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What Makes a Man Smoke Tires? Gasoline, Petrol, Benzin or Benzina?
On the occasion of the day after D. Boon's birthday, and having had all manner of fuel scents drift in from the harbor over the last few days, we started wondering why what we yanks call "gasoline" has so many names around the world. The Germans refer to it as "Benzin," based on the fuel's benzene quotient. The Italians have been known to sell cars, such as the 308 GT4, in North America with a "benzina" gauge to measure the amount of fuel in the tank. And of course, the Brits, their former subordinates and Americans with a penchant for affectation refer to gasoline as "petrol." Which one is coolest? Watch the Minutemen play "Jesus and Tequila" out on San Pedro Bay while you decide. Godspeed, D. More »
retro
More Fun With Jackstands: The Great White Whale of Pedro
While not quite the quad-flat Merc Limo of 'Gundo, this Cadillac's been sitting on 22nd Street right next to the sidewalk for the last couple of weeks or so. Sure, it's missing a couple of wheels, but since it's for sale, this display tactic allows potential buyers to check out the brakes. Nearby sits a primered El Camino with a flat, which we will show you sooner than rather. Ah, the GM cars of San Pedro by the Bay. It really, really is a whale of a town. More »
retro
Transport Revolution! The Great Hoverchair of San Pedro!
Despite what y'all think, we at Jalopnik to do not spend our days tearing around in Torino Talladegas playing the Angry Samoans at high volume, outrunning the Los Angeles Police Department and California Highway Patrol, mowing down sidewalk fruit stands and supping on the finest lobster bisque at sunset on the beach with Jodie Kidd on one arm and Sabine Schmitz on the other as the sun drops behind Catalina. We haven't even illicitly airbrushed a Viking mural on the side of an Isuzu I-Mark in nigh on three months. No, mostly we just sit around and look for things to write about. Now and then, to clear our head and purchase a refreshment and/or snack, we walk the half-block to the bodega. This afternoon, we stumbled upon it: The Great Hoverchair of San Pedro, a previously-thought-mythical device designed to ease Angelenos' commuting woes somewhere in the early 1990s. More »
news
Transport in Los Angeles: It Exists!
The Pacific Electric Red Cars were legendary in prewar Los Angeles part of a 1,500-mile streetcar network that enabled the city to grow before everyone had sixteen cars and a Mike Brady-designed ranch house. A few years back they restored one of the old streetcars and used it as a model to construct replicas which run up and down the San Pedro waterfront from the cruise ship terminal down to 22nd Street. But they're not all that's left of public transit in LA, in fact, there's been a massive push out here to increase the system's efficiency. And amazingly, in Southern California — land of the auto-centric solipsist — it's actually starting to work. More »
news
Toyota Hybrid Exec David Hermance Dies In Plane Crash Off Cali Coast
There's an bit of space in the air off of the SoCal coast, right near our West Coast office in San Pedro, that's reserved for aeronautic acrobatic stunts. David Hermance, 59, Toyota's top American exec for alt-fuel vehicles and emissions tech, was well known as a pilot who enjoyed a bit of the loop-de-looping in this bit of blue sky. Unfortunately, according to Mark Rechtin of Automotive News, Hermance took one loop too many yesterday, and the engine of the airplane he was piloting, an Interavia E-3,...revved hard during a descent but the plane did not pull up and hit the water.Rechtin, who heard the crash at his home in the San Pedro area, tells us Hermance spent 26 years at... More »
news
Peterbilt Goes Hybrid, We Applaud Peterbilt
In San Pedro there is problem. And the problem is transport. We hammer on this point like Sweet Peet on his "product, product, product" mantra, but the movement of goods in and out of the harbor has created a massive air-pollution problem. One application where we see hybrid technology as especially beneficial is in medium-to-heavy-duty, short-haul vehicles that require serious torque to get up and go. Just like the container-bearing trucks that clog the southern terminus of the 710 at practically all hours. Peterbilt (East Bay, represent!) apparently agrees and will be displaying two new vehicles at the Hybrid Truck Users Forum next week in San Diego. (Who knew there was such a gathering?) More »
news
Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach Revise Environmental Plans
Yesterday was one of the hottest November Sixths we can remember. According to the owner of the bodega, it hit 93 in LA, although we're sure it was a bit cooler in Pedro. Nevertheless, it resulted in some of the worst harbor smog we've seen in the year Jalopnik's Los Angeles bureau has been in operation. More »
novelties
David Johansen is Making Out With ParanoidAndroid07
We really thought the Loverman would nail this one, but apparently, commenter ParanoidAndroid07's taste in experimental rock ranges beyond mopey Brit-types and into at-all-costs San Pedro corndogs obsessed with politics, poetry and brevity. Here's the winning comment: "Because it is the Daihatsu Boon and has a D on it. D Boon." Now, Android, all you have to do is find David Johansen, tell him that you heard he was looking for a kiss and that Jalopnik sent you. Good job, son. As Lance Hahn of J Church once sung, "It's my turn to play a tape. I feel like hearing the Minutemen. 'Cause everything old is new again." More »
