Marcelo da Luz has been attracting a lot of attention with his snazzy solar car. He's hoping to set a new world record by driving the car from Buffalo, NY, to Inuvik, Northwest Territories.
posted on Sep 10, 2008 - View this thread

Ford Model T owners "transformed the cars into tractors, pickup trucks, paddy wagons, mobile lumber mills and power plants for milling grain."
posted on Jul 31, 2008 - View this thread

Car of the Future , NOVA's latest episode, is fully online and includes a slew of extras including CC-licensed content, a brief historical overview of "innovative" automobiles, Amory Lovins flogging his Hypercar concept, the Car Talk guys making nuisances of themselves, and much more. (It's no Design for Dreaming, but really, what could be?)
posted on Apr 24, 2008 - View this thread

Speed, Style and Beauty: The Ralph Lauren Car Collection photo gallery. More photos here (although some are duplicates). Details of the automobiles at Motor Trend. The cars were the subject of a Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibition in 2005, and an excellent Discovery Channel documentary last October. If you missed the broadcast, you can buy the book. (There's no DVD that I can find, but watch for a repeat broadcast. Or maybe you can catch it some other way.)
posted on Mar 29, 2008 - View this thread

The Tata Nano (pic) is a car that costs less new than the amount I've spent on gas during single car trips, recently announced to the auto market in India. The Chery QQ ^, successful , widely exported, and recognized as the Hostage Taker's Vehicle of Choice by China Car Times, is the runner-up for the world's cheapest car but is still approximately twice as expensive. Yes indeed, the price of gas is not going to come back down. So much for my coast-to-coast road trips.
posted on Feb 3, 2008 - View this thread

How to Paint a Picture With a Car (Bandwidth-saving Youtube version)
posted on Jan 3, 2008 - View this thread

In the U.S., motorists do not pay their way. The US government spends more on highways and other auto-related expenses than it receives from auto-related taxes, unlike almost every country in Europe. In a recent report [pdf], Mark Delucchi calculates automobile-related costs and revenues in three different ways and concludes the subsidy is around 20-70 cents per gallon or $24-105 billion in 2002. But what are automobile-related costs, you ask?
posted on Oct 2, 2007 - View this thread

$50 Paint Job I figured since the Corvair is not in line to be professionally painted, I'd give it a try.
posted on Jun 12, 2007 - View this thread

For years, MDI has been developing a car that runs on compressed air. Last month, they signed an agreement with Tata Motors to produce the MiniCat - a zero-emissions vehicle that will travel up to 180 miles on $3 worth of fuel. See it in action here. (youtube)
posted on Mar 19, 2007 - View this thread

If you've run out of places to pierce yourself, you can now pierce your car.
posted on Oct 1, 2006 - View this thread

Microcars are cool. (Earlier microcar post )
posted on Sep 7, 2006 - View this thread

Donk, box, or bubble?
posted on Aug 18, 2006 - View this thread

Patent Room is a collection of early 20th Century industrial design culled from the archives of the U.S. Patent Office, featuring architecture, automobiles, toys, and trains.
posted on Aug 3, 2005 - View this thread

Spray-on Mud - So you own a big 4x4, and you feel a bit stupid that you only use it to take the children to school. You want people to think you're a bit country - that you need 6 tonnes of car to get you from A to B because you like to take it off-road every so often. You need Spray-on Mud apparently.
posted on Jun 14, 2005 - View this thread

After an American car company recreates its legendary 1960's Ferrari-beating race car, the first $150,000 2005 production car sells at a charity event for $400,000 over sticker price, (to a Microsoft-enriched individual, of course) and many months later, dealers are still asking up to $200,000 over sticker, or at least $150,000 over sticker. The "experts" at Edmunds say the car is selling for about $100,000 over sticker (seeing their "True Market Value" requires a few clicks from this page), and the widespread belief is that these admittedly amazing cars are virtually impossible to find and all selling for at least $100,000 over sticker. But using publicly available data, including completed eBay auctions and public documents, this non-commercial site shows the truth to be very different than the hype.
posted on May 13, 2005 - View this thread

In an effort to undermine California's vehicle global warming law, the auto industry has been running an ad claiming today's vehicles are virtually emission free. The Union of Concerned Scientists says "poppycock on that!" and is seeking a FTC false-advertising investigation. Fortunately, no matter who's bullshooting, you can help wipe away the problem.
posted on Mar 16, 2005 - View this thread

These images caused a great debate among my antipodean circle in London whether they are real or have been photoshopped. As far as we can gather it does exist. But it is surreal - and only in the UK surely would something like this be real.
posted on Sep 8, 2004 - View this thread

