A friend is from Egypt and he brought back some Egyptian cigarettes one year. I gotta tell ya those would knock a horse down like Mexican ones. No kid should have to smoke those. Child abuse. Does his mother know?
Europe also has some wickedly powerful cigarettes which Iâm pretty sure wouldnât be legal to sell here
I think that might be a Grand Marquis.
The dog is definitely not a Frenchie.
For a brief time in the mid '60s, my brother smoked French-made Gauloises cigarettes, which were considered to be very âhipâ in artsy circles, and which he bought in NYC. I still remember the pale blue packaging. That brand was REALLY strong. He smoked that brand during the period that he drove his VW bug, so I guess that he was trying for a European image.
Edited to add:
Speaking of VW bugs, yesterday, while I was waiting in the parking lot to be called into my doctorâs office, a guy pulled into the lot in an old VW bug. I walked over, and his first words were, âIâll bet you never saw one of these beforeâ. He almost fell over when I correctly identified it as a '63 bug. I explained that my brother had owned a '64 bug, and I used to drive it, so I was quite familiar with that marque. It turned out that this guy owns several old VWs, and he rebuilds them.
This pleasant interlude helped to pass the time until I was called inside for my annual physical.
1 Like
I am one of those evil smokers. When I was stationed in the Philippines you could get Pilipino Marlboros, they were much different than US Marlboroâs. I went in the military as a non-smoker, but back then smoking was more or less encouraged by the military. Yes there were the mini packs of cigarettes in the C rations, I remember Chesterfields and non-filter Pall Malls.
Lead was used for water pipes in the US until 1980. Plumbers (plumbum is Latin for lead.) love it: itâs soft and easy to work, but not so easy for amateurs. They opposed banning it. Father, who worked in the PHS (for Luther Terry even), worked on lead pipe pollution. A layer of corrosion forms on the surface of lead that keeps lead in pipes from leaching into drinking water. Water utilities add orthophosphate to keep that layer intact. You have to add it because, even if you eliminate all the lead in a cityâs pipes, you canât be sure that homes have no lead pipes. Brass plumbing fixtures with lead were allowed until even later.
The problem with the water in Flint wasnât that they shifted from Lake Huron water to Flint River water but that they didnât add orthophosphate. The said they did it to save money, but it saved only $150/month for the whole city. They violated the EPAâs lead and copper rule (too much copper is poisonous too, even though itâs a necessary nutrient.), something they would never do for their own water supplies.
2 Likes
In ours there were 3 in a pack. I do believe it later increased to more, but I just canât remember exactly when and to how many.
I wish I held on to my can opener, but didnât. They are available on Ebay⊠but thatâs not the same as the original
1 Like
Beyond the health and vision aspects, smoking in a modern car is a terrible idea. Way back in high school I used to repair peopleâs home computers. You could tell immediately which ones had come from smoker houses - the insides were stained with tar, if the computer was old enough the buttons would be sticky, etc.
That gunk doesnât just foul up your lungs. It fouls up your electrical switches, not to mention leaving a permanent odor in your car which will make it harder to sell unless the buyer is also a smoker.
I have a few friends and relatives who still, for some reason, smoke. They know if they want to ride in my car, thereâs no eating, drinking, or smoking. And their last cigarette had better be far enough in the past that they wonât stink up my car with it.
I think we got five with the C rations. The same little packages that they used to give out with meals on the airplanes.
I remember that very brand, and Iâve smoked it a few times
I can personally attest that itâs wickedly strong . . .
but I seem to remember that people in Europe didnât smoke it to be cool . . . they wanted the kick
One of my colleagues that retired a few years ago smoked Pall Malls
As Iâve mentioned before, we sometimes farm out work to vendors. Anyways, there was a clear pattern with a certain vendor. Every time they would return a truck, it would absolutely reek of cigarette smoke, as if somebody had smoked an entire pack while driving the truck. Our boss had a talk with the owner of the vendor shop, and it never happened again. I know which one of the vendor mechanics is the heavy smoker, and heâs a very nice guy, so I never complained to him directly. And Iâve seen him since, so it would appear he didnât get into too much trouble. 
Speaking of car interiors, I believe headliners can soak up a lot of stuff over the years. So if buying a car from an ex-smoker, it might be best to bring it to an upholstery shop and pay them to do a new headliner. Itâs not that expensive, and the turnaround time is pretty good, drop it off in the morning, pick it up in the afternoon. At least thatâs how it was for me
I mean you can always just activate it, wait for it to pop out and go from there
FWIW, I recall that the very first car in America to have the cigarette lighter and ashtray as options, rather than standard, was the 1996 Chrysler Cirrus. That car was made at the peak of Chryslerâs comeback, after the 1994 Dodge Ram pickup had revolutionized pickups and the Neon had proven that you can have a top-performing compact car and make money, too (GM and Ford lost $600+ on every compact they sold). The Neon was flawed by cost-cutting measures (fixed in 1998), but the Cirrus had only one common issue â a single plastic part in early models (supplier had changed it from the prototypes).
