Forty Thousand Feet, Keep Flyin'

Hello again dear reader. I hate to disappoint, but there has been very little progress on the Falcon project in the past months.  Life has been pretty eventful, so I'll do my best to fill you in especially on the car related news.

Like Plano Texas...

Probably the biggest news is that my employer, Toyota, has decided to move the national headquarters from Torrance, California to Plano, Texas. I have been asked by a lot of friends and family if that means I'm moving to Texas. I will not be going to Texas. My job however, may be moving to Michigan. The fun part is that I will not even know if my job is moving for another 8-12 months. Personally I'm not terribly bothered either way but most of my coworkers have families and houses here in California and are emotionally attached to the location. For most of them, it's home. Having to choose between a job you love and a home you love is a decision I know all too well. So where will I be in a year and a half? We'll have to wait and see.

Recently I spent two weeks on the other crust of our Great American Sammich. The first week was spent in Connecticut performing a fuel economy test. The most interesting part of that week was probably the abandoned insane asylum. Not car related, but creepier than finding Pee Wee Herman hiding behind your shower curtain/

"It's lonely here"

If one level of fun is not enough, we've got two more!!

It's a "fixer upper"

Labratory

The next week I was in NYC for the New York International Auto Show. As always, all the manufacturers put on a big show and bragged about how they were the leader in sales of three wheeled hybrid crossovers marketed to women with degrees in expressive dance and an income of greater than $37,923!!!  Apparently the NYC suit wearers can be impressed by such statistics, and subsequently, stock prices rise. Or not. In any case, the free food at this show wasn't as good as Detroit, so I was pretty bummed by that. Oh yeah, there were cars there too. We like those, so I'll show you some.

I think I've posted the FT-1 before, but it really caught my eye this time. It's far better in person than in pictures.

The Alfa Romeo 4C is a pure sports car.

Even the pedals have a far different feel than your everyday production car.
Machined out of billet aluminum, they have a genuine "race" feel.

50th anniversary Mustang in Wimbledon White

Jaguar F-type Coupe won the prestigious Jesse's Favorite Car award.
It has a fantastic bootay.

As is often the case, famous people attend auto shows. Many of them are famous in the automotive world, and some are famous to the general public. This time I met Christian von Koenigsegg, the founder and owner of Koenigsegg automotive. Christian was a very cool guy who was willing to geek out with  me about camless engines for about 5 minutes. I also spotted a famous figure in US history whose face can be found on large denomination currency.

With Christian von Koenigsegg

This guy took time out of his normal routine of
flying kites in thunderstorms to see the auto show.

After returning from the auto show, I went to Utah for my brother's wedding. I don't have anything car related from that, but I do have a cool video. My sister-in-law said she wanted to toss her bouquet in a more impressive manner than is normally done, so dutifully I offered my services.

Finally, I something that relates to Grace. I decided it had been way too long since I had started up the old green Ranger and warmed up the engine. I stuck my GoPro on the side to record the exhaust sound for posterity, because things will change drastically for the old Ranger once I take the engine out to give to Grace. It's got a pretty deep tone for a 4 popper. Have a listen, you may need to turn it up.