Coupe Confusion writes:

Sanjeev,

I currently own a 2012 Mustang V6 with a manual transmission. I’ve added Flowmaster exhausts and a cold air intake, so it scoots along very well, looks great, and has nice creature comforts. However, I’ve been offered an opportunity to buy a mint 1978 911SC that has been with its current owner for 25 years. In the last 10k miles/5yrs it has had an engine-out rebuild, $13k paint job, and all the great stuff done to update the transmission, cam tensioners, refinished Fuchs, etc. Economically I can basically sell the Mustang and buy the 911 and possibly have some money left over due to my connection with the owner. Read More >

The deer emerged from the forest and leapt into the roadway in a sudden swift movement. The sights and sounds of the busy two lane highway assailed the animal’s senses and drove it towards panic. In the opposite lane a car flashed by at close to 60 mph and the noise of its passing echoed off of the thick brush behind the animal. With threats from ahead and behind, the animal pivoted and fled up the roadway, running headlong into the white RAV4 which, despite the driver’s best efforts, was still traveling somewhere north of 50 mph when it struck the animal. Read More >

A survivor car is a pretty narrow category in my opinion. It means that a vehicle has come through the years with all of the originality that made it highly desirable in car guy world. Lately, the definition of a survivor car has been diluted down to a wishy-washy. I watched a TV program that featured survivor cars and tried to include a repainted car in the collection as a survivor model.

So let’s re-establish a set of basic ground rules about what makes the grade as a survivor car. Read More >

Compact cars, many of which are now as roomy as older midsize cars, collectively sold at a significantly better rate in the first half of 2013 than in the first half of 2012.

It may have proven to be a bit of a disappointment thus far, but 35,764 of the extra 87,149 compact sales have come from the Dodge Dart. Exclude small Dodges from the equation and compact sales in America are up 4.8% this year. America’s auto industry has produced a 7.5% improvement. Read More >

In the first six months of 2013, the volume achieved by America’s auto industry was 5% smaller than it was in the first six months of 2003. This is an important statistic, one which goes a long way in understanding how America’s appetite for the smallest German roadsters (and hardtops, and hardtop roadsters) has dwindled. Read More >

Jeremy writes:

Hi Sajeev,

G’day from Down Under. Big fan of the Vellum Venom column of yours. Car design, and more importantly the smaller details of car design have always fascinated me, even though I couldn’t design a car if my life depended on it. The first bit of design that really hit me was the first appearance of BMW’s “Angel Eyes” on the E39 M5.

Anyway, I’ve always wondered when and more importantly why have the “pull-type” door handles become the norm? Read More >

Note: The article has a picture of what happens when a shifter gets impaled in a leg. If you are queasy, don’t click. If you click, don’t  complain.

During my career as a trauma surgeon taking care of patients injured in motor vehicle collisions (MVCs), I have all too frequently heard, “he would have died had he been wearing his seat belt.” Late one Friday night, I heard those words from the family of Mr. Smith. Whenever presented the opportunity to lay to rest misguided beliefs, I take off the white coat, stand on the bully pulpit and start preaching. Read More >

TTAC commentator Kovalove writes:

Hi Sajeev,

Long-time lurker on a daily basis for over 5 years now. Not sure if this is a worthy question for Piston Slap but here we go: In about two weeks’ time I’ll make my final payment (0% loan ftw) on my 2008 Mazda3 GT 4-door (‘S Grand Touring’ in US spec) with just over 97,000 km. It has served me well with no at-cost repairs other than routine maintenance (some minor stuff was covered by warranty). I have been looking forward to payment-free living and would happily keep the car for many more years, but one thing has been rattling around in the back of my mind… Read More >

She’s not particularly well known in the United States, perhaps because Alice Ramsey’s 1909 cross-continental motor car trip gets the lioness’ share of attention on this side of the Atlantic, but if you’re a car guy or a car girl, you should know about Dorothy Levitt (1882-1922), who was not only one of the first women to drive an automobile, she’s documented as being the first woman in England to race a car, 110 years ago. Read More >

June hosted a dramatic decline in the U.S. sales of traditional full-size sport-utility vehicles but also marked the end of a successful first half in which sales of these seven SUVs rose 7.9%. Read More >

Horns have always been a very important part of a car. They were invented to warn drivers of other drivers on the road. Horns were also invented to assist the middle finger in descriptive impromptu editorials that register drivers’ displeasure with other drivers on the road, and to engage in general non-verbal communication with other traffic participants.. History does not appear to have recorded the chicken/egg side of the equation which would sort out which came first in the automobile horn/middle finger debate.

Car horns have saved lives and cost teeth, depending upon the traffic circumstances and emotional control of drivers. An errant car horn can be an instant turbo-boost to uncontrollable road rage under the right conditions, but we still love them. Let’s see how much we do.
Read More >

2005 Ford Freestar

Sometime in the predawn hours of a day in early August 1974, my father loaded his wife and five children into his recently purchased Chevrolet ¾ ton pickup truck, the adults isolated safely in the cab while we kids were locked like monkeys in a cage under a canopy in the back, and left Snohomish, WA for Horton, KS. It was a trip we made several times during my childhood and I have vivid memories of waking up in the predawn hours when the air was still cold and first rays of the sun were just beginning to paint the sky in the East. In the decades since, my road trips have always begun that same way and so now, having just completed their first big road trip from Buffalo, NY to Washington D.C. my children will share those memories as well. Read More >

Brian writes:

Hi Sajeev,

I have a 1999 Nissan Frontier. 207k miles, 2.4L four cylinder. I have a Service Engine light which comes on AFTER driving for 30 minutes, parking it and letting it sit for 30 minutes. When I come back and start the truck I get the vibration and Service Engine light. The code is a P0303, i.e. cylinder #3 misfire. Read More >

Everybody loves the Volvo Amazon, including me, and so it’s saddening to see an early example heading to The Crusher. The truth is that non-perfect Amazons (even two-doors) just aren’t worth much these days, so one with rust and/or major body damage usually gets crushed. Read More >

It’s not unusual for automakers to wrap themselves in their national flags. After citing baseball, hot dogs and apple pie, and sponsoring Dinah Shore to tell us in song to see the USA, Chevrolet is the car company that comes to mind pretty quickly when considering automotive nationalism, but they all do it one way or another, in their home markets. Export markets too, in the case of German and Japanese cars. Those cases might be nationalism or they might just be good marketing but there was once an American car company whose founder was so patriotic that he built a copy of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall for his company headquarters. Actually, there were two car company founders that did that. You may know about one of those buildings and you undoubtedly know about who built it because it’s called the Henry Ford Museum. Percy Owens, however, is less well known, and he built his copy of Independence Hall before Ford has his own replica of America’s architectural symbol of independence made. There are other replicas and near replicas across the country, mostly at colleges, Mercer, Howard, Dartmouth, Brooklyn and Dallas Baptist. Knott’s Berry Farm in California also built a full-scale replica outside their Buena Park amusement park in 1996, but the Motor City is the only place there are two. Read More >