Ray Bradbury — author of The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and many more literary classics — died this morning in Los Angeles, at the age of 91.

Steve Jobs is dead. The Apple chairman and former CEO who made personal computers, smartphones, tablets, and digital animation mass-market products passed away today. We're going to miss him. Deeply, and personally.

English director Peter Yates, known to enthusiasts as the director of Bullitt and therefore cinema's most famous car chase, passed away today at age 82. Here's the 11 minutes we'll always remember him for.

Hiromu Naruse, the chief test driver for Toyota who had a hand in every great sports car built by the Japanese giant since the 1960s, died in June while testing his masterpiece, the Lexus LF-A. Now Toyota is paying tribute.

Jerry Flint, the official curmudgeon of the auto journalism world whose career dated to the Eisenhower administration, died Saturday. We fly our ascots at half-staff in his honor today.

Comic writer and infamous curmudgeon Harvey Pekar touched on a lot of subjects — mostly to complain about them. As we mourn his passing, we remember his gift of putting our displeasure into words. Here's Pekar on speed traps. [WKSU]

Seven decades after its birth, Mercury is dead. We don't mourn the loss, but we don't rejoice, either. To be honest, we don't feel a thing. Do you care? Does Ford? Does anyone?

Donald N. Frey, the engineer who led the team that gave us the first Ford Mustang, passed away today March 5th. He was 86 years old.

Jan Gabriel, the Chicago-area motorsport announcer who popularized the phrase "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!", died last week at 69. He got his start as a sock-hop disc jockey and eventually moved into automotive television. Fittingly, he passed on a Sunday.

Robert Novak, who achieved notoriety in the 1960s as a political columnist and in 2008 as the driver of a Corvette involved in a hit-and-run accident, died of a brain tumor today at his Washington home.