Approaching the container ship in San Francisco Bay, the tugboat looks like a pit bull puppy chasing an eighteen-wheeler. When the vessels are an arm’s length apart, the ship’s mate throws down a line. Now leashed to the ship, the tug can push and pull it around the bay. Big ships can’t easily slow down or maneuver by…
Sometimes it’s not easy being an ’80s and ’90s car enthusiast. Many car shows still cut eligibility at 1973. Cars and Coffees often devolve into supercar one-upmanship and dyno sheet saber rattling. Aftermarket support for restoration varies while available modifications often erase all vestiges of period correct…
It’s nearly impossible to keep your car’s paint looking perfect when you use it every day. It seems no matter what you do, highway debris, parking lot mayhem, and the sun’s UV rays do their fair share of damage to your pride and joy. Nothing short of a trip to a professional’s paint booth seems like a viable solution…
The Audi Allroad has become a running joke as possibly the least reliable car ever made, and for pretty damn good reason. Between the notoriously finicky 2.7-liter twin-turbo V6 engine (same as in the vaunted B5 S4) and the early 2000s air suspension (read: terrible), there is just way too much crap to go wrong —Often…
The Lexus LS 400 has garnered acclaim for being one of the most durable, maintenance-free, high-mileage-conquering luxobarges out there. These merits are largely well earned. However, what nobody seems to mention are two maintenance nightmares that can bring the car to its knees. I’m going to explain these issues and…
Being a woman who loves racing is exhausting.
When the topic of 1990s Japanese performance cars comes up, we as car enthusiasts tend to beat the proverbial dead horse. We rattle off the Toyota Supra Twin Turbo, Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4, Mazda RX-7, and the Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo. We stake out our brand allegiances, javelin the performance specs, and take magazine…
“Cute.” “Awesome.” “Practical.” “So tiny!” These are the things I hear regularly when people describe Kei-cars, the minicars sold almost exclusively in Japan. Their funky designs, so different from what people outside of the country are used to, generate lots of love and envy among gearheads around the globe. But…
Before they were known as “The Throne,” Jay Z and Kanye West linked with Rihanna in 2009 for the unescapable hit “Run This Town.” It charted around the world, was performed on The Jay Leno Show, and won multiple awards (2010 Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and Best Rap Song). And while I’m still waiting for Jay…
The warehouse crew were good guys, but too fond of practical jokes. So when I glanced over at the lot where I’d parked my bike that morning and saw the empty space, I thought, Those meatheads better not have scratched it. But nobody fessed up to moving it, and a search of the warehouse––including that corner way in…
It’s more than an hour after the checkered flag at this year’s Milwaukee IndyFest. It’s been even longer since Justin Wilson’s engine went up in flames, with a late-race mechanical failure sabotaging what could have been a runner-up finish to old Champ Car sparring partner Sebastien Bourdais at the classic one-mile…
Call it the “Curious Case of Road Course Confusion in Monterey County.”
[Editor’s note: There’s been a lot of talk about how Tudor United SportsCar’s P2 class will look in the future. What kinds of cars will run in TUSC’s highest prototype class, and how will P2s relate to LMP2s at Le Mans? This write-up from Racer is perhaps the clearest summary of what’s being considered yet, so enjoy.…
As you have likely heard by now, Erik Buell Racing is in receivership with no apparent hope for a bailout. For the second time in a decade Erik is facing the abyss, except this time he has $20 million dollars of debt hanging over his company’s head and his Hero MotoCorp investors have apparently washed their hands of…
We weren’t very good with planning on Top Gear. The stuff we put loads of work into often turned out badly. Hence never-loved features like Barn Or Bin or the utter tossfest of Top Gear Stuntman. Whereas the things we didn’t really plan for often became unexpectedly good or turned out to be important. Hence the…
“A tough year, 1971.” With these four words, Jack Heuer – then the 38-year-old President of Heuer Leonidas – opened the 1972 case study on his company by the Swiss business school IMEDE.
Before the mainstream sports obsessions, school dances, awkward teen years, supremely fun college parties, graduating, finding a wonderful woman and eventual settling down, there was Formula One.
Remember the Maserati Shamal? We’re not surprised if you don’t. Launched in 1991, after Maserati pulled out of the States, it never officially came to the U.S. Today, there’s exactly one in the country, and in the June 2015 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car, we take a look at (and drive) that Maserati Shamal.…
(Think Delphi’s cross-country voyage in an autonomous Audi SQ5 is impressive? Try doing it with 90s tech, without GPS navigation, and in a salvaged Pontiac minivan. That’s what Carnegie Mellon research scientist Dean Pomerleau and then-Ph.D. student Todd Jochem did in 1995. Here’s the story of their journey as it…
Despite today's news that Audi isn't heading to Formula 1, somewhere nestled between the rumors and refutations, you'll find a growing number of interrelated facts that could point to an eventual change in Audi's motor racing plans. (This article originally appeared on Racer.com and was just too good to not share…