Vehicle Lifecycle Cost Analyzer
posted on Aug 13, 2004 - View this thread

Cuba Classics: A Celebration of Vintage American Automobiles. An homage to Cuba's astonishing wealth of antique cars, revealing the time-worn splendor of classic American automobiles spanning eight decades.
posted on Aug 5, 2004 - View this thread

The Old Car Manual Project
posted on Jun 1, 2004 - View this thread

"The car has...a headrest with a valley down the center for women who wear their hair in ponytails." At Volvo, an all-female project team is designing a concept car for women -- which makes for some interesting features (like a car without a hood) as well as some curious tales from a (temporarily) female-dominated workplace. More inside...
posted on Dec 18, 2003 - View this thread

Golden Spirit. Née "The Homer?" Finnish cheerleading squad not included. Hat tip to the NY Times automotive section.
posted on Nov 17, 2003 - View this thread

Welcome to the International archive of pants cars. Why would anyone do this to a jag?
posted on Sep 20, 2003 - View this thread

Do Cars force us to give up the outdoors? In jail, prisoners are stuck indoors and aren't allowed to go outside except for an hour at most. But are the car-driving residents of the average American suburb consigned to the same fate? "You go from the box garage in the house to the box car, driving down the street, not touching anything or being part of your environment" says Jessica Denevan. [More Inside]
posted on Sep 16, 2003 - View this thread

A bad seafood salad would have crippled the global auto industry. "Doesn't that new Nissan Maxima look like a larger-scale Saturn Ion? Could the Kia Sorento be a Lexus RX 300 in disguise? Doesn't the face of the Nissan Z look like that of the Toyota Celica (and its taillamps like those of the Lexus SC 430)? Is that the new Bentley — or the new Hyundai?" The sudden similarities in automobile design.
posted on Jul 12, 2003 - View this thread

10 Great Gay Cars For 2003. I'm into leather...interior.
posted on Jun 14, 2003 - View this thread

The first 50 years of Fiat advertising images. Fiat has been a pioneer in the development and management of its corporate image through advertising. Famous artists as Dudovich, Codognato, Casorati and De Chirico have created beautiful posters and designs for this Italian giant of which 100 from the 1899 to 1950 period have been selected for their online historial archive. The oldest being this fantastic “Fabbrica Italiana Di Automobili” poster from 1899.
posted on Jun 8, 2003 - View this thread

VW Beetle days coming to end. I had a '68 as my college car in the 70's. Girls loved it. Got me where I wanted to go (most of the time). The cute car of the 50's and 60's. Have one? Had one?
posted on Jun 6, 2003 - View this thread

The Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum ia an automotive jewel of a site. Post WW II, a war ravaged Europe became mobilized in part due to the efficient and affordable design of micro or bubble cars. Today, fans still pay loving tribute to brands like the BMW Isetta and the Messerschmitt Tiger. Interested in learning more? Join a club or register to attend upcoming meets. (via gordon.coale) - more -
posted on May 3, 2003 - View this thread

The General Motors EV1 electric car is soon to be a museum piece: "As California retreats from its strict pollution regulation, GM is taking the cars off the road when leases expire because it can no longer supply parts to repair them", according to this article. CARB (the California Air Resources Board) has proposed pushing back its Zero Emissions Vehicle timetable another two years [PDF link], to 2005. Is the success of the hybrid vehicle killing progress on the all-electric vehicle?
posted on Apr 8, 2003 - View this thread

Conjestion charging hits london £5 to take a car into the central zone (pdf) between 7am and 6.30pm Mon - Fri. It's all the work of controversial mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone Opinion is split: for and against. A small majority of Londoners seem in favour of it - traffic in London now is as slow as the days of the horse and cart! Day one seems quiet, though it is the school holidays! Is this the answer?
posted on Feb 17, 2003 - View this thread

The Worst Modified Cars in the UK. Car modification is becoming a way of life for all trendy 17-25 year olds. When you can't afford a decent off-the-shelf car, you can just turn your cheap wreck into a sporty glory! Or check out an American car with a WOODEN body kit! Alternatively, just check out the ugliest cars in Britain or LoserCars, the worst cars in the USA! (Found on uk.rec.driving)
posted on Dec 23, 2002 - View this thread

"This car isn't meant to be an SUV, a mini-van, or a sedan" ... becuase, of course, it's a station wagon (the body type that dare not speak its name), albeit a sleek new Chrysler Pacifica, now starring in double-page spreads in your finer magazines. The Europeans have never stopped making great wagons, but its been a while since anything less apalling than the Taurus Wagon came out of Detroit or Tokyo.
posted on Dec 18, 2002 - View this thread

