Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for December 09, 2020

Gearhead Fantasy Toni wants to have fun first.

Oh please. Not a Luann and Jack blowout rerun!

Let Toni do it Brad! :-D

Brad’s luck with cars seems to be 100%. He never got them to work when he was a teenager and he’s doing no better now. sigh How not to impress one’s hot young wife.

Generally, one would have to clean their plugs if it was burning oil. Since we have never seen him take the entire engine out or cylinder heads off, I will dangerously assume the engine is suffering from advanced wear to the rings, cylinder walls, etc..

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Basically, the engine started out as a 327, and now it is worn out to a 396…

Can someone help me find the compilation of Brad and Toni’s meeting, courtship, and wedding? I had it, always got a feel-good lift reading it, and now I can’t find it. And I mis it!

Born holding a wrench? Brad, all you were born with was a big ol’ peanut head.

Ooh. Toni is reminding me of Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny.

Not sure how much instruction Sheriff has on colors.

Car looks like one of the worst Novas ever made – and the all primer look does it no favors.

If this is what one of their restorations looks like, I’d hate to see what the 1963 Safari will end up looking like.

Well, you love cars as long as they don’t give you trouble – which contradicts with your claim you love to work on cars. Perhaps you’re hard on the cars you are currently driving. Imagine the ten times the trouble you get from raising kids. If you want good car, you have to fix it right and do a thorough job to make sure everything is in working order and done correctly and the same is true about raising kids which is harder because they are their own persons and are thinking and moving creature independently of you. You have more control over your car than you do your yet-to-come kids. Now you know why Toni is hedging.

Is this a patented misdirection play or what?

Ah, good. Brad’s jalopy has the sense to keep these hapless oafs who want to be parents despite barely being able to afford to take care of themselves from pissing money that they don’t have away on a second fixer-upper car

I think that Toni is steering Brad to their common passion, fixing old cars, not having kids for now.

The red 1954 Mercury truck is everywhere as a Christmas ornaments for the past three years because of Hallmark movie.Anyone know where you can see the real thing at a car show?

No, Brad, NO! Be careful how you speak to your car! Don’t you know it has feelings? You may end up needing a tow now.

Gee Toni.

Maybe instead of checking Brad’s “dipstick” you Should have given a little tender loving care to his “spark plug.”

I take back what I said yesterday. These two are gonna need TWO flatbed trucks: One for the Clunker they are about to buy and the other for the Clunker they’re riding in..That’s provided they make to their destination at all. These “grease monkeys” may blow that 300 bucks and MORE, repairing and fixing the rust bucket they all ready have. ;)

I know I should have written about this last week, but something rubbed me the wrong way. Brad told Toni that her being into cars as much as he was was the reason he married her. Do couples really have to have the same interests in order to be a good match? Would Brad have fallen for Toni at all if she wasn’t interested in cars? I don’t think that simply being into cars or any other matched interests is enough for a relationship to start or be sustained.

You know what’s better than an old classic car? Any car built in the last 5 years.

Brad, this is a great time to put the spark back into our…car. :D

Brad loves to work on cars, but nobody said he was any good at it.

If that was a back fire I doubt the plugs are the issue. First check your timing. Then check the carb. It’s an air to fuel mixture (if that was a backfire)

Given that leaded gasoline does not even legally exist in the USA then it’s a wonder how the plugs were fouled. Indeed, modern gasoline is rather a marvel and can evaporate with almost no residue. With the gas not being the culprit that means oil is fowling the plugs. That means the piston rings are shot.

Classic cars? Meh. Back when a lot of those cars were new, they spent more time in the shop than they did on the road. Not that the astronomically priced current models are the alternative, but those vintage ones often appeal to gearheads more than they do someone who simply wants reliable transportation. As the Blues Project astutely observed at that time, Planned Obsolesence.

How about a brand new car?

POW? something goes POW it’s not a plug. and if you have to keep cleaning plugs. you have either an oil problem, or a fuel problem. Plugs should never foul out when an engine is healthy.

What a dreadful filler. I was going to say it’s going nowhere and then their car obliged…

This is obvious old as today most cars are sealed up so tight and full of electronics, you can barely work on them. Years back, There was a Boss Mustang that to change the back spark plug on the drivers side, you had to pull the master brake cylinder.

Spark plugs now last at least 100,000 miles. I went 251,000 on my 2005 Honda Pilot. Finally traded it in 2016 for a Honda CRV.

Nice Nova!

a week of boring, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and innuendo, signifying nothing. (with apologies to MacBeth)

Nice to get innuendo in the funnies.

Being the daughter of a mechanic and working with him makes me think Toni may be more capable of fixing the Safari than Brad, who mostly got dirty and complained about his sister when working on his car. The $300 may go to fixing this car or the long forgotten painted couch! (Wonder if it’s someone interesting who has the Safari for sale? Or if we’ll ever find out!) ;-)

Why not a wild prediction here. Toni was working on this car at the start of the strip. Remember the dipstick?

