Episode 60 – Rubber Ducks and Semi Trucks

Throwin' Wrenches Automotive Podcast

Welcome to the automotive podcast that’s got us a convoy!

https://traffic.libsyn.com/thebeerreport/TW_60_final.mp3

On this episode of Throwin’ Wrenches…

• How will the way we buy cars change the coming years?
• Formula One racing comes to Sin City!
• We pay tribute to the “Rubber Duck”, who gave us the trucker’s anthem for the CB-radio era.

As always, we appreciate your support. To join in on the fun of the show, just email us at [e-mail] or post a review on iTunes to be heard around the world!

Sponsors

Fort’s Toyota of Pekin

Gabe Casey

PS: There will be some fun Throwin’ Wrenches merchandise available for purchase very soon!

Stay tuned for updates.

In the Spotlight

Eric was a featured guest on the premiere episode of Get in Her Lane, a new podcast hosted by Kathleen Kennedy and Shannon Withington. The series centers on women in the automotive industry, including diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Episode one is now streaming, and it features an engaging discussion about diversity and equity in the modern automotive industry.

We highly recommend giving this show a listen today. You can also follow Get in Her Lane on Instagram for the latest show updates.

Projects

Eric:

1. Mysterious steering wheel problem in the tundra… since my son drove it this winter
2. Roadtrip USA. Eric talks about his trip to the east coast during Spring break with the whole family. More of that in the Patreon Preshow.
3. I love my 1997 Tacoma… I might marry it!

Daryl:

1. sold his 1958 Plymouth after two weeks of Facebook Marketplace drama. It went to Iowa, where all is right with the world and people actually work on stuff.
2. Swap meet this weekend to sell more parts and then it’s full-time Caddy Daddy time until she runs.

TWISM This week in social media

Dude in NOLA booby traps his truck with a flash-bang after getting it broken into 8 times. (Viral video)

Source: WWLTV- New Orleans

After setting it up for weeks, Brendan Batt caught a thief in the act. The suspect broke the window and leaned into the car when a small explosion went off, startling the thief and sending him running.

“It’s so frustrating and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Batt said. It’s the eighth time since January he’s had to replace the window in his truck.

The glass repair shop near his office knows him so well by now, Batt jokes that he doesn’t even have to introduce himself when he calls.

World New

The world-famous neon lights of Las Vegas will provide the backdrop to Formula 1’s newest race when the American city hosts a night event from 2023.

Source: Formula 1

The Las Vegas Grand Prix will take place on a Saturday in November 2023 and be one of three races in the United States, joining Miami and Austin.

Las Vegas hosted races in 1981 and 1982 but this will be the first time F1 cars will race on the iconic Las Vegas Strip, with the circuit sweeping past famous hotels and casinos. The 14-turn track will run for 3.8 miles with top speeds expected to hit around 212mph.

The design features three straights, a high-speed cornering sequence and a single chicane section, with the Grand Prix to be run over 50 laps.

National News

Most car shoppers think prices will never go down, and factory ordering is the new normal

Source: Marketwatch

New car shoppers know that a global microchip shortage means high car prices, and they don’t expect them to come down even as supplies return to normal. More than ever plan to order their next car, and fewer are willing to pay more than sticker price than were last November.

Those are among the conclusion from Cox Automotive’s Chip Shortage Consumer Impact Study. The study has been tracking consumer behavior and attitudes regarding the chip shortage and its consequences since it began in the summer of 2021.

Cox Automotive is the parent company of Kelley Blue Book.

Among the takeaways:

• Shoppers know about the shortage, expect it to last
• Sixty percent of shoppers were “very aware” of the microchip shortage, and 26% were at least aware of it. Awareness has increased with every new edition of the study since it began last April.
• Of those who expressed an opinion, 35% expect the shortage to continue for more than a year, and another 18% say it will last at least seven more months. They’re likely right – experts expect it to continue through most of 2022.

Ford on Pace to Sell 100,000 Broncos This Year If It Can Keep Production Up

Source: The Drive

Take a peek at the first-quarter sales results from any automaker this year and you’ll find they all look similar; sales are down, typically by around 20 percent in total. Yes, I’m about to say those two dirty phrases that have been seared into your brain at this point: The chip shortage and supply chain issues are still disrupting auto manufacturing. The prices of cars, used and new, are up, but there is something of a silver lining—at least for hopeful Bronco owners.

In March alone, Ford sold 9,757 Broncos, a number that’s been increasing since 2022 began. In total, the Blue Oval has sold 23,573 through Q1, meaning that the month of March was nearly half of that total figure. Indeed, sales are trending up after a slump in February. January saw 8,101 of Ford’s popular new 4×4 moving off dealer lots followed by just 5,715 units the next month. It’s not the most straightforward trend, then, but it’s climbing regardless.

The Bronco still has work to do in terms of catching the Jeep Wrangler. In total, 45,551 of the stalwart off-roaders were delivered to customers in the first quarter—roughly doubling Bronco sales. That being said, sales of Ford’s SUVs still eclipse the entire Jeep brand, which itself does not produce any cars like sedans or wagons. Ford barely does either, to be fair; however, 13,986 Mustangs and 36 GTs were sold this year, which isn’t nothing.

C.W. McCall, ‘Convoy’ Country Singer, Dead at 93

The troubadour of truck-driving songs helped add CB radio lingo like “10-4 good buddy” into the national lexicon with his spoken-word smash about big-rig drivers protesting government regulation

Source: Rolling Stone

C.W. McCall, an adman who found fame as a country music singer with songs about 18-wheelers, including the 1976 crossover No. 1 “Convoy,” has died at 93. According to his son Bill Fries III, McCall had been battling cancer and was in hospice care in his Colorado home when he died Friday, April 1.

“Breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck,” McCall intoned in the novelty hit “Convoy,” a song that celebrated CB radios and the community of long-haul truck drivers who used them. Released in November 1975, the spoken-word saga would top both the country and pop charts the next year, sell more than 2 million copies, inspire a 1978 movie of the same name starring Kris Kristofferson, and help add jargon like “10-4, good buddy” into the national lexicon. But the song and the CB radio craze it’d help inspire all started in an Omaha, Nebraska, office.

Born Nov. 15, 1928, in Audubon, Iowa, as William Dale Fries Jr., Fries created the character of C.W. McCall in 1974 while working at an Omaha ad agency. The goal then wasn’t to record radio hits but to sell loaves of bread with country-sounding jingles.

“I wanted to name the truck driver something that would be easily remembered. A lot of the truckers wore initials on their shirts,” he told Milwaukee deejay Bob Barry. “We thought it was sort of a country-western sounding track, so that’s where the C.W. came from.”

The first commercial, “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep on a-Truckin’ Café,” proved so popular (it won a Clio Award) that Fries began to write a series of truck-driving songs with Chip Davis, who’d go on to form the neo-classical group Mannheim Steamroller. “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep on a-Truckin’ Café” appeared on McCall’s debut album, 1975’s Wolf Creek Pass. The title track hit Number 12 on the country charts and Fries — by now fully transformed into the character of C.W. McCall — set about recording the follow-up.

Black Bear Road arrived in September 1975 and its title track stalled at Number 24. But McCall released another song off the album: “Convoy.” The tale of a caravan of big-rig drivers led by “The Rubber Duck” caught the national consciousness with its vivid cross-country imagery and playful lingo — “Smokies” for the cops, “bear in the air” for a police chopper, “What’s your twenty?” for location, and, of course, “10-4” for “affirmative.” The track spent six weeks atop the country charts and hit No. 1 on the pop survey.

While McCall knew how to talk like a trucker, he didn’t drive an 18-wheeler. His daily ride, he told Dick Clark during a 1975 interview on American Bandstand, was a Jeep CJ5.

“The truckers were forming things called convoys and they were talking to each other on CB radios,” McCall said in a 2011 interview. “They had a wonderful jargon. Chip and I bought ourselves a CB radio and went out to hear them talk.”

For all its cinematic adventure, “Convoy” — No. 98 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Country Songs of All-Time — also contained elements of a protest song. The 1973 gas shortage, subsequent price spikes, and long lines at the pumps had Americans roiled. A 55 MPH speed limit particularly rankled truckers, who struggled to make a profit amid high gas prices and government regulation.

“The Rubber Duck” then was a cult hero and his fellow drivers, with handles like “Pig Pen” and “Sodbuster,” were rebels with a cause. On their journey from California to New Jersey, they fought the law — and, this time, the law didn’t win. When the “bears” block a bridge in the Garden State, the convoy barrels right through. “We crashed the gate doing 98/I say, ‘Let them truckers roll, 10-4,’” McCall says at the climactic finish.

McCall’s later singles were met with varying degrees of success. A “Convoy” sequel, of sorts, “Round the World With the Rubber Duck,” peaked at 40 on the country charts, while the melodramatic “Roses for Mama” hit No. 2. (McCall’s fellow truck-driving troubadour Red Sovine would record his own version of the latter.)

Active in music until the early 2000s, McCall also became involved in environmental causes. In 1986, he ventured into politics when he ran and was elected mayor of Ouray, Colorado. He’d go on to serve in the role for six years.

Local News

Napleton Automotive Group to pay $10 million settlement with FTC and state of Illinois

Source: RV Pro

The Federal Trade Commission on Friday announced that North American Automotive Services, which also goes by Napleton Automotive Group, will pay $10 million in a settlement from a lawsuit brought on by the FTC and the state of Illinois.

Nine locations were listed as defendants in the lawsuit, including Napleton’s Ellwood Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Ellwood City, which was filed at the U.S. District Court Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division.

The lawsuit complaint claimed Napleton snuck illegal junk fees for unwanted “add-ons” onto customers’ bills, and that the company discriminated against Black consumers by charging them more for financing.

The complaint said the fees included payment insurance and paint protection. The illegal junk fees cost consumers hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, according to the document.

A survey cited in the complaint showed 83% of buyers from the dealerships were charged junk fees for add-ons without authorization, or as a result of deception.

Specifically, the complaint states that Napleton’s Ellwood was one of the locations that violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

The complaint also alleges that the Napleton dealerships discriminated against Black consumers in connection with financing vehicle purchases, such as charging approximately $190 more in interest, and Black customers paying $99 more for similar add-ons.

Moment of Musk

Grinding of the Gears

Cars of the Weak

Daryl : 1933 Reo Royale Custom Eight Coupe – $235,000

Source: Dragone Classic Motorcars

Offered here is possibly one of the most outstandingly well preserved and lowest mileage cars of the classic era that exists today; a completely original 1933 Reo Royale Custom Eight 2 passenger coupe with 8,000 original miles from new.

Retaining all of its original black paint, perfect original upholstery, original pin striping and even the original factory stenciling on the firewall, this car is the definition of a time capsule. It is essentially a new 1933 Reo Royale Custom Eight coupe.

Eric: 1982 Toyota Hiace Van – SOLD

Source: Cars From Japan

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