Official DALLAS Forum Off-Topic Chat Thread - Part 2 (Austin, Arlington: law school, universities)

[RonnieinDallas]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Going with my dad to a car show. On the Sabbath, no less.

Sounds fun

Who else has upcoming Valentine's Day plans? Spring break plans, or other?

[bencronin04]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Going with my dad to a car show. On the Sabbath, no less.

Autorama? My buddy is going with his dad as well. I went last year, but might be going out to the country for the weekend instead.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by bencronin04

Autorama? My buddy is going with his dad as well. I went last year, but might be going out to the country for the weekend instead.

Dunno, it's whatever one they're having that has car hopping demonstrations. Dad doesn't want to go by himself, he can't go on Sunday so we're going Saturday, and I agreed to go with him to keep him company.

[bencronin04]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Dunno, it's whatever one they're having that has car hopping demonstrations. Dad doesn't want to go by himself, he can't go on Sunday so we're going Saturday, and I agreed to go with him to keep him company.

That's probably autorama. It's kind of fun. The cars inside are really pretty, but I enjoy the shows outside more. Burn out competition, car hopping, motorcycle jumps, etc. Should be a pretty day as well, enjoy.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by bencronin04

That's probably autorama. It's kind of fun. The cars inside are really pretty, but I enjoy the shows outside more. Burn out competition, car hopping, motorcycle jumps, etc. Should be a pretty day as well, enjoy.

Thanks. I'm not really a car show kinda gal, but I'm told there will be classic cars there and I do like looking at those. Plus, I like spending time with my dad. So it's a win-win.

[bencronin04]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Thanks. I'm not really a car show kinda gal, but I'm told there will be classic cars there and I do like looking at those. Plus, I like spending time with my dad. So it's a win-win.

That's pretty much all it is. Either completely modified classics or just restored beautifully.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by bencronin04

That's pretty much all it is. Either completely modified classics or just restored beautifully.

Yum I hope they have some 50s cars...those are my favorites.

[bencronin04]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Yum I hope they have some 50s cars...those are my favorites.

They should have a few. It's mostly late 60s & early 70s.

[Walter Benjamin]

Cars and status: obviously varies by time and place...

A few days ago, Kevin Williamson wrote in National Review about some stereotypes from the previous century

The ancient Main Liners who would, despite their inherited millions, have been embarrassed to show up at the Cricket Club driving anything flashier than a Ford (“The old guard thought Lincolns were for Jews and Cadillacs for Italians,” as one old lion of the country club explained to me) were at the beginning of the 20th century still rolling their eyes at all the Mercedes and BMWs rolling down Lancaster Avenue.

Paul Fussell was about the biggest authority on class signaling of the 20th century, and he wrote:

If your money and freedom and carelessness of censure allow you to buy any kind of car, you provide yourself with the meanest and most common to indicate that you`re not taking seriously so easily purchasable and thus vulgar a class totem. You have a Chevy, Ford, Plymouth or Dodge, and in the least interesting style and color. It may be clean, although slightly dirty is best.

You may not have a Rolls, Cadillac or a Mercedes. . . . The worst kind of upper-middle-class types own a Mercedes, just as the best own elderly Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Chryslers, and perhaps Jeeps and Land Rovers, the latter conveying the preppy suggestion that one of your residences is in a place so unpublic that the roads to it are not even paved, indeed are hardly passable by your ordinary vulgar automobile.

To my untrained eye, the most noticeable feature here in Dallas is the high prevalence of pickup trucks (if you're childless) or SUVs (if you have kids). In an era of dirt-cheap gas, and on roads filled with insane, drunken maniacs, it makes good sense to have the strongest, heaviest, most bulletproof vehicle you can get, standing between you and danger.

Texas (USA): The kingdom of pick-up trucks! | Best Selling Cars Blog
Texans Like Their Pickups Big, Too - Bloomberg Business


Personally, I can't look at a Hummer without thinking of how that vehicle plays into Christopher Moltisanti's decision to have Adriana whacked on The Sopranos

But while refueling his glossy black Hummer in a gas station, he finds his gaze drawn to the family across the pumps from him—the runny-nosed kids, the harried parents, and above all their battered station wagon—and in that instant decides that it’s better to have his fiancée killed than to accept the constraints of life outside the mafia. The freedom to do whatever you like in this world, it turns out, is just another word for choosing your SUV over your lover.

You can look at "correlations" on YouGov. GMC is NASCAR, fishing and Ronnie Milsap. Subaru is hockey, the New Yorker and sushi. Volkswagen is the Atlantic Monthly, art galleries and soccer. Ford is football, DIY and Duck Dynasty.

https://today.yougov.com/opi/browse/GMC/correlations
https://today.yougov.com/opi/browse/Subaru/correlations
https://today.yougov.com/opi/browse/...n/correlations
https://today.yougov.com/opi/browse/Ford/correlations

What were we talking about again? Oh yes, the DFW Auto Show is this weekend...

[turf3]

"The ancient Main Liners who would... ...were at the beginning of the 20th century still rolling their eyes at all the Mercedes and BMWs rolling down Lancaster Avenue."

So he means that there were lots of Mercedes and BMWs rolling down Lancaster Ave., in say 1905?