Brrrapp, brraappp, brrappp! My phone was now ringing for the 5th time in a row (on vibrate) as it was now beyond obvious that I was being hammer-called by two alternating random numbers from Miami and NY. “What. The. Royal. Hell?!” says I in a very annoyed, exasperated tone as I nearly jammed my finger hitting the “Ignore” option once more.
It was Thanksgiving Night at 7 pm and, after a long day of working on new pitch ideas to get my Jag rescue article approved for publishing, I was at a food and drink spot that I love in Wilmington, NC. I was there enjoying the golden-glow of the Tarven-style lighting, surrounded by dark wood and darker blue and green paint hues on the walls, swaths of cobblestone trim and decor. I get why the Irish designed pubs like this: it’s exactly what you would want after a long day in the Dublin wind and rain.
Considering that it was 40 degrees outside with whipping wind and rain, I was exactly where I wanted to be at that moment. Next to me, there were a bunch of other locals, enjoying a buffet of Irish-themed Thanksgiving trays that filled the room with incredible aromas emanating from the hot bar. Not all of them (ok none of them) were with me in cheering on my NY Giants as they went up against our Divisional arch-rival the Dallas Cowboys for the big Thanksgiving Game that I was looking forward to all week (this is Carolina Panthers Country).
Right as I was hitting “Ignore” on my phone that last time, a good friend of mine walked into the place and noticed I was scowling at the Motorola in front of me. She was meeting me there for the Giants game and Thanksgiving hot bar buffet. “If they call again, you should probably just pick it up – maybe it’s something important and someone is trying to get up with you from another phone/phone number.” She had a point, although, if it was anyone I knew, I would think they’d have texted or left a voicemail at this point. The phone rang again.
“Uh, hello? Is this Matt Hardigree? We’re in front of your house with your car and need you to sign for it” blares out of the phone in a heavy Haitian Creole accent.
&$%#!@#!!!!
[Ed note: As you all know, we bought an $800 NYC taxi as part of our partnership with Copart. It’s already quite the adventure and I’m glad we sent it to SWG first, mostly because anyone else would disown us. – MH]
The Autopian Sent Me On A Wild Mission
A few weeks earlier, I had received a Slack message proposal from The Autopian’s Publisher, Matt Hardigree, asking if I was interested in helping out the team with some Rescue Wrenching on whichever car they were to get for the site from their partnership with Copart. As I’ve stated in pretty much every piece I’ve penned for The Autopian, I’m beyond appreciative and wicked fired-up to be a part of this community. To share my stories in an auto publication is something I’ve always wanted to do since I was a teenager, so the answer is always “yes” whenever they ask anything.
Plus, Matt is a great guy; he has been paramount in getting me to appear on this website in front of all of Autopia and was a key voice in bringing me out to the LA Auto Show last year (my first Auto show and first auto journalistic event – it was awesome). So, I owe him a few. Actually I owe him more than a few, so this cab repair assist was the first step in my “Thanks Matt!” repayment path.
Matt stated that they had purchased an NYC Taxicab of the Nissan NV200 variety — with 375,000 of the hardest miles ever put on a car. The Autopian Suits wanted me to look it over and get it running and roadworthy for a 2hr, 75mph trip up I-40 from my Evil Wrenching Lair (under that active volcano) in Wilmington NC, northwest, up to Jason’s Digital 8-Bit Palace Of Doom.
Matt said the cab was in decent shape, that the engine and transmission were “all there,” and that the wheels rolled. As a plus, there was a battery in it and a key! That sounded easy enough, since I have said yes to much worse rescue scenarios in the past, gleefully. Of course, you can probably tell from the title of this piece that I was dead wrong about just how difficult this task would be.
But, Thanksgiving?!
Well, due to a bit of a communications snafu with the shipping company, Matt’s direction to “Make sure you don’t arrive on the Thanksgiving Holiday” was misinterpreted and taken as “Make sure that you do arrive on the Thanksgiving Holiday.” Hey, it happens, I guess?
