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If your travel plans for Thanksgiving involve sitting behind the wheel for a few hours until you get to your destination, there are still a few things you should do before you leave to make sure that you get to your destination quickly and safely. More »
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In the days after the 9/11 attacks, the trio of Liz Taylor, Marlon Brando, and Michael Jackson found themselves trapped in New York where they'd gone to see the latter's concert at Madison Square Garden on September 10th. Unable to procure a private jet home, the three rented a car and drove to Ohio in what has to be one of the strangest road trips in history. It's The Hangover meets a circa-1985 National Enquirer wet dream. More »
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I've got plenty of tales of the wretched heaps I've owned over the years, but I lack sufficient photographic evidence of my Free Beater Era. Now, however, I've unearthed this old shot of the legendary Free '68 Volvo 144. More »
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The Renault Dauphine isn't the most reliable, well-built, or powerful car to come out of France. That's why mechanic Jonathan Burnette is taking one on an epic road trip from Austin, Texas to Alaska — more than 7000 miles. More »
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Some of you may have noticed that the quantity of my posts has been down for the last month or so. That's because I've been busy pulling up stakes and heading to the Mountain Time Zone. More »
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You've always wanted to drive a horrible rattletrap of a cheap-ass car from New York City to New Orleans during the summer heat, yes? Of course! Well, now you can take that trip in the company of many like-minded rallyers! More »
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Louie Mattar's 1947 Cadillac came with everything required to survive a long road trip, grill, television, toilet and… hookah. He took his Turkish water-pipe-equipped machine and set a world record with it. More »
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Since the first BumperCam, last summer, I've been experimenting with timelapse cameras. We've seen timelapses of LeMons BS Inspections at Nelson Ledges, MSR Houston, and Thunderhill, not to mention the Alameda to Los Angeles In 90 Seconds video. More »
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We were all suitably impressed by Belgium to India in a Chrysler Newport and Argentina to Alaska in a Renault 12, but who among us would be willing to drive a Saab Toppola from Sweden to Vietnam and back? More »
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Since I've already plugged all this crappy analog video hardware into my computer in order to digitize the glory of a '79 Ford Granada, we might as well continue to unearth car-related tidbits from the Murilee Martin Videotape Archives. More »
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Curious where to find the world's largest artichoke, ear of corn, or talking loon? What about the largest chair in the world? Roadside attractions and horrendous murders are what make us remember small town America exists. [HowStuffWorks.com] More »
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A couple weeks back, I drove across Wisconsin, en route from my cousin's wedding in southeastern Minnesota (ancestral home of the Martin clan) to my SO's family vacation cabin on the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin. More »
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Looking to do a little scenic drive with your girlfriend and young son… from Belgium to India and back, with a load of hash in secret compartments? What vehicle would you choose? Exactly: Newport! More »
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Motoring journalist Rich Truesdell became a car geek when he saw Phil Hill drive the Ford GT40 at Le Mans in 1964. Forty years later, he caught up with him. More »
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Anybody with a set of XY chromosomes dreams of ditching everything after high school or college, and taking an RV with some buddies to travel around the country in a massive road trip adventure. Few follow through on this dream of dreams, but these guys from Japan decided to build a two story, fully outfitted, transforming masterpiece of travel to do just that. The whole story and a video of the transformation below.

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First of all, the DOTS Triumph TR3A we saw yesterday is a '59- at least, many of its parts are from that year- not a '60 as I guessed calculated. But that doesn't matter, because it turns out that the owner is a Jalopnik reader and he's just brought the car to Alameda from Pennsylvania in a wild-eyed, road-food-scarfing, .357-brandishing, 10-day journey. Yes, this road trip manages to counter a lot of stereotypes we might be harboring of breakdown-prone British cars driven by tedious old guys in tweed caps. Did he take photographs for us to enjoy? Did the Stag's V8 suck? Of course he did; follow Vin's adventures in this Flickr set! More »
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It wouldn't be a Jalopnik Automotive Amerigasm without a nod to the places that make American automotive history so great. Eddie Izzard may joke that he's from "Europe, where the history comes from," but the relative young age of the auto industry means our automotive history is as old and rich as anyone's...and of course, more American. Whether you have plans for the Fourth of July weekend or not, there's no better way to celebrate our country's freedom than by enjoying the freedom to drive somewhere and overspend at the gift shop. Below is our list of ten great American automotive pilgrimages for those that worship at the altar of wheeled transportation. More »
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With summer here, we've been thinking a lot about great road trip vehicles. So, while we adapt to soaring fuel prices, we wave goodbye to the days of care-free cross-country gas-guzzling. You know, the kind of thing embodied by the Wagon Queen Family Truckster from National Lampoon's Vacation. Yes, before monster SUVs became popular, big wagons with faux wood trim were the kings of the road. But what we have here isn't just any ol' Truckster. More »
