The Reatta we saw in the junkyard yesterday was a pretty rare car (though not so rare as its Hyundai Scoupe neighbor), but California self-service junkyards tend to be full of such jewels. Here’s a long-forgotten, one-of-250-built Mopar that makes those two seem commonplace. Read More >

My trip to California to judge the Skankaway Anti-Toe-Fungal 500 24 Hours of LeMons started with a jaunt to Los Angeles, where I saw this extremely rare Hyundai Scoupe in a junkyard. Not so rare as the Scoupe, yet more interesting from an automotive-history standpoint, was this Buick a few rows away. Read More >

There are days when I wish industry analysts and auto industry journalists should be required to carry maltreatment insurance. This is one of those days.  Bloomberg reports that “Volkswagen AG will probably become the world’s biggest carmaker this year, vaulting past Toyota Motor and General Motors on gains in emerging markets.” Pure and unadulterated nonsense. Read More >

(Before you start reading you need to play the video above – just for the music)

Over the last few weeks we have visited Cambodia, Panama, Colombia and China. Not quite sure why there is so many countries starting in C in that list… which is partly why we are now off to Indonesia.

You’ve been to Bali recently and can’t bear to hear any more about it? That’s fine, I’ve prepared 159 other countries for you to visit in my blog, and I can tell you it is sangat baik (very good), so click away!

Toyota is experimenting a little bit in Indonesia, including releasing twin models quasi-exclusively to this country under its Daihatsu brand…

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Jonathon writes:

I’ve been remiss about getting results back to readers.  I took the car to the Honda dealer who pushed hard for the power flush . . . only to have the technician do the 3X manual flush.  Turns out that only some 2003 V6 Accords have the available connections to handle power flushing.

Results?  The transmission has been Smoooooooooth ever since — how could it NOT be when the old fluid looked and smelled like old, overcooked coffee? Because the final draining still smelled a little off, I’ll probably do yet another tranny drain with the next oil change.

 Thanks for the advice.

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And here, a glimpse of the exhilarating Kennesaw (without h) nightlife. It’s hopping.

It is not possible for a Chrysler minivan to finish in the top third of a weekend-long race on the car-killing turns and hils of Infineon Raceway, which is proof that this weekend’s race never happened. That means that the performance of the Team Soccer Moms’ Caravan must have been the product of mass hallucination. Read More >

It’s been quite a year for the builders of the Model T GT: a feature article in Hot Rod, plus several races in which the T held the lead for quite a while before vaporizing the transmission. Finally, everything came together this weekend at Infineon Raceway aka Sears Point, and the world’s quickest road-race Model T turned more laps than every one of its 170 competitors. Read More >

The staging area of the TTAC Goes South tour is picturesque Kenneshaw, GA. For whatever reason, the city sports one of the highest densities of low-priced motels. My Wifi scanner gives me a choice of 9 channels, all belonging to the giants of the roadside hospitality business.  Those who arrived from far-away places like Portland (Ed) and Beijing (BS) are already here, waiting for Steve Lang to close his last buy here, pay here of the day. Read More >

It was a long, hot, crazy, metal-crunching day at Infineon Raceway today, with cars bashing into walls and each other, shooting rods through hoods, catching on fire, and generally reducing the world’s stock of sub-$500 beaters. Still, some of the 171 Skankaway Anti-Toe-Fungal 500 24 Hours of LeMons teams managed to keep running, and when the session ended we had some familiar faces in the top five. Read More >

The full name of this weekend’s race at Sears Point aka Infineon Raceway is “THE SKANKAWAY ANTI-TOE-FUNGAL 500, SPONSORED BY CRUSKIN-SKANKAWAY INC., THE OFFICIAL FUNGICIDAL TOE CREME OF LEMONS,” because Cruskin-Skankaway, Inc., won the bidding war for race sponsorship. Appropriately enough, this race featured more Chrysler, Mitsubishi, and Chrysler-Mitsubishi products than any race in LeMons history. Read More >

We take issues of censorship and media freedom very seriously here at TTAC. Well, I’ve been told that Bertel and Ed do, anyway. Long-time readers will recall the little tempest-in-teapot earlier this year when Detroit News editor Scott Burgess threw his pacifier out of his crib over a Chrysler 200 review and then returned to employment with the paper shortly afterwards. Many Bothans died to bring you this information, if by “Bothans” you mean “Jalopnik readers” and by “died” you mean “were bored to death by self-righteous editorials regarding”.

A TTAC reader recently pointed me to an editorial by Mr. Burgess entitled “Cruze across Europe: Loved overseas, Chevy’s efficient diesel coming to the States”. I was intrigued by this article. While it appeared at first glance to be a shameless puff piece that combined a European vacation for the hard-working Mr. Burgess (and his wife) with a vaguely-defined test loop for the diesel Cruze, I quickly realized that it was a very subversive piece. The first clue was the title. “Loved overseas?” Wink, wink, Mr. B. I see what you did there. And sentences like “Really, the Cruze should receive a hero’s welcome in America” are simply begging to be revealed for the subtle jabs that they are.

With this in mind, I decided to check a few more Burgess articles to find out what he was managing to slip past those bastards at the Detroit News. This tale of defiance and inner strength reminds me of the Dalai Lama, or that Gandhi fellow, or… I know! Oh yes. But instead of V For Vendetta, we’ll call it F For Freecar.

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There are people who wish that TTAC would just go away. This coming week, their dearest wishes will be fulfilled. My special friend in Moscow won’t have to send hate mail anymore: TTAC is finally going South. Read More >

Here’s another one for the “Whatever Happened To…” file: the Hyundai Scoupe. I’m in Southern California for a couple of days, prior to heading north with Judge Jonny to judge at the Skankaway Anti-Toe-Fungal 500, and decided to visit one of the junkyards that provided many of the parts for the ’65 Impala Hell Project. Right away, I find a car I’d forgotten even existed. Read More >

When was the last time you saw a mint-condition first-gen Tercel on the freeway? This early-80s Tercel (Corolla Tercel, according to Toyota’s goofy “tack on the model name the Americans already know” branding experiment) apparently drove into a time machine around the time the Iranian hostages were released and reappeared on the 405 yesterday afternoon, as I was driving an RX-8 out of LAX. Read More >