Harry P.

Nice color scheme, but the missing mirrors really stand out by their absence. You would never see one of these on the street with no mirrors. If this kit doesn't have mirrors, they can easily be shaped from small chunks of styrene and painted flat black or even body color, with BMF "glass."

Makes sense. Yes, our dust here is very wimpy...

The whole concept behind right turn on red is to save gas and lessen exhaust emissions (obviously in a large-scale, save-the-earth way, which is fine.). No reason to sit there at idle, going nowhere, when there is absolutely no traffic or pedestrians to impede you from turning right on red. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of cars making right turns on red every day and not sitting there idling for 30-45 seconds or more while they wait for the light to turn green, and I'm sure the benefits add up. That's why I get annoyed with clueless wonders who don't understand the concept of right turn on red. I don't harass them, or creep up on their bumper, or wave my arms... I sit there and wait and wonder why so many drivers are so clueless. What I will do, if I'm waiting to turn right and I'm behind one of the clueless wonders sitting there with their right turn signal flashing, and it's been 10-20 seconds or so and they still haven't moved and there is obviously no traffic coming, I'll tap my horn. 99% of the time, that does the trick.

Maybe I'm missing something here... but wouldn't a polishing kit take care of any dust in the paint?

Poor proctologists... always the butt of jokes...

Who we still haven't heard from is this mysterious "Mr. Stanley" who allegedly sold Sitton the car in 2001 without a title, just a "bill of sale."

They weren't all that tasteful...

From KATU.com today (Portland TV station)... Rick White purchased the car brand new in 1970 and raced the car at Portland International Raceway. He said someone stole the car from his garage in 2001. "It was a very upsetting time. It was hard to even think about it being gone," said Jackie White (his wife). The Whites still hold the car's title. They received a letter last month saying there was a lien on the car for thousands of dollars in unpaid storage and service fees at Budget Towing. They said they contacted Budget Towing, but found out that the man who was storing it there had already paid the money owed and took possession of the car. The Whites called police, but said police told them the statute of limitations had run out, and officers could not write a search warrant and could not go and seize the car. That meant the car stayed put at the gated estate of Lee Sitton, the man who paid off the storage fees at Budget Towing. Sitton said he bought the car legally from a friend in 2001, though he did not get a title. He said he did not steal the car. But the Whites were finally able to find a resolution. They filed a new stolen car report with police. Sgt. Pete Simpson with the Portland Police Bureau said the new report allowed police to reopen the case and get a search warrant for the car. Multnomah County sheriff's deputies served the warrant Wednesday and seized the car. The Whites were able to see the car Thursday for the first time in 13 years. "I'm elated," said Jackie White. "Finally, the car's not in his garage, it'll be in ours. Where it belongs."

I have a feeling that's exactly what it is. He unwittingly bought a stolen car, he never bothered to contact the Whites after he found out they were the title holders, and now he's embarrassed and is trying to rationalize everything. Listen to the Richard White interview I linked to. Mr. White says that Sitton called him and wanted White to pay him $5,000 for the return of his car. Sitton was basically trying to make White pay for the return of his own car!

Some interesting info on DRLs... the reason that GM equips their cars with DRLs in the US (where they are NOT mandated) is because Canada mandates them. So to simplify the assembly lines, GM decided to add them to all their cars, not just those made for the Canadian market. It wasn't a safety issue, it was a "bottom line" issue. More interesting stuff on DRLs... http://blog.motorists.org/a-brief-history-of-a-popular-but-useless-safety-feature/

An interview with the real owner of the car, Richard White, on the same radio program as the Lee "current possessor" Sitton interview (Lars Larson Show, Portland): http://larslarson.com/richard-white-vs-lee-sitton-battle-for-the-1970-cuda/

Agreed. This guy Sitton is coming off looking more and more like a real weasel.

