The Cost of a Time Machine
The good news first.
You can legally buy a brand-new car without a single air bag or any of the saaaaaaaaafety equipment mandated by the government since the late 1960s.
No back-up camera,...
Insurance That Isn’t An Offer You Should Refuse
There is a form of vehicle insurance that’s not a moral outrage - because you’re not forced to buy it.
Classic car insurance.
Ordinary car insurance (the kind you're forced to buy) is...
Badge Funging
You used to be able to easily tell a Ford from a Chevy from a BMW from a Subaru. Now it's becoming hard to know whether what you're talking about has...
Retro Review: 1998-2004 Nissan Frontier
It’s not yet a “classic,” but the ’98-2004 Nissan Frontier (and other same-era compact trucks like the Toyota Tacoma and Ford Ranger/Mazda B series) looks pretty good in the rearview.
And in...
The Old Car Hobby… Literally
Old car shows are getting old.
Not just the cars, either.
I've been going to car shows since I was a teenager in the '80s and what's changed is that now there are...
Memorable muscle car engines
Classic-era muscle cars were known as much for their engines as their names. A big part of the attraction was popping the hood to reveal the rock star powerplant beneath -...
Chrysalis Cars
The "real" muscle cars of the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s have been financial instruments since the '90s, if not earlier. Out of reach of the average person. Because the average...
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 Most of Us Don’t Do Anymore
The other day, I started up my old muscle car. This involves something more than pushing the "start" button - which is how you start pretty much every new car (the...
The Uncle-ized Car
What’s the cost of Uncle when it comes to our cars? How much have his various fatwas added to the MSRP?
One way to add it all up is to compare a...