On my way home from Toronto’s trendy Queen West nightlife district, I often take the long way home, up through the newly gentrified working class neighborhoods of the city’s west end, which gives the chance to drive past a row of exotic car dealerships. A quarter mile stretch is home to Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Bentley, Land Rover and Lotus. The Lotus dealer formerly sold Ferraris as well, and the place was a long-time haunt when I was a child, where the only two cars in stock were a Mondial T and a gorgeous British Racing Green Esprit S4.

The same Esprit later ended up in the hands of a neighbor, a geeky looking guy who was probably in IT and also owned an Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight LSS. I had no real idea about the Esprit’s mechanical content, just that it made a fantastic racket when it would tear through the flat, straight stretches of my neighborhood – and I loved the color.

Read More >

When I saw this in the distance, I hustled up to see what it was, hoping it was part of an Airbus or Boeing of some type. It wasn’t, unfortunately. Do you know what it is?

Read More >

I’m normally pretty curmudgeonly about the inherent inferiority of old cars. A 5-year-old Camry will outperform just about every classic Detroit muscle car or Italian sports machine in nearly every category from comfort to acceleration. The windows fog up, you just push a button: problem solved. The asphalt gets rough, you don’t notice it: problem solved. Road trips in 60s cars in the pre-cell-phone era could turn particularly hellish; I’m trying to conjure up a sense of romance from my mid-80s memories of limping a Fairlane with a failing distributor down some godforsaken California Central Valley highway, in search of a junkyard with a Windsor-equipped donor car… and I just can’t do it. Yeah, the good old days were really pretty terrible. However, all that sensible real-world nonsense gets thrown right out the window when I go for a nighttime drive in rural America in a rattly-ass old car and a good song comes on the radio. Quick, get me a ’71 Plymouth Cricket and a stretch of two-lane! Read More >

While 3D has been getting a big push from Hollywood and the video game and television set industries, consumers have not yet wholeheartedly embraced 3D when it comes to home tv. Stereo photos and videos can be visually stunning and emotionally evocative, but for many people 3D is a no-starter because current 3D tv requires using special glasses of one kind or another. It’s possible though, that consumer acceptance of 3D may come from an unexpected area, the automotive sector. While the technology for autostereoscopic, glasses-free, displays exists right now, there are cost, distance, and viewing angle issues that keep them from being currently applicable for home television sets. Those issues, however, may not exist for automotive applications. In fact, 3D technology is advancing so rapidly that cars may present particularly appropriate applications for the current state of the 3D art.

Read More >

Carlton writes:

It sure would be nice if TTAC would do a piece about seat comfort. My wife has back problems and is not comfortable on long drives in our Mazda 6. I know comfort is largely subjective but are there any objective metrics available? Upright seating position seems to be better for both of us and a firm cushion is much preferred over soft.

I’ll bet many other readers are interested in this subject too.

Read More >

With the AMC Eagle being such a historically significant car, let’s hope at least a few of them survive the next decade. We saw this brown ’85 Eagle wagon last week, and this black ’84 wagon will join it in a Fujian steel plant soon enough. Read More >

Where were we? After Day One of the SCCA National Solo Tour event at Atlanta Motor Speedway, I was in eighth place and destined to do some jort shopping. And yes, dear readers, I have a humiliating jort photo for you, because You Deserve It(tm).

What happened on Day Two? Well, it’s confusing. I got better, considerably so. But the competition got better, too. On Day Two, I finished seventh. In road racing, the results would look like this: one eighth place and one seventh place. (Also, in road racing I would have put somebody into the Armco before taking a crap result like that.) This being autocross, however, it’s only natural that I ended up with ninth place. And 113th. Of course. 113th place.
Read More >