I looked at my friend and said with a very concerned, dead-serious, game face: “It’s Go Time!” I also live nearby, so hopping in The world’s Best $400 Durango and scooting home to The Evil Wrenching Lair will only take about 3 minutes. I told the other patrons to hold our seats, performed the sign of the cross for The Giants, and out the door my friend and I went.
Three minutes later, we arrived to see a glorious yellow NV200 (I’ll admit, it looked pretty cool from that initial impression, yet also a bit ominous sitting atop the delivery transport trailer) staring back at us in the dark wind and rain, about five feet above the ground. We also were instantly introduced to the two semi-irritated, seemingly over-it young Haitian transport drivers. These dudes looked to be in their mid to late 20s. Realizing that I’m 20 years older than youngsters that age is always strange for me, since in my head and my heart, I’m still 25. Aging happens faster than you think.
Anyway, they not only had to work on Thanksgiving, but they also just drove a diesel Ram all the way to the bottom-most corner of NC from NYC for hours on end and had to hammer-call me six times to get an answer and were now preparing to unload a 375K mile taxi in the rain. I could see why they weren’t super jazzed at that moment. They seemed like nice enough dudes and I got the feeling that they assumed that I knew what I was doing per the line of other well-loved cars in my driveway. Let’s get this hoss unloaded!
Didn’t See That Coming…
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The Transport Dudes asked me to climb in the cab, atop the trailer ramps and to guide it down to the asphalt via the steering wheel. They said the key was in it and I’m pretty sure they followed up their request with “si vous plait,” which was very courteous and also pretty cool in my book. There’s usually/historically not a lot of Francophone languages being spoken at my Evil Wrenching Lair, but there has certainly been an increase after rescuing a Citroen 2CV last summer with Mercedes (which is now sitting in the driveway), so it was a refreshing curveball, linguistically. Plus, I’m sure the 2CV overheard it and felt right back at home in Levallois-Perret.
Climbing up the slick, wet ramps I hurriedly hopped in the cab and immediately regretted sitting in the driver’s seat: the driver’s window was down and 700 miles of highway rain, along with the current, local weather had soaked the seat. Not the best. I quickly turned the key to the “On” position only to be met with dead silence and a dark dashboard. Dammit, dead battery. This is rapidly getting less fun and more difficult.
Sticking my head out the already-open window, I shouted back to The Transport Dudes at the base of the ramps, asking them 1) how the hell they got the cab all the way up the trailer ramps with a dead battery (“We lifted it with a forklift, mon ami!”) and 2) if I should just shift into Neutral and use the Armstrong Steering (get it?) to pilot our poor Nissan down from its perch up in the air, back down to Earth.
“Sure, whatever you think is best!”
Into Neutral it went, and my eyes instinctively went to the rear-view mirror. Only that view from the mirror was of my neighbor’s roof since the cab was so elevated. I’d have to Ace Ventura my head out the already-open window in the rain and see-saw the wheel without power steering and stomp the non-powered brakes to guide it down the ramp. I got this. If I start veering, I’m sure The Transport Dudes would say something. The backward speed increased from a barely perceptible motion into a full-fledged wrong-way roller-coaster. “The brakes aren’t really doing much to reduce the speed…am I still on the right track? The Dudes haven’t said anything…”.
Two seconds and 14 feet later:
Crraaaccckkk!
The cab veered off the ramp and was now immobilized with the rocker resting on the ramp and with the rear axle about six inches off the ground. “Why didn’t you guys say anything?!” said a very frustrated and pissed-off SWG. This question was met with a blank look and silence. I realized that I would have to take the reins here myself as The Transport Dudes were seemingly looking to drop this thing off with minimal effort involved, get out of the rain, get paid, and move on with their lives.
In retrospect, I wish Matt had gone with Copart’s preferred shipping vendor…
Ok, Now What?!
I needed a solution and I needed one fast. Not only was this whole charade in the middle of my street, blocking traffic, but I was also missing the Giants game, haggis, and not really wanting to be in the rain in NYC Cab Trailer Removal Logistics Mode on Thanksgiving!
