Jeremy writes:

Dear Sajeev, I am currently in possession of a 1985 Toyota Celica GT, with a clutch that is perpetually engaged. I originally bought the car when I moved across Canada, as a means of securing a cheap ride until I could save up some money for a down payment on a new car. I paid about $1100 for the car about 6 months ago, which had 165 000 verified kms and now has about 180 000. The car is actually in decent shape with very little rust, a clean interior, new front brakes and wheel bearings, new exhaust, spark plugs, bushings, and drove quite nicely up until now. It was not a problem when it moved because my girlfriend would use it for the day, then park it in our condos ‘visitors’ spots which are to be used for no more than 12 hours, a time limit that is strictly enforced.

I purchased a new car well before all of this, a 2011 Ford Focus (don’t laugh, it was a good price with all the options I wanted compared to the other cars I shopped for), so needless to say driving the Celica was a fun place to go on the weekend after a week of econoboxing. I would love to fix the clutch and keep this car, but I have nowhere to work on it, and don’t really want to pay what a garage would charge me to take it apart and fix it.

What do I do with it?

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Watching the J30/280ZX/SHO battle for the win on laps this afternoon was pretty exciting, but the Index of Effluency (which goes to the terrible car that accomplishes something orders of magnitude beyond what any sane observer considers possible) is what the true LeMons fanatics care about. A 280ZX coming in first is impressive, but how about an 80-horsepower Toyota Tercel EZ taking tenth place overall? How is that possible?
Team Exhibition Of Slow brought their hacked-up late-80s Tercel EZ— the EZ, as aficionados of rent-a-car-grade econoboxes might recall, is the low-budget/stripper “economy” version of the already miserably underpowered third-gen Tercel, complete with carburetor— and drove it around and around and around the MSR track, all weekend long, and received exactly zero black flags. They beat most of the E30s, all the Mustangs, in fact damn near everything on the track. Definitely one of the easiest IOE choices we’ve ever made. Congratulations, Exhibition Of Slow!

The third annual Gator-O-Rama 24 Hours of LeMons endurance race is in the books, and a 29-year-old Datsun just beat out 80 or so competitors— most of them less than half the Datsun’s age— to bring home the Win On Laps trophy for Team Z-Wrecks. Read More >

This faithful TTAC writer enjoys his break from reality to be a judge at the 24 Hours of LeMons. That said, a perk to having the great Murilee Martin on board is that my LeMons coverage now embellishes his: take a look at the ’58 Edsel Ranger pace car we “procured” from a race team.

One thing about the “rat rod” school of design is how great it makes an otherwise junky heap look in the hearts and minds of most bystanders.  An ugly flat black paint job on one of the ugliest cars known to man is a Reeses peanut butter cup of automotive design!  That said, the 1970s forged (yes really) Lincoln mag wheels and 390 V8 from a ’67 Ford Galaxie make the theme cooler than cool.  And the white shag carpet seemingly taken from Dirk Digler’s rumpus room?  Why not, it’s Rat Rod!

Also note the wicked body roll in turn one here at MSR Houston.  And yes, that’s during pace car laps!  Which begs the question, maybe we need more Rat Rod themed rides in Lemons?

As is typical for races at MSR Houston, the mechanical carnage has been quite extreme. We saw sheared axles, blown head gaskets, thrown rods, and a Jetta with its engine dragging on the pavement (the last one is a first in my experience). Still, some cars haven’t broken, and the battle for the win on laps has been cutthroat; meanwhile, the battle for the Index of Effluency— LeMons racing’s top prize, which goes to the team that accomplishes the most with the worst car— seems to have settled into your classic Tercel-versus-Camaro-versus-W110 slugfest. Read More >

Everybody, please say hi to Matt Gasnier, our newest TTAC contributor. Matt has a strange car fetish: He counts them. Out of Sydney, Australia, Matt runs a blog named Best Selling Cars. If your want to know what cars sell best in Austria to Zimbabwe, Best Selling Cars is the go to site. What cars do Afghanistan and Sudan have in common?  The Hilux. Which car is most popular in Sweden? It’s not a Swedish car. Matt will grace TTAC regularly from now on. He wanted to know where he should start. My answer: “Wherever.”

