Also spotted in Ballard....
Continue reading Donkz.
Recently in Cars Category
When I'm driving in an unfamiliar far-away city, I prefer driving a rental car instead of own car since the local license plates on the rental don't scream that I'm an outsider. So it's a little obnoxious that my rental Focus—more on that later—happens to be fitted with license plates...
Continue reading BLOUNT.
For a limited time only, you can snap up the rolling-door Lincoln prototype on eBay. Bidding is already at $6k—how high will it go? ...remember this thing?...
Continue reading Buy a part of prototype history.
Is it a:Squashed Cayenne? Stretched Cayman? A 924 with some strakes and rear windows from an Alero?...
Continue reading A Porsche Panamera survey.
I just realized I've never owned a V6. And up until the truck, I haven't owned a V8. Flat-4: Subaru GL, Subaru XT, Porsche 914 Inline-4: Volvo 240, Toyota 4Runner, Eagle Talon, Toyota Camry, Volkswagen Scirocco, Toyota RAV4 Inline-6: Dodge Dart, BMW 325is, Mercedes-Benz 250 V8: Ford F-250 Seems I...
Continue reading I have never owned a V6.
I only got two see one or two examples of Dekotora (think deco truck) while in Japan. None of them were all that great—this one, with its goofy rear-view-mirror-frames-gone-wrong was the only one really worth mentioning. I spotted it right outside the Toyota Automobile Museum in suburban Nagoya, and proceeded...
Continue reading Dekotora.
Spotted at the Toyota Automobile Museum: the Flying Feather, a microcar produced in the 1960s. It's built for lightness, as evidenced by the oversized bicycle-like spoke wheels. Between the dubs and the chopped roof, it's surprisingly modern in its stance. Hummer Microcar, anyone? Oh wait, no more Hummer....
Continue reading Flying Feather.
It's difficult to tell in this photo (sorry) but Mazda built and sold Mitsubishi-branded motorcycles for a brief period when first getting started. The reason? Mazda had no dealer network and relied on Mitsubishi showrooms to move product....
Continue reading Mazdatsubishi.
This is the Mazda 787B racecar, which won LeMans in 1991. It's the only rotary-powered car to ever win at LeMans, and that win got rotary engines promptly banned the following year. Even among rotaries it's notable: it has a four-rotor engine, which was once thought infeasible due to the...
Continue reading Fastest. Mazda. Ever..
One of the more interesting vehicles on display at the Mazda Museum was the Autozam AZ-1, a mid-engined turbocharged two-seater with gull-wing doors, produced by Mazda but branded under the then-new Autozam brand. Fascinating little car. It's like a Japanese DeLorean....
Continue reading Autozam AZ-1.
This is one of the more remarkable engines on display at the Toyota Automobile Museum. I believe it's in an early 20th-century Isotta Frachini car, and it's an inline four with two separate cylinder blocks. I couldn't tell if the crankcases were separate, too. In the background is a fantastic...
Continue reading "Inline" four?.
What next? P.S. This is actually a Toyota bus built for the 2005 Aichi World's Fair....
Continue reading Japanese bus technology is years ahead of ours.
I got into an argument with my coworkers last week about the Toyota product line and where the Century fits in. Americans (and in fact, some Japanese) expect that the top models built by the Toyota corporation would be branded and sold as Lexus vehicles. And for the most part,...
Continue reading Toyota Century.
I went to the Toyota Automobile Museum (TAM) earlier today. In contrast to the Mazda Museum, which is more Mazda than Museum, the TAM is more Automobile Museum than it is Toyota. They do have a good number of Toyota models, but much of the collection is comprised of other...
Continue reading Toyota Automobile Museum.
I would be astounded enough to take a picture of this gold-plated 1980s Cadillac even it were found in the fantastically funkalicious U-S-of-A. But in Japan? I nearly wet myself....
Continue reading Japanapimpin'.
All manner of totally awesome vans. Pictured are marginally-less-than-sweet bigger vans (the one in the center is a second-generation Previa) but there are plenty of kickass box vans all over. Fancy parking....
Continue reading Two things popular in Japan.
There's a guy who lives somewhere in my neighborhood who apparently drives his crappy first-generation Altima1 without his headlights on at night. I've seen him driving around twice (last night, and a few months ago) cruising down a relatively well-lit road at 35mph without any headlights or even marker lamps...