I told Transport Dude #1 to hop in the Ram and to goose the whole rig forward in a jerky, halting manner to attempt to get the cab to slide back, off the ramp and to hopefully catch and hold one of the rear wheels (I had just placed the E-Brake on). I figured that if the rear wheel caught, we could pull the ramp trailer out from under it, rug-style.
Of course, that idea didn’t work.
Now keep in mind that at this moment, The Transport Dudes are playing on their phones in the cab of the Ram, Matt is texting me, apologizing for ruining my Thanksgiving and asking how he can help, my friend is sitting in the Durango, staying out of the rain, yet also looking really concerned and also quite bored on her Thanksgiving and I’m standing in the middle of the road trying to think of approach plan #2 to get this cab off these ramps.
My mind then goes towards my 2004 Nissan Titan King Cab that I picked up a year prior for $1200 with a bad 5th gear and a forklift impalement through the left-front door. I recalled that it has front tow hooks, which would work perfectly to pull The Autopian’s cab down to earth! It was street-parked a block away (I have an intricate system to legally park my fleet), so I informed the already-checked-out Transport Dudes that I was walking to get a solution as they scrolled through their TikTok feeds. “Ca va!” was their reply.
Five minutes later and without any drama or real effort on the truck’s part whatsoever, the NV200 was back on the ground, dead and in the middle of a public road. I simply hooked a tow line from the front tow hooks on the Titan to the rear frame tow hook hole on the NV200, placed the truck in reverse, and down it came!
I was super proud of my Titan to swoop in and save the moment, save our little forlorn yellow buddy, and save my Turkey Day. It’s not very often that you hear much praise for the American-built and designed, quasi market-failure, derivative, also-ran Nissan full-size pickup. When compared to the sales figures of its peers, you can see why it had its sad ending in the market. Nissan targeted a 5% market share for the Titan (which is 100K units) and never beat its first-year sales of 86K (just a 4.3% share). Nonetheless, my 20-year-old $1200 truck was there in a moment of semi-crisis; thank you Titan. I’ll hopefully be able to tell you about my very-involved Titan rescue in a future article, later this year.
I ran over to my idling Durango and asked my friend to hop out and to jump in the cab; she instantly sprung into action to help. I ran into my backyard storage shed quickly and grabbed a loose tire (I have a few from past/current projects) and ran up to the Ram cab to ask one of The Transport Dudes to get off TikTok and to help us by holding the tire at the rear bumper of the NV200. He obliged.
Again the Titan barely even exerted what seemed to be any additional force, effort, or energy whatsoever to move its little yellow square brother/cousin (one ocean removed) into the driveway right behind the Citroen 2CV. It really was remarkable how much power that big 5.6 V8 makes and how it tossed that smaller FWD chassis forward like a rag doll. The loose rubber tire placed in between the mismatched bumpers prevents even the faintest of scuffs.
I high-fived my friend and noted that she can now officially state, in total honestly, that she had driven a NYC cab (about 30 ft into my driveway), and that not many on this planet (relatively speaking) can make the same claim. The Transport Dudes peaced out quickly with an “au revoir!” on the way to their next towing adventure, my friend and I jumped back in The Worlds Best $400 Durango and headed back to the restaurant and catch the second half of the game. Thanksgiving Autopian Cab Task: Complete.
[Ed note: I’m starting to realize that friendship with me comes with a lot of hassle. I should work on that. -MH]
To Be Continued…
More SWG below.
- How I Saved A Once-$90,000 Mercedes SL I Bought For $1,900
- Why The Dirt-Cheap Broken Jaguar X-Type For Sale In Every Town Might Actually Be Worth Buying And Fixing
- I Bought A 29-Year Old Buick With 68,000 Miles On It To Prove The Haters Wrong
- What I Learned Restoring A $600 Dodge Ram With A Burned Up Transmission And Ruined Interior
- How I Bought A Broken Version Of My Dream Car For $300, Then Nursed It Back To Glory And Let It Free
- Proof That A $700 Car Saved From The Junkyard Can Make Someone As Happy As A New Lambo Can
- How I Saved My Buddys’ SUV After It Died At The Most Embarrassing Possible Time
- How Rescuing A 22-Year-Old Jeep Almost Killed Me Multiple Times
Haggis in an IRISH bar?
