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David Could No Longer Resist The Legendary 300 Inline-Six As you may know, David has been making a concerted effort to thin out his flock of cars, because he’s either thinking of moving or joining some cult or joining the Navy or some bullshit; I’m not entirely sure, as the plans change hourly and it’s pretty easy to tune it all out, but the point is David has decided he’s not in a place where he wants to add more cars to his fleet, but that does nothing to quell his powerful old-car-buying urges....

So screw it. Let’s get weird again. In the interest of completeness, however: Yep. The Subaru is the better choice. And it sounds like a couple of our Colorado readers might be high-tailing it over there to look at it right now. (My finder’s fee is 5%, by the way, payable in pizza and beer.) You may have noticed that I’ve been favoring areas west of the Mississippi for car choices....

If YouTube isn’t your thing we’re also on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or you can use the RSS feed and point your favorite Podcast player at it. The video above is all the episodes in one playlist if you want to make your life easier. Not only can you listen to Beau, Jason, and David, you can also marvel at the seeming indifference that David has to any of his surroundings ever....

1938 Tatra T97 This levitating Tatra is actually getting some brake work done.It’s been in the shop before, but after a recent drive, it was brought to the shop fora mushybrake pedal feel. Sure enough, the brake shoe shad developed a hairline crack and has started to delaminate, so they were sent off to be relined. Whilewaiting for the brakes to come back, Nick noticed a there was quite a bit of oil leaking out from around the rear half shafts....

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. Big Gas Prices Have Eclipsed Five Dollars Per Gallon Well, here we are. According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of regular gas in America has crested the five dollar mark....

The sulking, forlorn patron was sitting at the beautifully-lit “Quanta Basta” bar in a state of utter despair, holding his head in his hands on a dark, cold December evening, right before the dinner rush. After quickly equating “broken car” with me, the restaurant manager texted me something along the lines of: “There is a guy who sounds like he’s selling a busted Mercedes at the bar right now if you’re interested – not sure if a Mercedes is your thing....

The car brand in question is Plymouth, one of the former key pillars on the edifice of the Temple of Chrysler, and most of us think we know what Plymouth was named for because their logo has looked like this over the years: Yes, a big ship. Since the brand started in 1928 to when it ended in 2001 (with a bang called the Prowler, it’s worth noting) at various times a logo featuring a specific old sailing vessel, the Mayflower, was used....

So how did I end up with this relatively haggard midsize sedan as my first car? Well, I’m not always great at making decisions. Instead of something, I don’t know, good, I copped a G-Body Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham. While very little about this burgundy-on-burgundy slab of Americana fits well with someone who really likes to drive, it does have one ace up its sleeve. While American models largely stuck to Oldsmobile engines, Canadian cars didn’t....

Some adored the French, others hated them. Most felt something in the middle. But no two people gave the exact same response. The French Connection For those who don’t know, toward the end of its existence, The Last Independent Automaker American Motors Corporation (which eventually became part of what is now Stellantis) entered into a partnership with French carmaker Renault in 1978. This move was tied to the way the car market was shifting at the time over gas prices and fuel economy regulations....

Somehow, I made it 30 laps around the sun. There was once a time when I couldn’t fathom completing my 20s, let alone making it to 30. But some wonderful events in life corrected my course. I have a lot to thank for that, including finding my own way to writing about the silly adventures that I subject myself to. Those adventures all helped me become the person I am today, and turning 30 Wednesday marked a personal milestone....

Growing up, Matchbox cars were a critical component in honing me into a car enthusiast. I collected hundreds of Matchbox and the occasional Hot Wheels car until I had at least a few thousand of them. In those early years, I spent countless hours arranging my Matchbox cars into highways brimming with traffic and citys full of action. My collection had a little bit of everything, too, from box trucks and semis to low-slung British and Italian supercars....

This week, we have a famed Japanese classic, an obscure scooter, vintage iron, and more! These are cars that I’d definitely get posters of to hang on a wall. I search the entire country for a good balance of price and vehicle condition. But sometimes, some really cool cars end up for sale with really high prices. It’s disappointing, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with window shopping and dreaming....

As Autoweek explains, in 1961 Mercury was recovering from an attempt to be a separate division, with bodies that weren’t hand-me-downs from Ford. At around the same time, Ford engineers were at work on the project that would become the Ford Mustang. Lincoln- Mercury designers proposed a design for the new car, but ultimately lost to the Ford Production Studio. That didn’t stop Lincoln-Mercury brass from wanting a slice of the pie, and the division wanted to release its own version of what Ford was cooking....

When I think of “Sun Valley” now, I don’t think it has the same connotations that Mercury was going for back in the day. I think they were hoping to evoke ideas of sunny, effortless elegance, but my experiences with Sun Valley from when I lived in Los Angeles are those of sunny, effortless junkyard exploring. I actually love Sun Valley, but let’s be honest here: it’s mostly a collection of junkyards (including legendary spots like Apex Surplus) and Mexican food places, and while that sounds like a suburb of Heaven to me, I suspect Mercury was going for something, you know, classier....

Based on a really informal look at these sorts of drawings, seat cutaways only show up about 25% of the time, I’d guess. Sometimes even the same company can’t decide how important knowing what’s inside the seat is. Look at this: Volkswagen figured Beetle owners would be curious about the magic happening inside the rear seat at least, but Bus owners? I suppose they prefer the mystery. Usually, the seats are either shown solid or disappeared to make visual room for the complex stuff they’re surrounded by: Really, I’m pretty sure no one is looking at these to figure out if there’s such a thing as a headrest carburetor and, if so, what it does....

OEMs create concepts never intended for public consumption all the time. It lets the designers get really wild and allows them to experiment without fear of fucking up the brand image. So why didn’t Porsche show any of these concepts at the time? Because their brand is all about the 911, and they are not about to put sand in that pot of Vaseline. Overnight Porsche revealed its 75th birthday present to itself, the Vision 357 Concept....

This week, I’m continuing my theme of dream vehicles that I want to buy. I have a little bit of everything here from a fantastic bus to America’s best motorcycle and even a couple of classics. I search the entire country for a good balance of price and vehicle condition. But sometimes, some really cool cars end up for sale with really high prices. It’s disappointing, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with window shopping and dreaming....

A quick glance at social media shows many Tesla owners complaining about depreciation, and we’ve rounded up some of those sentiments. — Hemant Basavapattan (@HemantBasva) January 13, 2023 — ozarej (@3vad0r) January 13, 2023 — bizwax.eth (@galarraga_yimy) January 13, 2023 — Nick (@cerdafied_nick) January 13, 2023 — Pranav Talegaonkar (@pranavrdboy) January 13, 2023 Of course, not every Tesla owner is upset about the discounts. Some see it as a great opportunity to grow the brand, like this guy here....

Look, we’ve seen the 2023 Kia Niro before. The global version was unveiled last year and when that happened, we all had a similar thought: Surely they wouldn’t be bringing the all-electric version to North America now that the EV6 is rolling out. Well, the joke’s on us because not only is the Niro EV coming to America, it’ll be sold in all 50 states this time around. While a front-wheel-drive-only electric crossover might not see too many Alaskan customers, I salute the brave few who are eager to go electric....