I still haven’t gotten around to building my 1/25 scale Billy Carter Redneck Power Pickup kit, but that won’t stop me from adding more projects to my “get to it someday” collection… which I’m about to do, now that TTAC reader Neb has pulled my coat about the huge lineup of 1960s and 1970s plastic model kits being made from the original tooling by Round2 Models. Read More >
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Our newest segment, “Suspension Truth”, comes to us courtesy of Shaikh J Ahmad. An engineer by training, Shaikh is the owner of Fat Cat Motorsports, and a self-styled “Suspension Wizard”. Shaikh creates custom suspension components for a variety of cars, including the Mazda Miata and RX-8, the Nissan 350Z, Mini Cooper and Honda S2000. Back when I had my 1997 Miata, I ordered a set of coilovers from Shaikh, based on his reputation for creating suspension setups with a previously unheard of balance between ride and handling. The Fat Cat coilovers are one of the few products I’ve ever bought that were able to live up to the hype. Over the next few weeks, Shaikh will delve into the science of suspensions, and provide his own analysis of a number of production cars.
What’s your least memorable train ride? Simple question, right? If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume all of them. Unless a screenwriter threw you into an adventure film without your consent, it’s what we’d expect. This brings to mind a popular driving metaphor – ‘handles like it’s on rails.’ That’s our ideal in suspension tuning, to be glued to the ground and also as comfortable as possible. Easy when you’ve controlled every degree of freedom as with a train track and groomed earth beneath.
When it comes to buying a used car there are two basic negotiating mindsets. You can either be fair and decent or unfair and obnoxious. If you seek to chisel and deceive then chances are you will get a bad car. Only the desperate and deceitful are willing to put up with that type of BS.
Want a ‘great’ car? Then realize that many sellers respond extremely well to honesty and decency. Win – win is no sin. So, karma lovers, here’s some tips for negotiating the purchase of a used car by observing the Golden Rule.
Since I’m now shopping for some sort of postwar American sedan for a foolish road-racer project and the ’51 Nash Airflyte in the Brain-Melting Colorado Yard isn’t for sale, I decided to pay more attention to the large selection of Kaiser-Frazer products parked nearby. How about a car with an optional factory color so impressive that the manufacturer installed badges with that color’s name on the fenders? Read More >
Writing this series has made me start paying more attention to types of vehicles I’ve long overlooked. Say, the early Nissan 300ZX, or the Mazda-based Mercury Capri. Then we’ve got the beat-up work trucks that still roam the streets in large numbers but are finally dying out, e.g. the Dodge D-100 and the late-60s GM C-series. Today, it’s the turn of Ford’s workhorse from the darkest days of the Malaise Era. Read More >
Congratulations!!! And my condolences.
You have just bought yourself a vehicle that may be worth more dead than alive.
Did you follow my car buying advice? Of course not! You wanted cheap to the extreme and now you got it. Bald tires. Doors that may be lovably ‘scrunched’ just a little bit thanks to those pesky inanimate objects. But hey, at least the ashtray still works.
Now you just have to figure out what to do with it?
Jonathan writes:
Sajeev,
I live in Chicago (actually a northern suburb) and own two cars: 05 Scion xB and an 03 Accord (4 cyl Auto). Due to logistics, day care, scheduling, and the like, both cars are used every day for the 1.5 mile drive to different train stations. And as you can imagine, we have some mighty frigid days here in the Windy City, and getting into a frozen car is not a whole lot of fun.
So I was thinking about installing an after-market remote starter in one or both of the cars. My questions are: Is this EVER a good idea? And if so, which types/brands should I look for and what professional installation gotcha’s should I beware of? And will the installation possibly reduce the future reliability of my car’s electrical/starter systems with the installation of such a device.
Thank you,
Jonatha
Sajeev answers:
I bought my first Corvette primarily because of its headlights. Spy photos of the 2005 model had just hit the press, revealing that Chevrolet was dumping the Vette’s hidden headlamps, the heart of the car’s sleek look for 41 years. Corvette purists howled in protest. Convinced that the automotive world as we knew it was coming to an end, I immediately ordered a 2004 Spiral Gray 6-Speed Coupe. Read More >
A while ago I gave you the Top 100 best-selling models around the globe over the first Quarter of 2012. And you liked it. A lot. I know because you told me. As you know progress never stops, which is why this time I give you… the Top 150 best-sellers worldwide for June 2012.
Update: You can now also check out the Top 120 best-selling models worldwide over the first 6 months 2012 here.
Yes you have read correctly.
Who in his right mind would have ventured such an epic exploration of the varied car tastes in the entire world?
Your favorite car sales nerd, me.
If you had enough of all this worldwide grandiloquence, that’s ok because you can visit 168 countries and territories in my blog, one by one, to figure out which models sell best in each of them. Another crazy thing I do…
Back to the world.
And the nagging question comes back again: has the Focus beaten the Corolla yet?
This is a great video, and it showcases just how quickly things happen in a racing Porsche… including bad things.
Even after Chrysler debuted the company-saving K Platform in 1981, the older Simca-derived Omnirizon continued to be built in large quantities. Sightings of te Dodge Omni, Plymouth Horizon, and their many siblings and cousins are very rare today, but I still run across the occasional example in the wrecking yards. We saw this ’78 Horizon not long ago, plus this ’84 Turismo, and today we’ll take a look at an even later Omnirizon. Read More >
Many years ago, when I was a partner in a Madison Avenue ad agency, our client Swissair asked us to come up with an ad that asked affluent American Express holders to do their Christmas shopping in Zurich, Switzerland. I wrote “Merry Swissmas” on a sheet of paper. My Art Director Juergen Dahlen came up with a picture. It was pasted on foamcore, was run over to the Swissair offices and met with applause. Two weeks later, I had a lady from American Express on the line.
“Christmas! You can’t say that!”
“It’s Swissmas.”
“Come on, I know what you wanted to say.”
“So, what should I say?”
“You know. Happy holidays.”
“Alright. I’ll change the headline to Merry Swolidays.”
“You are kidding me.” Read More >
Why does a car need wheel openings in the front fenders, anyway? The Nash Airflyte, aka the “Bathtub Nash,” proved that long, low, and wide (and a postwar American car-buying public starved for anything with four wheels and an engine) would move the iron off the showroom floor in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I’ve been thinking about building an Airflyte-based project car lately, so I returned to the Brain-Melting Colorado Junkyard to do some window shopping. Read More >
Aaron writes:
Sajeev,
I currently own a 2007 WRX Wagon with a little over 100,000 miles on it. I love this car, even enough to overlook getting merely 21mpg. Anyways.
As is true with many import car owners who love too much, I started modifying the car almost as soon as I got it. It currently has a 3″ exhaust, a tune, and some miscellaneous other engine bits, with suspension components on order. The car is my current project, and I plan on keeping it for some time. There’s a slight problem though. Read More >
After discussing Kreayshawn‘s love for the Buick Reatta in the recent ’88 Buick Reatta Junkyard Find post, it seemed only fitting that I would find a car at the very same Denver self-serve yard that appears to be an homage to Kreayshawn’s greatest hit. Read More >
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