A couple of weeks ago I found myself cracking open my mini warehouse with the goal of rearranging the vehicles inside. It’s not very wide, but it goes quite deep. Currently, there are six cars, three motorcycles, and too many sets of wheels inside. I ran some calculations and discovered that if I line the cars up just right, I could fit a seventh car. Perfect! I just had to move every car in the unit....
I only have the most rudimentary understanding of how the system actually works, but from what I’ve read, the full DALL-E system uses something known as a Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, which uses a neural network that implements methods to make it better at predicting relevance of inputs from a given dataset. The system is trained with text-image pairs from the internet, meaning that it sort of recognizes what certain images are of based on tags, and has a vast library of these to pull from....
Autopian user “Shop-Teacher,” whom I met six-ish years ago at the Indianapolis 500 and whom I’m quite fond of, has for years been telling me in the comments of my articles to get my shit together and stop hoarding vehicles (my parents and brothers have been beating a similar drum). So to him and my family, I’m just going to say: Sorry about this one. I really had no choice....
[Welcome to Member Rides. This is the weekly feature where we look at people who became members of the site by signing up here and parting with a little of their hard-earned dough to keep The Autopian going. Our plan is to do these every week! Today it’s Dankert’s turn!] Autopian: Alright, Dankert, where do you live and what do you? I live in Chicago, where I write and produce newscasts for all-news WBBM 105....
And the LeBaron takes a comfy win. I am in total agreement, and in fact, if I were ready to shop for a car, I’d probably go give that thing a test-drive. And by the way, you can in fact drive a convertible year-round here in Portland. I did it for many years. Rain on a soft top is a very soothing, romantic sound. The Autopian’s Slack channel is exactly how you would imagine it: a marketplace of ideas....
There’s been a ton of very similar and pretty much equally whiny articles lamenting what the author thinks this image shows. Some of these articles are idiotic, but most are just boring and forgettable, much like the SUVs and crossovers they wring their hands over. Essentially, they’re all saying something like this, just usually without the economy of words: — CarDealershipGuy (@GuyDealership) November 27, 2022 And, sure, on some level, they’re not completely wrong– those vehicles do look a lot alike....
Yesterday, arguably, had no losers. Both cars were wonderful and sketchy in equal proportion and both were really worthy of saving. If I had to choose one I’d probably be tempted to take the Opel, merely for the novelty, but the well-loved MG just edged out a victory. Someone should buy one of these cars. No one, especially not me (right?) should buy one of the next two cars. Here are life’s great ontological questions, in this order: Let’s test at least two of those today: Engine/drivetrain: 3....
Here’s the reason. People that work within the structure of a giant corporation are often deficient when it comes to entrepreneurial ventures. With a long history and massive dealer network, people will buy Chevys regardless of how bad they are (the DeLorean-attributed Vega comes to mind). Make a flashy but slow, expensive, and teething-issue-filled new sports car in a shit economy, and you’ll have a different story. So in retrospect it really comes as no surprise that DeLorean’s venture ended only a few years after it started, regardless of the unique financing ideas (“this stuff is good as gold…it’s actually BETTER than gold…it weighs less!...
“The Salt Lake City Police Department is investigating a suspicious item that resembled a possible explosive device,” the Salt Lake City Police Department’s press release from yesterday begins. “This investigation started at 9:49 a.m. on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, when SLC911 received information about a possible explosive device in an apartment, located at 999 South Main Street. Officers responded, secured the scene, and evacuated parts of the apartment complex, including the center courtyard....
[Editor’s Note: Cold Start is running in the afternoon because I forgot to publish it this morning. Sorry! – JT] My friend Brandon sent me some photos of an HHR he spotted in a parking lot in Michigan a few weeks back, and I have to admit that my initial reaction was to recoil. Look at all the cheesy badges just glued to that sheetmetal! Yikes! But a closer look brought me into the light, because I don’t hate this HHR....
