Why The Jeep J10 S Body Design Makes It So Ridiculously Prone To Rust

I love my Jeep J10. I think it’s the best vehicle I own because of its style, and above all its simplicity. The straight-six engine under the hood will never die, the four-speed manual transmission probably won’t either (and if it does, I can fix it in my kitchen), the cooling system is oversized, the driveline is as tough as nails, and on and on. The truck has everything one could want in a classic pickup: a bench seat, a stamped tailgate, four-wheel drive with manual locking hubs, a stick shift, a regular cab, an eight-foot bed, a gun rack (not that I need it), and absurd amounts of soul....

January 22, 2023 · 5 min · 1020 words · Nancy Vito

You Know Things Are Bad When Honda Starts Selling Decade Old High Mileage Cars As Certified Pre Owned

Honda’s CPO program Throws It Back Certified Pre-Owned programs sound pretty appealing to car shoppers who don’t want to wait months for an order or get hammered by dealer markups. A nice used vehicle with extended OEM warranty coverage seems like a great idea, but most CPO programs currently have a problem – they only cover fairly recent vehicles. Due to short supply, trying to get your hands on a five-year-old Honda right now is trickier than trying to move a California King into a basement apartment....

January 22, 2023 · 23 min · 4808 words · Stephen Cousins

A Professional Car Designer Explains What Makes The Honda E So Wonderful

The robot server’s design had prioritized not spilling scalding coffee over customers above an anthropomorphic appearance, but as consumers we now usually expect our advanced technology to blend seamlessly into our lives. Fussy ’80s-style electronic fetishism is out. Glossy surfaced, buttonless mobile phones and soft touch smart speakers are in. Approachability and friendliness are the new watchwords, and it’s a look the Honda e leans on heavily. The Concept Versus The Production Car The e, a city-friendly electric car sadly (for you) not sold in North America, originally appeared as the EV Urban Concept in 2017, and the production version was shown in 2019....

January 21, 2023 · 10 min · 2075 words · Milton Fontana

An Electric Motorcycle Startup Is Making A 201 Hp Burnout Machine With A Hubless Wheel

Back in 2018, Teemu Saukkio had an idea. He felt that the motorcycle market was ripe for more attitude with a dose of innovation. Finnish motorcycle manufacturer RMK Vehicle Corporation sprouted up to make Saukkio’s idea a reality. The RMK E2 was designed in Saukkio’s garage and by working at a breakneck pace, the motorcycle made it to EICMA 2019. The company, now called Verge Motorcycles, presented the TS, an electric motorcycle ripped right out of the dreams of many bikers....

January 21, 2023 · 6 min · 1229 words · Wayne Karol

Cold Start Big Fan

You had a nice long Cold Start yesterday. Today you just get this one gag. Anyway, this car totally reminds me of a tinfoil car body on a plastic toy frame.

January 21, 2023 · 1 min · 31 words · Matthew Polson

Cold Start Donkey Kong Behind The Scenes

Anyway, Panhard made some appealing old trucks, and I adore this old illustration style, so I hope you can enjoy it as well. Hope your weekend is full of security, silence, visibility, loge-ability (?), comfort, and accessibility, like the triangles say. Inspector: “But Mademoiselle, why did you do it?” Mademoiselle: “He insulted my cooking for the final time. So I drove the Panhard right onto his skull.” And rolling my eyes clear out of my head as privileged, wealthy white guys insist anyone can just go get a reliable car for under $500 a month right now....

January 21, 2023 · 1 min · 120 words · Annette Andrews

Cold Start Tree Parking

I mean, they sure do look great next to some trees, don’t they? And, by using an illustration instead of a photograph, Opel was able to really get the ideal look of the trees, so you know that Opel owner was classy as fudge. Also notable are these amazing creased headlights Opel was using, in this short-lived era before standardized sealed-beams but also enough technological development to make shaped, custom headlights, which wouldn’t re-appear until the late 1980s, at least in America, 1960s or so for Europe....

January 21, 2023 · 1 min · 150 words · Shirley Lavoy

Cold Start Was This Peak Rationality In Truck Design

These F-150s looked substantial and capable, but were also interestingly unassuming. Where modern trucks feel the need to shout about how tough they are and all the shit they can do, I feel like it’s trucks that look like this that are getting the work done behind the scenes, and would be embarrassed if you called them out. This generation of F-150 has styling that feels, compared to modern truck, strangely modest....

January 21, 2023 · 3 min · 465 words · Mary Wasson

Dodge Neon Acr Racing Champion Tells Us Why The First Gen Neon Acr Was A Wolf In Economy Car Clothing

Whenever something makes me conjure up memories of the Dodge Neon and its Plymouth twin, those memories take me right back to high school. It was common to see a Neon in my high school’s parking lot, and those cars would usually be used up and beaten down. Despite crumbling rust, peeling paint, and all kinds of dents, these cars still got classmates to school. Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth put roughly 2,224,000 Neons on the road between 1993 and 2004, and many of the survivors continue to live a life of cheap transportation....

January 21, 2023 · 11 min · 2306 words · Ervin Zambelli

European Rarities One With A Parts Car 1988 Alfa Romeo Milano Vs 1991 Lotus Elan

Well, that’s pretty definitive. Poor old Daeeoo can’t even beat out a car that has likely been thrown up in by a thousand frat boys. Someone suggested stripping out the back seat area of that Malibu; I think that might be for the best. For your entertainment and edification today, I have a couple of sporty European cars from days gone by. One sedan, one roadster; one six-cylinder, one four; one rear-wheel-drive, one front....

