This morn’ I had the honor of being 86’d from http://www.bigmacktrucks.com . T’wasn’t my first run in with the teabagger types that seem to latch onto most any iconic brand that’s associated with the teabagger’s twisted vision of an america that never existed outside their dreams… A world where men were men, woman stayed barefoot and pregnnt, gas would forever be 29 cents a gallon, and the sheep were nervous. To these slipping into senility teabaggers, Mack and Harley, etc. represent that  twisted vision of an america that never was, a world where James Dean drove a hot rod Mercury instead of a Porsche and nobody every imagined he was gay.

So one finds a bunch of old men over at Big Mack Trucks who insist that Mack is the greatest truck in the world, but can’t explain why, other than the iffy “fact” that Mack was “‘merican!”. Yup, the icon of american trucks has shared engineering with those socialist Swedes at Scania since the 1940s, was owned by nationalized Renault through much of the 80s and 90s, and is currently owned lock, stock, and Bulldogs by more of those socialist Swedes at Volvo… No wonder they hate Volvo with such passion. Worse yet, like those European “socialist” truck makers, Mack has been an integrated manufacturer who built dang near their whole truck from the start over a century ago.

So imagine a hispanic or moslem  trucker shopping for a new rig wanders wanders over to http://www.bigmacktrucks.com and asks for some advice… Especially if they’ve got an obvious name. Yup, seen it happen… Potential Mack buyer gets called unprintable names and gets blamed for everything that went wrong and maybe even right with ‘merican foreign policy since the Kennedy administration. Definitely doesn’t help sell Macks, and probably sends the customer down the road to another brand. Worse yet, this PR nightmare is based out of a small time Mack authorized service station in Pennsylvania and the website has enough purloined Mack artworks and trademarks to look official. Not surprising, given that the webmaster is partsman at said dealership and has ready access to Mack intellectual property. Meanwhile, Volvo is trying to be an ethical and profitable worldwide company that welcomes everyone to it’s customer base…. With “friends” like the teabaggers at Big Mack Trucks, who needs competitors!

Fortunately or not, the teabagger Mack fanboys aren’t much of a market, most being too mismanaged to every be able to afford a new Mack truck themselves. Small operators like them have dipped to about 10% of the new truck market and sinking, and a lot of Mack’s teabagger fanboys aren’t even in the business, they just glommed onto the iconic truck maker cause it’s, well, an “american” icon.. And from a worldview, Mack is just a declining North American market brand that’s not much more than a rounding error in Volvo’s worldwide truck, construction equipment, powerplant, and even aviation business. Let me put it this way: While the teabagger fanboys at Big Mack trucks are badmouthing the Chinese, Chinese truckers are buying Volvos as fast as they can build them!

(HOG)NYSE isn’t so lucky…. The teabagger fanboys are a big chunk of their aging market. A bike lineup that starts at 883 ccs. and nearly 600 pounds ain’t gonna sell much in China, India, or most other emerging markets. What little hope HOG(NYSE) had for market expansion, Buell, they killed off… So they’re stuck with their teabagger fanboys and the racist propaganda they post on Harley dealer’s bulletin boards and their pathetic “two million bikers” protest rides that couldn’t even fill the parking lot. Meanwhile, Erik Buell has struck a partnership with Indian manufacturer Hero that will produce a whole lineup of market-appropriate bikes for India and the rest of the world…. anybody want to start a betting pool on how soon EBR/Hero’s sales surpass HOG(NYSE)’s? And addled with such a teabagger demographic, HOG(NYSE) has to hide needed updates like water cooling, while there sole 21st century motorcycle, the V-Rod, has been exiled to the back corner of the showroom behind the closeout rack where the Buell was banished.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gearhead world moves on… I’m no longer surprised to see HRC “=” stickers on straight married folks bikes, women truck drivers have their own web world,  and iconic truckmaker Paccar (KW and Pete) has been providing domestic partner benefits for what seems decades now and is about to retire their classic long hood conventionals to “vocational” status. Sorry teabaggers, but your time has past… and remember to sign over your collection to an appropriate museum before you pass!