orlove
Raphael Orlove
orlove
Raphael Orlove is features editor for Jalopnik.

skimming the beach on their ultra-low takeoffs and landings Read more

Now playing

I used to like the sound of a turbo chirping until I faced the consequences of a little thing called compressor surge. I loved how my car sounded like a mutant turkey between upshifts but I didn’t like it as much when a brand new $750+ Turbonetics unit went FUBAR in under a year. Truth be told, the previous owner had

I’m the uploader of that video. And an accompanying leaflet states that max power is 585ps @ 10750rpm, and max torque is 38.2kgm @ 10500rpm. Hope that clears it. Read more

Even if the nose of the car is pointed more than 90* into the apex, some of these cars have up to a 70* degree steering angle (that’s forklift territory), and the front wheels are still capable of pulling the nose back into the turn. Think about it this way, if you’re at a 140* angle, it should only take just over 50* Read more

The force exerted by the friction of the tires on the wet road surface cannot immediately overcome the car’s forward momentum. As the car slows, the grip of the tires is sufficient to change the car’s direction.
Read more

The physics appears normal to me. The rear gets sliding while the front still has grip. The rear end comes around then the front loses traction and the car slides ass first into the curve. I see something that is tricky to do intentionally but perfectly within normal driving physics.
Read more

He was one the “American” team because the D1GP events were Japan vs America. I was at the one in Fontana at California speedway and I believe he won that event. The GP race was awesome fun to watch too, all the Japanese race cars in the states live. Those were the days. Read more

My buddy took his stripped, drift built E36 M3 to autocross with good tires and lost to my base 944. Read more

Fun anecdote, I can’t find the source again but. Once read an article the pointless roll bar in the PT Cruiser convertable. Aparently the resin that was first put on the car was because when they finished mocking one up for the first time and stood back to look at it, someone said something along the lines of “my god, Read more

Super GT challenges your long-held beliefs on production Japanese cars, man.

By

I know this is hard to believe, but I worked in a little import shop in Ohio that had a Maserati 5000, sitting in its showroom for most of the 80's-90's. The owner of said shop was well known for his “stories” and I always thought this car was more make believe than a real thing. I got to know some of its back story, Read more

It’s obvious this guy has loads of inside info from local sources on what exact parts he needs to do this job and reliably get it running - as well as have four functional wheels/tires local ready to be installed. Read more

my dad has the glovebox out of that in his jetta Read more

I think this is the car you are thinking of. The guy who let this car was a water engineer in Half Moon Bay, CA. Someone tracked him down from the Harlequin registry and an article in SF Gate. Word was he let the car go to the yard because it wouldn’t pass emmissions, and was ticked that someone had tracked him down Read more

There is so much to the story on his car that this article can’t get in one blog post. For one thing a dozen people tried to save this car from the yard and were met with a brick wall. It took someone with some ties to VWoA to get them to budge. By that time the vultures had decendended and ppl on FB were bragging

I’m not a VW fan by any means, but I loved reading this. There’s nothing quite like a good car story, I think anybody with a love for cars can appreciate this noble quest. And seeing the car community come together to help this guy out is rad. Read more

He’s not the David Tracy...but he is the David Tracy’s weird VW cousin! Read more

These things sold so poorly new Jim Ellis VW in Atlanta Took 4 apart and made them single color cars to get them off their lot. I had a sales weasel when they were new try to sell me one because “They were popular in Europe and would show your sophistication”
Read more