Said Matt: “Why don’t I start with A.” – ED

Most of the car world is either still recovering from the GFC gloom or is suffering the hangover of a couple of artificially boosted years. Only a few countries are at their highest levels ever. Among them China and Brazil (doh!) but little do people know that Argentina also belongs to this super-exclusive club. Read More >

The 24 Hours of LeMons has been coming to MSR Houston since 2008, and it has become one of the toughest, most competitive tracks in the series. Out of the 80 or so cars at the third annual Gator-O-Rama inspections today, at least four are former winners and another half-dozen have multiple top-three finishes. Read More >

Back in the late 50s, Wilhelm Karmann had the inside track in Wolfsburg. His Osnabrück company built the Beetle convertible and the Karmann Ghia (a.k.a. “Typ 14”) for Volkswagen. Rubbing shoulders with Volkswagen engineers and designers, Karmann knew early what others didn’t know: He knew the plans for the notchback VW 1500 “Typ 3”. Karmann shared the secret with the Ghia designers in Turin. Luigi Segre, head of the studio, could not control his excitement. Read More >

As I write this, I’m sitting on the floor of the bag-claim area at the Houston airport, waiting for my LeMons accomplices to arrive from California, with Pantera cranking in my headphones in order to get myself in the proper Texas frame of mind. Yes, races on consecutive weekends; it’s like being in a traveling rock-n-roll band, only with the smell of burning brakes/engines/wiring instead of groupies and limos. With low-budget racing in mind, let’s contemplate a battered little racer that won’t be seeing a track, ever again. Read More >

If you’re a brontosaurus, and you’re reading this, then your hindbrain is just now finding out about mommyblogger Crissy Kight Page and her refusal to spread (the good news about Toyota) for ten bucks. Well, there’s more news about Toyota out there now, and rather than wait for poor Tiffany Lewis of the recently deceased “Mommy Networks” to get the word out, I’m going to put my own money into this new publicity effort.

Mommybloggers, read on to find out how you can earn a $20 Amazon gift card, courtesy of yours truly,this very afternoon!

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You’ll see the occasional Alfa Spider or Milano on the streets of Denver, maybe even a 164, but it’s a special day when a GTV6 appears. This one lives in my neighborhood, just a block or so from the ’52 Kaiser Henry J Corsair daily driver. Read More >

The launch of the new Golf Cabriolet reminded me of a piece of Volkswagen lore: The convertible that never was. A few calls to the Volkswagen History Department (now called “Volkswagen Classic”) later, here is the story: Read More >

Rich writes:

Sajeev,

My New vs. Used dilemma was posted on 2/4/10. Based on your advice, TTAC member feedback and other research, I have made my decision.  Last month I purchased a 2007 Ford Five Hundred SEL 2WD from the local Ford dealer.  The car is just off lease with 28K miles, mechanically excellent, interior almost cherry and exterior very good. The dealer was asking for $14K, I offered $12.5K and we agreed to the Edmunds price of $12.7K.  It drives pretty much as the critics say, great handling for a large car though a bit short on power. The power deficit is not terrible for everyday driving, I just need to rev it a bit.  The motor isn’t tuned for low speed torque; something like GM’s or Ford’s 3.8 would be a better match for this car than the Duratec.  The car returned 21 MPG in suburban driving on my first tankful.

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What does it take to win the Heroic Fix trophy at the heroism-heavy Southern Discomfort 24 Hours of LeMons? Frantic engine swaps are a dime a dozen in LeMons racing, but what happens when the replacement engine goes bad? Read More >

Thanks to embargo issues and a mild amount of player-hating among my so-called peers in the auto media, I cannot disclose my current location. I can, however, note that I had to fly there. I’ve come to utterly detest air travel in the modern age. As a child, I bounced around L-1011s and 747s, indulged by my parents and pinned with Eastern “junior pilot” wings by fresh-smelling, gorgeous young women, often flying alone among urbane, well-dressed fellow passengers, and being greeted by relatives right at the gate.

Today, of course, the story is very different. Modern commercial flight combines two of my least favorite experiences from the 1990’s: being processed into a municipal jail and riding an old Greyhound bus. In fact, air travel nowadays is exactly like prison processing followed by bus travel, with one critical exception: if somebody takes a picture of your, ahem, rooster in the county jail, you are about to be on the payoff end of a lucrative civil case. In the past year I’ve had my genitalia photographed so often I’m starting to wonder where my residual checks might be.

You get the point. Consider the baggage issues, the utter lack of personal hygiene displayed even by business-class passengers, and the fact that one must arrive 90 minutes before the flight to have a fighting chance of making it on board, and it’s no surprise that more and more people are telling me that they’d rather drive.

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