She’s send Brad on false search for a $300 fixer upper.

In reality she has sabotaged the car.

When Brad opens the hood he will find a clue left by Toni that he’s going to be a father.

Well, at least that would be something! 8^ \

Ok, group opinion is GnK are not motorheads in knowing how vehicles act. Believe question is also raised on at least Brad’s ability to maintain a car which further raises the question of why get another maintenance nightmare when you need a daily runner? Do the Nova right. Get it either into factory or racing condition or at least back up to good running condition.

I believe Brad is doing his Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde impersonation.

I thot it was a Pontiac station wagon?

First time we’ve seen Brad look look he’s losing it in quite some time!

Toni’s father was a mechanic and she has great memories about working on cars with him. Suddenly her comparison between raising a child and restoring a car is more clear. Better for Brad to stop insulting his car. Toni surely don’t like that.

If that was a backfire, I’ll bet when he cleaned the plugs he crossed a plug wire or two! ;o{

Gun shots?

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

More filler than a $0.50 pack of bologna.

News Item: Rapunzel and the guy with the steel wool hair have been reassigned to the back burner due to boring and humorless behavior in an already troubled era. Bring back the romantic silliness of Gunther and Bets, or the suggestive clothes shopping of Tiffany.

“UH OH. Need to clean your plugs.”

“But Toni, we’re out in public! … But, OK !!!”

Not a good sign for what they’re doing.

In the last panel, Brad has a strong resemblance to TJ.

I want to know what kind of car that is. Looks like an old Nova, but for all I know it’s a Skylark or a Malibu. Does it have to be generic to be published?

Time to trade up to a low maintenance car. Maybe time for Toni to trade up too.

If I’m not mistaken, they already have a classic car to work on. The one they’re driving has round headlights. I think 1973 or so was the last year for cars with round headlights?

The difference in length of Brads forehead from panel 2 to panel 3 is startling.

Wow. Brad sure has a short fuse. Maybe that’s why Toni is hesitant about starting a family with him.

This is boring.

Unexpected events happen with babies too…I just changed the diaper…..ugh! Stupid Baby!

I always blame the car. HE has no feelings, whereas I do.

(Everyone needs a good scapegoat.)

Uhoh, is something coming? Is Toni going to show Brad how it’s done? That would be funny (and pretty cool, lol.)

Perhaps Brad did something to mess up the car so they couldn’t go buy another car. He wants a baby, not another car, but is too timid to tell Toni how he really feels about her car idea.

I experienced my first episode of Situational Tourette’s Disease working on a stupid car.

Where’s Dirk when you need him?

Pow, really! (Fire the sound effects man.)

Did you remember to set the plug gaps?

There has been some well – earned confusion as to what year Brad’s Nova is.

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If you look directly above the comments and below the strip, you can see Brad and Dirk in their cars. The Nova that Brad always had, which is in that picture, was a gold ‘76 to ’79 “disco Nova”. A few days ago, the Nova Brad had during Toni’s dipstick comment was an earlier ‘67 to ’72 Nova. The one today appears to look more like the Canadian Pontiac version of the Nova, which was the Acadian:

(http://www.oneownercollectorcar.com/index.php/cars/onefamily/599-1967-pontiac-acadian-canso-duncan).

General Motors used that “F” – body for their other divisions. It came out as the Chevy Nova, the Pontiac Ventura, the Buick Apollo, and the Oldsmobile Omega – main differences from the outside were the front grilles and the rear lights. You could exchange most of the other body parts. The Pontiac Ventura in 1973 and 1974, for example, used the rear lights utilized on the earlier ’67/’68 Firebirds.

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Of course, all that and 55¢ will get you a postage stamp.

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Added bonus: In Australia, the Chevy Nova was the Holden Torana.

What this week’s misadventure is showing is how old Greg is (73 I believe) The Nova Brad is driving is 40-50 years old from an era when US cars were lucky to last 10 years. It may have been the car of his youth but that youth was a long time ago. All I know about the Nova is that I had one once, with the aluminum engine block; heard that the Al blocks died around 50,000 miles, which is when I sold mine. Another reason why I find it hard to believe that Brad still drives one. Overall, this has been a bunch of “filler” strips, as was last week and the week before that. In this length of time Luann could have met a cute boy, fallen in love with him and been dumped. And that would have been a much more interesting story.

If Brad enjoys working on cars, why is he upset when he gets the chance?

So, that’s three clunkers: Brad’s car, $300 car, and this story arc.

Plugs? Both of them should know that Backfires are usually a Timing Problem.

Given that that car looks about 45, why do they need another classic?

Just when things seemed to be going well—the devil ex machina! Never ever put your full trust in a machine….

Timing issue…and new points

The more we learn about Toni the more we love Toni.

It’s not the car that’s the problem it’s you’re stupidity that’s the problem.