What do you love about your truck No. 1: John Hoover and his F-150

TH BLOG of that Filtz Guy will be doing a series of timeless features this second half of the year 2015. John Hoover of Finleyville, Washington County, Pa., was the first to step up to the plate. Specifically, we will be interviewing truck owners about their trucks all around Western Penn.

While some working men use their trucks to carry fuel to construction equipment, John Hoover uses his sparingly
o help his kids move to new houses, and to haul of a bit of mulch for occasional mulching."

Hoover, who also owns two newer small SUVs, owns a 1989 Ford F-150 4x4 long bed, as pictured. He has put around 20,000 miles on the truck's odometer, which be bought from a friend somewhere around 2000-01. It's total mileage is right around 70,000 miles, which is read from a standard old school odometer.

It has locking hubs for 4 wheel drive, has no modifications, and a torque-rich big 4.9-liter six cylinder engine. It, as well as the close gearing of the 5-speed, help with work and hauling furniture. Its drivetrain has had no issues, as like other old school Ford 4.9s, it has been reliable for him.

While it's not for sale, Hoover said he has some some funny experiences of his ownership with it. He said when was helping haul a glass-topped picnic table, he said the table actually felt right out of the truck's bed around a sharp turn. "It was in the West End of Pittsburgh," he said, "and thankfully the table did not fall too far away from the road." Hoover said that he was thankful he did not have to clean up the mess, because he placed the table back in the bed, and was good to go afterward. There were no issues with it nor the truck.

He has only gone through one battery since bought it 15 years ago from a friend, and the motors for both of the windows do not work anymore.

Despite the Ford's wear and tear issues, 

"Once you own a truck, you will never want to go back to a car, or even a van."

While Hoover may not drive the truck on a regular basis, he does find enjoyment in helping his family, and driving one of the rare manual transmission trucks on American roads today.

21st Century of Guts: Why I still remember the forgotten GTO

8/3/15

I have been thinking about the sleek looking modern Pontiac GTO from about a decade ago. 
I have been thinking about its strong, somehow poetic 350-horsepower engine.
I think that the car kicks ass. But why did it go?

Who can forget such a car. The 2004 Goat boasted a 5.7 liter engine lifted from the Corvette. That car boasted a 0 to 60 time of a good 5.3 seconds for the stick and 5.4 for the automatic. Fast, but the auto's acceleration felt a little slow.

Source: Net Car Show website

Seeing the car lose its guts, all of its sales, and its availability for the American market.

It was kind of beautiful, if a little on the plain side. But I sure do miss seeing them on GM dealer lots.

I miss seeing them rumble quickly past everything in sight, only Corvettes and Subarus and other serious performance cars strong and light enough to keep up.

I miss the no-cost 6-speed manual option, one of the very few cars to offer such an option. I miss hearing those 'boxes clutches engage and then disengage, and then continue to wildly accelerate onto a freeway ramp. 

I have been thinking lately perhaps I will own such a car someday, used, with plenty of miles. And, just for kicks, an automatic car to mod it. 

The best sports car Ford made

I need to get this one off my chest. I have since joined another blog but I want to say this.

I think the Ford GT is one of the best Ford sports cars ever sold in the USA. 

I believe this even if Jeremy Clarkson asked Ford to take his car back.

The 2015 Charger

The 2015 Charger

June 18, 2015

The Charger is on its way to be a world class full-size sporting sedan.  With the release of the Hellcat and R/T Scat Pack models, good ol’ Mopar is returning to its early 1970s roots: where big power meets loud engines.

            It has also increased in technology too, for the most part. While fuel economy isn’t quite hybrid-ish, the big sedan starts things off with 292-hp six-cylinder. Not enough for you? A 375-hp Hemi is optional, with a top speed limiter.

            More juice comes from the SRT branch’s mechanical work on the SRT 392 (6.4 Hemi) and Hellcat, a new name that Chrysler is using for super-Hemis. Boasting 485 horsepower for the SRT and an extreme 707 for the Hellcat, these big machines mean business. All that power takes gears, and all Chargers start off with a new, class-leading 8-speed auto carried from the Ram trucks. Charger’s brother, Challenger, is the only one to offer a manual with these engines: a six-speed.

            Last year I pondered whether the Hellcat Challenger was going to be more badass and thus more popular than Chrysler’s other sports car: the Viper. Has Chrysler made their comeback with this supercharged 4-door behemoth?

American Writers' Personalities as Modern Cars

“What would you be if you were a car?” My father and I came up with this idea a few weeks ago.

While I have a hard time fitting myself into stereotypes, I think it would be fun to place the “personality” of today’s cars and associate them with famous American writers of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Flannery O’Connor—2015 Chevrolet SS

            One of the great American writers of Southern “grotesque,” O’Connor was known for writing stories that could be sometimes quite frightening, or appear to be timid at first and then shock the hell out of you. For a literary example, read “Good Country People.” The Chevy SS appears to be something like that—kind of average-looking sedan until you press the ignition button and drive the car onto a busy highway. Watch the smoke from the rear wheels appear into a cloud, then a mushroom cloud, and feel your heart speed until a stop while the fear of an overpowered sedan overtakes you.

