“Amateur motocross families have lost an iconic member,” according to a spokesman for the AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship. “The Queen of Country Music has opened her home to thousands of motocross athletes for the past 41 years. The memories made at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch are indelible to our racing family.” Famously born dirt poor in the coal mining country of eastern Kentucky, Lynn was a natural singer and storyteller....
I landed in Munich a few days ago to celebrate perhaps the greatest gift I’ve received as a car writer: Friendships made with readers — specifically, one made with Andreas, a Romanian-German with a heart of gold and an Autobianchi of not-too-much rust. I landed on Friday and attended his 12-hour wedding the following day. It was in an incredible car museum; here’s a small section of it: There was a lot of cake:...
I’m not exactly sure of the resolution of the screen, but I bet it’s something like 120×80 or around that. It’s something close to an early Nintendo Game Boy, with its square 160×144 pixel screen, but lacks a crucial quality the Game Boy had: grayscale. A Game Boy could do four shades of gray (well, really shades of kinda baby poop green) but this Volvo screen can only turn pixels on or off, which makes the image even more impressive, with a lot of clever dithering effects to get some kind of shading....
I have so much regret. I should have taken the XJ on a long-ish test drive before selling it, because I know I would have noticed a thermal issue far before the engine overheated. The buyer — like most people who expect their cars to, you know, work — did not, and continued driving until the Jeep literally spewed steam out of its exhaust pipe and would no longer start....
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. Things Are Looking Bad For European Automakers And Parts Suppliers Between inflation and an energy crisis, now seems to be a particularly rough time for European automakers and suppliers....
So what does an EV from the people who brought you the Walkman and VTEC actually look like? From the looks of the Sony Honda Mobility Afeela, the firms definitely haven’t cocked it up. This prototype is from Afeela, the proper brand name given to the Sony Honda Mobility joint venture. It was unveiled tonight at CES 2023, and while I have… thoughts about the name, the design itself means this team-up is off to a good start....
You Have To Get Up Very Early In The Morning If You Want To Kill The Honda Accord Back at The Old Site, we used to call it the Sedanocalypse: the rapid erosion of the four-door sedan market as buyers flocked to crossovers, SUVs and trucks, and automakers couldn’t be more thrilled to accommodate them. After all, the car business is one of margins, and all of those larger vehicles command higher prices than sedans and small cars at generally the same cost of production....
Let’s start with the 770 part of the name. The engineers at Aston have crammed seven percent more boost into the 5.2-liter twin-turbocharged V12 engine to produce 770 metric horsepower, or 759 real horsepower. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s more power than the One-77, which should make this the most powerful front-engined Aston ever made for the road. Job well done, I reckon. Mind you, this isn’t just a case of a simple remap....
Something I love about our ragtag group is that we all have something that we love that’s perhaps just a touch out of what many would say is normal. Each of us has something different to offer. David is the undisputed champion of rust and has proven that he can turn a pile of random rusty parts into a functional vehicle that passes inspection. I love everything with an engine or motor, regardless if it flies, rides, sails, or drives....
First, a bit of disclosure. Honda’s only released one official press picture of the e:N2 and a few computer-generated videos, so to view good photos of the real car, you’ll want to hop on over to an outlet like Vietnam’s Việt Giải Trí. With that out of the way, let’s talk a bit about styling of this machine, which rides on a platform called the e:N Architecture F (which Honda claims prioritizes vehicle stability and crisp handling, and should underpin future e:N models)....
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. Maersk Says Zero Emissions Trucks NOW! (Or In 12 Years) Environmental groups and certain political parties have been pushing for a reduction in greenhouse gases through various means, including bans on emissions-producing cars....
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. Zeekr CEO Says Cars Are Coming To Europe Next Year The headline above has some huge caveats, but the caveats themselves are super revealing: If you live or have traveled to China then you have probably driven a Chinese car....
First, I want to bring to your attention on that truck image up there what’s going on under the tailgate. See those five extra marker lamps stuck on there? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that in the world, but there it is, on a Ram right in their own brochure. I assume it must be to make the wide dually body compliant with federal requirements that state that chonky fellas like this one need extra clearance lamps on the sides and three “identification lamps” so everyone knows a wide boy is there....
I looked through the brochure for some explanation or even references to cock fighting or roosters or chickens or even poultry in general, but there’s nothing. Just some festive cover art of a couple of chickens, one dead by the other’s beak. I think Triumph’s current ad campaign has moved away from cockfighting imagery, but who knows, maybe it’ll make a comeback? I mean with modern CGI, you could really make a graphic and realistic motorcycle-based gigantic chicken fight, right?...
What I do like about this Opel brochure is that it’s really helpful when it comes to explaining what the viewer is looking at. Specifically, I mean this: So, this picture of those mouse-fur-colored seats surrounded by windows is the interior of the car? Shit, thanks for clearing that up, fellas! Another mystery solved! Also, is that rear seat a 90/10 split? Is that what I’m seeing there? UPDATE: Oops....
Two years ago, one of my first articles for the German lighting site was about how school buses were the perfect application of the EV technology that we have access to today. And almost exactly two years on, my opinion hasn’t changed. The life of a school bus is one that happens to be great for the strength and limitations of today’s electric vehicles. Thus, it’s awesome to see electric school buses gradually take off around America....
(Welcome to Member Rides. This is the weekly feature where we look at people who became members of the site by signing up here and parting with a little of their hard-earned dough to keep The Autopian going. Our plan is to do these every week! Today it’s Mr. Asa’s turn!) Autopian: Alright Mr. Asa, where do you live and what do you do? Tampa, Florida area. Mechanical engineer. Autopian: How’d you get into cars?...
Last year, I imported two cars from Japan, a Honda Beat and a Suzuki Every van. While sourcing parts has been a royal pain, driving my imported toys has been a ball. And the process of importing a car was sort of fun, too. This year, I’ve resisted the urge to import another car, but this bus is challenging all of us in the Autopian virtual office. As much as I love the RTS and our daydreaming designer, a dog bus would fit us so much better....
It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s time for another The Autopian Podcast. There’s a good chance you’re hitting the road today or tomorrow to see grandma and fill up on pie/theories about how the current flu strain was accidentally leaked from a lab that was trying to develop a new nacho cheese sauce for the Boston Bruins. Listen to this, instead. “I have a flat brim hat and a Subaru....
Previously, I did nothing with my huge list except occasionally buy a vehicle from it, and maybe share it with friends. But since late 2020 I’ve found a new use for them. I get to share them with you, our dear readers! I’ll warn you right away, some of these may be downright stupid or crappy cars. Some of them are questionably modified. Some of them may be suspiciously cheap....
