You know what else is a thing? The Meteor had this amazing reverse-raked rear window that would actually slide down, which is pretty fantastic and extremely uncommon for a sedan. I’m not sure any other sedan did this, but there may be some obscure examples. Mass-market, though, the Meteor was it. It was pitched as an alternative to air-conditioning, which is an interesting tactic; while it definitely would help ventilation, it’s not A/C by a long shot, but A/C take rates in that era were not close to what it is now, in our age of ubiquitous A/C on every car in every category, so a clever alternative makes a lot of sense....

You’ll need a van to haul all those parts, so let’s see which one you chose yesterday: Huh. I thought the Dodge would have the upper hand, but you wanna haul stuff in your Chevy van, and that’s all right with me. Right then. Here’s a rear-engine French car and a German GM product. You’re welcome. Let’s see what you make of them. 1968 Renault 10 – $2,000 Engine/drivetrain: Rear-mounted 1....

You want red flags? This car’s got them. For starters, any Canadian-market car newer than 25 years old should require a letter of compliance for American importation. Mercedes is a little bit tight with supplying these letters and won’t supply one for an A-Class hatchback, as the bodystyle hasn’t been homologated for U.S. sale. Then, there’s the registration in Montana despite residing in Dallas. No tax avoidance here, officer. Finally, the car has a hit on its Carfax....

Just over 20 years ago, Honda hit the 2002 New York International Auto Show with its opening salvo on America’s growing lust for larger SUVs. The first-generation Pilot was designed to be the ultimate people hauler, sporting loads of cargo room and helpful features for kids and family. The Pilot has enjoyed three generations of getting families down the road in style, and now Honda is unveiling the fourth-generation today....

The more recent example of Tiguanian taillight deception is one I’ve discussed before, referenced in a certain taillight-focused bit of crime fiction. I’m talking about the 2012 facelift of the first-gen Tiguan, where a lot of the look was reconciled with VW’s then-current design language and the changes included a new grille and new lighting, front and rear. At the rear the new taillights looked like this: Okay, nothing seems too weird there, right?...

The R7 also used chrome bumpers, which caused the design to lose one of its most influential details, the way the lower bits of the front and rear bodies were formed by he plastic bumper skins, something wildly common on car design today, but started by the humble R5. Look: (image from Jalopnik, but made by me) In a way, I’m more surprised by the chrome bumpers than I am the tacked-on trunk....

Believe it or not, propelling a car down the IIHS runway towards a barrier starts with merely 40 horsepower. That’s the output of IIHS’ hydraulic pump which, as IIHS test engineer Bo Jones states in the video below, “pushes against these 18 bottles of nitrogen as we fill up these 245 liters worth of accumulators.” Once pressure hits 5,000 psi, it’s released to turn a pulley and cable mechanism that gets the car up to speed....

I really shouldn’t have bought my Chevy Tracker. I was supposed to have been reducing my count of cars, but then I saw an almost rust-free, manual transmission, four-wheel drive Tracker for sale on my local Facebook Marketplace, and since the seller couldn’t get the thing running when I stopped by to visit, he dropped the price from $1,600 to $700. That’s too cheap for my weak soul to resist....

Look, say what you will about modern Nissan–say that their product line is largely forgettable, stale, a competent but uninspiring fruit cup with a precious few halved cherries (new Z, for example), but when they do something right, you have to give them credit. And they certainly have, developing an all-new technology that, finally, allows for ramen to be delivered at high speeds with a tiny AWD electric vehicle that can come to a dead stop without spilling a drop....

Cadillac’s Escalade is getting the same treatment, too, according to Car and Driver. Both moves make a lot of sense; the Escalade has always kind of been its own thing within the Cadillac lineup, even with a unique name when the rest of the brand went to stuff like XT5 and ATS; plus, America loves trucks and SUVs, so more of those will print money for GM. The Camaro is a more interesting proposition....

