Our favorite thing about TVR: Jeremy Clarkson saying, "TVR Spetsnaz!" when musing on new names for the cars now that the company was under Russian ownership. And that's just because we always thought "Spetsnaz" was an especially badass word. We call part our special forces SEALs, fergodssake. They may be goat-humping…
Laverty, apparently, missed our usual Friday commentary on his beloved-of-tha-Jalop "Rubbish Cars We Love" story. So he e-mailed us. In our defense, Chris, we were on assignment, then we were taking a well-deserved four-day break from the computer, the likes of which hasn't been seen at this particular Jalop bureau…
Back in 1987, our rich uncle bought a car to keep in Northern Ireland. He drove an Audi 100 Estate himself, but the long drive up to Scotland to catch the ferry over to Larne was wearing on him. So he picked up a used Granada and let our dad drive it while we were over visiting. On a trip down to Dublin, we ended up…
Vauxhall's not-so-worthy semi-successor to the chav-tastic Opel Manta, the Calibra, is the subject of Laverty's editorial love/hate this fine Saint Paddy's morn'. We're not wearing green today, which is funny, considering we're Irish and it's our favorite color, but there's nobody around to pinch us, anyway. But we've …
Laverty goes off on Ford's Orion, the line-filler between their Escort and the Sierra in Europe. And he doesn't have much love for the beastie, saying,"If we are not coming across as chuffed to bits with the Ford Orion, we apologise. If you drive one of these things and we have offended you by suggesting you can t…
Whoa. Laverty really takes this rubbish car thing seriously, having put his money where his mouth is in the case of the Subaru Justy, noting: "the Justy s safety and reliability report is generally good. For us good meant shock absorbers popping up through the rear wheel arches, clutch cable snapping at the world s…
We have to say that lately, the idea of snapping up an old Jaguar for cheap has been really appealing. And here in LA, there're tons of 'em. Then we start thinking, "Well, um, we could easily afford the car, but we can't afford the repair bills." Still, it might be fun to buy one just to do something ridiculously stupid …
Oh man, we can't believe how long it took Laverty to get around to this one, because it's possibly the OG lovable rubbish car, but bwahs and grills (as Miss Frueh, our fully-awesome pre-Alegebra teacher, was wont to say), the Renault 5 is thee business. As a child in a stroller, we always marveled at the Le Cars…
Laverty makes a good point in his latest diatribe: "You might not feel very special in a brand new BMW nowadays (6 Series apart), but once upon a time kids used to put pictures of the things on their bedroom walls." And whaddaya know? The Brit bastard's right. While modern Bimmers feature all the bells, whistles and…
Laverty seems to be reaching a bit this week; both in his car of choice and his defense of it. This week's example of automotive crapitude? The Rover 200. The Hecklerspray scribe suggests buying a 1.4L saloon, which to us doesn't sound like a whole helluva lot of fun at all, but you know, the Brits have their quirks,…
