Sunday Funday: What Does Daily Turismo Mean To You?
I had a long phone conversation the other day with a colleague who is “in the industry” and we discussed a number of topics…but the one that really stuck out in my head was his questions about what Daily Turismo means to me. My canned answer is that it is a hobby business — something I do because I love cars and enjoy sharing them with people…but the underlying question is interesting. So, instead of answering it myself, I want you guys to tell me in the comments; What does Daily Turismo mean to you?
Is it a place to find your next ride? Is it a place to talk about cars with similar minded folks? Is it a distraction from your day-to-day work? How do you read this site (email blast or via the web…or…?) and why? Comments below.
It means I’m not responsible for finding my own automotive adventure. It means knowledgeable, pithy commentary from fellow enthusiasts I will never meet in person but will always appreciate and seek out. It means always having some topic to BS with my fellow afflicted friends about when drinks are poured over the weekend. It means having a reliable go-to destination for bathroom and wait line and other downtime distraction that doesn’t risk raising my blood pressure when I read it unlike, well, everything else these days. It means every once in a while trying out some long hand prose in a comfortable and simpatico environment.
Something like that.
Thanks for the kind words Doctordel – and I appreciate your consistent & insightful comments.
It’s a welcome respite from whatever else I’m doing…like a vacation for my brain.
Thanks for all the vacation time we’ve spent together.
I think I’m getting a sunburn from all this vacation!! Sometimes when I read my posts that I’ve written I wonder if my brain was on vacation.
I like brains on vacation. Surf lapping at my cerebral cortex, sand in my ganglia and a pixilated rotogravure of cars, some I have never thought about, passing in front of my eyes. Add to that the fellowship of unknown carnuts combined with pithy cracks and vehicular insights, and its a brief respite from the Orange Anus virus. E Pluribus Unum!
Thanks MW — you’ve been with us for a while I appreciate your insight and comments. “Unknown carnuts†sounds like a bad practical joke.
A double entendre at most 🙂
He said rotogravure.
I’ve seen some really fantastic cars and learned about some pretty unusual ones too. I keep hoping that the perfect car for me at the right price will show up,but if it doesn’t I am happy just to look, drool and laugh .
Big jay- sounds good. What does your perfect car at the right price look like?
In my mind DT is the anti car club. The atmosphere has there little to no judgements made as there is such a wide variety in the makes, models, and years. DT actually ENCOURAGES car that are weird, bizzare, flat out f’d up, and all things engine swapped. These cars are generally looked down upon or don’t have a friendly home anywhere else that I can think of. Also, the cars posted here are on a average Joe’s budget- not everyone has the coin to drop 250k on a E30 M3!
CC – yes, love “anti car clubâ€. Thanks for the kind words.
Well, there is always the opportunity to plunge down various internet rabbit holes and maybe report back. For instance, why is Garry Glitter’s Rock and roll part 2 so much more popular than part one, and why two parts anyway? https://youtu.be/8OJ01psE6wc?t=176 ( turns out it was on two sides of a 45rpm, just like Television’s “Little Johny Jewel” ). Then I spent a couple of hours yesterday looking at shortened Corvairs. Love the shortened wagons! Did you know that The Bertone Testudo was Giorgetto Giugiaro’s first complete car design, and you can see bits of it in later Bertone designs like the Lamborghini Miura, Alfa Romeo Montreal, and Fiat 850 Spider? The Ferrari Daytona, the AMC Pacer, and the Porsche 928 also copy elements of this influential shortened Corvair.
Otherwise, it is the opportunity to discuss with friends of various backgrounds cars that I might buy if I had the money, the storage space, and the complete lack of good judgment necessary to purchase them. Sadly I only have one of those three prerequisites.
Then there is always the opportunity to riff on the typos on Craig’s List and some of the straight lines that DT provides.
All in all DT sort of reminds me of the waiting-room and sidewalk of Lorenzutti motors in Brooklyn if anyone here is familiar with that.