Continue reading But using them will just wear them out.
Instead of leaving a car at the airport or trying to mooch a ride off of a friend, I've lately been getting a town car to drive me to and from the airport. It's way more comfortable than being stuffed in the back of a Prius taxi, and is cheaper...
Continue reading Townie car.
This chopped 8x8 Tatra T813 was parked right next door to Scotty's. Last I checked, you could get one of these 8x8s trucks (with an 18L V12 diesel engine) for around $20k. Sweet!...
Continue reading Party Tatra Kauai.
Cars rust like crazy out here. This is true anywhere salt and water are plentiful—but the effect is really dramatic on the Hawaiian islands since nearly everything here has been exposed to saltwater for its entire operational life—even in super-salty places on the mainland many vehicles only spend a fraction...
Continue reading Rustastic.
I believe it is healthy to maintain a distrust toward individuals with heavily modified and immaculate full-size pickup trucks....
Continue reading Chrome grills.
Nothing says classy quite like plastic-chrome automobile accessories affixed with double-sided sticky tape....
Continue reading I know what accessory Justin needs to take to the UK.
This is what happens when rednecks Camaro aficionados get fed up with Craigslist. Pity this didn't make best-of....
Continue reading A mullet by any other name.
This is what happens when you throw $184,000 of upgrades onto a ... Toyota Prius? I can't imagine any other car which is so hip by being so low-bling....
Continue reading I can't tell if they're trying to be ironic.
I spotted this in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco while I was in the area last weekend. What the hell is it? It's a weird huge orange bus. The first two things that popped into my mind were "firefighters" or maybe "Chinese government group."...
Continue reading Monster orange bus.
The folks over at Moletech sell a typically nonsensical mileage enhancing product called MTech which uses the magic of molecules and ions (and science!) to magically increase the fuel efficiency of your vehicumobile. I could write for hours about the product, but I'll skip it because even if it did...
Continue reading Don't accidentally buy the wrong snake oil kit!.
Handicapped placard Big stupid dubs 22" in shiny stones on the fender Spotted near yesterday's fishes....
Continue reading Trifecta of awesome.
Got a hankering for crazy photos of oddly proportioned and amateur-assembled kit cars? Well I'm giving you the link anyway. Price of His Toys is a car blog all about nutty kit cars—the vast majority of which are based on either VW bug or Fiero chassis. Anyway, there are tons...
Continue reading Price of His Toys.
I spotted this 1935 Monaco Trossi over at Jalopnik a while back. Mounting a huge-ass radial engine to the front of a sports car is quite possibly the coolest idea to come out of the 1930s....
Continue reading It's not a rotary. It's a radial..
I promised yesterday to assemble a big list of overgeneralized, stereotypical, and even somewhat vague categories you could put cars in. All of them can (or do) overlap with others. The purpose is for me to wrap my head around the things I really do want to own and experience—having...
Continue reading The varietal checklist.
I realized today that as far as cars go, I'm a variety snob. I'm sure many of you have long ago come to the same conclusion. The evidence isn't particularly well-hidden. In contrast, the majority of car nuts who aren't me are brand snobs. The anthropologist in me thinks that...
Continue reading Varietal.
I've had no success with the Porsche 914s here over the last few days, but something interesting caught my eye: a Volvo P1800ES. The photo is one I had lying around from two and a half years ago....
Continue reading Perhaps a Volvo P1800ES?.
Spotted over at Kotaku....
Continue reading When worlds collide.
Any of you who have talked to me about cars anytime in the last year or so have probably immediately dismissed most of whatever it is I said—and it's possibly because I've been on a big Chinese car kick lately. They're nutty and cheap, and I think it's vastly interesting...
Continue reading My fascination with Chinese automobiles.
Flipping through Craigslist earlier I ran across this (cached). It's a torbo! I'm still waiting for someone to sell a fixed semi-convertible as a Torgo1. You'll notice I haven't yet made progress on the 3. I've decided to hold off until this next weekend as there's a remote possibility I'll...
Continue reading Porsche 924 Torbo!.
This is a first-generation Oldsmobile Silhouette sporting a Mugen sticker just under the rear window (you can't really see it in the photo—trust me, it says Mugen). Yes, the same Mugen that makes Honda parts. I wonder if it has a MoTeC exhaust....
Continue reading WTF 2.
