October 2010
65 posts
“The SEMA Show is the premier automotive specialty products trade event in the...”
– That pretty much sums us up, me and Neil. I’m not sure which one of us is the brightest mind and which one of us is the hottest product, but we’re in there somewhere. And we’re gonna be at SEMA next week!
Come check us out next week if you’re a member of SEMA (the SEMA...
“Horsepower and green power can coexist without sacrificing the cool factor.”
– You can say that again. x LV
“This seminar is part of SEMA’s Vehicle Technology Briefing program and focuses...”
– Description of the seminar that Neil and I will be speaking at in Las Vegas Tuesday morning. Well. I’ll probably let him do all the talking. Vehicle Technology Keynote: Driving Green Performance. x LV
WatchOh those bothering mechanics. Bothering mechanics? Not in my world. Mechanics rock!
I’m hangin’ with some of my favorite mechanics in the whole wide world right now, at Brizio’s, gettin’ ready for Vegas, Baby. Thanks for getting me all spruced up for SEMA, Brizio’s!
Viva Las Vegas! Baby needs some new shoes! Show me boxcars! Hang the fuzzy di . .(slaps...
Oh Blog! I tried my Halloween costume on for the first time today and it fits perfectly! It really makes me look like the original Batmobile. Here’s a pic of me and N. taking my Halloween costume out for a spin at the ranch this afternoon. To the Bat Cave! Wheee!
Yes, Blog. I am going as the original Batmobile for Halloween this year. The orignial Batmobile, by the way, was none other...
“There is no excellent beauty, that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
– Francis Bacon, The Essays (via sherry)
Well. I am 19 and 1/2 feet long, and I do weigh 6,000 pounds, but I have lower emissions than a little Prius. Some might call that strangeness in proportion. But from now on I shall call it Excellent Beauty (which could also be my horse name, were I a wild...
“Chevrolet says the Volt can go up to 50 miles on a charge. Nissan says the Leaf...”
– The Electric Tour of Hell
Crime In The City
SEMA Preview: Neil Young's LincVolt Will Be Ready... →
“If you’ve been hankering to get a good look at Neil Young’s LincVolt behemoth, you’d best make plans to get to SEMA in a few weeks. We got word today that the 1959 Lincoln Continental convertible with a brand new biodiesel and battery-based powertrain-and young Neil himself-will make an appearance at the specialty show. Young is scheduled to take part in a vehicle...
In Kansas, Climate Skeptics Embrace Clean Energy →
Fascinating information here about changing behavior. In order to really affect change, you have to reach people. You have to reach them where it matters to them. You have to engage their heart, their mind, their imagination … That’s where I come in. This story is proof positive that changing behavior requires some interesting tactics - And creativity is powerful. (And hello...
On Why I Love Poets, and our Nation's Poet...
Written even before I was born, in 1958, W.S. Merwin expresses a growing concern about the destruction of our planet, well articulating the tension between an expanding civilization and nature, and how it has begun to gnaw at him, in a review of two books:
“When I say that as I perused these two books the question of survival kept up a dull continuo in my head, intruding itself on my...
Untitled, 1985. Milton Glaser
More from W.S. Merwin on the delicate nature of Nature - His beautiful and poignant essay Unchopping A Tree.
Unchopping a tree? Yes. Unchopping a tree. Look. Here’s the thing. Sometimes things are so beautiful, so special, so essential, that extravagant effort must be made to fix them if they are broken. Extravagant care should be taken to see that they...
Starbucks: Wine or Latte? →
Decisions, decisions. And uh oh. If they add tequila and biodiesel to that list now I am so dead. x LV
Sedan Delivery. Who else? My bff N. Young.
Oh Blog, this is so exciting! Someone has made a movie about you! I just found the poster on th’internets. See? Under The Hood, the movie, and starring Bruce Willis! God knows this blog is action packed. It looks like it opened this past Friday, I can’t believe I didn’t even kno … Hang on … (Imagine Shakey Pictures Fanfare here) . .There’s my...
How Electric Cars Could Become A Giant Battery For... →
Conan, I love you, man, but so not funny. I knew that car! I couldn’t look. (Yes, yes, I know it’s movie magic, folks, don’t worry, I’m fine.) Anyway. Speaking of stunt doubles, we don’t use stunt doubles here in the garage. Take mon ami CrackleUnDeuxTrois, for instance.
Crackle does all his own stunts. So do I. And we are operating up here without a...
Check Out My New Tattoo! The Natural Symbol of...
Just kidding, Blog. I don’t have a tattoo. How could I get a tattoo? I’m a car for heavens sakes. But if I did get one, I’d probably get The Natural Symbol of Electricity, on my trunk. This “natural symbol of electricity” can be filed under Future Tattoo Ideas, and is from one of my favorite books, Hans Christian Orsted and the Romantic Legacy in Science. Now...
WatchSmarter Than You Think: Guided by Computers and Sensors, a Smooth Ride at 60 MPH
Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and Google engineer, talking about the “robot” cars Google (my neighbor) has been working on “in secret but in plain view,” see: Smarter Than You Think: Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic.
Smarter than you think? Drive themselves? Save humans from themselves? Sigh. We have been doing...
Hell yeah I pull it off. From AutoBlogGreen’s report on my coming out party: Neil Young’s LincVolt Goes on Display in Florida. ”Goes on Display”? I thought of it more as “Makes Her Grand Entrance.” I do love that they call me stunning, though.
More about me and the great unveiling in Biodiesel Magazine.
© Robert Frank. Detroit Institute of Arts.
Robert Frank: ”Assembly Plant, Ford, Detroit” (1955)
The Messenger Brought Me A Letter
I knew that something strange was going to go down the minute I entered the old deserted Wixom Assembly Plant. The place had spook written all over it. Of course it did. When we first went in, my Team was busy talking with the folks from Ford, and I wandered off alone. I was drawn to some music way back in the corner of the old place . . I couldn’t imagine where it was coming from, in...
Postcard From: Detroit! The Old Deserted Wixom...
Hello Blog! Check it, this is where I was born back in 1959! Ford’s Wixom Assembly Plant, in Wixom, Michigan, right outside of Detroit. I was here on Monday and Tuesday. Talk about spook. The place was a ghost town. I mean, literally. Which was strangely fitting, given that I am, well, quiet. Like a ghost. (Photos of Wixom Assembly by Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times)
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Photo: Ford Motor, via The Associated Press
Oh my, Blog. I have so much to tell you about my visit to Detroit. What a feeling to be back there again after all this time! I’ll tell you all about it later, but meanwhile here’s a blast from the past: A vintage photo of Ford’s Wixom Plant (from my baby book), where I was yesterday, and where there used to be 15 miles of assembly...
More Reports From Farm Aid: Neil Young's Car!... →
I found out more on the Lincvolt’s website, reading the car’s blog (written entirely from the car’s perspective.) From the most recent entry: “Weather is beautiful, wish you were here! Oh wait. You are here. Hello, Blog! … I am thrilled to be here hangin’ out at Farm Aid, proud to be part of Growing Hope for America.”
Yo, thanks for reading my...
