Well, that’s the long and the short of it. The bar graph is the opposite of the overall lengths, and the little Chevy Sprint is our winner. I do like the idea of building a twin-engined all-wheel-drive monster out of the two cars the seller was parting with; It seems like a noble amd terrifying way to die. Ford introduced the world’s second pony car, the Mustang, on April 17, 1964 (Waitaminnit!...
Not too long ago, car buyers in America had a whole buffet of options for tiny cars. You could get the super reliable Honda Fit, quirky Smart Fortwo, sensible Scion iQ, inexpensive Mitsubishi Mirage, peppy Mazda2, or the hot Fiat 500. Even domestic brands were in on small cars with cars like the Ford Fiesta and the Chevrolet Spark. Tiny car competition was hot. But nowadays? Not so much. You can buy a Mitsubishi Mirage and the Chevy Spark, but everything else has fallen to larger, more popular models....
Throughout its history, Harman has steadily gobbled up automotive audio brands. JBL was among the first, bought out in 1969. Infinity was acquired in 1983, AKG joined the fray in 1994, then Mark Levinson and Revel in 2003. Most recently, Harman International acquired Bang & Olufsen’s automotive division in 2015, before Harman International itself was bought by Samsung in 2017. However, just because all of these brands are owned by Harman International doesn’t mean that every single stereo under these brands will be alike....
Maybe it’s soup. I do really like Volvo PV444/544s a lot, though, with their late ’40s American car styling and charming frumpiness, paired with great B-series Volvo engines, sometimes with twin SU carbs! Also, this: Is that showing some kind of movable trunk light on a cord? That’s pretty great for spelunking the big black cavern of that trunk, looking for loose pills or an earring or some other lost treasure....
But first, I want to apologize for the kerfuffle with the poll yesterday. I clicked on some doohickey wrong, and broke it. I can balance SU carbs by ear, and wax enthusiastic about Procol Harum’s music, and discuss the symbolism in T.S. Eliot poems, and bake a mean chocolate chip cookie, but I’m an idiot when it comes to this tech stuff. Special thanks to Jason for fixing it. I’ll try to get it right today....
And the V70 has smashed it out of the park in a rare victory for unreliable European tin over sensible transportation. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Volvo as much as anyone, but those Rondos have a good track record. Plus, it’s a car that sort-of shares a name with my favorite Ontario Provincial Park. Anyway, on to today’s event, two very sensible cars from a city that isn’t sensible at all....
Look at these pictures of double wishbone suspensions. Notice how, in the image immediately above, the black spring looks like it’s perfectly centered on the yellow damper. Now look at the MacPherson strut design: Here you can clearly see that while the top of the spring looks like it’s centered around the damper, the bottom is offset towards the outside of the car. Why is that? Clearly these OEMs have gone through a lot of trouble to make a large bottom spring perch and offset it from the center of the damper....
Ford says that the standard Mustang GT will put out 486 horsepower and 418 ft.-lb. of torque if you opt for the Active Valve dual exhaust, which you should because V8 engines sound good and we probably won’t get to enjoy them for all that much longer. If you forego that exhaust option, you still get 480 HP and 415 lb-ft of torque. Again: that’s on a Mustang GT. Just a base Mustang with the 5....
Scenario One You decide to take your current target of your affections to the zoo, in the hopes that perhaps you’ll encounter some monitor lizards or some equally sexy animals going at it, hopefully getting everyone in the mood. While craning you neck to try and see if the ocelots are up to anything interesting, you accidentally dump the eight pounds of beef jerky you shoplifted from a 7-11 right in front of a sleeping ocelot....
SCENARIO ONE: Your shitbox leaves you stranded by the side of the road yet again, this time somehow improbably with what sure looks like a leaky belt. You can’t even figure out the physics behind it: somehow the belt seems to be leaking this gooey ichor all over the pulleys, and it’s causing the belt to slip wildly, preventing your engine from actually doing anything useful. Some of that black, gooey fluid drips onto your forehead as you’re under the car, and the shock of the strangely warm fluid causes you to bolt upright, slamming your forehead against some part under there....