I have to admit—I'm a huge sucker for crazy door designs. So when I saw the Mégane Coupé Concept (Concépt?) from Renault, I nearly crapped my pants. The design is cool enough without the doors...but just look at those things! As far as I can tell (I haven't seen it...
Continue reading Renault Mégane Coupé Concept.
...or maybe Avalanche? Either way, just before going tubing on Saturday night, I spotted this totally sweet ZJ Jeep Grand Cherokee modified with sweet new fenders, headlights that appear to have been stolen from ... some other Jeep, a superlight front bumper. Oh, and let's not forget the truck bed....
Continue reading Jeep Grand Cherokee Camino.
I still can't explain exactly why, but the roads in western Washington (and particularly those on the east side of Lake Washington) are filled with courteous drivers who practically never speed. It's a little odd traveling down the highway and noticing that the biggest differential between posted limit and actual...
Continue reading Nobody speeds in western Washington.
Here's a hint to all of you aspiring young ignoramuses out there: if you're planning on drifting a car you've just "borrowed" from the dealership where you work, it may not be best to do so at the parking lot marked 1 in the map at right. Why is that?...
Continue reading Where not to drift.
BMW revised the taillights on the 2008 5 series, and I'm very impressed. The lights now have an Art Deco feel and look even better than they do in the photograph at right. Bravo, taillight designer. These are particularly well-executed....
Continue reading Hat-tip to the taillight designer of the 2008 BMW 5 Series.
I saw this picture in a post over at English Russia (agh, the ads!) and although the post was titled Bad Parking 5, I have to admit that "bad parking" wasn't the first thing through my mind. It was closer to, "I think I know what kind of truck I...
Continue reading Totally awesome parking job.
Nearly as cool-looking as the Geely CD (ahem) is the Honda CR-Z. The only catch? It's a hybrid. Why can't we just get back to small+light+simple?...
Continue reading Another Detroit favorite: Honda CR-Z.
Well, you get a blurry picture of the Hànzi/Kanji on the rear-end of the Mazda Furai. It's still my favorite car from the show....
Continue reading What do you get if you cross the last three posts?.
Unlike yesterday's post on Chinese cars being imported to the US, I'm going to talk today about US cars being imported to China. This is non-news to anyone involved in the auto industry, but I'm not entirely sure how well-understood it is otherwise: Buick is totally hot stuff in China....
Continue reading The other side of the Chinese fence.
I'm fascinated by Chinese cars. It reminds a lot of the Japanese invasion of the mid-1970s (and the Korean invasion of the late 1990s) and I can't help but think that it's going to be really interesting to watch the evolution of these currently-crapmobiles. The thing is that the NAIAS...
Continue reading Presenting the Geely Coupe (now in Blur-o-Vision!).
We did the auto show today. I'm tired, so I don't have a ton to say. Except that the Mazda Furai is seriously cool. More pictures later this week....
Continue reading Auto show.
I'm spending the weekend in Detroit, in part because of the NAIAS. But I'm not going until tomorrow, and I need to write about something tonight. So here's the deal: I drove nearly an hour between the airport and Raven's place up in Pontiac. In that hour, I encountered hundreds...
Continue reading Welcome to Detroit. Renaults go home..
Car parts coming unstuck—always good times. P.S. The video is loud. Turn your speakers down....
Continue reading Who did your welds?.
Yes, that's a BMW Z3 sporting a stupid front fascia, blingin' chrome wheels, and a ridiculous curly spoiler-looking thing....
Continue reading You damned kids..
I like to pick on automotive marketing departments (...a lot, actually) but from time to time they're saddled with the unenviable task of drumming up interest in absolutely horrifically engineered cars. Often, the best that they can do is to slap an interesting-sounding name on the car in the hopes...
Continue reading Weigh in: ambitious names on crappy cars.
The first local craigslist post of note is this gem (cached) from someone fed up with his new truck payments. Yet more evidence why people just can't have nice things. The seller is clearly an intelligent fellow, since he blew some (probably big) bucks on stupid-huge chrome wheels and matching...
Continue reading Two killer craigslist finds.
That's right—I'm talking to you. You, as a member of the human race. As a participant in society. As a driver. Specifically, as the first driver in the left-turn only lane at a stop light. You've got a responsibility to pay attention. Both of the chumps in the lanes going...
