Our wonderful co-founders and editors have returned from their luxurious Monterey Car Week trip, where they tried to buy a tiny convertible microcar for $70,000, displayed a bodacious Porsche 911 Turbo at Pebble Beach, and apparently rubbed shoulders with at least one celebrity. I also heard talk about caviar, too. You know, I’m not sure I’ve even seen a picture of caviar.
Anyway, before I go Google what caviar looks like, Jason, David, and Matt spotted none other than Aaron Paul, famous for his role in the movie Need For Speed. Though, I heard he was also in some TV show, one with a guy named Heisenberg and involving something called Blue Sky. Must be a show relating to science!
In true Jason fashion, he was distracted by rubber taillights. You heard that right, he found taillights that also worked a bit like a bumper:
See those? They’re fairly normal taillights of an early 1910s and 1920s type I generally call the “diver’s helmet” style, only these are made of rubber! Rubber! They’re brilliant! They act as a sort of low-speed bumper protector as well, and can rebound from slight impacts with the cool aplomb of anything made of nice, pliant rubber! I love them!
The company that made these, Rubbolite, is even still around, except they seem to have moved on from just rubber lights and onto a vast array of lighting needs.
Talking about the Bentley those lights were attached to opened the door to a short conversation with Aaron Paul. Jason said the conversation involved Toyota Tercel 4×4 wagons, but didn’t give us a breakdown of what was said. Fear not, for it seems reader Sean Flanagan was listening in:
Jason: “Rubber taillights? But I barely know ‘er!”
Mr. Paul: …
Jason: …
Mr. Paul: …
Jason: “Say, you look like the sort of fellow who would know a thing or two about Japanese compact 4WD wagons from the 80s. Let me ask you something…”
Mr. Paul: “Tercel.”
Jason: “Exactly! The interesting thing about the Ter-”
Mr. Paul: “No, I said, ‘Your smell’. I know it wouldn’t be rot in this Bentley, man, so it must be you.”
Jason: “Oh, thank you for noticing! I sourced this from a-”
Owner: “Please leave.”
Toecutter gets an honorable mention for a comment from Bishop’s piece about a deathtrap of a powered big wheel:
Big wheels have very unstable cornering and braking dynamics. That is the entire point of their design. Drift trikes have been built around the same concept.
I get the appeal from a fun standpoint, but not my cup of tea. I don’t like spinning around unpredictably. I also had a big wheel when I was a little kid, and was sad when I got too big for it, but there are bigger and better things out there.
I’m building a vehicle in the opposite direction. I’m thinking more “race car” turned microcar, but with 3 wheels and a bicycle drivetrain to get around various laws. Two wheels in the front, one in the back. No drifting, as that will get you killed, but I’m going to make damned sure it corners with lots of stability and lateral Gs without tipping over. Gas shocks on all 3 wheels.
Mine can do donuts and I’ve also panic stopped it from 50 mph without issue when it had the lowly Avid BB7 cable pull disc brakes on it. Now it has hydraulic disc brakes which assure it stops nice and straight every time, and a motorcycle handle and reservoir to assure the kinetic energy dissipated doesn’t boil the DOT3 fluid, plus there’s a mechanical disc brake and regen in the rear as a backup.
I feel like I always learn something new from a Toecutter comment. I agree with David: We should pass the mic to you every now and then. Have a great evening, everyone!
(Top Image: Touchstone Pictures)
The fact that we got 10 Fast and Furious movies and only one Need for Speed is proof we’re living in the worst timeline
Even though I like it, it seems to be that there’s more people who hate the NFS movie then most F&F movies.
I watched Need for Speed and put it in the category of “Glad I saw it, never need to see it again”. It wasn’t awful, but the premise worked better than the execution.
I think I’ve seen the first five Fast & Furious movies (I stopped with the one where they dragged a bank vault around in Brazil), and aside from Tokyo Drift, I can’t think of one I’d care to rewatch.
I’m not sure if that means we are in a worse timeline or not, but I have a feeling that trading some F&F movies for some NFS movies would be a wash overall.
Need for Speed is pleasantly dumb, which if you’re going to be dumb, it’s the best way to be dumb. Would it have continued to be that if it had gotten a number of sequels? It’s hard to say, but it had a charming lead, a good cast, a great turn from the always great Michael Keaton, and enough car porn to satiate even a diehard petrolhead. Many films have gotten a sequel with far less to offer than you can find here.
F&F started pleasantly dumb, but ultimately starting turning into a superhero/action/spy movie hybrid that may have its moments (Fast Five), but at the end of the day ends just piling more on top of more on top of more. Faster and more Furious, just trying to outdo the previous film to the point where strapping some rockets onto a Fiero and launching it into space isn’t really that much of a stretch in the believability of a franchise that tries to convince you that all these people really want to hang out with Vin Diesel.
The F&F series is really just Dom’s Charger, adding more and more horsepower with no ability to translate all that power from the wheel to the pavement, spinning uselessly until something explodes. NFS may not have been great, but it at least had an emotional core that is stronger than a series lead by a buff wooden plank with a soundboard strapped to it saying ‘Family’ on repeat
Fair, but if you look at the history of car-centric movies, they all sort of devolve into cliches or have some silly plot point or goofy story line to move the film forward.
F&F grabbed onto the family story line, as silly as it ended up being even in the first film, and then it just carried it too far on subsequent films.
NFS had several plot points going on, from (if memory serves) revenge, family, and loyalty. Unfortunately, most of those are the same as F&F, not to mention a few other not-so-great car-centric films like Death Race. It would be nice to think Hollywood would have let future NFS movies take the high road, but I’m pretty sure the last 15+ years of film has shown that big action, lots of explosions and CGI, and minimal story are where Hollywood would have taken them.
Congratulations to me on COTD! I’ve won this beautiful drop top Bentley, which this lovely lady will deliver once she figures out how she got into that oil field.
https://wallpapers-fenix.eu/full/190720/071226558.jpg
(Apologies and all credit to the sorely missed $kaycog from the other site. This would be better with inline images.)
She looks like if miss piggies was made in to a real human girl + stripper heels!?!
All the same good attempt, keep it up!
You earned my smiley face with the $kaycog reference. Good times!
Not a single reference to, “Yeah Bitch!”? I’m let down.
I’m sorry to have let you and everyone else down. I’ll do better next time Jason strikes up a conversation about taillights… with Aaron Paul.
*casually gets close to Aaron Paul*
Crossword puzzle and pencil in hand.
*pretends to concentrate on puzzle*
“Hmmm… five letter word for a female dog?”
*waits expectantly*
COTD in the COTD article.
(Aaron Paul hears my little query over the cacophonous din of the engine noise, camera crews and reporters of the concourse.)
Aaron Paul: *pauses focus, turns head, looks directly at me*
Me: *casually ignores him, chews on pencil eraser, tries to focus on crossword puzzle with a straight face*
Me: *mutters to myself quietly*
“Bella?” *acts confused*
“No no no.” *taps pencil on paper annoyingly*
Me: *says to myself self loudly*
“That’s a name for a female dog dummy! The clue is a word for a female dog.
Five letters?”
Aaron Paul gives me the side-eye.
I give it right back.
*pauses for comedic effect*