According to my friends at WeLiveInOurParentsBasementAndTalkAboutRacingOnTheInternet.com, the Viper ACR is currently the ‘Ring record holder, having beaten the Lexus LF-A’s 7:14 mark.
It seemed suspicious that nobody had wasted a perfectly decent trip to Europe attacked the North Shu-Life-Uh lately, and our suspicions were confirmed when “DriveSRT” released the above video…
When the GM Fremont Assembly plant took on Toyota managers and became NUMMI in 1984, the same supposedly inept lineworkers who hammered together sub-par Buick Apollos suddenly started building Corollas that were at least as well-made as the ones made by their Japanese counterparts (you are free to draw your own conclusions about GM management in the 1980s). The initial round of GM-badged Corollas were given the Chevrolet Nova name, prior to becoming the Geo Prizm; you still see Prizms around, but the 80s Nova has become a rare sight on the streets and in the junkyards. Here’s a Nova I spotted in an Oakland, California, self-serve yard earlier in the month. Read More >
TTAC Commentator halftruth writes:
Hey Sajeev,
I see a lot of manufacturers using the binocular style gauge motif (see Hyundai Elantra, 2011 Avalon, Chevy Cruze for example) and I hate it! I also see a lot of carmakers using the upside down triangle motif in a lot of their steering wheel designs. We can even throw in the obligatory fuel AND coolant gauge.. they all seem to do this same thing with little variation. That said, if we look thru history, this mimicking has always gone on.
But why? Sometimes a bad idea is just that and shouldn’t be copied: I am reminded of huge gaudy consoles that take up legroom- for an automatic. Read More >
During the late 1980s, my future wife spent several years teaching English in northern China. Back then, many Chinese manufacturers felt that showing off Western-language brand labels indicated worldliness, and so this Chengdu passenger van got a “CD” grille ornament and some somewhat garbled lettering above. Read More >
This ’84 Plymouth Colt Turbo caught my junkyard weather eye instantly, because early-to-mid-80s turbo econoboxes are always interesting. Then I realized that you hardly ever see regular fifth-gen Colts, on the street or in the junkyard these days, though they were once among the most commonplace subcompacts on American roads. After that, I kept my eyes open for Crusher-bound naturally-aspirated 1984-88 Colts, finally spotting this one. Read More >
TTAC commentator kericf writes:
Sajeev,
I have been a previous emailer with some questions about my Rodeo. Now I turn to you in need of help with my wife’s 2005 Nissan Pathfinder (115k miles). The HVAC system doesn’t emit heat properly. A google search of the problem reveals I am certainly NOT the only person dealing with this problem. Read More >
We’ve seen a couple of “poor man’s TR8” race cars in the 24 Hours of LeMons: you take a TR7 and drop a junkyard V8 out of a junked Land Rover into it. This works better than both the “really poor man’s TR8″ (a TR7 with Buick V6 swap), in the sense that it sounds a lot cooler, and is (slightly) more reliable than a Triumph Slant Four-powered TR7. Plenty of folks did this swap to their street TR7s as well, and I’ve found an example in a Denver self-service wrecking yard. Read More >
In the last couple of weeks, we have been to Czech Republic, Oman, Israel and Belarus. This week I have decided to take you to one of the most obscure part of the world: Eritrea.
I know.
That’s why you have a map above, to help you locate this country of 6 million inhabitants located in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea declared its independence in 1993 but no national elections have been held since… In the 2010 Press Freedom Index, Eritrea ranked #178 out of 178, yes that is last, below North Korea at #177. Independent media being banned since 2001 didn’t help…
Obscure I told you.
But I wasn’t going to let that deter me to find out what cars sell best there…
If you are unfamiliar with the type of car pictured above, then may I congratulate you on finally getting a WiFi connection all the way up there in your cave on the moon. Yes indeedy, this is the much-publicized Cadillac CTS-V wagon.
