[ED Note: Battlestar Galactica was great for two seasons and then utterly jumped the shark, so I’m not sure I give it a full pass. – MH] I was alerted to this nightmare via a tweet from Friend of The Autopian Charles Brand, but I don’t want to show you the tweet here, because it’ll be more fun if you watch the trailer first and can spot it for yourself....
Admittedly, while I’ll be there to check out some sweet aircraft and aircraft history to show you, this is actually a dream that is finally being realized. Many years ago, wonderful denizens of what is now Opposite-Lock often dumped massive loads of photos into the bustling car forum. There was a little bit of everything from old warbirds to helicopters, kit planes, and all sorts of general aviation. In recent years, you might have seen developments in electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft....
I spotted this Chrysler Aspen Hybrid at O’Reilly Auto Parts, where I met an awesome engineer from our friends at Munro & Associates — the master benchmarkers, and runners of the YouTube channel Munro Live. We chatted in the parking lot, and I noticed that he drives this incredible machine. This is a beautifully-maintained version of an incredibly rare machine, which was only built for two months in 2008. It features a 300-volt hybrid system with two electric motors integrated into a four-speed automatic transmission....
In September, the Oldsmobile Toronado Airstream–named the Aironado Airstream–resurfaced and fascinated car enthusiasts. An owner had it for sale and people from Reddit kept passing by and taking pictures of it. And who can blame them? It’s literally an Airstream Globe Trotter travel trailer with the front end of an Oldsmobile Toronado sticking out. This is the kind of thing that you share with your friends and spark up a discussion about....
In case you aren’t familiar with EarthCruiser, this Oregon-based outfit normally specializes in building insane overlanding RV rigs and 4×4 cab-over trucks that I’ve covered before. Pretty much every little kid wants to drive a big truck at some point, and EarthCruiser’s normal fare gives off a Tonka-like feel. However, six-figure rigs aren’t exactly mass-market products, so the firm is branching out to something a little more practical. With a sudden influx of electric and hybrid trucks on the market, EarthCruiser is looking to capitalize on the EV overlanding trend....
Renault of the 1990s and 2000s released banger after banger. It’s honestly hard to pick a favorite because the company put out some truly fantastic vehicles. There’s the Espace F1 concept, a people carrier for four fitted with a 3.5-liter V10 rocking 820 HP. And who can forget the quirky Avantime, the cheerful Twingo, and the hot Clio V6. Perhaps less remembered today is Renault’s effort to make track-oriented roadster with a striking design....
That’s what I thought. Despite having a catchy jingle (thanks to Autopian reader Beasy Mist for the reminder), [Editor’s Note: Holy crap is that a cocaine factory they shot this in? – JT] the Duster just didn’t have what it took to overcome that Valiant. But really, if you’re going to have an automatic, it should have a cool way to select gears, and they don’t get much cooler than push-buttons....
— BYD Brian Luo (@BrianLuo445) January 6, 2023 So how do you even go about getting an SUV to move sideways in a straight line? Well, the big party piece that lets this visual feat happen is the four-wheel-drive system. Each wheel gets an electric motor, and all four of them put together are good for more than 1,100 horsepower. Incredible torque and the ability to distinctly control what each individual wheel is doing are the keys to making this dance work....
As much as I’d love to, I can’t recall ever seeing a lavender LeBaron out in the wild, so I think this just may be a combination of poor color printing fidelity, scanner color fidelity, age, and, oh, Mercury being in retrograde or some shit. If we look at the list of available colors, I don’t see any that look like a metallic lavender. Even if we look for colors that may have been poorly reproduced, it’s still hard to figure out....
Look above there; that’s a Family 10 model that features a luggage space that is “quite unique” in that you can’t access it from outside the car, because there is no trunk lid. Of course, this is something that you most likely have chosen, because, as the brochure tells you, it is “completely dust- and water-proof,” finally freeing you from the tyranny of damp, dusty luggage. That’s why you wouldn’t be caught dead driving a car with something as crass as a trunk that opened from the, ugh, outside, a place full of dust and water....
It’s like this engine has the opposite packaging goals of every other engine that wants to take up as little room as possible: this crazy bitch just wants to spread out and take up all the space it can. Look at that fan swung out there on its big arm, or that exhaust manifold looping out there or that bolt-upright distributor. It’s not like it had a ton of room, either; all of this was crammed in the back of the little Fiat here:...
We do indeed need something different. One undeniable fact is that there are a lot of four door crossovers out there. Looking out the window now, this type of car fills virtually every space at my office. source: The Bishop What is worse is that it is increasingly difficult to tell a Maserati crossover from an Alfa crossover from a Genesis from even less expensive examples. At some point, if a manufacturer offered something that stood out, it might be at least a minor success....
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. There’s Still A Ways To Go For Rear Passenger Safety As a parent, I’m constantly shuffling my child into the rear seat of my Subaru Forester. Do I think about her safety when I do so?...
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. This Sounds Like A Really Stupid Use Of Taxpayer Money Forgive me for getting political for a second. While free EV charging likely isn’t sustainable in the long-run, North Carolina state representatives Kidwell, Moss, Brody, and Cleveland have introduced an anti-free charging bill that makes them sound like whiny little pricks....
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. France To Tie EV Rebates To Income One of the big problems with EVs is that they are mostly quite expensive for anyone who doesn’t have what used to be luxury car money....
Let’s start with dimensions. Obviously, Hyundai’s E-GMP platform is as malleable as a pack of Big League Chew. Wheelbases, ride heights, and hip points can all be changed extensively, albeit within reason. So, let’s take a look at the Ioniq 6’s exterior dimensions and give them some much-needed context. Compared to the Ioniq 5, the Ioniq 6’s wheelbase shrinks by 50 mm (1.97 inches), while length is up by a significant 220 mm (8....
Let me begin by explaining why Australia holds the title of Burnout Capital of the World. It’s not because doing a burnout here (Again, for those of you just joining, I’m near Dubbo trying to fix a truly impossible project car) is particularly easy. The cops are absurdly strict, and folks just seem to be less tolerant of others lighting up rubber on public streets. Doing a burnout anywhere near civilization in Australia is just asking for a world of trouble from the authorities....
As you know, the Proton Saga, introduced in 1985, was Malaysia’s first mass-produced car to be built and sold by a Malaysian company. Based on the second-gen Mitsubishi Lancer Fiore, the Saga – the name was both an acronym for “Safety, Achievement, Greatness, and Ability” and also referenced the Malay word for the tough seed of the Saga tree that looks like a ladybug, at least to me – was a huge success, and was largely responsible for launching the modern Malaysian automotive industry....
If you haven’t experienced a stuck lugnut in your days of wrenching, thank the car gods immediately, for it is a traumatic experience from which you will emerge a different person. A hardened person. A person who, when someone mentions brake work or suspension work or swapping out summer tires for winter tires, just stares blankly out into the distance, quivering ever so slightly before “coming to.” It’s bad; it’s really bad....
Last month, the Bishop sent me a Slack message containing an offer that I couldn’t refuse. See, his parents owned a BMW 5-Series wagon and soon, they would no longer be able to drive it. That meant that the BMW needed a new home, and of course, Bishop reached out to the Autopian’s German wagon lover. And the Bishop knew exactly how to draw me in, with a price so low that I couldn’t say no....