January 21, 2023 · 5 min · 949 words · Connie Serisky

Formerly Nice Cars That Aren T Sensible At All Mercedes 450Sel Vs Bmw 750Il

No AC in a black car. Hey, who doesn’t love a good Korean BBQ? Now, today we’re going to check out two of Germany’s finest offerings from their respective eras, a pair of top-of-the-line long-wheelbase sedans. These cars were the ultimate in status symbols (well, almost; we’ll get to that) when they were new, but now they’re not likely to impress anybody without some work. Let’s take a look....

January 21, 2023 · 4 min · 782 words · Annie Nikolic

Goodwood Goodnight Cold Start

[Editor’s Note: We have a guest cold start today, from our own Huibert, who took the lovely picture, too! – JT] For those of us watching, the sound and sight of these cars going flat out at dusk was something we will not easily forget, so can we just take a moment with our morning coffee to revel in the beauty of vintage race cars, tires begging for mercy and motors screaming at redline, coming out of the sunset?...

January 21, 2023 · 1 min · 87 words · Audrey Mensik

Here S A Look At The Engineering Behind That Subaru Wrx Ej25 Powered Porsche 911 Gt3

Read Japanese oil manufacturer ENEOS’s press release about the Porsch-baru, and you might get the impression that we have a ready-to-rock racing machine on our hands, but if there’s one thing that became clear while looking at the Subi-powered Porsche, it’s that this project has only just begun. There’s no cooling system, the engine isn’t mounted properly, the shifter isn’t hooked up, and on and on — Kugay is only at square one with this build....

January 21, 2023 · 16 min · 3214 words · Hattie Mccoy

How I Got My Navy Callsign By Shitting Myself In An F A 18 Fighter Jet Twice

The day started just like any other onboard the aircraft carrier. I woke up at around 10, just in time for lunch – or, as many on the boat call it, “aviator breakfast.” We typically flew from about noon to just after midnight, causing the air wing (the combination of fighter, helicopter and early warning squadrons) to be on a slightly skewed daily schedule compared to most others onboard. I rendezvoused with my squadron mates in the wardroom and chowed down on some catfish and rice pilaf....

January 21, 2023 · 12 min · 2555 words · Ronald Hendon

How Our Daydreaming Designer Would Have Redesigned One Of Britain S Biggest Automotive Failures

It’s debatable if you can call this electric/pedal powered recumbent bike/go-cart a car. Inventor Sir Clive Sinclair called it “a personal electric vehicle” but the one thing you can undeniably call it is “a failure.” In retrospect, people seemed to forget that success in one industry (Sinclair made one of Great Britain’s first successful personal computers) does not automatically begat success in another endeavor. As the June 25, 1983 issue of The Economist put it,...

January 21, 2023 · 13 min · 2704 words · Richard Watts

I Can T Stop Watching Awful Drivers Overcook This Weird Exit Ramp

If one idiot has a crash, it’s exclusively poor driving. If two idiots have near-identical crashes, it’s a fluke. If three or more idiots have near-identical crashes, it’s time to evaluate the infrastructure. Let’s pull up the crash scene on Google Maps so we can get a better picture of what’s going on. Video credit: Michael B You can imagine handling the unexpected turn at speed just fine, hanging off the inside a little even…and then plowing headfirst right into the back of a stopped truck just beyond....

January 21, 2023 · 1 min · 162 words · Judy Casey

I Made Our Daydreaming Designer Imagine An Oldsmobile For Actual Old People

Generally, carmakers see targeting a car at old people as a kiss of death, because they all crave that young, sexy money, they all want a youthful demographic to show off, even the ones that happily take money from old, rich people. It’s been this way for a while, and, really, it’s kind of absurd. Of course old people are going to want and need to drive, and they have pretty specific needs from their cars, so why not just design and build some cars that accept that and cater to them?...

January 21, 2023 · 8 min · 1603 words · Daniel Anson

Lancia Unveils New Logo Direction And A Sculpture That Looks Like A Computer Mouse

They launched all this a couple days ago, and yesterday released a video of their full Lancia Design Day event, which I’ll be happy to let you watch, for free, even: Let’s start with what Lancia’s goal is going to be; instead of providing Stellantis with a whole car brand that the company can forget even exists until the end of the workday when someone, somewhere probably thinks “oh, shit, right, Lancia!...

January 21, 2023 · 5 min · 970 words · Billie Thomas

Let This Courageous Little Fiat 500X At The Detroit Auto Show Be Your Mid Week Inspiration

The Fiat 500X is a bit of a dead vehicle driving. Mechanically identical to the Jeep Renegade and soon to be displaced by the Alfa Romeo Tonale and Dodge Hornet, the 500X was created when someone in the Agnelli family stuck a straw into a Fiat 500 and blew. It’s not the most refined, most capable, most practical, most efficient, or even best value subcompact crossover on the market, but it has character....

January 21, 2023 · 3 min · 496 words · Sandra Hall

Listen To The Glorious Sounds Of A Volkswagen Passat W8 As It Races A Base Model Jetta

Lately, we’ve been having you lovely readers send us your holy grails, and those cars have been awesome. Keep those cars coming! We love what you love. But for a brief moment here I want to return back to one of my own holy grails. One of the first projects that I wrote about at the old lighting site was a Volkswagen Passat W8 that I picked up for the princely sum of $800....

January 21, 2023 · 5 min · 946 words · John Norris