No, on the other hand, it is not a press car. Let me explain. Read More >
When I moved into a Victorian near downtown Denver summer before last, I finally had something I’ve been longing for since I started messing around with cars: a garage! Since that time, I’ve been (very) gradually upgrading the place, with better wiring, insulation, beer signs, and so on. My long-term plan for the place involves an elaborate garage audio system, with a serious amp, good speakers all over the place, and a CAT5 line to the house that will provide access to the music collection on my file server. However, my long-term garage-upgrade plan also includes certain items that have higher priority— like, say, a source of heat— and I have been working on those items first. In the meantime, I needed to be able to listen to The Atomic Bitchwax at top volume, and I didn’t want to spend any money on temporary measures. One afternoon, I scavenged up the gear to make an extremely loud four-speaker setup. Here’s how. Read More >
While Department of Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood and the National Transportation Safety Board aren’t on exactly the same page when it comes to regulating drivers’ use of cellphones and other personal electronic devices it’s clear that official bureaucratic Washington has decided to control the way Americans act behind the wheel. In December, the NTSB proposed using the power of the federal purse to impel the 50 states to outlaw all cellphone and PED use, including hands-free devices, while driving. At the time Sec. LaHood said he thought that went too far, saying that he didn’t think that hands-free and other devices were necessarily a problem. LaHood did, though, recommend more study. Apparently, in the two months since LaHood made his statement enough study has been done for the DOT, through NHTSA, to release the first phase of voluntary guidelines (PDF) to auto manufacturers concerning devices that cause drivers’ distraction. The guidelines address “visual-manual” distraction, “meaning the driver looking at a device, manipulating a device-related control with the driver’s hand, and watching for visual feedback”, and they call for manufacturers to disable built-in access to social media, the Web, and text messaging while driving, as well as prohibiting any built-in devices that require drivers to use both hands or take their eyes off the road for more than two seconds.
Buying a new car or truck is one thing – buying a mint condition affordable 1951 Studebaker is an entirely different concept.
The basic idea is the same – money exchanges hands for a vehicle. Beyond that, the game is like comparing mud wrestling to chess so don’t use the same techniques. Read More >
My 1966 Dodge A100 Hell Project has been in semi-hibernation since the summer, but now it has a rebuilt front end and I’m ready to get back into turning it into the 8-track-equipped custom van of my dreams. Since I bought my van project, the toughest problem has been finding junked A100s to provide a bunch of bits and pieces needed to get everything working properly. Alex Kierstein of Hooniverse grabbed a window latch from a Seattle junkyard and shipped it to me, which was a big help, but my van still had some bad glass and an annoying assortment of missing pieces. Then, last week, I got word that an A100 had appeared in a self-service yard a few miles from my house. Read More >
I’ve linked to this before from TTAC, but what the heck. It’s Friday, and we gotta get down on Friday — JB
She’d entered our dealer principal’s office as a coltish, blinking young woman, stepping awkwardly in new high heels. Almost six feet tall, impossibly thin, painfully beautiful, wearing a purposely dowdy pantsuit. It was always fun to see the new dealer reps arrive from Ford; without exception they were tall, good-looking young men and women with impeccable degrees from Michigan universities, earnest Midwestern faces, and a charmingly naive sense of the world. They’d meet the dealer, a hard-assed former B-17 pilot who had built the dealership with his own hands, and they’d meet the general manager, a hulking man with a Mafioso’s hair and the easy yet malicious attitude of a professional assassin, and those two old bastards would grind ‘em into the ground. We enjoyed the show. Sure, these kids were on their way to six-figure salaries, a home in Bloomfield Hills, and the outrageously hedonistic life of a Detroit executive – but before they could make the big money, they’d have to take a beating from our guys. Of course, things were slightly different this time. Our dealer principal had recently handed over the daily operations to his phlegmatic, fortysomething son, whose demeanor and physique had long ago earned him the nickname “Droopy The Dog”. Droopy had insisted on seeing the Ford rep alone, probably hoping that he could earn some respect among the sales staff by beating up a twenty-three-year-old girl. Rumor said this meeting was to discuss an extra “allocation” – the amount of stock sent to each dealer on an annual basis. We all knew what we wanted from this girl – we wanted extra allocation of PowerStroke diesels, we wanted more three-quarter-ton trucks, and we wanted to become an SVT dealer. With any luck, Droopy would get the job done.
When she walked out of his door, the awkward young volleyball player had become a triumphant Valkyrie. She grinned at the assembled sales staff and strutted to her cream-colored Town Car Cartier. From colt to racehorse, in one meeting flat. Our general manager frowned, went into Droopy’s office, and slammed the door. Hushed voices turned loud, and before long the two men were screaming at each other. The rest of the salesmen had melted away by the time the door banged back open, leaving me to face the general manager alone. He looked at me and said,
“Aerostars. Aerostars! The bitch made him take four AEROSTARS!.”
Ah, the Malaise Era. By the late 1970s, AMC was on the ropes. The Jeep Cherokee still sold well, however, and the brains in Kenosha decided they’d go for the Acapulco Gold-smoking generation and throw a few square yards of decals on the truck. Golden Eagle! Read More >
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