The Road Warrior Didn’t Have OnStar
It is probably a very good idea to learn how to adjust and rebuild a carburetor. To set the point gap, even. Neither of which is a bad thing because it will mean the restoration of control over your car. And your finances. You will no longer find yourself prostrate before electronics and beholden to […]
Doomed: Subaru BRAT (1977-1987)
Imagine, if you can, a truck with factory-mounted seats in the bed and spotlights the size of a 747’s landing lights mounted on its T-topped roof. If you know this truck, you also know why it’s no longer available. Such fun things are no longer allowed due to safety. But in 1977, there were roofless Broncos, […]
Stop-Start Shuffle
In the 1970s, cars would sometimes stall out in traffic but not on purpose. You’d push on the gas, but the car wouldn’t go. Horn honking frustration would ensue as the driver of the conked out car tried to get it going again. Today, undoing decades of refinement, cars conk out on purpose at every red light […]
Latent vs. Present Horsepower
We will one day look back fondly on the days just before Corona Fever hit as a golden era of vehicle design. Or at least, a golden age of horsepower. New cars come with a lot of it. Four-cylinder engines in family cars routinely produce more of it than most V8s in muscle cars did as […]
A Car Story
Today is a good time for a car story to take our minds off the other story. This story relates to a recent post called An Update for an Old Car, in which I detailed upgrading the out-of-date factory-installed CD-playing (but no Bluetooth-playing) stereo in my ’02 Nissan Frontier with a newer system. Well, I just attempted […]
The Corona Special
There actually is a Corona—not the virus, the car. Toyota sold it as recently as 2001, in Japan and before Corona acquired other connotations. It was slightly larger and nicer than the more well-known Corolla, which Toyota still sells everywhere. You have probably seen third-gen Coronas (1964-1970) in ’60s Godzilla movies. Well, models of Coronas being stomped on by a […]
The Anti-Corona
It’s hard to sustain a state of panic, a sense of imminent doom, when the sun is shining, the breeze is warm — and you’re getting your classic car ready for spring. This necessary therapy is indeed, an annual ritual. Like the first green shoots and buds on the trees, it marks the end of […]
The Fun of Driving Slow, Fast
There is much to be said about driving a slow car, fast—even a slow-by-today’s-standards car. I have more fun in the Orange Barchetta, my 1976 Trans-Am, than I have in the new performance cars I get to test drive, many of which have twice or even three times the performance capability. The reason—their capability is […]
The Risk-Free Used Car
Should you even consider buying a used car that’s not “warranted” or “certified/pre-owned” (CPO)? Many people won’t because we live at a time when people have been conditioned to dread risk, however remote, and it’s not an accident because it’s very profitable to sell “warranted” and “certified pre-owned” (CPO) cars. There is no free lunch. […]
An Update for an Old Car
One of the things about new cars that are inarguably fantastic is how they sound. Not their engines, of course—for that, you need an old car, one without catalytic converters and with a carburetor! Nothing fuel-injected will ever sound better than the sound of a big four barrel’s secondaries opening up. Listen my children and you shall hear the […]