I deleted a sleeper account yesterday. It was set up a month ago. Then it popped up and posted spam from an Eastern European ISP. It was reasonably well written but slightly out of place on an old thread spamming for a shipping company. It was set up using a USA based VPN
I could let these things pass and it would look like more activity but I am just not comfortable with that.
I have considered making an active effort to inform more people from FB about this forum. I don’t know how effective it would be. What I believe is that Google has become almost entirely a feed for commercial sites that buy Google ads leaving non commercial sites like this buried. So people are going to FB and YouTube looking for information like they used to use Google.
Another thing is that a huge factor in activity is the majority of people using the site are searching for information that has been here for years. The more successful we are at building the knowledge base the less likely it is that people will post questions. This is why FB groups are stuck answering the same questions over and over.
I’m sure everyone appreciates what you do here as much as I do Bill; thanks for the maintenance. I for one FREQUENTLY search for archived information because I am loathe to ask something that’s already been answered; several of the articles I have bookmarked for (hopeful) future reference. As our cars get older it’s inevitable that the info will become more scarce, as well as the knowledgeable ones. Let’s hope this avenue stays open a good long while.
Related but not directly, I went to our local “premier” upholstery shop about a year ago, run by a pair of brothers in their 70’s. They are anticipating shutting down - as soon as they “catch up”. There’s no one to take the trade over; no interest from the younger generations, Just not their thing. Also calls to mind the death of a friend a couple years ago who dedicated himself to Model “T’s”. Had a garage full of them and related parts. His widow could barely get rid of the stuff; nobody cares about Model T’s nowadays (apparently).
Trust me I’m with you but seriously I’ve bought and sold more there than anywhere else in recent years. Craigslist is dead, OfferUp is a joke and eBay is like temu.
I’ve even posted my cougar parts here first. Ended up selling on Facebook for more than I posted for here. As much as I hate and I mean HATE Facebook I can’t ignore the marketplace as that seems to be the go to place right now.
I’ve sold the dumbest things on there too. Like a used outdoor ceiling fan…..20 bucks is 20 bucks!
My vote would be that you continue to delete bogus accounts. They add no value to the forum and in some cases may even add confusion and misinformation.
Nobody here wants spammers that’s for certain. I don’t spend a lot of time on the Facebook pages since they mostly aren’t very interesting. But they do come up on my feed. I notice a lot of names on there that I know are Cougar guys. There must be a way to get them to hang out here if not instead of Facebook at least in addition to.
I’d say Don Rush biggest contribution has been his website. So much information, much more than just parts listings. I hope that is preserved. I will also say we all should give a big thanks to all the vendors who have helped get reproductions to market as well as support the community in general.
That all said as far as buying parts buying from trusted sources and people is great. Of course sometimes that isn’t possible for many reasons. For me stuff is found by many different ways - word of mouth, forums, eBay, and Facebook forums and market. For me just apply the traditional buyer beware. eBay is fairly safe. If it is misrepresented or don’t show up you get your money back. That said I’ve not had much issue buying on eBay.
Facebook is kind of like craigslist on steroids. A lot of flakes on there, but a lot of good people just selling stuff. I always try to get the person on the phone. Many are not too up on this online stuff. I just recently bought a car from a guy in his 70’s. He contacted me after 6 mouths. I’d had long written him off as not real. He just was working thru trying to downsize and dealing with all the tire kickers and guys wanting to just buy a part not the whole car. Lots of good people out there, just have to work thru what is real vs not.
I’ve been around just a little longer than you Bill. I used to send letters to people selling parts after seeing their ads in Hemmings (late 1980’s). Many salvage yards were visited. I met Ken of Kens Cougars (Edmond Okla.) at the spring Columbus swap meet as well as John of Johns cougars (Holland Michigan) was there too. Later I met a lot of the “bulletin board” (AOL and screeching modems) at Carlisle, Jim K., Phil P. and a young Don from WCCC. I visited Classic Cougars in [Puyallup] while working a contract in Tacoma. I was deep into the hobby. Now, I sold my cougar around 2017, some gambler from California with deep pockets bought it. Selling of the NOS and other parts I have has been difficult - no buyers. Being retired I started tossing those old parts in the trash to reclaim garage space since I haven’t been able to find buyers. Today, I wouldn’t know where to go to sell or buy parts for these classics. I have a few more that will be going into the garbage soon as I try and keep my Jeep (owned for 45 years) up and running and I need the garage space. BTW, I scraped TCCN many years ago and have the complete website on my personal computer. I’ll delete it soon, but at the time it was a go to for cougar info. Bizarre how that site became so controversial.
