Of all the cars at the ‘Shine Country Classic, none inspired more speculation than the ’75 LTD of the Tunachuckers and ’79 W116 of NSF Racing. So many questions! Would either car be ready for the green flag on Saturday morning? Which one would be quicker around a road course? Could an ungodly complicated Teutonic flagship even make one lap on a race track after 32 years and a 99.97% value depreciation? Could Grandma’s long-abandoned big Ford roar into life and survive on the race track with little more than a cage installation and a hasty tune-up? Each team had joined the elite of LeMons veterans, with one Index of Effluency win apiece, so expectations of horrible failure were high. Read More >
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In Part 1 of this series, I described the purchase of a 1965 Chevrolet Impala in early 1990, for use as the raw material in a complex performance/installation art piece. Within a single day of taking ownership of the car, I began the process of modifying it to suit my artistic vision. Read More >
Mark Modica, a former Saturn dealer GM bondholder, has leveraged his financial loss at the hands of the government bailout into a blogging position at the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative nonprofit that “promotes ethics in public life through research, investigation, education and legal action.” At the NLPC, Modica focuses on what he believes to be corruption surrounding the auto bailout, and has written a series of anti-GM posts that make TTAC look like a Detroit hometown newspaper (TTAC “bias police,” take note). Most recently, Modica has caught the attention of the auto media, including Automobile Magazine and Jalopnik, with a series of posts accusing Chevy dealers of “scamming” taxpayers by claiming the Volt’s $7,500 tax credit and then selling Volts as used cars. TTAC welcomes anyone seeking to cast more light on the bailout, but unfortunately, Modica’s attacks are too focused on making GM look bad and not focused enough on providing relevant information to the American people. Let’s take a look and see why…
Newsom writes:
Sajeev,
I am a newbie here so I am not sure that I am posing the question in the correct cyber-manner but here goes: I purchased a 2000 Nissan Frontier 4-door truck new in August of 1999. It has 112K miles and I have just replaced the clutch: it was the training vehicle for my teenage daughter. I have a son who is 13 who will also learn to drive on this vehicle, then it will be put to pasture.
When I took the truck to my mechanic to get the new clutch I told him that I smelled burning coolant when I got out of the truck. He did a pressure test and said it came from the radiator, which he replaced.
I still smell it however and I need help. There is no puddle of coolant under the truck after it has been parked. I replace about 1 quart of coolant about every two months or so but it is not disappearing rapidly. I have been resisting using the words h*** g****t for fear that he will recommend replacing them to the tune of big $$$. The smell is strongest under the hood. I don’t smell it near the tail pipe.
Please help. We cannot live without a truck in the family.
I love stories of American cars that take a weird journey to production in South America, preferably with a dash of European influence added during the journey’s many twists and turns. The Argentinean Renault Torino, a Rambler American with Jeep Tornado engine and Pininfarina rebody is a great example, as is the Willys Itamaraty, a limo-ized Willys Aero sold in Brazil by Ford. The list goes on, but perhaps the greatest, most convoluted tale of them all is that of the Simca Esplanada. How about a late-60s Chrysler product, based on a Dearborn-designed French Ford, with an Ardun-ized hemi Ford Flathead V8 under the hood? Read More >
Custom vans got big enough by 1977 that Detroit got into the business of making crypto-custom passenger vans right at the factory. While plaid upholstery with sporty STX logos doesn’t quite measure up to a mural of Zeus hurling lightning bolts at an Aztec warrior on the Mars Base (with matching four-foot airbrushed bong in a special bracket next to the driver’s seat), The General still moved a fair number of STXs during the Middle Malaise Era. Read More >
Does your Memorial Day barbecue feature a blown alcohol-burning dragster roaring to life in the driveway as your guests chow down on burgers and dogs? Read More >
Willys MA, Willys’ entrant in the jeep competition
General Motors was the largest supplier of war materiel to the American armed forces. Ford famously built B-24 Liberators that rolled off the Willow Run assembly line at a rate of one per hour. Chrysler alone built as many tanks as all the German tank manufacturers combined. With those high profile contributions to the war effort made by the big three automakers, it’s easy to forget that the independent automakers (and automotive suppliers as well) also switched over completely to military production.
Tank testing at General Motors’ Milford Proving Grounds
To commemorate Memorial Day here in the US, we’re taking a look at how the American auto industry was mobilized into war production for World War Two. Because that mobilization was so extensive, the conversion to military production so complete, a blog post by it’s very nature cannot really do the subject justice. This is only the most cursory review of the topic, which truly deserves a book length treatment. As a matter of fact, historian Arthur Herman is currently working on a book about the “arsenal of democracy”, American industry during the war.
Herman will have a lot of material to work with.Today we’ll be looking at the role of the Big Three automakers in war production, starting with General Motors. Read More >
Chrysler A57 Multibank 30 cylinder Sherman tank engine made from five inline sixes
Memorial Day is a time set aside to remember those who gave their lives in military service to the United States. Today, even as we are fighting two wars and have men and women in harms way in yet other places, though, a relatively small fraction of Americans serve in the military. Few civilians, except military families, understand the sacrifices necessary to protect our country. There was a time, though, when the military conflict was genuinely existential and just about every able bodied man was drafted or enlisted, while virtually the entire civilian population was directly involved in the war effort, either through their jobs in military production, or more personally, because just about everything was rationed giving the military a higher priority for things like vehicles, tires, fuel and food. With the dawn of total war, the plants and proving grounds of Detroit became a new kind of battlefield, in which the tools of economic prosperity were turned into munitions and machines that would change the course of history.
This is the Memorial Day weekend, when we commemorate our fallen heroes and raise our cancer risk by burning chopped beef. Listening to the media, it looks and sounds like the fallen heroes of the year are not the ones who gave and give their lives in ceaseless wars, but the auto industry. It didn’t quite die. It was medevaced in a TARP and helped by the PTFOA to get over its PTSD.
Instead of thanking the nation’s heroes (he did so in an afterthought, asking for “single acts of kindness”) VP Biden thanked himself: Read More >
After Libya, Yemen and Iran, we are back in the Middle-East this weekend in Syria because let’s face it, this is where world news happens at the moment and the car expert that you are has to be aware of which cars are the best-sellers in the region so you can show off while watching the news: “That’s a Kia Cerrato Forte, right behind that cloud of teargas.” Read More >
As I explained in the introduction to this series last week, I’m finally tackling the story of the most significant car I’ve ever owned. This ’65 Impala went through ten years, 100,000 miles, and many conceptual shifts during its time with me, but it all started out as my attempt to make an art car that wasn’t A) lame and B) contemptuous of the idea of the car itself. Read More >
Acura has had a tough couple of years lately. Of the three products which once defined the company — the Integra/RSX, Legend/RL, and NSX — two are long dead and the other is effectively invisible to the public. This TTAC review more or less sums up our opinion of their current offerings, although recently I met a rather fabulous young lady who temporarily hypnotized me into expressing enthusiasm for the TL.
Something should done. So.. IN A WORLD… WHERE THE MOST SACRED BRANDS HAVE LOST THEIR WAY… ONE MAN… WILL TAKE A STAND.
Sometimes I wonder how it’s even possible for some vehicles to slip through all the steps that should stop them from washing ashore on Crusher Island. Something as useful as a kei-sized dump truck, for example. Read More >
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