retro
Jamming Econo With the Fiat X1/9
Quick break from Maximum Mopar Day. Reader Ben suggested this, and while we've considered posting it for a a while, we thought we'd drop a train on y'all in the form of Angeleno X1/9 footage, not to mention the inclusion of the greatest Van Halen cover ever covered. Ever. We Jam Econo is available on DVD as of this moment, and we highly recommend picking it up. Now get your hands in there and feel what the people are all about! More »
news
Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to Clean Up
The other day, Bumbeck said to us, "Man, I may as well just go back to smoking," in reference to the air quality in LA. He's up in the hills, while we're at the tip of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. We're also three blocks from the Port of Los Angeles, which, combined with the Port of Long Beach, create the busiest port facility in the US, and the fourth-largest in the world. What's more the ports handle a mind-boggling 40% of the cargo to enter the United States each year. And due to the ships' massive two-stroke diesels burning high-sulfur fuel and the aging fleet of short-haul trucks used to ferry cargo from berths to railcars, it's also a source of massive air pollution. Officials have just revealed a plan to change that. More »
interstate
America's First Freeway: The 110
ThnderBlt's comment on this post got us thinking about what's alternately known as the Harbor Freeway and the Pasadena Freeway and can be generally summed up by its route number, the 110. Designed by a man named Spencer Cortelyou (who, coincidentally, is the great-great uncle of the first girl we ever made out with), the former Arroyo Seco Parkway was originally built to connect Pasadena with Los Angeles. More »
retro
Bombas Por Vida!
Lately, we've been a little obsessed with bombas. Maybe it's because it's summer, and the Mexican guys around Pedro are dragging 'em out of the garage and parading them around. These cars were harbingers; the first customs, and they've got a look today that totally endures. They won't look dorky and anachronistic like todays billet rods will in 10 or 15 years. They're an eternal cool, and you simply can't touch them. What's more, when you see a guy cruising down an alley in San Pedro in his bomb with a laundry basket in the back and then spot the car parked at the laundromat, it's like Prozac for the gearhead soul. The sound of San Pedro isn't the Chevy small block. It's the Stovebolt six. More »
retro
The Lonely Barracuda of Pedro
We've been walking by this forlorn Valiant derivative for a week or so now, and every time we see it, our heart sinks a bit. Oh, sweet little A-Body, won't somebody take you home, love you, buff you out and buy you a new fender and headlight assembly? Maybe slip a nice 340 between the rails of your front subframe? You just look so morose; like an automotive Strong Sad knowing that some Mustang's going to come along and make fun of you. But remember, little Barracuda: the Hemi Under Glass wasn't a lowly pony; it was a snarling, roaring, wheelstanding fish. So buck up. More »
news
Vintage Bike Radness Happens in Pedro
Bumbeck came down from the hills in the Mighty Starlet to catch a showing of Cars today (which totally brought out the softy in us, and may well be our favorite Pixar film yet — disregard the haters and see it). He calls and says, "Hey, I just ran across this awesome bike show," which happened to be at Century Motorcycles (since 1936!), only a few blocks up from us on Pacific. We'd been meaning to check the shop out, and we're kicking ourselves for not going in sooner. Oh man...if your tastes run toward old bikes, we have to say, this show was a killer. Even the Harleys there were well-sorted, although most of the machines were either of British or Japanese origin. This might well be the best motorcycle show we've ever attended, because practically everything there was a runner, and those that weren't, well, they were all rad and weird in their own way. Click through for a grip of photos. More »
commentary
These Are the Vehicles in Your Neighborhood: More of San Pedro's Lost Cars
A few months ago, we rocked a set of photos of the random vehicles we found down by the marina. Now, here's a random sampling of what can be found by merely walking from our house to Louie's Chinese Restaurant #2, known around these parts as "Dollar Chinese"...for good reason. Sit back, relax, put on your headgear, get ready for a trip through the Pedrosphere. We're gonna take you on a ride through the Harbor Zone. We don't need a space ship, we've got our internet phone.More »
news
This World is Big, And So Are We: Trans-Americas Journey
When Ray and Austin crashed the parade in Indy and ended up in a car with Karen Catchpole and her husband Eric Mohl, the masterminds behind Transamericas Journey, for some reason, it didn't click. And then in some sort of delayed reaction, we hear from the mighty Lew last night, saying "Karen Catchpole!" And it still didn't click. And then he added context clues and we were like, "Oh, duh. That Karen Catchpole!" More »
retro
