Chevrolet is abandoning their customers....

[KaeZoo]

Wow, I remember the LUV truck. They didn't handle Michigan winters very well, as I recall. They were everywhere for about three years, then they all apparently dissolved into rust on the same night. I haven't seen one for a decade or more.

[trunks2k]

My dad is a 'Nam vet, but he never left the country either. He was stationed in San Francisco with the Navy. He doesn't play the vet card either.

My dad is a 'Nam vet too. He bravely protected the US from the Viet Cong invasion via Puerto Rico (those sneaky communists!). I guess that's why he never even tries to play the "But I'm a vet!" card.

He was actually about to be sent over to Vietnam, but they started pulling troops out right before he was supposed to go.

[draftermatt]

When I worked for an International Dealer (big rigs, etc) people would come in looking for parts for trucks from the 50's. So it was drag out the books, or the microfishe (oh yeah, they still had it up in the attic).

The worse was the people who had International Scouts and othet Pick-ups from the 70's (back when it was International Harvester). We had to point them to a place in Arizona who bought like all those parts when IH sold them.

Seriously though, if I had a vehicle that old and the dealership said "we can't get it" I'd go to the catalogs. I got all the parts for my 79 Ford from JC Whitney and a catalog specifically for that style truck

[Geek King]

My great-grandfather, now dead, was an engineroom monkey on the USS Arizona during Pearl Harbor. He was on shore leave waiting for the ferry back to the ship when the Japanese attacked. It was heartbreaking to hear him talk about his time in the service, talking about his friends, and have him break in with, "He was on duty when She went down." The engineroom guys didn't have a chance. He lost almost every friend he had in the Navy, and he had to watch it happen.

You ain't kidding. My brother in law was a sniper in Iraq, and I still can't get him to talk about it. I'm sure he has some interesting stories, but I don't want to push him. He tried to play Call of Duty 4, and he started shaking. I think I'll leave him be until he's ready.

Jaded, you might want to gently pressure your brother to get some therapy from the VA. I know there is a stigma against psychological therapy for some people, but your brother sounds like he has some issues to work through, and that could turn into full-blown post-traumatic stress syndrome if he doesn't do something about it. The military can handle these things better now than they did in the past, but they can't force veterans to come in for help. My best wishes to him, in any case.

[LifeCarnie]

I can't believe that there is still a chevy luv around that runs.

They were pieces of junk.

They were built during a time when american automakers were still churning out land yachts, as an answer to the fact that foreign automakers were starting to take over the market with smaller, cheaper, more dependable cars. Chevy decided to put a half-hearted effort into it and subcontracted the responsibility for the design and construction to another company. The only problem was that the subcontractor was also a competitor in the same market, so of course they didn't put their best work into the design. Plus american auto executives would only pay them a small amount of money to produce the trucks. And they got what they paid for, the Chevy Luv.

My father had a ford courier, the precurser to the ford ranger, it was the same situation with that truck.

[LifeCarnie]

The worse was the people who had International Scouts and othet Pick-ups from the 70's (back when it was International Harvester). We had to point them to a place in Arizona who bought like all those parts when IH sold them.

I have an uncle who owned a succession of International Harvester trucks in the early to mid-80's.

He lives in the extreme northern part of Vermont and there are alot of dirt roads. He swore up and down that IH trucks took the abuse better than any other trucks he had tried.

[Mikaiyawa]

On the playing the vet card thing, I have folks do that down here (Texas) and have an answer that tends to set them back a pace.

That's nice, so am I.

don't usually get a whole lot of flack on that one.

Mieka

[Jadedcarguy]

Jaded, you might want to gently pressure your brother to get some therapy from the VA. I know there is a stigma against psychological therapy for some people, but your brother sounds like he has some issues to work through, and that could turn into full-blown post-traumatic stress syndrome if he doesn't do something about it. The military can handle these things better now than they did in the past, but they can't force veterans to come in for help. My best wishes to him, in any case.

Other than war games really bothering him, which is a bummer because before he deployed he really liked them, he seems pretty well adjusted to me. He's actually my brother in law, and I'm sure my sister would mention it if he was waking up screaming or whatever. I think he just had a serious change of heart about fake combat since he's seen it for for real.

[IT Grunt]

This reminds me of an old 79 Ford Fiesta my brother drove when we were in college. He kept that old clunker (or the Silver Skate as we used to call it... later it earned the nickname 'Herbie' due to the horn starting to sound almost /exactly/ like the one from the movie) running for nearly 8 years, until it finally blew the oil pump in '97 and trashed the engine. He'd spend hours pulling the plugs and cleaning them, replacing gaskets, hoses, what have you to keep it on the road. Before the oil pump blew, it almost ended up parked because of a part that went bad in the fuel system. I think it was a pressure valve of some sort. It was a sort of spring loaded cone that seated into a hole, but if the pressure in the line got to be too much this could relieve it.

