Welcome to Must Read, where we single out the best stories from around the automotive universe and beyond. Today we've got reports from The New York Times, Petrolicious and Man Of The World.
Long Ago, a Pilot Landed on an Uptown Street. That’s Where the Bar Was. – New York Times
I can't use the photo from the New York Times story about this, sadly, but the photo above works in a weird way, too.
The pilot, Thomas Fitzpatrick, turned a barroom bet into a feat of aeronautic wonder by stealing a plane from a New Jersey airport and landing it on St. Nicholas Avenue in northern Manhattan, in front of the bar where he had been drinking. As if that were not stupefying enough, the man did nearly the exact same thing two years later. Both landings were pulled off in incredibly narrow landing areas, in the dark – and after a night of drinking in Washington Heights taverns and with a well-lubricated pilot at the controls. Both times ended with Mr. Fitzpatrick charged with wrongdoing.
I DROVE A BMW 2002 AND FOUND GOD – Petrolicious
Amen.
Today is the kind of day I moved to California for. Virgin blue skies overhead, a salty hint of the ocean pervades a full mile inland, and the fresh sunlight clashes against the chrome of my newly acquired vintage BMW. I’m enjoying this stereotypically beautiful day carving through mountain roads in my 1970 BMW 2002, and I want this moment to continue forever. As an offering to the sun gods, I blip the throttle and invoke all the spits and snarls of Vesuvius as I bear down on a blind mountain corner at a truly laughable rate.
MARVEL OF AUTO DESIGN: 1961 CORVETTE MAKO SHARK CONCEPT –
I heard the new Pagani was modeled after a catfish Horacio caught on his fishing vacation to The Delta.
In today’s era of consumer research and focus groups, it’s hard to imagine a time when a deep sea fishing trip would be the basis for an unforgettable concept car. Yet that’s exactly what happened when GM’s mercurial styling head Bill Mitchell returned from vacation in 1961 with a stuffed shark head after “catching a big one.”
Photo Credit: AP, Getty, GM