The only thing that was really controversial abut the TCCN was that it was produced by volunteers and yet one of the originators claimed all their work as his own. I produced an article for them and I can tell you that I was never told that I was creating content that became his property. I know that there were many others. It was a massive body of work and I believe it breathed life into the Cougar hobby. He got a little crazy and claimed that he owned the phrase classic Cougar community when I started this site. Several people begged him to keep the site up and he did for a time.
Long time Cougar fan here. I’ve been a CCC member for a few years but I don’t post very often, I mostly just browse the content.
My first real high school enthusiast car was a 1968 Cougar, which started off as a dealer discount special 289/3-speed, and which I eventually converted to an XR7/4-speed. I owned, and loved, that car for five years and sold it after I got married (the first time, lol). Biggest regret ever. I stumbled across WCCC and Don Rush eight years ago, while searching for parts for my 1964 Comet Caliente (I’m still a Mercury guy!). Mr Rush and WCCC’s amazing contributions to the hobby, in the form of instructional media and parts availability, and forums like Classic Cougar Community, make me wanna go get another Cougar. My hat is off to you folks.
One other thing…as a graybeard who has been around since the days of no Internet, no social media, and very few viable parts resources, I can honestly say that we have it better than ever now - these are the good old days! I’d rather have the over-abundance of information and parts availability that we have now, even if it sometimes means wading through the sea of sharks, than what we had before, with nothing else other than an old copy of Hemmings Motor News and sunday morning swap meets (remember those?).
Anyway, thanks again Mr. Rush and CCC and I hope to be spending more Cougar-centric time with both of you soon!
RTFM can get you only so far. I just finished rebuilding my C4. I bought a video training course, a repair manual, and looked at quite a few Youtube videos. There were a couple of places where I had questions that were no-where in those sources. ex: is the no 10 shim necessary (stackup wouldn’t allow install of the c clip on rear clutch pack)? What are the part numbers and thicknesses of the shims (NOS shims often available on Ebay by part number but sellers don’t know the thickness, and repair manual had the range of thicknesses but no part numbers). I did find that AI responses saved me a lot of time reading through hobbyist posts…
I agree with the lamentations expressed in this thread. I think we’ve reached peak ‘classic car’ as it’s become too expensive and hard for the average Joe to execute. I do see quite a few people on Youtube doing what would have been considered crazy projects not long ago. Ex: putting a Corvair body onto an S-10 chassis, and worse vintage cars onto FWD car ‘chassis’ (with the rest of the unibody structure cut away. Things are definitely changing. But truth is there are right now more parts and info resources out there than have ever existed before.
Absolutely, but you went back and acquired the materials and did the research I am saying our future hobbyists will need to do and probably solved most of your problems. You still had some outstanding questions, but if you read further in my post, I was explicit that those risks will continue to exist.
AI didn’t bother me, since the first computer I worked on after college, was one that I literally walked in. Yes, it was 1975, and it was enclosed in a custom made Hoffman box the size of a bedroom. Hence, I’ve been aware of the term since Asimov coined it in his novel I Robot. However, I dismissed it wearily until I was at a restaurant gathering of some of my colleagues a couple of days ago. One of them across from me turns his cell phone around, and I’m watching a video of ME slinging around multiple amounts of food and drink. He created that while sitting in front of me in the space of less than 5 minutes! All at the table thought it to be hilarious, but it got me to thinking: what if that video got in the wrong hands, and I was blamed for an actual act of vandalism? He says that there’s an app called GROK, or something like that, which offers a free version (limited capabilities) or a paid version. Gives me the creeps, and I have a very thick hide. Where will all this lead? Thanks for hearing me out.
AI can have some great benefits to science, medicine, etc., but it seems to be a boon to the scammers out there.
Grok is owned by Elon Musk and is quite controversial. Apparently many young people have been victimized by others who have used, otherwise, regular photos and videos from social media and turned them into child pornography. Musk will not change the software to protect innocent people from the discusting perverts, so countries are now blocking access to X, Grot, etc., including Australia, and a few other countries are also considering all out bans.