Continue reading You have a responsibility..
I saw this earlier today at Jalopnik—it's a 1994 Lincoln Mark VIII heavily modified to feature the coolest doors this side of Countach. Or this side of Z1, for you car nerds out there...or anyone who's seen Armour of God II: Operation Condor: Jackie Chan's most hot-doggin' movie. I realize...
Continue reading The disappearing car door.
This is a really old cameraphone picture of Manuel taking a cameraphone picture of the front end of a BMW E32 7 Series sedan. The license plate translates roughly to, out of the way!...
Continue reading Weg da!.
The huge tires in the bed of this Ford Ranger make the bald passenger-car tires look teeny tiny. P.S. Someone needs to clean my windshield....
Continue reading Hefty hefty hefty—wimpy wimpy wimpy!.
I spotted this at Bonnie and Abigail's triathlon last weekend. My first thought was, "dammit, what would possess someone to put hideous rims like that on their promotional vehicle?" But now I've posted about it—corporate logo and all. Touché, bling rims....
Continue reading Curses! Foiled again!.
This happened nearly a month ago, but I forgot about it until today. The Volvo C30 is, in my opinion, a really neat little car. It's a Ford Focus/Mazda3 that looks better than both and is available with a turbocharged straight-five. This car actually has more potential than even the...
Continue reading I sat in a Volvo C30.
Note to video game makers: I'm sick of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. I realize it's a fantastically technical and brilliant track, but every other game studio on the planet thought it was necessary to include it in their game, and so by now I've already looped the damned thing thousands...
Continue reading Enough with the Laguna Seca already.
Day 3 of no blog: I spent last night helping Manuel install some hot car stereo action into his wee Miata. That took significantly longer than expected, so no progress on actually fixing the blog problem. Maybe tonight? P.S. It looks like Layla took this picture right when I was...
Continue reading --blog; ++Miata;.
This is a picture of a Ford Contour. This particular Contour has had a white driver's door put in place of an ostensibly damaged original door. And on this replacement door is a Huge. BMW. Logo. This was spotted at the Bellevue PRO Club yesterday morning. Enjoy....
Continue reading BMW Contour?.
I've loaned the truck to a friend for the weekend, and as collateral, he's left me his Saab 9-3 2.0t. I can't help but think he got the bum end of this trade. I think this is the first time I've driven a turbocharged car since I sold my Talon...
Continue reading Turbo time.
Do you all remember Rob's old Supra? Well, I was up early this morning (don't ask how early) tagging pictures when I ran across this little gem—which I appear to have taken just two weeks after I posted the aforelinked entry. I guess I never got around to putting up...
Continue reading What? More ancient Supra shots?.
Let's all 1337 like it's 2003....
Continue reading Canadanerds!.
If you look closely at this photo, you can spot the ridiculous wheel arches housing megaspaced bling rims. Oh, and the two-part handle spoiler? It's got Hamann stamped on the bottom. I'm sure somebody paid a pretty penny for this set of upgrades....
Continue reading An M3 in poor taste.
I snapped this first picture on I-405 (no, I wasn't driving) on March 31 of this year. Today, at Lowe's, I spotted the same car. Yowch. Judging by the camber in the first picture, I don't suspect that rear tire lasts very long—and that's a bummer, since I'm guessing that...
Continue reading Smashed Sable.
Since I'm sure you're all still so excited from yesterday's post, here's another picture of a truck exceeding its payload capacity. In this case, it's a 2wd Dodge 2500 longbed (so...a direct competitor to my 2wd 3/4 ton longbed, only newer) but it's far more heavily loaded than mine was....
Continue reading Double the bottomed out.
This may be a little out there for some of you, but anyone who's ever driven on a racetrack (heck, even in traffic?) can probably appreciate what's going through this guy's head. What comes out of his mouth, on the other hand, is something else entirely. Don't despair if it...
Continue reading The Mustang Nemesis.
I've occasionally spotted this car driving around Bellevue for the last two years, and I've finally got a photo of it! In a handicapped spot in front of a Trader Joe's. As far as I can tell, it's a first-generation Buick Riviera (likely 1965, due to the lack of faux...
Continue reading Caught on camera!.
It's undeniably shlock Americana: the Jeff Gordon coffee maker. It comes equipped with a water level indicator, ten-cup capacity, racing stickers, and a picture of Jeff Gordon looking mildly affected on the box. Merchandising, merchandising, merchandising!...
