.

I may have gotten several details wrong, but the whole idea was for us to buy american-built trucks and chickens born and raised here, as well

BUY AMERICAN . . . that was the takeaway

Per Wikipedia:

The chicken tax is a 25% tariff on potato starch, dextrin, brandy, and light trucks imposed in 1963 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson in response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken.

Wikipedia has the most direct, concise explanation of the chicken tax

And Subarus were shipped over as automobiles with the rear seats to be installed by the dealers but often the buyers just had them left out.

Thanks for posting that

I’m getting hungry for Pollo Al Brandy … lol …

Is that the more sophisticated version of “coq au vin” . . . ?! :wine_glass:

Having a hard lemonade myself. Hard day.

The EPA/Cafe thing with expensive trucks is a classic case of unintended consequences. Cars got tougher Cafe standards than trucks, because trucks were “working” vehicles. The downsized cars couldn’t tow and they were small so folks bought V8 Suburbans for hauling the kiddies and a camper or boat and trucks. So trucks displaced the big 4 door cars and wagons we all grew up with because people didn’t want the downsized FWD “big” cars. And they were kind of bad cars to boot. As the automakers saw the shift to trucks and SUV’s they made them more luxurious, bigger and more car-like., ect. They followed the market to SUVs and trucks. As Cafe standards for trucks got tightened they were upgraded to a lot of the things the cars already had - cylinder de-act, low rolling resistance wheel bearings, low drag brakes As a another silly thing, there were no EPA regs or Cafe standards for 10,000# capacity vehicles so the 3/4 and 1 ton trucks.

The CAFE standards are a compromise, but probably necessary. I heard just today of a study that found children living within 1 mile of a busy highway/freeway lost as much as 1% of lung capacity each year.

Yeah, I think you could make it w/Brandy and still call it coq au vin. In any event cog au vin has bacon in it, so it’s bound to taste good.

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I’ll go off the reservation again since you brought up the EPA. Talking about the new blue requirements for diesels, my wife’s cousin is involved in Rural Electric in South Dakota. He says they are having a heck of a time with their service trucks because they have to sit and idle for long periods while they are repairing the power poles and lines. Think in terms of 10 below temps and wind blowing ice pellets on the plains. They just can’t take that idling so they have to take them out on the road and run them hard to clean them out. Of course negating anything the EPA thought they were solving for trucks in New Jersey.

How many service trucks will be in South Dakota? How many in New Jersey? I guess it’s like mandating 0W20 oil for use nationwide because it is the grade best suited for the majority of cars. New Jersey has 1,200 people per square mile while S Dakota has 46. New Jersey wins.

But I’d be surprised if those boys in S Dakota let the new trucks get them down. They’ll quickly design an in the field modification to suit them. I once concocted a throttle kicker wired through the AC clutch and neutral switch to kick the idle speed up to 1200rpm for shuttle buses used in congested traffic. When idling in 100*+ heat the drivers shifted to neutral and kept the engine cool and the AC working. I thought I was a genius until looked under the hood of a 40 year old police car and saw the same set up.

Fun Fact:
The highest population density in the entire US is in the northern part of Hudson County, NJ, directly across the river from Manhattan. The population density in that region ranges from 29,000 people per square mile in Hoboken, to 57,000 people per square mile in the tiny town of Guttenberg.

After spending my formative years in NYC, and then in Hudson County, NJ, I now live in a semi-rural part of NJ (~1 hour from Hudson County), where the population density is ~1,000 people per square mile, and the loudest noise is the sound of the birds. It is so quiet that I can easily tell when the mail arrives because of the unique sound of the USPS truck as it accelerates from my next-door neighbor’s house to my house.
:grin:

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Imagine how quiet it is in S Dakota considering that the utility trucks are now EVs.

A joke, I presume, considering the distances utility trucks are required to travel there.

Yup, that’s my understanding too.

I’m sure they claimed it had the same “flavor formula” in the boardroom. But IMHO that’s a scam. Different ingredients are a different formula. The empirical data proved it. They didn’t fool anyone. Except perhaps the senior executives.

I actually apologize to everyone for having mentioned Coke. It was not my intention to take the thread off on a tangent. I only mentioned them to illustrate that all these marketing research studies, beta tests, etc. can be (and I believe often are) designed to tell senior management what they want to hear rather than to actually find out the truth. That applies to major car manufacturers as well as other manufacturers.

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That’s my experience with Silicon Valley marketing studies too, not in every case, but generally speaking.

It’s true if you’re using the marketing study to support selling your product. Like telling people that studies show margarine is good for you versus butter or some other type of nonsense. But if you’re using marketing studies to vet designs that will appeal to your customers and selling upper management on them, that makes no sense at all. Because the true measure is when it goes to market and either works or doesn’t. Then you’ll either have a job or you won’t. So it makes sense to do the best job you can to analyze the market and get accurate results. But like everything in life, it doesn’t always work out as planned. I prefer that explanation over the idea it’s some methodology to sell your idea to management in spite of the fact it’s likely to fail…

Yes marketing studies… the ones that brought us the Edsel, the “flounder” Ford Taurus, the Pontiac Aztek… :smile:

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