Monday, March 30, 2009

Tearing Up the Highway Like a Big Old Dinosaur


Get Your Kicks on Route 66. Cadillac Ranch off US I-40 west of Amarillo, Texas, 2008. This installation is now about two miles out from where I last paid homage, back in 1982.


Classic American cars can last for fifty or sixty years or more, with a lot of care and upkeep. Where there's will, there are ways. Such is the Cuban example, at any rate.


In 1900, about 8,000 cars and trucks roamed the USA. Now, more than 200 million. You do the math. . .

Refashioning the infrastructure for non-gasoline cruising vehicles will take quite a feat. Good luck, world!

Today's Rune: Defense.

4 comments:

the walking man said...

I'd like to visit Cuba, if for no other reason than to see their ingenuity in keeping the dinosaurs alive.

On a lighter note though, there is technology in the pipeline that when mass produced will make non-carbon based transportation fuels adaptable to the internal combustion engines.

Personally I look to hydrogen and Honda's system, which willpower both home and car but that is rapidly turning "old school" as new fuels sources are being explored.

Imagine a Hummer at 43 MPG?

Sidney said...

Interesting pics and good point.

Charles Gramlich said...

Makes me think of a Joe Lansdale story, "Across the Cadillac desert with dead folks."

Lana Gramlich said...

All things considered, there's really NO reason we can't have an all-encompassing public transit system that does away with personal cars completely. Sure, we can still maintain ambulances & emergency vehicles, but traffic is so pervasive, generally dense & constant that the waste involved in "one person per car" is truly sinful.