You probably think I’m talking about Ford, the company that developed the MiniMax concept in the seventies, only to have the project nixed by the guy whose name was on the building. This idea was famously implemented at Chrysler with massive success by guys that Henry Ford II fired. source: Dean’s Garage No, I’m here to talk Volkswagen group. Most enthusiasts know that the VW Bus revival (now the electric ID....

Scenario One You have a friend who works at a particle accelerator, and she invites you over for a tour of the facility. She shows you around the huge ring of the accelerator, and then takes you into her lab, which has a smaller cyclotron whirring away in it. She seizes you by the arm and tells you that she’s on the verge of an incredible discovery, but she needs your help....

Yesterday, we looked at a couple of compact domestic pickups. Let’s see how they did: So the Ranger legend lives on. Personally, I’d prefer the S-10, but I’m a Chevy guy, and I try to never be in a hurry, so a four-cylinder is fine with me. And I do love those wheels. Now, on to today’s contestants: One is a Great Little Car in the ultimate bodystyle and color, and the other is a brilliant off-roader spoiled (some say) by a pair of rectangles....

Bombardier Recreational Products has been on a roll in recent years with a flurry of exciting vehicles. Last year, I got to leap a Can-Am Commander through Utah, taking in big air jumps and rally car-style drifts. Then I got to take the company’s Ryker, a hilariously fun tire-shredder, on a 600-mile journey through California’s famous Pacific Coast Highway. And earlier this year I hopped through the desert like a trophy truck in a Can-Am Maverick....

First, a primer on exactly what STLA Frame is. At the core of Stellantis’ big electric push are four EV platforms called STLA Small, STLA Medium, STLA Large, and STLA Frame. Yes, STLA is pronounced ‘Stella.’ STLA Medium and STLA Large are expected to launch this year, although it’s tough to say what will ride on them first. Will the Jeep Wagoneer S or the upcoming Dodge Charger replacement run on STLA Large first?...

Ford’s marketing chief in Germany, Christian Weingaertner, told Automotive News Europe at a press event that the company plans on dropping the Focus in addition to the smaller Fiesta (which has also been long dead in America, much to our collective chagrin) to concentrate on SUVs, crossovers and even pickup trucks in Europe where the profit margins are higher, as they are in America. Eventually, in Europe, that means an all-electric lineup by 2030, based on current projections....

In case you’re somehow unfamiliar with the irregular “I’d Like To See Them Make…” feature, it was basically a place in the magazine where readers would write in with some general idea for an invention, and then an illustrator would draw a quick little cartoon of it, and everyone would see these and ponder the implications of a world with flavored tongue depressors or rubber andirons or whatever. Often, though, these ideas would be quite prescient; a surprising number of now common automotive (tire pressure monitors on dash, adjustable steering wheels, keyless entry, etc....

I’m going to highlight specific planes in future posts. This one is about how awesome the event itself is. On Friday morning, my fiancée, Sheryl, and I departed our tiny apartment bound for Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Waiting for us was the Experimental Aircraft Association’s 69th annual fly-in, AirVenture. But this isn’t just a bunch of pilots meeting up, it’s more than a week of some of the coolest planes in the world converging onto a little patch of Wisconsin for an absolutely massive festival....

How It Started I love having oddball cars, but I tend to assume the universe will bring them to me as they’ve always done. One day a few years ago I was bored and on the Internet and decided to look and see what Volvo 240s were going for on eBay and, magically, I had a Volvo wagon in my driveway a week later. Not long after I acquired the Volvo a Greek clubowner friend-of-a-friend needed to stash a ’60s Mercedes sedan and that, too, ended up in my care (a friend of Alex Roy, of course, which is also how I ended up with a Tesla Model 3 for a bit)....

The Polski-Fiat 126p NP was an experimental project that sought to modernize the Polish people’s car, the humble Fiat 126p, also known as the Maluch (that’s “toddler” in Polish) from a rear-engine design to a more modern transverse front engine/FWD design. The 126p (a license-built version of the original Fiat 126) always had a design that looked like it would be a hatchback, but wasn’t. Well, not at first. All 126ps had a front trunk and most had a rear engine lid that opened like this:...