Continue reading The Jeff Gordon coffee maker.
It annoys me to no end when some backwards-hatted kid in a riced-out Civic pulls up next to my BMW at a stop light, hauls ass when it turns green, and is assuredly smug as he pulls away entirely too quickly for the bouncy suspension and stock brakes I'm sure...
Continue reading Singlehanded street racing.
Remember the Lada Niva? Well, English Russia caught one stuck on a chunk of ice (cached)....
Continue reading I'll take a Lada Niva, on ice..
This is a picture of a painter's truck cruising through Bellevue. In related news, I bought an 8' ladder today. It barely fits inside my garage, but it's fantastic for getting me onto the roof and into the attic. I'll be doing a lot of both soon, since our gutters...
Continue reading Wow, that's a lot of ladders.
I would usually write this sort of thing over at AA but I'm feeling particularly ranty and I'm not in the mood to polish the article enough to make it worthy of anything other than, well, /dev/null. Here's the deal: every car nut out there starts on a complaint rant...
Continue reading Why there will never be any more compelling cars.
This came over the news wire recently. Apparently some kid came barrelling down a local road and lost control of his shiny red RX-7, and then dumped the car up a tree. Oddly, no serious injuries. Photo archive: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8...
Continue reading I don't think you can park that there.
Washington State Department of Transportation: completely out of touch since 1904....
Continue reading Got pwn?.
Those of you who haven't seen the redneck rollercoaster should watch that video before you start the one below. Redneck-licious!...
Continue reading Redneck rollercoaster howto.
Get a ton of people together. Strand them somewhere stupid. Let them each buy a car for no more than $1,000. Make them drive it somewhere less stupid. Hilarity ensues. If you've been watching Top Gear recently, this is probably pretty familiar. The stupid place was Miami, and the less...
Continue reading ...is there any interest?.
I've been on the phone (or email) daily with the guy selling a certain Fiat X1/9, but the snow and ice have been conspiring to keep my ass stuck in Kirkland. And even though I've got the 4WD RAV4, it doesn't do me much good, as I'll still have to...
Continue reading I hate the snow. It's delaying a car sale..
I've already got a thread open with the owner. And, if all goes my way, I'll own an Italian car by this weekend....
Continue reading Why, what have we here?.
Those of you who know what a 2JZ-GTE is will get a hefty chuckle out of this picture....
Continue reading Something for the Supra guys.
Some of you may remember my post about Family Guy and the Volkswagen Scirocco. Well, this time, they've tackled the Hummer. See the clip here (3.35MB WMV). This is marginally NSFW (see P.S. below). I'll leave that at that. Comment as you will. P.S. This was taken from a Canadian...
Continue reading Family Guy on the Hummer.
This is one badass half-spray-painted, half-Rhino-lined Subaru that Layla and I spotted outside of a local Target. At least, I presume it's Rhino-lined...the black tag on the grey strip along the left edge of the trunk lid is a Rhino Liner logo. And the "support our *" ribbon? It read,...
Continue reading "I painted my car. You know, with a roller.".
Oh kids, when will you learn that not even hilarious ad copy will save you from your oddball cars. This particular ad comes from craigslist (cached) and notes that this car:"was used in a Mexican street race gang." I'm still puzzled by the use of the word in—was the car...
Continue reading Slightly used, by a Mexican street race gang.
I've long posited that the Volvo 240 wagon (preferrably in turbocharged or, ahem, blown 350 form) is the coolest of the Volvos. It's about as new as you can get without going Swedish-brickish, but it's still got that IKEAn style that made famous that company run entirely by tall blonde...
Continue reading The coolest Volvo of all time.
Tonight's pictures come courtesy of Rob and the extent of my laziness. This is an E23 BMW 7-Series doped up in a totally bodacious paint-job (growl!) and the world's coolest wing. Oh yeah. That's how it's done....
Continue reading The crazy E23.
Go ahead. See what this guy has to say about his RX-7. (cached)...
Continue reading A discount on the $100,000 RX-7.
Automatically spammed with automotive spam. 3000gt trans gears allison 1000 trans filter Amused. That picture there is, in fact, a 3000GT transmission. Ehhh...at least this is better than the "bigcock" porn spam I usually get....
Continue reading Auto spammed.