In any case, the success of the Cirrus without any cigarette lighter or ashtray led every other automaker to drop them pretty quickly as standard features. I believe they were a $40 option â and only part of the cigarette lighter, the âplug inâ part, was missing; the power port part remained in the car whether you paid for it or not, since many people, even then, used them to power portable electronics.
Porsche has offered a no charge smokers package although only the Panamera,Macan, and Cayenne give you a lighter and an ashtray. A popular option because it getâs you another 12V outlet and a cleaner look to the center console. When the spring loaded lid is closed.
Letâs get right to it, no ifs ands or buts
Are you saying the Chrysler Cirrus was a good car . . . ?!
Iâm not talking sales
Iâm talking actual quality of the car
Was it a good car when it was being sold new?
Yes or no . . . ?!
First, it was the darling of nearly every reviewer when it came out.
CR gave it bad ratings in the first year because of that plastic piece that failed on 100% of early production cars. That was already fixed when the magazine hit the stands.
Yes, Iâd call it a good car, along with the Stratus and Breeze. People loved the âcloud cars.â People kept them. Donât compare them to todayâs cars. Compare them to 1990s cars. Tauruses that could go through four transmissions in five years, that sort of thing. The Acclaim and Spirit, which were bargain-priced because Chrysler lost money on each one, and couldnât handle nearly as well as their replacements. The Stratus, Cirrus, and Breeze (and Sebring Convertible which was the same platform/architecture) were pretty successful despite being much pricier than the cars they replaced, which is why they stayed around for two more generations until Daimler cost-cut them to death.
You can have another opinion. People often do. I donât care. Our Neon was just as reliable as our Corolla in terms of dealership visits and longevity. Reality and perception arenât always the same, and some people do better while some do worse.
I had a 1987 Taurus until 1998, and it only had one transmission. Handling was good for a sedan that size.
PS> and how is your comment relevant? I said it was the first car without a cigarette lighter and it was.
Thanks for clarifying your position
I donât recall doing that . . .
This is what I asked
I do
You should know by now that we often wind up talking about things that donât have to do with opâs original question . . .
Iâm not sure if youâve read every single comment of this by now rather lengthy discussion . . . but earlier I most certainly was talking about smoking and cars
+1
I had an '86 Taurus, and it was the best car that I had ownedâup to that point.
Regarding the transmission, when the car was only about 1 year old, I was in a situation on a highway where I had no choice but to drive over some rebar rods that had apparently been dropped from a truck. I was driving at ~45 when I ran over those rods, and a few minutes later, I got onto an expressway where I was driving at 60-65.
I was on the expressway for about 10 minutes, and then I exited when I got to my town. As I decelerated on the exit ramp, I felt a VERY hard downshift.
GULP!
Luckily, my home was only a few block away, so I opted to keep driving.
The bottom line is thatâunknown to meâthe trans pan had been punctured by one of those rebar rods and the last bit of trans fluid leaked out as I parked the car. The next day I had it towed to the dealership, where they replaced the pan.
I drove that Taurus for another 4 years, and there was never a problem with the transmission. I think that driving a car until the trans was almost dry would kill most transmissions, but⊠not this one!
Back to the original topic, my 1952 has no lighter or ashtray but by 2005 they still came standard with both, although the ashtray was now plastic and doubled as a coin holder, and by 2015 they were completely goneâŠ
Since in 1952 people were smoking like chimneys but smoking much less in 2005, the determining factor seems to be whether buyers âexpectedâ them in their car or not.
i.e. In 1952, just having a car, any car, was enough so an ashtray, lighter, radio, heater, PS & Power Brakes were considered âluxury optionsâ and that continued through the 1960âs (My 1962 Chevy heat, ashtray & lighter came standard but radio, PS or Power brakes).
By the 1970âs most of the public considered these âessentialsâ so the automakers made them standard but by the 1990âs with smoking down and an opportunity to save a couple of cents, manufacturers started deleting the âsmoking accessoriesâ.
Itâs interesting that when this first started the perception even among nonsmokers was that this was an indication of a âcheap carâ but as time went on and smoking became more stigmatized this went to the wayside too.
Iâm showing my age remembering when AC was considered a luxury, power windows and power seats were âjust something more to breakâ and 8 Track/Cassette players and vent windows were considered necessary.