Anyways, he couldn't find a working one in the scrapyards, and hoping for a long shot, he went and tried a Ford dealership. Naturally the guy didn't have one, but he said there might be one long shot, and he checked the computer. Searching /every/ warehouse Ford has in the US, he found One (1), new in box, on a shelf in a warehouse in Indiana. The absolute last one in the whole US. A couple days later he had it running again, and when the car finally died, he cut that part out to keep because it was the last one.

Still, he was lucky, verrrry lucky to find that one. I'd like to see that guy in the OP go into Circuit City and ask for a SIPP memory chip for his old 286. He'd be laughed out of the store.

[tollbaby]

When I worked for an International Dealer (big rigs, etc) people would come in looking for parts for trucks from the 50's. So it was drag out the books, or the microfishe...

Matt, I'm not making fun of you, honestly, but this had me laughing hysterically I could just see those grouper fish from Nemo acting out auto parts

[Tria]

Back on topic, however, the truck is how old? Good grief, it's an antique!

But he obviously took decent care of it.... That's something at least?

[Whyme]

"I'm a Veteran!" line...Gawd, I want to throw something at my Brother in Law's head every time he says that to someone! In person it's "I'm a Veteran!" over the phone it's "I'm a disabled Veteran!". Then he throws in Desert Storm. To hear him tell it, he's missing limbs and went through hell defending our country in Desert Storm. The world apparently now "owes" him because he was in the military and "they" weren't. He "worked hard" for 10 years and he's not doing it anymore! We should be grateful he helped out our country in a time of need!

The Truth: The military fixed an ear problem he had since childhood and the VA does consider him 10% disabled. However he has no other problems and can work just fine. And believe me, he sleeps like a baby so no Post Traumatic Stress. I know this from his time surfing on my couch when he decided he needed to live at our house for free (a notion he was quickly dispelled of and that's what sent him on his way). Desert Storm? He was sent over to Kuwait after it was over and helped build some buildings/airstrips. He saw no action.

God forbid I card an older gentleman. The "I"m a Veteran!" line comes out and I my respect level for them plummets even further. It's always said at the top of their lungs as well as if they expect everyone around them to snap to attention and grovel at his feet. Usually people look bored or at the most, blink.

Actual military personal in uniform I have served have been extremely polite, patient, and even humorous. My grandfather was in Korea and did see action. He refused to talk about what he actually saw and you wouldn't even know he was a vet until you saw the pics of him on base over there.

[draftermatt]

I have an uncle who owned a succession of International Harvester trucks in the early to mid-80's.

He lives in the extreme northern part of Vermont and there are alot of dirt roads. He swore up and down that IH trucks took the abuse better than any other trucks he had tried.

They were great trucks. But impossible to get parts for now.

[protege]

They were built during a time when american automakers were still churning out land yachts, as an answer to the fact that foreign automakers were starting to take over the market with smaller, cheaper, more dependable cars.

It's not the first time GM has tried to do that. They had Opel and Vauxhall sedans here in the 1950s. From what I understand, they weren't bad cars at all. However, they were expensive when you consider the time period. People wanted big cars...and couldn't see the point in paying a premium price for much smaller car. Not only did Opel and Vauxhall cars compete with a certain German car, but with themselves...and other GM brands. You'd think they'd have learned from that...but no. They repeated it with Geo. Many of those were rebadged Suzuki cars...another company which GM had a serious stake in. Again, they were competing with themselves for the same market.

Ford did something similar with the Merkur. Anyone remember those? Nice cars, but expensive...and didn't last very long over here. That was then followed up by the Capri, intended to take sales away from the Mazda Miata (MX-5 to our European friends). Didn't work that way. While the Miata looked like a 1960s Lotus Elan and went like an MGB...people weren't sure what to make of the Capri. IIRC, it was expensive, slow, and simply didn't generate the same reactions the Miata did. That is, everyone had an MG, Healey, or Jag years ago, and Mazda used those memories in their advertising. It worked, big time

...and not to be left out. I remember the early "small" Chryslers. Many of them had badges reading "Imported by Dodge" on them, and usually just had the model name. I don't remember much about these, other than that...and the Vista wagon seemed a crude alternative to a proper minivan

[Spiffy McMoron]

When I worked for an International Dealer (big rigs, etc) people would come in looking for parts for trucks from the 50's. So it was drag out the books, or the microfishe (oh yeah, they still had it up in the attic).

Heh. We still have a microfishe that gets used regularly. I prefer to use the computer, but one co-worker is more comfortable with the microfishe. We only started to use computers regularly for listings about 12-15 years ago.