See below “Editorial liberty” response thread from Yours Truly.
Thank you for reading, for paying attention to the food selection, and for the comment!
I enjoy your articles. I’ve just had enough Haggis for this lifetime and didn’t want to have to avoid it in another place.
Funny, this was my take away, too! Corned beef and cabbage would be a much more “authentic” Irish pub Thanksgiving meal. With potato soup as a starter.
Wait, it took months to approve this blog post?!?!?
Partner posts require partnership, so there is an extra layer when writing about a product sourced from a 54 billion dollar company.
Thanks for noticing, reading and for the comment, my dude!
Did the shipping cost more than the car?
You’ve really gotta hand it to the Autopian Executive Team for taking big swings. These guys ain’t scared of nothin’!
It was Thanksgiving and a Turkey was delivered to your home and you’re complaining! 😉
It took a titanic effort to pull himself away from the giant game.
I don’t believe it! He should of called a fowl. 😉
At this point the Jag article needs to be a Christmas post or something of that nature. I don’t think it can be run on just any day of the year.
Excited for this NV series!
If it gets approved, that would be a great Christmas gift for this guy, although I’m now a bit concerned that the story will have to be 12 hard-hitting pages to live up to he hype!
Thanks for reading and for the comment!
If you’re concerned that it won’t live up to the hype, simply release it on April Fools Day. 😉
Nobody will be disappointed, we just want to finally enjoy the full Jaguar experience!
April 1, aka March 32nd is indeed a day of significance for this community and the Jag article would be a perfect way to help make it special.
Great story! Didn’t these goobers deliver a Hyundai Genesis Coupe from Carvana?
“…an intricate system to legally park my fleet…” reminds of when I had five vehicles parked in the “each spot for a fee only” carport at the apartment complex I was living in. Shuffle, shuffle, apologize when parking in someone’s paid-for space, shuffle shuffle.
You get to a point where the constant movement of the cars makes you start looking for a new place to live, since selling the cars is not an option.
Cars first, housing second.
Thanks for reading and for the comment!
As someone who is currently building a house where a significant motivation is the ability to park all my cars in one place, I feel this.
This is so much great stuff!
The legend of the Jag resurrection is growing to the point I have to ask: can the story live up to the hype at this point?
I really want to read it and maybe even more I want to know why it hasn’t been green lit before now.
I’ll read and enjoy it for what it is but now I’m worried I am giving it more weight than it can handle. Maybe I’m just putting too much worry in at the end of a weekend. Just let SWG tell the story already!
At this point I’d like the real Jag story, as well as a Torch-written fantasy-epic version.
I’ll have Part 2 of this cab tale later this week, then a story about rescuing an XTerra, then a story on rescuing a Lancer, then I’ll try a few new headline pitches on the (now 5-year old) Jag rescue story.
Thanks for reading, for caring, and for the comment, my friend!
It’s good to be the person who has oddball solutions to interesting problems.
I’ve learned that when it comes to Autopian Things there are mostly oddball problems.
Thanks for the kind words, for reading and for the comment!
What I want to know is how many transmissions has it gone through and what the current one’s like. Maybe a manual swap?
From the amount of grime I saw on it, it appears to have been in that engine bay for at least 80-100K miles.
Thanks for reading and for the thought-provoking comment, my dude!
“…an intricate system to legally park my fleet…”
Now I can’t unimagine SWG in a parka and a belt full of keys, furiously running around like George Costanza.
Excellent Seinfeldian reference, Jack!
Thanks as always for being here in the comments for all my pieces over the years; much appreciated, my man.