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Oh, boy: Another hot summer day, another list of top vehicles for a road trip. Whereas Kelley Blue Book's top road trip cars list — the last such list we had to endure — was one of the more strange groupings we've seen, today's list from Automobile is absolutely sexy. What, you don't think the Sprinter's sexy? You ever seen the Mercedes diesel it's got under the hood? We're not kidding when we say it's like butter. Really thick, viscous, black butter, but butter nonetheless. Hit the jump for the full list. More »
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A lot can happen when you serve as an Air Force Apache helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. For Daniel McConnell, things were going great until a crash that cost him his arm, caused a traumatic brain injury, and ended his career with an honorable discharge. After recovering and spending some time in med school, Daniel took a summer off (this summer) and decided to hop into a thousand-dollar Suburban and tour the country for which he served. Heck, we'll let him tell you all about it: More »
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Earlier today we shared with you a list of what someone else thought the 10 Best New Road Trip Cars were. Though we like the listmaker's spunk in naming the Veyron, we disagree with the notion that only new cars are best for road trips (and with the idea of crossing the country in an Eos). It does bring up the question not only of what is the best road tripping car, but what makes the best road tripping car. Is it size? Mileage? Speed? Comfort? Stealth? The perfect combination of all of these features? More »
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Three guys from Utah have set out to drive through the contiguous 48 states in record time. Starting out Sunday in Vermont, they're already in Wyoming on the way to North Dakota with the goal of getting home to Utah, via nine more states, by Friday. The time to beat is 5 days, 7 hours and 15 minutes. Joey Stocking, Adam Gatherum and Josh Keeler think they can do it in three hours less. More »
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After Highmile sent us the tip about the free buried mobster car, he then hipped us to this amazing tale of an Oregon-to-Arizona-and-back road trip to fetch 11 tons of Rover parts from the Lost Dutchman of desert junkyards. Audi 3-6s... Citröen Meharis... ancient Datsuns... Simcas... you name it, this yard has it. However, the bad news is that the new owners of the yard have a sacrilegious plan to scrap every one of these hyper-rare imports. The pain! Make the jump for even more photos. [Pangolin4x4] More »
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You didn't think we could actually make it through any trip without bringing you local Camino action did you? Here's a bitchin' Skoda Felicia Fun doing its duty as a pizza delivery truck/car in Schesslitz. Way more dignified than the last Fun we brought you. Could there be a better match? Pizza delivery, Camino-ness, fuel economy, plenty of room for cases of bier in the back... it's perfect! There's something so right about that missing hubcap too. Ristorante bei Peppo Skoda-camino driver, today's real Bavarian hero. More »
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Earlier we introduced you to Akl's garage, now we're going to show you Akl's daily driver. Parked right in front of that bitching treasure chest is a 1974 BMW 2000Tii Touring. That's right the BMW boys built a touring model of the uber-tossable little sedan - sort of the German version of a shooting brake. While there are probably only about a hundred of these in all of Germany, Akl puts twenty thousand clicks on his, thumbing his nose at the namby pamby preservationist sissies. Putting on all those K's would seem like a tedious business given the stop-go and heavy truck traffic of the modern, EU border crossing free Autobahn. That's were Akl has a clever little trick up his sleeve. He has equipped it a 1600E Becker Mexico vintage modern stereo system. Yep, the one that looks old, but hides the CF and SD reader built into it. We can't help but wonder if this was the inspiration for that M Coupe that's perrenially on our list to Santa. Dig that copper paint job. More »
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Alexander "Akl" Z. is a man living what many of us would consider "the dream." He has a nice big house in the German countryside, not one, but two, two lift garages, a positive pressure paint booth, and more automotive treasures than you can shake a schweinebraten at. Keeping messy garages full of cool cars must be a German national pastime. Under the vintage black Mercedes is a competition ready BMW 2002 set up for hill climb racing. Against the back wall is an E21 set up for cup racing. Under the mint condition BMW 3.0 CSi is an old Escort destined for rally time. Another something sits in the middle of it all after a fresh paint job. It looks French, but that's highly doubtful in Germany, anybody know what that is? We especially dig the palm trees littering the garage, it makes things feel so exotic. We're used to the girly posters and smelly old dogs, but this works too. More »
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A man like Dieter is never content with just one barn full of cars and tools and gadgets. Less than a kilometer away from his shop, Dieter has his treasure barn. From the road it's so unassuming that you'd never know it could contain an 850Ci and a 440 Duster. In addition to those, there's at least an ancient Tatra, a pumped up BMW 2002, the skeletal (and really cool) remains of an Opel Speedster and a rack of about 50 various hoods for some reason. This is also where Dieter keeps the molds for a BMW M1 that's he's recreating. Oh yeah, that wooden frame upside down on the red car, that's the body frame for the BMW 328 we told you about earlier. This level of chaos in our own garage would drive us bonkers, but damn, this place is awesome.

