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Yes, Zipper King. We’ll have more soon about this cyclopean stunner, but here’s a bit of background, first. Talbot-Lago updated their pre-war cars after WWII, getting back into the business of making fast, expensive racing and sports cars. These cars used a 4.5-liter straight-six and, like a number of manufacturers of that era and before, the cars had bodies made by coachbuilders, so there’s a wide variety of looks for the 29 chassis Talbot-Lago delivered....

It’s not just me, right? You see it too? He looks genuinely confused, even though we can’t see his face, but his body language is that of someone frozen in confusion. It’s incredible. Even if it’s not intentional, which, let’s be honest, I doubt it is. Seriously, though, where did everything go? UPDATE: I saw some comments from people unaware of the Ford G-series of trucks, even speculating that I – me!...

Both parties’ hands must be on the basket as it is placed into the trunk, and both hands must assist to close the hood. The car is then driven around the block, once by each partner, with the other shifting through the gears as their partner drives, ceremonially stating when the clutch is in by shouting “frizone!” It has been said the ceremony originated with the Etruscans thousands of years ago, but remained dormant until the Fiat 850 was developed....

Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday. Ford Pumps The Brakes On Focus, Fiesta Orders It was genuinely a sad day when Ford announced discontinuation of the Fiesta and Focus in America. For years, we’ve watched longingly as Europeans get sensible hatchbacks and hot ST models, cars that do everything most people need cars to do without being excessive....

Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday. Ford To Pay $19.2M Settlement For False Advertising Allegations Back in the early 2010s, Ford adopted an interesting strategy to sell more Super Duty pickup trucks and C-Max electrified compact MPVs – seemingly, it was to just manipulate some numbers....

I’d reached out to various safety organizations over the years, I’d called DOTs from multiple states, and for the most part, people only had guesses as to why some traffic signals look like this: While others look like this: But recently, with the launch of The Autopian, a number of brilliant engineers have reached out to me offering to act as sources for stories. One civil engineer named Joe Eberle introduced himself in his email as a Transportation Engineer....

Out of the 42,915 people killed on the roads last year, 21,837 were drivers, up 12 percent from last year. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise as fatal multi-vehicle crashes are up 16 percent year-over-year from 17,083 to 19,777. Hey, since nobody was on the road in 2020, who on earth were drivers going to hit? Well, a lot if I’m being honest. While overall distance driven was down in 2020, fatalities were up over 2019 by 2,279....

Years ago, in days of old, cars came with wheels that had very deep dish styling. Life was good, cars looked cool and everyone was happy (okay, maybe that’s a stretch). Over the years, as technology marched on, deep dish wheels got shallower until finally, starting about 20 years ago, they became essentially flat on the outside. Why did this happen? Well, in a word, “steering” is what happened. The change from deep dish wheels to flat wheels can be traced back to improvements in the steering system — in particular, to the popularity and advantages of rack and pinion steering....

Yep, that would be my choice too. Looking at that ’91 makes me miss my ’89 Coupe DeVille. That was just too damn big, but this Eldorado looks just right. And I prefer that earlier square-jawed style. It’s going to make somebody a nice cheap ride, that one. So… Boats. I’ll come right out and say it, I’m a little out of my depth [Editor’s Note: I GET IT! – JT] here....

I’m using this article as an excuse to declare my appreciation for the first and second generation Ford Escapes (the second gen, which came out for 2008, was just a facelifted first-gen). Sure, they are unibody crossovers with fully independent suspension that doesn’t do the greatest job at keeping the wheels on the ground at all times, and they lack a low-range transfer case to get those wheels torque to handle really technical rock crawling, but early Escapes did have decent overall geometry....

Yes, in the 1950s, the dream of freshly-sizzled hot dogs while tearing ass down an open, two-lane highway was no longer a dream, but a reality, thanks to a dozen volts of electrical power and genuine American innovation. That newspaper clipping on the left pops up on sites all over the internet, but so far I haven’t located the original source paper. Sometimes there’s a different headline, so I suspect this was a syndicated story from a wire service that ran as filler in many papers....

First, however, let’s see where you were willing to compromise: Looks like you chose bros over Broughams. In my younger days, I probably would have agreed, but as I get older, I value comfort and originality more and more in cars, so given the choice between these two, call me the Omegaman. Now then: Imagine, if you will, that you are a member of an international gang of jewel thieves....

I’ll allow my younger, 26 year-old self to explain how thrilled I was to have bought this 1991 Jeep Cherokee in September of 2018: Reading that last sentence, “I need nothing more in this life,” reminds me of just how much of a rollercoaster car ownership can be. I was so excited to own my very favorite version of my very favorite Jeep, but then the machine kept breaking. In my previous article, I listed all the parts I’ve had to replace in the 100-ish miles I’ve ever driven this Jeep since buying it....

“Oh, shit” says Fancy Lady Journalist knowingly, rolling her eyes. “Vat…vat eez dis noise?” asks the international correspondent. Lady sighs, “It’s just some losers that I used to work with.” Suddenly the whole driveway of the club is filled by a white 1981 General Motors RTS city bus covered in lurid graphics of cars and white guys. The bus crawls to a stop and hisses, lowering down to its haunches....

This week, I’ve returned to my roots a bit and none of today’s picks have a six-figure price tag. In fact, everything here will have a list price under $50,000. Yet, there will be plenty of sweet rides to drive home in. Here’s what I’m looking at this week! 1970 Chrysler 300 – $24,900 The first Chrysler 300, built in 1955, got its name from the 331 cubic inch V8 under the hood that made 300 gross horsepower....

Last week, I handed Parts Bin Puzzle to our lovely daydreaming designer, the Bishop. In his entry, the Bishop took beautiful AMCs and pulled from the parts bins of other automakers to prepare them for export to France. In doing so, he created some wild alternate reality vehicles. His Matador sedan borrowed from the European Ford Granada, the Matador coupe borrowed from the Citroën Ami 6, and the Gremlin borrowed from the Vauxhall Cavalier....

Those new caveats haven’t gone over all that well with several automakers, other countries, and EV buyers. There’s a lot of confusion regarding how to even correctly quantify and identify the percentage of an EV’s battery mineral content or the source of assembly for many of the smaller pieces that make up a battery. In order to clarify this confusion, the U.S. Treasury Department said it would issue guidance by March 31....

Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday. I Woke Up In A Certified Pre-Owned Bugatti If you’re like me, you can’t afford a new Bugatti. Hey, some of us have regular jobs and didn’t do something insanely lucrative like invent canned soup....

The market for small commercial vans in America is dwindling. For a while, Americans could get their hands on a commercial van that wasn’t just a minivan with blanked out windows. In 2009, Ford started bringing over its Transit Connect. Nissan followed it up with the NV200, with General Motors badge-engineering it into the Chevrolet City Express. Mercedes-Benz made a showing with the Metris, and Ram arrived on scene with its ProMaster City....

The testimony also brings up other uncomfortable realities about the Autopilot program, but I think what’s not being discussed enough is how this 2016 video really defined the path that Autopilot (and later, the so-called Full Self-Driving) would take, and how that path seems to be proving to be the wrong one. If you haven’t seen the video, you’re not really missing all that much. It’s primarily a driver’s seat view (with cuts to other camera views) of a Model S making a drive, with some sections sped up so the whole trip could fit into the 3:45 duration of the video....