I fell in love this Valentine’s Day. While visiting my coworker Jason in North Carolina, my fellow Jalop pontificated about the virtues of Renault’s trusty R4, a basic french car introduced in the early 1960s as the “blue jeans” of automobiles. It was simple, durable, practical, accessible to the masses, and became so…
A Tesla Model S sits atop a shipping container in Hong Kong. Not far away is a Tesla repair shop containing a number of Tesla parts cars. In Hong Kong, it’s not uncommon to find highly desirable vehicles sitting on shipping containers. (A few years ago, my brother and I spotted a Honda NSX stored in similar conditions)…
One of the most famous automobile roof designs ever debuted at the Geneva Motor show in 1963 on the Mercedes-Benz 230 SL, also called the “W113.” The lid, with its concave shape, earned the car the name “Pagoda,” a term alluding to “curved roofs of Far Eastern temples.” But the shape didn’t exist for just aesthetic…
A truck loaded with ten mid-engine Corvettes sits at a stoplight just outside of General Motors’ Milford Proving Ground in southeast Michigan. I wonder what will become of these machines. Will they get hooned around a test track by engineers? Will they be run through a rigorous dyno test regimen? Or will they somehow…
My first car was a blue 1984 Volvo 240, which lasted about a year, before a leaky gas line totaled it. My second car was a silver 1986 Volvo 240 in considerably better shape, which lasted about a week, after lightning struck a tree near my house and the tree fell squarely onto the 240's roof.
I recently spotted a Plymouth Neon at my local Taco Bell, and had no choice but to exit my truck and take photos. The Neon is a vehicle that I didn’t appreciate enough when I was younger, and so I will repent by repeatedly expressing my newfound love for the awesome front-drive compact sedan that Chrysler took a…
Here’s my thought process lately: the C8 Corvette is cool. And it’s made me start thinking about other Corvettes. Even at $60,000, the C8 is out of my reach. But maybe an early base C7 will start to slide into striking range soon? Probably still no. But a boy can dream.
I drove a 1977 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 earlier this week, and now my life will never be the same. That incredible 4.2-liter inline-six, that satisfying long-throw four-speed manual, that overall mechanical simplicity, that excellent off-road geometry: It’s no wonder this machine is such a legend.
I’ve always had a strange admiration for the Ford Streetka, the weird, convertible, Pininfarina-built version of the Ford Ka compact car. I think the tiny Ford Ka is itself a cute little machine, but I’d never have guessed a roadster version would look this good. The car is based on a the Ghia-designed Ford Saetta…
Gurgel was a fascinating Brazilian company that, in the late 1960s, began building its own dune buggy-like cars based on the Volkswagen Beetle platform and powertrain. Later, things got more exciting when Gurgel built machines with bold-looking bodies made of a material called Plasteel, which was a blend of fiberglass…
The Dodge Viper in its final form sits next to a Chevrolet Corvette C8 development car in the parking lot of the Concours d’Elegance of America in Plymouth, Michigan. The snake may seem primitive compared to the dual-clutch, mid-engine ’vette, but there’s something alluring about its simplicity.
The natural place for an S-10 is of course on the beach.
This 1973 Mohs Safarikar is among the strangest automobiles I’ve ever seen. Featured at the Concours of America in Plymouth, Michigan in late July, this aluminum-bodied beast’s panels are covered in vinyl, which has been stretched over the contours and held in place with stainless steel staples. The V8 brute, with its…
What you’re looking at are the innards of an ISO Rivolta, a 5.4-liter Corvette small-block V8-powered sports coupe built in the 1960s by the same Italian company that brought the world the Isetta microcar (and its truck variants) in the 1950s. This particular 1962 Rivolta can be had with either 296 or 335 horsepower…
Before the “Blazer” badge ever adorned the SUV variant of the Chevy S-10 or the new crossover that everyone’s so disappointed by these days, it graced the sheetmetal of the boxy Chevy K Series. The yellow 1979 two-tone one above is drop-dead gorgeous.
Sometimes you’ve just got to head to your local junkyard and have a seat in an Austin-Healey. This particular 1962 Sprite’s floor was so rusted-out that I could barely find a place to sit. My co-worker Jason Torchinsky has suggested that I step through the floor and attach some suspenders to the lightweight car and jus…
You cannot deny that the Chevette S was a car. Happy Friday.
If your reoccurring nightmare ever actually comes true (that nightmare being, of course, traveling back in time and being forced to purchase a General Motors product during the company’s Roger Smith Era), don’t fret. Just buy a truck. 1980s-era Chevy and GMC pickups are awesome.
I will never tire of a third-generation Accord.
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