We Owe The Pontiac Aztek An Apology Because This Exists: COTD

The poor Pontiac Aztek has been a subject of bullying by car enthusiasts for a couple of decades. Some hate the way the Aztek looks, some hate how it seemingly foreshadowed modern crossover design, and some just mock its abundance of plastic cladding. Pontiac is gone now, but the Japanese market Subaru Forester seems to be carrying the cladding torch. It’s going to be awesome seeing these in America in 25 years. In light of this car, is the Aztek so bad? Chris Stevenson:

I apologize for anything I’ve ever said about the Aztek.

Harvey Firebirdman:

“They’ve gone to clad!” Also “You get clad and you get clad…. Everybody gets clad”

Meanwhile, Kawasaki is obsessed with bizarre powersports designs. It’s working on a hydrogen motorcycle, sells a hybrid motorcycle, and oh yeah, it also teased a robotic horse thing. Canopysaurus says:

Seeing as how it’s apparently headless (the head no doubt being placed in someone’s bed), perhaps a better name would be Corleone.

DriveSheSaid:

How to become the centaur of attention!

TheDrunkenWrench:

“On a (Kawasaki) STEEL HORSE I RIDEEEE. I’m WAAANTED, DEAD OR ALIIIIIIVEEE”

I love this from FastBlackB5:

…… Why? …… They already make the KLR.

Also, Matt’s Morning Dumps have been about tariffs and financial crises lately, which is sad. But what’s hilarious is what Captain Muppet points out:

One of the things I hate about this trade war is that it’s made Jaguar’s decision to just not bother making cars for a while seem like a good idea.

Jaguar was just ahead of the game, you see!

Finally, new contributor Micki Maynard wrote about a GM plant that has a secret cemetery that’s open only 8 hours a year. Sid Bridge gives a touching story:

Wow, this hits home. I visit all my family graves every year before Rosh Hashana and I couldn’t imagine how stressful it would be if I had to work around restrictions from a GM plant just to get to them. It’s a shame the couldn’t section off a pathway directly to the cemetery that didn’t need to be gated off.

I have a lot of family going back almost as far in cemeteries in Richmond, VA, and at least one of them has a loud train going by all the time. Economics are sadly always on display when it comes to how ornate tombstones used to be. Older graves are fascinating as the Hebrew often would detail more than just the name and date of death, but also some attributes about their lives. Today this has become prohibitively expensive for most people to do.

I can read Hebrew just enough to understand what’s on most of these stones – it’s a nearly lost tradition to include phrases like “He chased after peace and pursued kindness.”

Would definitely be interested in learning more about how the Orthodox Jewish community dealt with the demands of working in the auto industry back then. Could not have been easy for them to balance the hours and still keep Shabbos.

Have a great evening, everyone!