For a short few years between 2003 and 2006, residents of a handful of lucky regions could buy one of the coolest cars to be bestowed with a Smart badge. The Roadster was a modern and quirky take on the old-school British roadster. It was a car that felt so responsive and so alive that it impressed journalists and owners around the world. Even Top Gear enjoyed the ride. But, a common complaint with the low-slung Smart was that it wasn’t all that fast....
And don’t get me wrong: I think Goggomobils are goggomogreat, but I love that this same company also made some striking four-door large sedans and even GT cars. They’re kind of like Iso that way, making the Isetta and the Rivolta and Grifo, or even BMW, licensing the Isetta and making the 507 at the same time. Oh and hey, since you brought up BMW, now’s as good a time as any to remind you that BMW ended up buying Glas, which led to strange BMW-badged Glas cars like the BMW 1600 GT, which was basically a re-badged (and slightly engine-embiggened) Glas 1300 GT, complete with little mouse kidney-sized kidney grilles:...
The Anglia’s big styling hook was that reverse-raked rear window, and the whole brochure has been die-cut to resemble that. It’s very clever, and the art inside is spectacular. These were scanned by Howard Nourse, by the way, so thank you, Howard. The art is that loose-and-tight midcentury style I’ve mentioned before, the graphic design is colorful and bold, the whole thing is just lovely. So, you know, enjoy. Here’s the scans of the whole thing....
One thing I try not to do as a journalist is make a habit out of writing scathing takes on things — takedowns just to create controversy and clicks. That’s overdone, doesn’t require a lot of talent, and usually ignores a bunch of context behind why something is the way it is. But then there are times when I just can’t hold my tongue; this is one of those times....
If you’ve purchased a used car from a dealership anytime in the past decade, perhaps you’ve heard of Carvana. Maybe you’ve even seen the company’s tall glass towers that “dispense” used cars like a vending machine. Companies like Carvana, Vroom, and Shift sell cars using a no-haggle model like CarMax does. But these companies handle the transaction differently by taking the buying process online. You can wake up and buy a car from Carvana without even rolling out of bed....
This story first takes us back to Halloween 2014. I came out as transgender to what was originally warming support. But it didn’t last long and before I knew it I was losing just about everyone in my life. My best friends tried to force me to be a man at a wedding that was going to take place two years in the future. I couldn’t fathom why it was happening....
In terms of tools, you’ll need an OBDLink EX cable. Designed to work with FORScan coding software, it seems to be worth the premium over cheaper cables. After all, accidentally bricking a control unit while writing is a lot more expensive than just buying a better cable. Next, it’s time to remove and strip the steering wheel to install the new buttons. It’s not a terribly difficult procedure, just a bit of a fiddly one....
Modern cars have gotten heavy, and as electrification sets in, they’ll just get even heftier. That’s why I’m always amazed anytime I drive an old car onto my local industrial scales. Do you know how much a modern V8, automatic Ford Mustang weights? Per Ford, a 2022 model comes in at 3,752 pounds. Obviously my brother’s 1966 model — a coupe with a 289 cubic-inch V8, three-speed C4 automatic transmission, and very few options — is going to be lighter....
First, when you buy a car that doesn’t have an end user license agreement, you buy the whole car. It’s yours to drive, maintain, modify, improve, ruin, what have you. Sure, people’s tastes might have different interpretations of ruination or improvement, but taste is subjective. If the owner of this F40 wants their car to be wider, so shall it be. Next, the F40 is valuable, which makes a huge difference....
In case you missed Leno’s first incident, he was working on a 1907 White steamer in November when a fuel leak was ignited by the car’s pilot light. Despite suffering severe burns requiring skin grafts, he made a recovery and joked to Hoda Kotb about setting his face on fire. In an interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal, Leno revealed details of the latest incident. On Jan. 17, he was shaking down a 1940 Indian motorcycle when he reportedly noticed a whiff of fuel....