It concerns me no end that you even know who Gary Glitter is. For that matter it concerns me that I KNOW who he is.( er..was)
He is still around, but apparently he prefers young boys to singing nowadays.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Glitter
Hugh — glad you enjoy it — and a big thanks to you for the work you did helping me convert DT from the old blogger platform to WordPress. I couldn’t have done it without your help, and it is so much easier to write/comment/engage with the new platform. The old DT was swing axle and new DT is fully independent rear. You are a hero for the help and advice you gave me. -Vince
Vince –
It’s obviously a labor of love. Labor of love that I get to enjoy most every day, seeing interesting vehicles, chatting with interesting characters, and doing it all without a bunch of pretense.
It’s a bit like the bar where you know all the regulars, and fortunately everyone keeps politics out of things and you can just have a good conversation without spiraling down the rabbit hole.
Appreciate the effort that you put into it, would love to be a contributing writer, but also know I am subscribed into many other directions at the moment. Doing at least what I can to submit interesting vehicles for the commentariat.
Zach, Just keep sending in the tips and DT will keep posting the good stuff. I am looking at bringing on some more writers — MikeD is helping me creating some users/guides and such stuff….stay tuned.
You mean Mike D, the ladie’s choice?
See, that’s what I’m talking about.
Making your way down the road today
Takes everything you’ve got;
Taking a break from Covid-19
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
All those roads when you’ve got no lights,
The diesel’s in the gas;
And your vintage rear-engine soulmate
Swung you right round by it’s… tail;
And your synchro didn’t mesh;
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your pseudonym,
And they’re always glad you came;
You want to be where you can anonymously see,
Our car troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your pseudonym.
Roll out of bed, new battery’s dead;
The morning’s looking bright;
And your ECU remapping specialist ran off to Europe,
And didn’t even write;
And your Volvo wants to be a Buick;
Be glad there’s one place in the world
Where everybody knows your pseudonym,
And they’re always glad you came;
You anonymously want to go where people know,
Car troubles are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows your pseudonym.
Where everybody knows your pseudonym,
And they’re always glad you anonymously came;
Where everybody knows your pseudonym,
And they’re always glad you anonymously came…
Yes!! Songs make everything better.
It means escape from the usual overtly chauvinist car dude trying to elude to all the money they have because they know so much about Porsches comments on that other site that is now officially a complete sellout owned by Hurst Publications and is really just now an information about said chauvinist car dudes tracking site. It is also a place that posts ridiculous cars, but in reality a place that actually appreciates good simple unpretentious drivers. A thing that has become just about non-existent in both the moneyed cars of the past and the new cars of today.
300D — When you wrote “Hurst” I instantly thought of the Hurst Lightning Rod triple shifter. http://dailyturismo.com/10k-shift-register-1983-hurst-oldsmobile/ Now I’ve got to find one for sale!!
Oops. The car talk bleeds through everything.
And, ah, what the —- is going on there? I imagine there are not a lot left because they all crashed due to trying to figure out the three stick combination…
Since ~2014, I’ve bought a 964 and a 240z that I saw first on this site. I still operate and maintain the 240z (just got the engine back together & installed, waiting on my rear Wilwood conversion parts going on 12 wks…).
So, what does it mean to me? DT will forever be associated with the aforementioned Porsche & Datsun. Every memory I have of them has and will always start with Daily Turismo. The site is an enabler – for better or worse – of my life-long automotive addiction, and I visit it multiple times/day.
What does DT represent to my wife? “More garage clutter” (her words) though she’s somewhat passively looking for a classic of her own.
And lastly, what does it represent to my kids? A clear & present danger to their college funds (and at times, their father’s sanity).
RyanM — Glad to hear you’ve been using the site as it was meant — to find your next car. Sorry about your kid’s college funds…i’m sure college will be free or totally unnecessary by the time they grow up…that’s my plan. -Vince
As so many others put it so eloquently it is the community, passion, cars, distractions, bad (good) humor, positivity, rabbit holes, and general lack of douchebaggery that makes this one of my favorite sites. One reason I’m so glad you switched to a moderated comment format is that it will allow you to keep the commentariat in check. Most of the internet has devolved into an echo chamber of bullying, self-righteousness, and hatred but DT keeps it positive and interesting every time.
