Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
I probably spend way too much time on Facebook. I am a car guy and I like cars. I like driving them and I like looking at them. I was a docent at the Sacramento Auto Museum for around 21 years and I was also a docent instructor for 20 of them. I know a lot about cars as my dad was a car guy and I could tell you the make, model, and year of most cars before I was a double-digit midget. I don’t know everything, but I would like to think I know more about cars than most people. I am a member of a multitude of motorcar Facebook pages.
I’m a bit concerned because sometime in the last year, I started noticing several car related sites posting incorrect information about the pictured cars. I’m not talking about a little bit off but not even close descriptions. After a few times, I speculated that it was being done on purpose. I figured they were just wanting more comments and as frustrating as it was for me to NOT comment, I stopped commenting as I figured they knew what they were doing and I didn’t want to play that game. It started with just one Facebook page and has multiplied to at least a half dozen. Now they are posting AI images of made up cars and are calling them real cars. It’s pretty easy for me to recognize an AI image as they are not that good. Car names are misspelled and I have seen several that are distorted images. One that I saw showed a door missing on the driver side and a door on the other side of the car that was closed and open at the same time. That’s right, two doors on the same opening. One site posted at least five different images of 40s looking cars on five different posts, and called them all1939 Studebaker Coupe Expresses. BTW, a Studebaker Coupe Express is a truck, all of these images were cars.
As annoying as that is, I got to thinking about the ramifications of such activity. It used to be that you could learn about how to identify different makes of cars by researching in books or magazines. These were trusted methods of doing research and I wonder how many people look at the internet as a trusted resource. Aren’t these websites monitored for such abuses? I started reporting these abuses to the group administrators, but I am not confident that it is doing any good. I still see these posts every day.
I hate to admit it after fussing about this issue, but I have been known to bend the truth a little about my classic cars. I call my Studebaker truck a 2R5.3 in many of my stories and have even had it identified as a 2R5.3 in a trusted Studebaker magazine. I thought it was an amusing conversation starter, and I have used it to have conversations about Studebaker history. Let me explain this: My Studebaker truck is a 1949 2R5. Studebaker built two “2R” half ton pick ups in that year, a 2R5 and a 2R6. The 2R5 had a small flathead six engine while the 2R6 had a larger flathead six. When I removed the small Champion six engine and replaced it with a modern GM 5.3L Vortec, I thought it would be fun to call it a 2R5.3 and I made realistic stickers and placed them on my truck. Most Studebaker minded folks just laugh it up. Whenever I lift the hood on my truck and display the engine bay, I always explain those stickers. But anyone seeing it in a trusted magazine will have to figure it out by themselves.
In my defense, I did it for a conversation starter and I think that is quite different than posting wrong information just to rack up comments on a Facebook page. Yet I still struggle with being a part of dissemination of incorrect data. I pulled my November 2018 Turning Wheels magazine and re-read the story I had written to go with my 2R5.3 Studebaker truck. I fully explained the reasons why I called it a 2R5.3 so if someone found that magazine identifying it as such, it was all explained in the narrative story elsewhere in the magazine. Still, I want to be more careful in the future. Perhaps I could avoid using the 2R5.3 moniker as if it is legit, and only put it in print when I explain it. Besides, people can’t take a joke like they used to and it’s even harder to joke about something in a written story when you can’t “nudge, nudge, wink, wink – say no more”…
I also have a sticker under the hood of my truck calling it a “McKinnon of Canada 5.3L Vortec” engine. That’s another fake sticker that I made up just to be funny. But that’s another story for another time. If you see me at a car show, ask me about it. It was intended as a “poke” at Studebaker purists. I haven’t been punched in the nose yet as most consider it humorous (like it was intended). Most Studebaker purists are good people with a fine sense of humor, especially the ones that know me well enough to not take me seriously.
