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A few weeks ago, Craigslist finally dropped its official app, and I’m sure most of you had roughly the same reaction as me: an out-loud comment welcoming them to 2010, a little bit of excitement that Craigslist might be more pleasant to use, and finally a sudden awareness of all the reasons you stopped using Craigslist.
Automakers are always trying to convince you that their vehicles can do anything. Conquer any mountain, tackle any racetrack, and haul shitloads of lumber. But the truth is you’re always compromising. Many aspects of vehicle design are at odds with each other. It’s hard to have good ground clearance and good handling. Seating for seven is always going to mean a larger, less efficient vehicle.
The BMW 2002 is one of those cars that is almost universally appreciated by car enthusiasts. It’s sporty, looks great, has a powerful engine in a relatively small package, and is comfortable to drive. With all the advancements in automotive technology, you can sometimes feel like a directness and purity of driving has been lost. You also sometimes lose the appreciation for how good an old car was in its own time. Thankfully we have vintage car reviews on YouTube.
Sometimes you need to slow down, and for that, we have brakes. Sometimes you need to slow down right the fuck now, and for that, we have impact attenuators.
Truly novel automotive ideas are rare. If you come up with a great idea, there is a good chance that it has not only been thought of, but there is probably an engineer out there who is sick of going to failure mode meetings about it. If your idea is about a new door design, then that engineer is me.
Italy is on lockdown as COVID-19 spreads, and as of yesterday, all automotive manufacturing had stopped in the country except Ferrari. According to a statement by the company, that has changed and Ferrari will suspend production until March 27.
People have been talking about the skateboard for a long time. The idea makes sense on the surface: load all the powertrain, suspension, and other important bits in a flat skateboard-like package so you can drop several different bodies on top. A truck, sedan, and van all being carried on the same lower half, saving tons in development and manufacturing costs.
The Volkswagen Golf has been around for eight generations spanning 46 years. The company has sold millions of copies and the vehicle has won numerous awards. On average, somebody has bought a Golf every 41 seconds since 1974. But like everything, there was a time when it was new, and its future uncertain.
If you’re looking for a stress-free drive on Seattle interstates, now is the time to jump in your car, activate bioweapon defense mode, and cruise around at your leisure, ‘cause ain’t nobody on the road.
The FIA has reversed an unpopular rule that required Formula 1 drivers to have the same helmet design for all but one race. Drivers will now be free to change the design as often as they like.
Easter Island is known for its moai, the hundreds of sacred statues that cover the island. On Sunday, a pickup truck rolled down a hill and crashed into one of them, damaging the statue and its platform. The island’s cultural heritage organization, Ma’u Henua, posted photographs of the crash on its Facebook page.
Car design sketches have a lot of similarities that stretch back decades: dramatic lines, mail slot windows, and wheels so impossibly big there is literally no room for a tire. A lot of times you’ll see wheels that intersect with the ground, so the wheels are so large they occupy the same space as the road. Yo dawg, my rims are so big they violate the laws of physics.
The MotoGP season was to begin this weekend in Qatar with the second round in Thailand two weeks later. However, the Thailand event has been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak in the area, and premier class competition at the Qatar race has been canceled because of travel restrictions from Italy brought about because of the virus.
Ryan Newman returned to the NASCAR garage yesterday for the first time since his brutal crash at Daytona. He won’t be driving this time, only spectating and supporting the team. His usual ride, the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford Mustang is being piloted by Ross Chastain for the third weekend in a row.
The Pontiac Aztek is a frequently criticized vehicle, often incorrectly called the ugliest car ever made, as though Chrylser didn’t make any cars in the late 1970s. Its styling is, um, brave, to be sure, but is it a good vehicle? Does anything come out of the crazy mixture of a Montana minivan, a Grand Prix, and an unmitigated affront to imprudent design?
Hyundai and Kia recently announced the development of a transmission that can predictively shift into the appropriate gear based on a scan of the upcoming road.
Battery availability has recently been a major constraint on EV production. Tesla has been frequently battery cell constrained, Mercedes delayed its EQC due to battery production, the Jaguar paused I-Pace production because of battery availability problems, and now Audi E-Tron manufacturing has temporarily stopped due to “bottlenecks in the parts supply.” The company said the issue was not China or Coronavirus related, and given all the other battery supply problems, it isn’t much of a stretch t
The EU has tough fleet emissions targets and increasingly steep fines for companies that can’t meet them. It’s starting to look like auto companies are all going to come up short.
When designing a car, having a big pile of already made parts is one of those powers that comes with some responsibility. It’s super easy and cheap to take a part from an existing car that has already been designed and tested, and stick it in a new car. You know it works and you don’t have to spend time and money developing a new one. That is until you go too far and start taking things like entire suspension systems and moving them to the wrong end of an entirely different platform.
It’s hard to make a profit in the ride-sharing business, which may be why Lyft has recently acquired a company that allows drivers to make money by putting digital billboards on the roof of their cars.
Toyota makes some good looking vehicles but it’s hard to imagine them ever releasing something as beautifully designed as the 2000GT. It was their first sports car, long before the Supra or the Lexus-branded LFA. Sadly, the company only made 351 of them with 62 left-hand-drive versions making it into the United States.
The year 2003 seems like it was just yesterday, but it’s almost old enough to vote. Back then, Jeep was selling all internal combustion vehicles, but it had plans to build alternative fuel vehicles in the following years. It was a different time.
In 1969, Enfield Automotive built its first prototype car, the 465. It was propelled by a 3 kW electric motor attached to a 48v battery. It was an adorably small two-seater with tiny wheels and sliding doors. Only three were made, but it was followed by the Enfield 8000. The 8000 was similar to the 465 but had twice the power: 6 kW or about 8 horsepower.
There are car company names that are acronyms like Fiat and Alfa, and plenty of model names that are initialisms, like the NSX or the BRZ, but not many model names that are acronyms. Subaru made one starting in 1978 called the BRAT, which stands for Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter.
While many car manufacturers were finding clever ways to squeeze hundreds of horsepower out of three and four-liter engines, Dodge did what Dodge does best and just made a pushrod engine with ten huge pistons, each made by melting down an entire Dodge Neon.
Today is the first of 36 races in this year’s NASCAR Cup Series. The top-level of NASCAR always runs a lot of races compared to most other racing series, but they used to run a lot more each season. In the 1950s and 60s, there were more than 40 races in every season except three. Most of those seasons had 49 or more races and one, 1964, had an incredible 62 races.
The history of automotive design owes a lot to the Italians, the Germans, the Japanese, and the design studios of Southern California. But Detroit has always had its own language that has been shaping automobiles for well over a century.