I see the NYC taxis pop up on various auctions and Facebook marketplace from time to time. I almost bought a Prius c for $1200 but it seemed like more hassle then I wanted to deal with at the time. Hopefully there wasn’t title issues that’s always my fear with those.
Please approve the Jag article already! Inquiring minds want to know…
“I’m not sure our readers would feel compelled to click on this story or headline.” -DT, August 2020
I do feel like this may be our year though for that story! Thanks for keeping the faith, my friend.
At a minimum, run it as a member’s only post. That has to have lower standards right?
SWG article makes the perfect end to a pretty good weekend!
Thanks for the kind words, my dude! Always a pleasure to see you here in the Comments.
Great to hear more from you with your great relatable style.
Now I ask for Jaguar if I may be so bold.
I have a good feeling about this year being the one where I find the right angle and headline pitch for that story.
Thank you for the kind words and for reading!
Thanks SWG your description had me feeling like I was there. I can almost smell the NV200’s interior.
Oh wait, I can! I climbed into it at the Chapel Hill meetup a couple hours ago and that smell ain’t never coming out of this shirt
This song is called SWG’s Restaurnat, and it’s about SWG, and the restaurant, but SWG’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that’s just the name of the song, and that’s why I called the song SWG’s Restaurant.
Now it all started this past Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to eat haggis at an Irish pub restaurant for a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, but SWG doesn’t live in the restaurant, he lives in the evil lair nearby the restaurant. And livin’ in the evil lair like that, he’s got a lot of room for hoopties where the lawn used to be in. Havin’ all that room, he they decided that he had room for whatever Hardigree wanted to send him.
Hardigree had an NYC cab delivered right on Thanksgiving, so SWG left the restaurant, got to the lair, found the apathetic delivery guys in there, and decided it’d be a friendly gesture to take the NYC cab down the ramp. So he took the half a ton of vehicle, took shovels and rakes and Titans and chains and implements of destruction and headed on toward the car transport vehicle.
That’s what we did. We lowered that NYC cab, as gently as was possible, and then shoved it in behind the other vehicles. Then we drove back to the restaurant, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, went to sleep and didn’t get up until the next morning, when … to be continued.
You can get anything you want, at SWG’s Restuarant (exceptin’ SWG)…
Awesome Sauce!
Thanks so much for the compliment … but that’s not what I came to tell you about.
I came to talk about the draft (coming in from the holes in the floorboard and the failed weatherstripping).
The combo of Thanksgiving and crazy shenanigans just made this way into my brain fully-formed.
And nobody is gonna look at the 700 8″x10″ color glosses.
Well, Justice IS blind and all
I totally read this in Arlo Guthrie’s voice, nice!
Thanks. In re-reading, I found plenty of typos. How I wish I were permitted to edit & correct them. Even if I am just sitting here with the father-rapers on the Group W bench, extended edit-access to our comments would be a dream.
Simply amazing. Well, not so simple, but amazing. Well done! Had the Transport Dudes just dumped the cab, I’d imagine Officer Obie would’ve found papers with SWG’s info and he’d have been in more trouble.
If you wanna end war and stuff you have to applaud AJ’s SWG’s Restaurant Massacree. Top notch, AJ!
Thank you, and welcome to the SWG’s Restaurant movement (in four-part harmony)
This is phenomenal. I will walk with my people.
Thanks! Your work was, as always, inspiring. Now let’s wait till it comes around again on the gui-tar, and this time we’ll sing it with four part harmony and feeling.
OK, your rumored Jag rescue story is beginning to take on the aspect of a folk legend or apocryphal tale. You weren’t given your middle name in tribute to Walt Disney were you?
I feel at this point, the actual story can’t live up to the legend that’s arisen, so maybe it’s best we never actually hear it?
I was given it in tribute to my grandfather, Cpl Walter Jerome Gossin, U.S.M.C. The guy had true grit and served in Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal and lived to tell the tale.
Thanks for reading, commenting and for carrying the torch for the Jag rescue piece, my dude!