Now if you will excuse me I need to go pour myself a glass of delicious scotch while I sit in my rich mahogany paneled study and learn everything there is to know about the Bertone Testudo. (Meaning I’m going to go drink a lemonade on my Craigslist-acquired couch and dream of 2 door hatchbacks and that’s a car reference. Probably).
Hey, just because these comments are moderated doesn’t mean I’m not going to bully people!!! Seriously. Enjoy your lemonade with CVS brand gin from a plastic bottle… Keep it classy.
As the MSRP steadily climbs on showroom floors (and BAT), so too does the speedo on my 81hp sidekick 4×4 creep towards infinity.
DT is the place where automotive art, not yet back in mainstream fashion can be had at a bargain. DT helps keep my impractical/foolish automotive dreams alive.
damn… no edit option…
Now we want to know what you were going to edit!
Something about your creeping speedo?
I can edit or delete it — send me a note tips@dailyturismo.com and we can fix it!
I’m like that people here don’t get bent about jokes. Don’t sell an AMG minivan and not expect people to make jokes about the buyer buying a lift and garage full of tools. Hell that’s as good an excuse as anything to buy one.
I think a lot of us are refugees from BaT and fondly remember the days when that was a home of the iconic, weird, generally affordable & sometimes downright dangerous.
Thankfully DT exists to provide a happy daily dose of the above, a smorgasbord of other people’s mechanical problems that make you feel slightly better about your own.
The YouTube equivalent is the irrepressible Steph over at I Drive a Classic. Another shot aimed at the bows of the Mecum crowd.
All of the above. There’s not much more that I can add that hasn’t been said… but I’ll try. This is really a great corner of the internet that has organically realized what it is and what it wants to be. It’s a regular hangout with interesting and humorous friends. Kaibeezy is right, it’s automotive Cheers… just socially distanced since before that was a thing.
I feel that the vibe of the site tends to match the content in both cars and commentary. The general conversation here is more like what you’d stumble into at a car junkyard than what you’d likely try to walk away from at a high-end car show. We’re much more interested in talking about how cars are broken than how they’re perfect.
I think most regulars around here share the same vision as Vince, even if most of us haven’t really spent time to consider what that is. It’s worth noting and recognizing that from the beginning, you got something right and knew how to keep it true. That’s not easy to do, especially in such an open forum.
So, as I said in a different post last week, I really appreciate the work that you do to make this place happen. You’ve put a lot of hard work into it and it shows. If I have one complaint, it’s that you never fail to post a car I want, in my geographic region, and in my price range when you know damn well that I can’t take on one more. Maybe it’s time for me to send in a Seller Submission or three to free up some garage space.
Nice one, MV. I’m going to copy / paste that into Illustrator, make it look nice, save as a PDF, and send it to Vince so he can get that full backpiece tattoo he’s been putting off.
Mega — You’ve just given me a brilliant idea for post COVID world — a combination Junkyard/Bar/Club. During the day you can order a cold Coors while you try to remove Opera lights from a Caprice Brougham without damaging the ballast, and at night you turn on a disco ball and dance…ehh…who am I kidding…a night time junk yard run would be fun and cooler too! Thanks for the kind words — send in seller submission it’s on the house for regular commenters/tippers -Vince
Little late to the party, but I love DT because it just feels retro…..if it were 1998 we’d be the same guys dialing in to some car geek BBS and discussing the upsides of the Chevy Citation X-11.
Unlike every other car site which wants to monetize their users within an inch of their lives (ahem, BaT), or just become a massive cult of personality (Smoking Tire—the Guy Fieri of cars, anything with Doug DeMuro), you guys are keeping it pure, and it’s much appreciated.
Crap cars for college students.
It means being able to look at rolling automotive culture that you just typically don’t see anywhere else on the Interwebs. Not the latest and “greatest” stuff, but rides that have drifted off into the sunset…. kind of like the robots from the Spielberg flick “AI” that were once options for the consumer, only to be forgotten as time passed by. Cars (or trucks, etc) are arguably the best visual cue to bring back memories from you happen to see them for the first time and it’s different for everyone…. or rides you never knew existed at all. My wife doesn’t get it IN. THE. SLIGHTEST. but then again, she thinks a Grand National is ugly…… which is grounds for divorce I know, but…….