Die-Hard vs. Exide
What makes a fast car appealing?
It’s not just that it’s fast. It’s equally other things, such as what makes it fast - the mechanical erogenous zone under its hood. Which is...
Try Not to Wash Your Old Car
Back in high school chemistry, you may have heard the teacher refer to water as the universal solvent.
Exactly so. It dissolved a mile of rock at the Grand Canyon, for instance.
And...
What’s Missing – and Why!
New cars have many features old cars never had - LCD touchscreens and WiFi, for instance. But new cars are missing some things, too.
Maybe you remember - and wonder why?
Bumpers that...
In the Rearview: AMC’s Almost Corvette . . .
Two cars have vied with the Corvette for the title, America’s sports car. You probably know about the Thunderbird.
You may not know about the AMX.
It came along much later and wasn't...
Start ’em Up!
It's still winter - but not for too much longer. Which means not too long from now, many of us will be pulling cords to lawnmowers and firing up motorcycles (and...
Latent Power
How good do we have it?
If the measure of that is the power and performance delivered by the average new car, the answer has to be: Pretty damned good.
Four cylinder-powered family-haulers...
Not a Four Wheeled-Indenture
The more I work on the ’72 Beetle - aka Sexual Chocolate, the car I am helping my teenage protege learn to work on - the more I realize why most...
Old School Fahrvergnugen!
Well, the '72 Beetle is almost road-ready.
The mechanicals mostly are.
The Yeti-abused intake manifold has been repaired; new, non-leaking boots - the correct Solex carburetor installed and adjusted. Some shady electrical connections remedied....
Chocolate Rain
Old cars are full of surprises.
When I pulled out the rear seat of the ’64 Chevy Corvair project car I bought in the mid '90s, I found a mini-bar from the...
Hope is Not Lost
Not every kid wants an Uber.
Some kids - one kid, at least - wants a 1972 VW Beetle. And now he has one. This is my young apprentice, Gage. He is...