Delighted to see you back! Great story, only ask would be to see more from you
The tough thing about writing is that you need interesting stories to tell.
The tough thing about wrenching is that while it provides interesting content for The Autopian, it also takes up all of your free time so that you don’t have any left to write.
This was one of my shorter tales (since it is a 2-part story), but usually these pieces take the same amount of time as that 8-pg paper you wrote in school.
I very much enjoy writing but you also have to be in the right head space to be creative. Writing while exhausted after a long work day yields sub-par quality in my experience. Still working on finding the right balance over here.
Thank you greatly for the kind words and for reading, my friend!
SWG always delivers. Well in this case the two Haitian guys did lol. Awesome article.
Gotta hand it to them for working on Thanksgiving.
I mentioned something offhand to them that night above working on Turkey Day.
“We don’t do Thanksgiving where we’re from.” -their response
How does SWG always pull off a win? This story sure started out as; I fell out of the bad decisions tree, and hit every branch on the way down.
Sometimes, laying across that last branch after hitting every other one, all you can do is saw it >between< you and the trunk
I mean, at that point, what’s the worst that can happen?
My next piece (an XTerra rescue) does not end well and definitely goes in the “L” column; look for it in a couple weeks.
Thanks for reading and for the comment, my dude!
Glad you’re back and just the type of article I was hoping to read (especially with a “to be continued” ending). I know no one asked me but I think those Titans are decent trucks in the “well” used market. They seem to be priced below comparable units from the “Big 3” and probably at least as reliable. Looking forward to the next installment.
I love my Titan and I’m, wicked happy with the purchase. They are the best bang-for-the-buck truck you can find these days in my opinion. It really shined on this past Thanksgiving!
Hey, thanks for the great comment and for reading, Jeff!
I know that pub. We have been coming down to the Wilmington area a couple times a year for the last 3 years or so. Love the place.
Just out of curiosity, how is an “authentic Irish pub” serving haggis on American Thanksgiving? Not that there’s anything wrong with haggis; I just associate it with a different part of the Gaelic world.
Scotch-Irish Americans?
The haggis may have been a bit of an editorial liberty as this is an alcohol-free partner post.
Thanks for the comment and for reading, my dude!
Haggis + alcohol-free?
That’s a first, in my experience!
It takes me a LOT of alcohol to be able to eat the stuff.
Ahh! So the original text had “steak and Guinness pie”, but the brief said no associations with alcohol, even if it’s already evaporated. I have to say, for sponsored content (“partner post”), this story pretty good.
I understand, however, that sponsorship means there’s restrictions on coming out and saying that and your stout-hearted friend were eager to return to the cranberry sauce. I imagine, though, that the thought of a wild Turkey-Dinner with all the trimmings kept you warm in the drismal November darkness.
After all, if someone hasn’t yet marketed a lager named “shade-tree mechanic”, it’s overdue.
Alcohol-free. Dude do you even work here?
IDK, I respect DT for choosing not to drink. And I felt really badly on the day I learned this, when he got into town at 3am and I told him to meet me at a bar.
He’s young and the world hasn’t crushed him yet.
When the owners have an Irish accent, you know the food is legit.
Thanks for reading and for the comment, my friend!
Yes… If ever in Gettysburg PA visit the Garry Owen. The Harp and Fiddle in Pittsburgh is still good, but not the same old worlde feel.
Gossin! Gossin! Welcome back!
Thank you! It feels good to be back.
Your kind sentiment and presence here in the Comments is very much appreciated, my Slow and Loud friend!
Forget engine swaps restorations or things like that, what “I” would love to see is to have a forensic analyst go over the vehicle and see how many unique and exciting things they find swabbing the cab down. With that many miles on the odometer it probably has of a lot of “history” in between the seats and in the carpets!
Just get a DNA swab kit from 23&Me and see what-all comes back
Wait….DON’T do that as I seem to remember some criminal being caught because of a match in their data base.
Well, at lease don’t use your real name