Yesterday’s Name That Car Clock challenger came from a ’74 Fiat 124 Spider. That clock was very dignified, in a cool Italian sort of way. Today’s NTCC contestant is much more festive, though it’s not from a Ford Festiva. Decide what year/make/model vehicle produced this clock, then make the jump to see if you were right. Read More >

Of all the crazy ideas to come out of Dearborn in the 1960s, the Breezeway option on big Mercury cars is one of my favorites. You had a rear-canted back window that rolled up and down, providing a hurricane of wind through the car at speed, and no doubt enhancing the passengers’ intake of Vitamin CO. It made no sense, but so what? Not surprisingly, mid-60s Montereys and Park Lanes (the Mercury-ized Ford Galaxie), aren’t worth much in beat condition these days (nice ones are another story), but I still wasn’t expecting to find this one in a Northern California wrecking yard last month. Read More >

I’ve been harvesting car clocks at junkyards for a few years now, stockpiling them for a project that requires at least two dozen functioning timepieces. Here’s one of the prizes of my collection. Believe it or not, this elderly mechanical clock, from a country not known for reliable machinery, still works! So, guess the year/make/model of the car that yielded this fine clock for my collection, then make the jump to see if you were right. Read More >

After a couple of 1970s Italian sports cars for our last two Junkyard Finds, it’s time to look at the Japanese competition. Malaise Era Z Cars are not uncommon in California junkyards, and I spotted this fairly rough example in an Oakland yard last month. Read More >

Yesterday on Name That Car Clock, we went to Germany for a subdued ’84 VW Golf timepiece. Today, we’re going… well, that’s for you to decide. Guess the year/make/model of this clock, than make the jump to see if you guessed correctly. Read More >

Yesterday, we saw a majestic Cartier chronometer out of a ’76 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, which was a pretty easy call for many of you. Today’s NTCC contestant should be a little more difficult, though it should be an obvious call to certain single-marque-obsessed types. Make your guess, then make the jump to see what it is. Year/make/model? Read More >

After yesterday’s yesterday’s ’71 Fiat Junkyard Find, we should check out the slower, uglier version of the 124 Sport Spider that resulted from Fiat’s attempts to meet American safety and emission standards. Fiat did a better job than British Leyland in this department (e.g., black-bumper MGB, Malaise Spitfire), but that’s clearing an extremely low bar. Read More >

Frank writes:

Good morning,

I am planning a transmission swap in my 2006 five hundred from a 2WD CVT to the offered 6speed of the same vintage. So far as I have discerned, I will need the trans, flywheel, axleshafts, computer and harness. A few compatibility questions though, trans mounts? speedo cable? Shifter and/or linkage? How about the PCM that controls the trans. They offer a few different ones, specifically: Read More >

It was a weekend of ups and downs for your humble author. Up: meeting model and FIAT television-commercial star Catrinel Menghia in Las Vegas, albeit for a moment too brief to pitch my admittely unconvincing case. (“Yes, I know your husband is far wealthier and better-looking than I am — but I can play ‘The Blower’s Daughter’ on the six-string Ovation.”) Down: not receiving an invitation to attend the Camaro ZL1 launch at VIR. The flights back and forth to Las Vegas, combined with various activities once I was on the ground, meant that I received my news in short bursts of permitted cell-phone activation.

So. The Daytona 500 dragged out over three calendar days. Approximately ten million Facebook users made “image macros” featuring everything from ALMS prototypes to LeMons racers driving in the rain. Juan Pablo Montoya ran into a jet-engined track drier, prompting another ten million people to make jokes about “Hit the pace car, Cole” and “Don’t let the invisible fire hurt my friend!” About.com’s lead writer, Aaron Gold, shit-canned Chevrolet’s trailer-park supercar at VIR in what can best be described as “a completely avoidable incident”.

Let’s discuss.

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In my 30 years of crawling through junkyards, one thing has remained constant: there’s almost always a Fiat 124 Sport Spider to be found. Crusher-bound 124 Spiders are about exactly as common now as they were in the early 1980s, and I suspect they’ll be just as common in 2032. I usually don’t even bother to photograph them (though I have documented this ’78 and this ’75), but lately I’ve developed some affection for the sports car that made the MGB seem reliable. Here’s one— a little older than most— that I spotted in a Northern California yard earlier in the month. Read More >

The Fox-bodied Special Service Mustang probably saved more lives than roll bars at the Daytona 500 for one simple reason: Scofflaws feared these fast little ponies.

They gained a “more fact than fiction” reputation of invincibility in a high-speed chase because they could crack out insane 0-60 times and top out at well over 135 miles per hour. That’s pretty fast in 2012. In 1985,-it was Warp Speed 10.

Gord Holdcraft wants to make it faster. Read More >

In the last couple of weeks I have taken you to Oman, Israel, Belarus and Eritrea. Those of you that religiously read my column every week (endless thanks to you!) will remember that last week I also asked you which country you would want to travel to next. Well I have decided to grant not one, but ALL your wishes and the next few weeks will be dedicated to the countries you have requested.

Yes. I’m nice like that.

So this week we’re going to Chile, as per marjanmm’s wish. Why did I choose Chile? Because marjanmm was first to ask!

That’s right.

Now if you have ordered another country and couldn’t care less about Chile, I won’t get offended because I have prepared 159 additional countries for you to visit in my blog, so don’t sulk and click away!

In Chile, ‘Chevrolet’ and Nissan fight a very tight battle…

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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 >

Editor’s note: While our erstwhile Editor-in-Chief, Edward Niedermeyer, is on sabbatical, he will continue to weigh in on automotive issues in a (hopefully) weekly column entitled Blind Spot. This is the first installment.

Back in 2008, as the worlds of automobiles and politics headed towards a dramatic collision, the founder of this site and I had a series of conversations about political perspectives on automobiles. Though these conversations were wide-ranging, I kept coming back to the same conclusion: for all of the talk about guns as “tools of freedom,” it seemed to me that cars were even more worthy of the title. After all, most people use an automobile in the pursuit of freedom and mobility every day, whereas guns are (relatively) rarely used to secure individual rights.

But embracing the car’s role as a tool of freedom raises a number of troubling questions, most of them inherent to the very cause of liberty. Though cars make us more free as individuals, we must recognize that it comes at the cost of (among other things) dependence on gasoline, an “addiction” that many now seek freedom from. As new energy sources and mobility concepts become available, citizens will have to navigate a complex thicket of issues as they seek to maximize the freedom that personal mobility offers.

Read More >

In our last episode of Name That Car Clock, we admired the Jeco analog timepiece out of a 1978 Toyota Corona wagon. That was quite a clock, but it looks pretty drab next to today’s entry. This should be a pretty easy call for you students of the Malaise Era (there’s a hint), so let’s hear your best guess about year/make/model for this designer-edition clock. Answer after the jump! Read More >