Tuna No Crust
I must be on a nostalgia kick. Just the other week I gave the story of my love for Fox Body Mustangs, and this week we’re talking another classic of my childhood, the Ford Lightning. I’ve been looking these a lot lately. I love ‘em.
These shot to fame in 2001 when The Fast and the Furious came out. Paul Walker drove a red one for The Racer’s Edge, a speed shop in town.
Specs:
(2001 models and up got a bump in power)
Supercharged 5.4 Liter V8
380 hp
450 lb/ft tq at 3,250 rpm. <- This is nuts, dudes.
1/4 in 13.8 seconds - Already quick, but mind you this is bone stock. This supercharged motor took to mods extremely well, so it took nothing to make these blazing fast.
I knew a kid in high school who crashed one of these into a fence the first day he got it. All that power to the rear wheels and no weight to anchor them led to some pretty precarious situations.
When these were out, they were even faster than the Mustang SVT Cobra (until the Terminators were launched), which is wild.
These have all the makings of a collector car that’s going to keep shooting up in price.
Pants I’ve Been Rocking
J. Crew 770 Straight Fit Chinos
I’ve been on the hunt for some chinos for months. I wanted something that was a bit more elevated than jeans; something that could play both dress up and casual. I reached out to a couple of the pros, including Style OG, Matt Hranek, whose answer was J. Crew.
I hopped into J. Crew last week, at first pretty underwhelmed with what I was finding - pants were way too skinny and the fabric, frankly, felt pretty low quality, until I stumbled upon the 770 Straight-Fit Chino…god, this sounds like an advertisement as I write this. It’s not.
(J. Crew call me.)
Initial take:
Fabric is more robust than the other pants I was finding there. Really nice hand feel.
Fabric has a welcomed stretch to it, but not in an obvious way, not the Sales Guy/Cole Haan x Nike shoe way.
Fit is pretty great. A lot of people are steering to a wider pant leg lately. These are not wide, but not skinny. Thigh fits great, I could maybe do for a liiiittle more in the calf and perhaps a slightly higher rise, but overall I’m pretty happy right now.
These are $90 too. Seems like $200 is the rock bottom of every brand’s pants now, so this felt like a steal.
I bought them in River Brown (darker Khaki). I’ll be picking up a pair in Khaki as well.
I’ve been rocking these with snuff Alden Chukkas which makes me feel like an Italian-American James Bond.
So if you’ve been on the hunt like I have, give these a look.
p.s. Keeping the nostalgia theme going… Remember J. Crew in the Todd Snyder days? Man, they had some killer stuff. I still have a peacoat from that era, and that thing is a BEAST.
Space Cowboy
Man, I keep seeing people rocking cowboy boots in such a cool way; it’s making me long for a pair. My dad rocked them when I was a kid. Ostrich, I remember. Had a mullet and a mustache too. He had a Lethal Weapon vibe going. Pretty rad.
Admittedly, I’m no pro when it comes to cowboy boots. I know some of the OG brands but one newer brand I follow is Parker Boot Company. They’ve been getting a lot of love from a number of people that I trust in the menswear space.
They do have a couple MTO models but I’d lean toward going custom with them. The work looks beautiful. I figure, you’re gonna own a pair of high quality boots like these for decades, so wouldn’t it be rad to pay up a little more and have them custom made? I don’t have any tattoos, but choosing what I’d have tooled into my cowboy boots feels like a close enough high for me.
If I’m being honest with myself, boots-wise, I’m pretty locked-in with Alden Indys being my thing; I’m not sure I could commit to breaking in a pair of cowboy boots right. But if I could… it’d be these or Luccheses.
Quote I’m Pondering
“The quality I look for most is optimism: especially optimism in the face of reverses and apparent defeat. Optimism is true moral courage.” - Ernest Shackleton
I just listened to a great podcast on Ernest Shackleton’s famed Trans-Antarctic expedition, and, man, some great lessons in leadership here.
Here is is if you want to give it a listen.
Song I’m listening to
p.s. Are you subscribed to my YouTube Channel where I go in depth on all of this kind of stuff??? You should be.
p.p.s. Some of these links toss me a commission without costing you any extra. This goes to buying more things so I can talk about them.
Cheers!
Dominic
What kind of idiot buys their high schooler a Ford Lightning? The kid is lucky the truck didn't kill him. Wow.
I feel you on the Chino/pant situation right now. I refuse to wear wider leg pants. My 15-year-old emo self would knock me out for wearing baggy pants lol.