Mark Twain—Bentley Flying Spur or 2015 Cadillac CTS

            Twain was not poor by any means, and it is understood that he enjoyed the wealth that he built from his traveling lectures. I had a hard time picking either a luxurious Bentley sedan or Cadillac’s newest car, the CTS. I suppose it could vary depending on how patriotic Twain was feeling, but with his money he would enjoy fine motoring in some sort of luxury.

T.S. Eliot—2002-05 Jaguar X-type

            Eliot and his poetic colleague, Ezra Pound, were born in America but hated living here. Eliot eventually took up British citizenship, which is why he is associated here with the Ford-made Jaguar X-type. Sold only for a few years in the States, the car was probably much less popular than his poetry about 100 years earlier.

F. Scott Fitzgerald—the President’s Cadillac limousine (unknown year)

            Scott Fitzgerald may ring a bell in many Americans who at least received a B in their high school English class. That’s because he is famously associated with the Jazz age, his tremendous if short-lived wealth, and his extraordinary income from his literature, such as “The Great Gatsby.” I figured why not pick the President’s very own limousine.

Tennessee Williams—1966 Shelby Cobra 427

            Although this is meant to associate authors with modern cars, I could not think of a car that was more associated with excess and drama than the king of American cars itself, the Shelby Cobra. Equipped with a mean 425 horsepower engine, the car could rocket to high acceleration numbers faster than anything else with plenty of noise, drama, and boys staring at it as it drove by. Williams was a purveyor of stories but also of drama, with his “A Streetcar Named Desire” hitting audiences in the 1950s. His critics complained of excess drama and sex in the play, as well as other literature he composed.

Leaving the place called 'weak and boring'

            Today’s cars need more performance-oriented models. There, I said it.

            I have said this before, but even Toyota’s chief executive said it. Where is the Supra that Motor Trend put on its cover last spring? It made it to the March 2014 and called it “The Next Supra,” with a question mark after it.

            Honda continues to offer a non-updated, 4-cylinder powered Civic Si for the older Honda performance crowd, which has good performance. But it offers 60 less horsepower than the turbo Subaru WRX. Why is this?

            Although this will sound like an opinion, what if Honda put some money aside to save their older, performance image. The newer CR-Z, the little hatchback that looks like a toy car, has similar power to the new Honda Fit, and less than the Civic, or Accord, or, well…a Hyundai Elantra for that matter. That is sad. So my idea to fix things, at least with Honda, is to offer some sort of fast badge on their cars.

            How so? I have blogged and video’s about it before, but the Accord V-6 has more speed than many cars. Why not offer a mildly faster Civic? Ditch the hubcap wheels, remove the rear seats, increase the wheel/tire size, and have Honda throw some money into creating something new. How about a new, radical interior? How about cool interior lighting? Or closer gearing, or even gearing at all? The Civic is no longer the fun young person's car, and almost feels too grown-up for its own good. 

300 - 100 = Chrysler's next big thing.

April 3, 2015

            Hello, world. It is now the first week of April as I write this, and I must say that I miss keeping thus blog. Until I write for a business blog someday, this is temporarily quite satisfying—sort of like the effect that French fries have on most American diets, haha. Filling for a while, but good.

             I have seen a lot of Chryslers lately, and today I bring forth an editorial. Alas, I am not an editor of any publication, however I feel the duty to bring about an important point to Chrysler and their new for 2015 200, the re-designed version of a very broken automobile.

            Now that Dodge has essentially severed its ties with regular cars, as the struggling Avenger sedan was set out to pasture after ’14, Fiat-Chrysler Association has now let Chrysler build regular, if a bit “upscale,” sedans that Dodge used to make. Thus, the continuing big-car 300, the forthcoming Town & Country van, and the 200: the car that I am writing about.

            Except of course for the old-school Dodge Viper, I am not a big fan of many American cars, generally speaking. Yes, Mustangs are cool, but they’re not something many would drive every day. Chrysler has added some very interesting looking design to the new 200, even to me.

            New wheels, a brand new non-Chrysler looking interior that looks like it came over from another country. Yes, like an import, perhaps comparable to an Infiniti or an Acura.

            Next is something a bit more technical: all new, standard 9-speed automatic transmissions with the both the base and the optional engines. Although probably not feeling very sporty, this would hypothetically increase fuel mileage to very competitive standards and probably making for quicker launch as well. In terms of what makes cars go, this alone has more gears than any other gas-powered car in America with the exception of one other Chrysler product.

            To me, that is pretty impressive that the makers of the car would shoot for such high standards. Why? The old 200 (and the equally bad Sebring that preceded it) was kind of one of those automotive jokes. It goes something like this: in terms of transportation, one can walk, ride the bike, or drive a 200. Even the Chevy Cruze was more appealing than the old 200. The styling, the ride, more or less everything about it was either pretty bad (the looks) or downright awful (the outgoing car’s harsh transmission).

            Although much of this is just my thoughts through blogging prompts, I really hope that Chrysler can fine-tune anything that may go wrong or that is currently wrong with the car. I say this because I have driven the old Dodge Avenger/Chrysler 200, and they were just horrible.

            Now, they have created something that no one was really expecting.

            Now, if only the results will come in for how the car’s quality will turn out…