Though the EPA won’t actually announce its 2025 CAFE standard until September, the California Air Resources Board’ insistence on a 62 MPG standard for ’25 has the industry’s analysts and talking heads in something of a frenzy. Smelling the smoke on the breeze, Automotive News [via AutoWeek] trots out a range of interpretations of the proposed 62 MPG standard, from the frightening to the apocalyptic. Cost increases per vehicle for a 62 MPG by 2025 standard are estimated by government agencies at $3,500 “at most,” while Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers reckons they’ll run “as much as $6,400.” Sean McAlinden of the notoriously industry-friendly Center for Automotive Research figures the market will have to shift to 64% plug-in hybrids, at a price increase of $9,970 per vehicle, while the AAM adds that 62 by 20205 “could cut car sales by 25 percent, costing the industry 220,000 jobs.” And the EPA seems to be listening to the rising chorus of grumbles, as the agency’s Margo Oge soothed the locals on a recent visit to Detroit with the words

We will be very mindful — and I underline ‘mindful’ — of the consumer throughout this process. Unless people buy these new clean cars and trucks, and buy them in large numbers, everyone loses.

But if CARB wants 62 MPG by 2025, it will get it from the EPA. Which means the real question is simply how much will the standard actually add to per-vehicle costs? Is the industry inflating its numbers in hope of a teaspoon of federal sugar to help the medicine go down? Is the 62 MPG standard really an industry killer?

Read More >

TTAC reader Tiburon Guy writes:

Hey Sajeev,

Long time I know: I still have the Hyundai, fixed up and kicking butt. I ditched my 2000 Ford Mustang v6 and bought a 2010 Ranger XLT. No regrets at all: 24 MPG city…come on!

The real reason why i’m responding is I have a question: I always wanted a car from my birth year. (1982) Thing is, the early 80’s weren’t too kind aesthetically on domestics. With a budget of 8-10k, what would you guys suggest that I should get from 82 that looks good, rides better, and won’t leave me broke from maintenance and repairs?

Read More >

The Index of Effluency goes to the LeMons team that accomplishes a feat far beyond their vehicle’s purported abilities, and the chances for an IOE go way, way up when you race a General Motors product. The IOE chase in the Loudon Annoying 24 Hours of LeMons devolved into a Chevette-versus-Storm battle early on and stayed that way all weekend. Read More >

Most of the time, the winner on laps of a 24 Hours of LeMons race takes the checkered flag with a nail-biting half-lap cushion, but that’s not how it went for the Goin’ Nuclear 1989 Honda Civic. This team built up a double-digit lead by Saturday afternoon, defended it all day Sunday, and ended the day with 14 more laps than the second-place car (an Accord). Read More >

Today was a long, grueling day of racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, with the occasional break for lightning storms and cleanup of oil from multiple catastrophic engine nukings. Read More >

When I agreed to drive a Honda S2000 in Atlanta’s SCCA National Tour event, I didn’t realize that, not only would this close a three-year-long gap in my autocross career, that I would be competing at the site of the last autocross I ran, back in 2008. (My review of the F-250 PowerStroke six-speed manual I used to tow a car there and back can be found here, by the way.)

Well, I sucked back then and I sucked today. Until the very last runs of the day, I was actually DFL in a ten-car field, although I feel compelled to note that two of the other nine drivers were 2010 SCCA National Champions and all of them had a few years’ experiencing autocrossing S2000s. With my third and final attempt at the course, I managed to incompetently bounce my way up to eighth place.

Unfortunately, that places me in the Jorts Zone.

Read More >

So you thought all the fuss about the Royal Wedding was over for good? Wait for it… no it’s not! What better opportunity will I ever have to bring you up-to-date on the British car market?

About one a day. But then, the alternative would have been another Toyota Hilux series to celebrate the other occasion of last weekend.

Should you be well and truly over anything remotely connected to British royalty, that’s ok, I understand. And there are 153 other countries to explore in my blog. You will enjoy it because it is grand.

Back to the Queen and all. Read More >

Here I am, starting another three-races-in-three-weeks road trip, this time at the NASCAR-O-riffic Loudon Motor Speedway in New Hampshire. After an excellent, chowder-saturated seafood dinner, the LeMons HQ staff is still contemplating this weekend’s exceptionally good crop of great race cars. And by “great,” we mean “awesomely terrible.” Read More >