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Stop on a Dime – Upgrade Your Cheap-Ass Brakes

Posted on Jun 18, 2014 in Technology | 1 comment

Your brakes have one job and one job only – to stop your car. In theory, it’s a simple process – you depress the brake pedal, pads push against rotor, slowing rotor equals slowing wheels (if you’re lost already, stop reading and go shred your driver’s license. Please.) In reality, however, there’s a lot more that goes into the process. There’s all these...

Is Old-School Rebadging Dead?

Posted on Jun 15, 2014 in Editorials | 1 comment

So I got up behind a Dodge Grand Caravan the other day and I started thinking about my youth. This is because, in my youth, the Dodge Grand Caravan was an acceptable vehicle to drive, and not something you were stuck with when Enterprise ran out of full-size sedans. There are two reasons for this: 1. Back in the day, the Dodge Caravan didn’t really have any...

Penske May Step Up to the Plate for Saturn

Posted on May 21, 2014 in Racing | Comments Off on Penske May Step Up to the Plate for Saturn

Hard for me to believe, but Roger Penske is 72 (which puts him in my age bracket), and the man is still larger than life in the automotive world. After a career in everything from Formula 1 racing to buying and selling dealerships, “The Captain,” as he is known, is now fishing for Saturn from The General. As we reported, GM has put Saturn on the block, along...

The Car Features Worth Being Thankful For

Posted on May 16, 2014 in Safety | 1 comment

With ESC… My wife and son were in a car accident earlier this week. Thankfully no one was hurt and the car is being taken care of by the friendly folks in car insurance land. But there’s nothing quite like getting a phone call telling you the people you treasure most have been in an accident, and the relief after learning that they’re perfectly OK. It’s a...

Lost and Found overflow – Chevrolet’s overhead-camshaft and hemi-headed big-block V-8s

Posted on May 6, 2014 in Featured | 2 comments

While researching our recent story on the 50th anniversary of the Mark IV big-block Chevrolet V-8, we came across something odd, something we’d never seen before – and it appears not many other people had seen it before either. Two photos in the GM Media database that showed two experimental big-blocks that very well could have set the American high-performance...

To Russia, With Love

Posted on May 4, 2014 in Antique | Comments Off on To Russia, With Love

This week I started to notice a trend happening with Chris on Cars, where every new user lives in Russia. Once I started checking, I realized that more than half of my readers were from Russia. So, I assume that makes me a celebrity there. I am probably as loved as Paul McCartney, or Vladimir Putin, and certainly better looking than either without my shirt on....

The Chrysler Turbine Car

Posted on Apr 22, 2014 in Antique | Comments Off on The Chrysler Turbine Car

One of my favorite cars of the “future” was the Chrysler Turbine car, produced in 1963. 55 units were built as a test of gas turbine engines, and now only two remain in private hands. Jay Leno is one of the lucky few, and he recently created a video showing the car and its history. The video is about 25 miutes long, but it is an excellent view. LINK: Jay Leno’s...

Jamming Cell Phones in Cars: “I think it will be done,” says Ray LaHood

Posted on Apr 18, 2014 in Safety | 1 comment

The U.S. Secretary of Transportation has been on the warpath about cell phone use, particularly texting, in cars, which has killed some 16,000 people in 6 years in the U.S. The department has a new video campaign with heart-rending stories of young people who have been killed in distracted driving incidents. In an interview last Thursday, responding to a...

Promising Scuderi Engine Ignites Interest With Split-Cycle

Posted on Apr 15, 2014 in Technology | 2 comments

Seeing our current motoring reality, many would suggest that the modern automobile is failing to reflect our progressive use of technology. For about 90 years, the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine has remained predominant to driving, remaining to its basic four-stroke operating principles. Through time, several movements were made to reformulate the...

Now a Retrospective Look Eight Months Later

Posted on Apr 13, 2014 in Editorials | 2 comments

When I was but a tyke, my parents would give me extremely vague, outlandish and downright wrong clues as to what sat under the Christmas tree for me every year. My mom and dad, being ever clever (or at least thinking they were), would disguise my gifts with a Matryoshka doll arrangement of boxes, fill those boxes with pieces of wood or other noisy-when-shaken...

My hit-and-miss experiences with parts cars

Posted on Apr 2, 2014 in Featured | 1 comment

Parts car availability seems to be shuffling toward the realm of dinosaurs, VCR repairmen, desktop computers and hula-hoops, thanks mostly to the fact that with collector car prices being what they are, every candidate is now viewed as restorable. Some parts cars may be good enough to save; others, however, may require the replacement of 97 percent of their...

Cool Gadgets or Lazy Tools?

Posted on Mar 27, 2014 in Technology | 2 comments

As cars become ever more technical with every new model, I got to thinking: Are all these cool new gadgets helping us be better drivers, or making us uber lazy behind the wheel? I thought this as I popped my Lincoln MKT tester into Active Park Assist, took my hands off the wheel and let the car parallel park itself. I didn’t even have to find the spot, the car...

All-Wheel Drive Could Lead You Into a Ditch

Posted on Mar 10, 2014 in Safety | 1 comment

Keep an eye on the sky, folks, because snow could start falling at any moment! In my part of the world, the white stuff will likely make its first appearance of the season within the next couple of days. While that’s great news for snowmen and skiers, it can seriously suck for the ill-prepared driver. Owning a vehicle with all-wheel drive certainly helps...