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Our German buddy, The Bouncer, was a garage rat growing up. We could clog the tubes with his stories of Deutschland hoonage in hypermodified BMWs and mythical Porsches. As a result of this, we've got the inside track on some of Bavaria's most respected garages and their automeisters. This particular fellow is Dieter W. His full name and location will remain anonymous for reasons that will become evident shortly. Dieter is a BMW guy. His garage services only the steel of the Bayerische Motoren Werk and he's got an unbelievable little secret in one of his work bays. More »
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Oh sweet Christkindle, we've found VW's best car ever and it's called the VW Golf Country. Just as we were being screwed at the gas pump filling up, the traffic cleared and this came into view across the street. You all should have been there to see the frantic scramble for the camera as we raced against the owners' intent to scramble with our new found love. Even though these picture make us feel like half private eye, half stalker, we can't help it; seeing this super rare, four wheel drive, Mark 2 Golf is like catching Sasquatch riding the Loch Ness monster like a big wet pony. We're loving the high res shots showing the bashed front fascia and busted up fender flares, the field repairs on the wiring, the chintzy 80's style decals, oh my, it's almost too much.

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Job one when we made our way into Bamberg on the first day was to replace the anemic and poorly appointed Mercedes B-Class rental (seriously, how does that thing wear a star?) with a far more capable and comfortable Audi A4 mit 2.0 TDi. While we were on this mission, we came across this spectacular beauty. Making kei-cars look like my Lincoln, this "Substop" delivery truck was like manna from bizarro heaven. We're pretty sure that it's worn as a backpack during delivery runs. The utter hoonage that could result from matching this with a Hayabusa mill and cheater slicks is unfathomable. They should be distributed in pairs, one for each pocket. More »
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While Jonny was being such a crybaby about the hanging out in lousy old California in Saturday's QOTD, I decided to go to Germany to escape the thirteen inches of snow that fell in good old D-town. You'll find the reasoning here is solid; After years of half-assed jokes about Germans and their preoccupation with automotive perfection, (as well as myriad poorly spelled jokes about various aluminum und schteel loving brands) it was decided that the time had come to check the place out in person. Sure, we've been all over the übershow that is Frankfurt, and we've shown you what comes out of Essen, but we've never really gotten to know Germany. It was mostly just a relationship of convenience where we never called the next day. This time we're serious, we're committed, we want to know all of Germany's friends and hang out in the cold drinking Gluhwein at the Weihnacht's Markt. Oh yeah, and completely geek out over the cars. Stay tuned for Deutschland-centric craziness. More »
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The 2008 Ford Mustang Bullitt edition doesn't have quad camshafts or forty-eight valves in the cylinder heads. There is no turbocharger under the hood. The Mustang doesn't pack an eight speed twin-clutch super sequential transmission. The Mustang needs not even one of these things to be exactly what it is - a purely American machine that's a blast to drive. More »
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Look closely at the turned aluminum 2008 Ford Mustang Bullitt dash accent and observe that we are stuck in traffic. We called Delgetti to see if he could clear it up and cover the exits. Until then we fired up the sweet talking onboard navigation to guide us. 25 miles to go. More »
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Pea soup fog at both Burbank and San Francisco airports has provided a few moments to reflect on this ten foot long TWA Lockheed Constellation model suspended above our seat. The plane was designed by Kelly Johnson and served not only as one of the first pressurized commercial airliners, but also under President Eisenhower. The 34th grand poobah had two Constellations to choose from, with one likely used to survey construction of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. The Constellation was built right here in Burbank, where we're sitting. Grounded, Johnny! More »
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The man known as Coop has installed a bang up gallery of Speed Week at Bonneville photos on the Flickr. Bathe your eyeballs with the 1327 pics that Coop took while he was out there. More »
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Driving about in a Chevrolet Corvette Z06 it's easy to forget that while the formula for American muscle cars is still very much alive, refinements in technology have changed the experience drastically. Case in point is this 1972 Dodge Challenger. I drove this beast last year from Carlisle, Pensylvania to Detroit after having roadtripped from Motor City mostly in the passenger seat. This was not by any means a completely original machine, but the core of what rolled off the line in the '70s was still very much with it. More »
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Directly north of the Grapevine the two paths of State 99 and Interstate 5 diverge. While we were supposed to head north on the 5, psychic power steered us towards the walmart in Bakersfield. The reason? We needed a 12v AC inverter so we could broadcast from the 58, heading west. More »
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Johnson and Bumbeck have made out of the basin and are in Gorman - the gem of the Tehachapis. Here we have witnessed a forgotten limo, waving flags, french fries, salt, and a rolled Montero. The mystery bucket revealed itself in the form of a Kia Sorento, which is still rolling. Coalinga or bust! More »
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Since today is Friday, and folks are looking to hit the road on a gorgeous summer day, here's something for all of your vacationers. So no, that's not the formula for determination of FoMoCo's sales or how much money DaimlerChrysler's spent on the "Dr Z" ad campaign. Rather, it's a formula created by the folks at Leapfrog, the interactive kiddie porn education software/hardware company. Devised by one of the company's well travelled management consultants, who's raising two sets of twins, the formula combines key travel factors, personal experience and expertise to equate the following: More »
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Two Italian men have arrived in China, after a three-month trek in a Fiat the size of an Anoplophora glabripennis. The average Asian Longhorned beetle, however, would have had far fewer miles on it than the 1973 Fiat 500 R did before the two began their trip from Turin, Italy to Bejing. Along the way, the two were nearly done in by unrest in Kyrgyzstan, the harsh plains of Siberia and submarine-grade close-quarters insanity. But holy hell, they made it. More »
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