And in this case there is no evidence to the contrary! The "current possessor" admits he bought the car without a title. He admits he never applied for a title to the car, and he has no title in his possession. In fact, in the radio interview linked to in the above post, the guy says that after he bought the car he called DMV and asked who the legal owner of the car is, and he was told "Richard White." Since he had bought the car (according to him) not from Richard White, but from a guy named Mr. Stanley (who has admitted selling the car to the "current possessor"), he should have figured that something wasn't right. The Whites, on the other hand, do have the title. They bought the car new, and they never sold it or gave it away. They reported it stolen in 2001, they still have a copy of the police report, and at that time they were the original and only owners/title holders. There had never been any sale or transfer of title by the Whites to anyone else.. So once the car was stolen, what happened to it was completely beyond the control of the Whites. The car could have changed hands several times, there could have been multiple replacement tiles issued... but the bottom line fact is that on the day the Whites reported the car stolen, it had been in their possession the entire time, and they had not sold or transferred title to anyone. That's easy enough to look up and validate. At the time the car was stolen, they were the legal owners. And they are still the legal owners, because no matter how you slice it, once that car was stolen, any resale of that car was illegitimate. Only the car's owner can sell the car. Any subsequent sale of the car by anyone other than the Whites, after it had been reported stolen by the Whites, is illegitimate.

Very interesting interview. The guy sounds like a real weasel.

Well, part of it.

What they'll tell you is that the self-checkout lanes are there "for your convenience," and that they allow the store keep prices down because they need fewer employees.

Well, that's one way it could have happened. But it doesn't explain how the current "owner" just coincidentally happened to pay the bill and pick up the car right after the garage had sent out the letter to the "real" owners... or why the garage let him take possession of the car when they knew who the real owners are.

No, you're just showing your common sense!

After a while, the abuse of the "15 items or less" checkout lane at my local supermarket by the clueless wonders got me so mad (because I usually stopped by that store after work just to pick up a handful of items and I was always winding up waiting in the express lane behind the person with two month's worth of food in their cart) that I finally asked to talk to the manager one day. First of all, the only sign they had identifying it as the "Express Lane" was one of those lights on the pole that tells you that lane is open (when the light is on)... and the words "15 items or less" was printed on it. Most people never saw that and didn't realize that checkout lane was supposed to be for 15 items or less, or didn't care... I told the manager that first of all, if your cashiers don't enforce the "15 items" rule, then there's no point in having an "express" checkout in the first place. And second, you need a bigger, more obvious sign. Well, I guess the manager actually agreed with me, because the next time I was at the store I saw that they had hung a large sign from the ceiling that identified the express lane. The problem was, the sign was so high up that still, most people probably never saw it. So once again, I told the manager good job on the sign, but it needs to be hung in a more noticeable way. So the next time I was in the store, I saw that they had hung the sign directly above the "entrance" to the express lane, about seven feet from the floor. You couldn't miss it now. Mission accomplished!

Yeah, that's happened to me, too. Express lane empty, I get waved over by the cashier, I start unloading my stuff, and a customer pulls up behind me with three items and gives me a dirty look...

I'm the kind of person who likes to know why they be.

Ok... somebody explain to me those gimmicky "eyebrow" or "halo" things around the headlights on some newer cars. They don't serve any purpose... they aren't actually headlights (as Joe knows!)... they aren't turn signals... they aren't fog lights... so what's the point, anyway? Just another silly gimmick... Why?

I don't know where this whole "impatient driver trying to push through the guy ahead of me" stuff came from. All I said is that it's annoying to have to sit behind a clueless driver who's waiting to turn right and sits there the whole time until the light turns green... instead of turning "right on red," as he is allowed to do, I never said anything about trying to intimidate him or annoy him or anything like that. Just wish he would get his head out of his posterior and make his dang turn!

This case turned out correctly (finally!). Too bad the car has apparently been stripped. Which brings up another question: the storage garage had charged for storage and "repairs." I wonder if the car was intact when the "current possessor" picked it up from the garage?

Well, the final vote is pretty close... 17 REAL, 17 MODEL. And the answer is... REAL!