That’s what I expected. Honestly, I thought it would be even more lopsided, though I see that both cars have sold already, so there wasn’t really a bad choice. Today, we have “THE BEST RUNNING/RIDING $2K CAR YOU CAN FIND,” at least in the Atlanta suburbs, and what looks to be a real cream puff of a Dodge, located in Florida. What say we kick their tires and see what they have to offer?...
Before I go into this report – I’m just looking at the Level 2 one now, because the full ADS one deals with situations too different to be compared together– I should make clear where I personally stand when it comes to these systems: I think L2 driver assist systems are inherently flawed, which I’ve explained many times before. My opinion on L2 is that it is always going to be compromised, not for any specific technical reasons, but because these systems place humans into roles they’re just not good at, and introduce a paradox where the more capable a Level 2 system is, the worse people tend to be at remaining vigilant, because the more it does and the better it does it, the less the human feels the need to monitor carefully and be ready to take over....
Ford let me see and hear the new F-150 Raptor R last month, but only from a distance. The thing sounded great, but that’s about all I could surmise from the short sprint across the desert floor a few hundred yards from where I then stood. Now, finally, we’ve got more details. Let’s start with the important bits: A supercharged 5.2-liter V8 – the same one from the Mustang GT-500 – pumps out 700 horsepower and 640 lb-ft of torque through a 10-speed automatic....
Unsurprisingly, this barchetta-style Miata is the work of an engineer (David Galliano) and an Italian car journalist (Omar Abu Eideh). Even in Europe Miata is always the answer. The genesis of this particular vehicle, also unsuprisingly, seems to have started over drinks: The result of a long brainstorming is the “NM concept”: it’s a Naked Monoposto (italian for single-seater) made from a restored NA. It has a modified chassis and improved components....
The crux of the Department of Justice’s probe seems to be related to the disparity between how Autopilot is marketed and promoted and the actual realities of what the system is capable of. This imbalance is at the heart of pretty much all Level 2 systems, as a study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety revealed earlier this month. People who use Level 2 semi-automated driving systems – which require an alert driver to be ready to take control back with no warning – seem to think their systems are much more capable than they are, which can lead to serious safety issues....
It starts with the N-Van, a van unique in that it has no B-pillar on the passenger side. Imagine flinging open the front door and sliding it to find a massive opening the size of a storefront window, with the limits of what you can load through it being more creative than physical. Why not hang an awning, pack a pit bike, or take a flying leap into your vehicle?...
(Full Disclosure: Toyota invited me to Austin, Texas to attend the Toyota Crown’s reveal. The company paid for my travel and a night in a swanky resort.) I know a lot of you are excited right now, because the Crown has long been a piece of forbidden fruit for Americans. First arriving in America in 1958, the Crown stuck around until only 1972. In its 15 generations its has grown from a harsh car built for unimproved roads to an understated luxury cruiser that JDM fans love to import to the country....
The origins of the motorhome and the camper go back even further than this Model T. Before the 20th century, covered wagons allowed families and communities to traverse entire countries. People lived out of wagons as they migrated and explored. But those people weren’t camping out of wagons just for the fun of it. As the Smithsonian Magazine writes, the concept of camping for fun didn’t come around until the late 1800s....
Keeping such a highly-strung car reliable requires a fairly strict maintenance schedule, so Chris has absolutely done things right. He changes the oil every 5,000 miles with Mobil 1 10W30 synthetic and says it doesn’t burn much between changes, even with its advanced mileage. Nissan VQ35DE owners must be punching the air right now. If there’s any weak point on the Evo VIII, it’s the transfer case. Thankfully, Chris is on it with the maintenance....
Officially called the Subaru Crosstrek Boost Gear concept, let’s break this shitshow down from bottom to top. Starting off on a high note, the Yokohama Geolandar M/T tires are a chunky-looking choice, and unquestionably the best alteration here. Sure, the black alloy wheels with blue accents that the tires are mounted on are a bit tacky, but the design is sound and the finish can be sorted with a couple of rattle cans....
