Old habits die hard. Whether it’s GM’s desire to slice-and-dice its fuel economy achievements to make them look better than they are, or our instinct to correct the record, it’s all just a little bit of history repeating.

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Chrysler’s pavilion, with the mammoth engine is in the foreground. The giant US Royal tire in the background now sits just outside Detroit.

Mention the 1964 New York World’s Fair to a car enthusiast and they’re likely to associate it with the 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang, which was introduced April 17, 1964 on the fair’s opening day. As former Ford president Lee Iacocca told Mustang Monthly in a 2004 interview, “Where else could you introduce a car at such a world-class event?”. In 1964 and 1965, the New York World’s Fair was about as big as events got. Read More >

The autoblogosphere is buzzing with news of an explosion in an electric vehicle battery testing facility at General Motors’ Tech Center in Warren, outside of Detroit. This isn’t the first time that the Tech Center has been the site of an explosion involving alternative energy. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the domestic automakers have invested many millions of dollars trying to develop alternatives to gasoline power over much of the second half of the 20th century. Almost 50 years before Toyota introduced the hybrid Prius and Honda started making the FCV hydrogen fuel cell powered car, General Motors was working on cars and trucks powered by fuel cells or batteries. Not all of that R&D proceeded without incident. Read More >

For about 15 years, the Civic and the Accord were untouchable in the American marketplace; Honda sold all they could build here plus as many as they could import under the limitations of the Voluntary Export Restraint agreement of 1981. Then… well, Soichiro Honda died and Honda sort of lost its way. Sure, their cars were still good, but the competition had caught up and the Honda magic had worn off for American car buyers. Honda car sales in Japan had never been so great, so what kept Honda going through the lean times? Two-wheelers! I spent two weeks in Vietnam last month and came away with a new appreciation for Honda’s utter dominance of the Asian motorbike market. Read More >

I’ve had more Honda Civics than any other type of car (at least one example of each of the first five Civic generations), at one point owning two ’85 hatches and a CRX at the same time. The mid-80s CVCC cars were great to drive and very reliable (provided you didn’t overheat the engine— ever), but when California tightened up smog-check requirements in the early 2000s it became impossible to keep one registered. Why? This. Read More >

A couple of recent Junkyard Find Datsuns (the ’78 510 and ’77 280Z) featured mysterious “FLOOR TEMP” idiot lights on their dashes. Floor temp? Why? Read More >

Hongqi CA750f.

It’s one of those Tuesday afternoons here in Beijing. The air is barely breathable, and somewhere, a hammer drill is duking it out with a concrete ceiling. Time for another installment of Tycho’s Illustrated History Of Chinese Cars.  Today we have a very interesting Chinese car. It’s a 1983 Dodge 600 sedan, dressed-up as a Hongqi CA750F. How did it get into China? Read More >

Last week, I had never heard of the Isuzu Statesman Deville. Then, my fellow LeMons Supreme Court Justice suggested that I do a quick internet search for the name of this fine Detroito-Australo-Japanese luxury sedan… and my life changed forever. Read More >

One of the most famous cars in the world is one of the most despised cars on my very short list of despised cars.

Hell – who am I kidding? I love all old cars more than most people.

But I don’t love the General Lee. Read More >

Now that I’m scouring eBay Australia for crazy Detroit Down Under cars— maybe even as crazy as a 4-71-blown six-cylinder Torana— I’ve been dragged once again into the Whirlpool Of Arcane Internet Car Knowledge. You know how that goes: you go to look up the Australian Falcon on Wikipedia, a reference to the Valiant Charger leads you to the mother of all Chrysler-related online time-sucks, and then your whole day is used up. This time, Allpar sent me to Valiant.org, and that’s where I found the page on the Chrysler Hemi-Six engine. There you’ll find a description by a Chrysler engineer of how his Australian counterparts tested their new (American-designed) engine: Read More >

While waiting for my wife to stagger out of the dentist’s chair after a root canal, I grew bored with the October, 1994 issue of Highlights and other similar waiting-room reading material and noticed this painting on the wall. It turned out to be the illustration made by the Denver architectural firm that built the dentist’s office building, back in 1949. Read More >

This Desoto has four wheel disc brakes and is the nicest Detroit iron I found...

(Some of the best stories in TTAC are told by the Best & Brightest, our readers. Many a TTAC career (mine included) started with a comment, then the odd story, and before you know it … Today’s story is from Ted Grant a.k.a. Maybelater. He sent in some pictures from a trip to Cuba. Maybelater is Canadian, he’s allowed to.

When asked for a few words, Ted said he’s not a writer. Then, he wrote the email that follows.

If you have a good story to tell, in words, pictures, or both, send it to me. It will be pro bono, but who knows, it could be the start of a glorious writing career. – BS)

I just returned from holidays in Cuba and snapped some shots of some vehicles in and around Santa Lucia. Most of the pre 1959 Detroit iron is heavily reworked and tired, but the fact that they are still in use is a testament to the original design engineers and the Cuban nationals’ ingenuity with limited resources. Our tour guide told us that even the ugliest POS vehicle that still runs commands big money and is a luxury for the locals. Some older cars have been handed down in families, but the majority of car owners have rich relatives in foreign countries that help them with the purchase. A typical 50’s Detroit ride runs 10 to 15 thousand so they are indeed a real luxury. Read More >

Volkswagen announced an all-new Santana for the Chinese market, it will debut in 2013. Time to say “zai jian” (“good bye,” but nobody says that anymore in China, they say “bye bye”) to the current Santana, made by the Shanghai-Volkswagen joint venture since 1985. And time for a short history of the Santana. History saw the original Santana, the Santana Variant, the Santana 2000, the Santana 3000 and the Santana Vista. We take a look at all of them. On the picture above is a party in Shanghai when the very first China-made Santana rolls off the assembly line. And when they said “party” in 1985, they meant it. Serious partiers they were. Read More >

I remember looking at the then brand new Ford Five Hundred and thinking to myself, “This would make one heck of a Volvo.”

Like the Volvos of yore this Ford offered a squarish conservative appearance. A high seating position which Volvo’s ‘safety oriented’ customers would have appreciated. Toss in a cavernous interior that had all the potential for a near-luxury family car, or even a wagon, and this car looked more ‘Volvo’ than ‘Ford’ to me with each passing day.

Something had to be done…

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Brethren, we are once again gathered together to mourn the passing of another automobile company. Saab was of that rare breed of car that always had a band of devoted, aye, fanatical followers. In her prime, Saab could not fail to ignite the after-burners of anyone with a predilection to genuine character, speed, innovation, intelligence, and even sexy good looks (at times). Not bad for a company that never once designed a clean-sheet new engine and borrowed more platforms than Heidi Klum. But when you’re small and from Sweden, resourcefulness is essential: Saab finagled an existence in this brutal industry far longer than might have been expected.  But now she joins an august group of other fallen automotive heroes in Valhalla: Borgward, Panhard, Tatra, Kaiser, Glas, TVR, Jowett, etc…better that then whoring herself to another rich benefactor. But Saab’s story is worth retelling. Read More >