To lessen the clutter on their dashboard, a German auto manufacturer has put in a data screen and command input device that allows the driver to control 700 different aspects of their driving experience (including Navigation, Communication, Car Data, and Settings). More interestingly, there's an undocumented feature in the high-tech control system -- Press the right buttons in the right order and the car will launch you from a stop after revving the engine to 5,000 rpm... at least it will if you're in Europe, where performing the trick more than 15 times voids the car's warranty. Cars sold here in the US will only rev to 1,500 rpm. Supposedly, this is the first example of an Automotive Easter Egg.
posted on Nov 1, 2002 - View this thread

Can biaised TV coverage of motorsports events be bought? The Aussport Post says it can. According to the linked article, Ford Australia signed a deal with Network 10, which has exclusive rights to telecast the V8 Supercars series, ensuring that other car manufacturers would be unable to advertise during telecasts of the series, in addition to guarantees of a certain amount of coverage of their cars during the series. Ironically, the car that lead the first 30 laps of the biggest race of the year, the Bathurst 1000, did not carry any Ford signage.
posted on Oct 14, 2002 - View this thread

crashbonsai No passengers have been injured in CrashBonsai accidents, although some drivers have reported a brief, even euphoric loss of consciousness.
posted on Sep 5, 2002 - View this thread

Bikes and cars don't mix. At least, according to the author of this column. As someone who cycles for fun and commuting, I was alternately amused by his anti-bike spewing and terrified that he's a case of road rage waiting to happen. Remind me never to bike in Pittsburgh.
posted on Jul 24, 2002 - View this thread

A tale of two dumb-dumbs. This car enthusiast forum story really has me wondering who the dumb one is in this situation: the guy who got his car stolen, or the guy who stole the car.

Guy befriends another guy on the forum, starts talking, gives out his VIN, information on when he drives his car to work, and his address only to have the other forum-goer steal his car. Then, the brilliant car thief posts up parts from said stolen car on the EXACT SAME forum under a new name, then makes the mistake of logging in under his old name and posting a message in his sale thread.

An amusing read to say the least.
posted on Jul 11, 2002 - View this thread

The cars that made America CNN/Money picks the 10 greatest American cars of all time
posted on Jul 7, 2002 - View this thread

Ahhhhh….road trips, a time to relax and enjoy the scenery….right? Not for the participants of the Gumball Rally which just finished its inaugural race on U.S. soil. (More inside)
posted on May 15, 2002 - View this thread

Boy, 7, charged after crashing dad's car. Nothing beats good old Florida justice. Enough said.
posted on Feb 18, 2002 - View this thread

Does this ad for an SUV make you want to buy one? I think that it says a whole lot about our society, non-withstanding one's preference for soy-based foods. I see the humor here and I can laugh at myself as readily as the next person, but this seems to embody the "Bush/Cheney" ethos at its most cavalier. Comments?
posted on Feb 17, 2002 - View this thread

Which side of the road do you drive on?
It's all down to which side you held your sword on, in the end. (Via Fark.)
posted on Feb 6, 2002 - View this thread

How green is your car? If it's the Honda Insight (at 57 MPG), it's very green... if it's the Dodge Ram 2500 Pickup (at 11 MPG), well, shame on you. Check out the "Green Book: The Environmental guide to Cars and Trucks".
posted on Feb 6, 2002 - View this thread

How willing are you to whore yourself? City buses have been doing it for years. Now an ad company is willing to give you a free car for two years if you're willing to drive a mobile billboard for them. Ideal candidates live in busy urban and suburban areas, park on the street, and get stuck in traffic all the time. You pay for insurance and gas, and they take care of the rest (including maintenance). Or have your current car wrapped with advertisements and get up to $400 a month. The company will also entice you with free concert tickets if you'll drive the vehicle to the show.

Through a long application process, they try to match ideal candidates with advertisers. They even let you suggest 5 companies you'd be willing to whore yourself for. But if you do decide to sign up, be aware: Not only are there 70,000 + applications ahead of you, and no guarantee that you'll be selected, according to the privacy policy, the ad company will use your detailed profile to sell more stuff to you.
posted on Jan 15, 2002 - View this thread

Does an appearance in the 1997 Disney flop "Flubber" make a classic T-bird worth more? Or less?
posted on Nov 23, 2001 - View this thread

"I don't live in this state, your laws don't apply to me." The Supreme Court of Illinois threw out a traffic ticket because the driver is not a resident of Illinois. Granted its just a no-insurance ticket but this looks like a very bad precedent.
posted on Oct 12, 2001 - View this thread

Mercedes supercar to be built in Britain. God, that feels to good to read. Am I xenophobic, nationalistic or proud of the Euoropean Community on my doorstep? I'm not sure, but how can you hold a grudge against a country with this?
posted on Oct 3, 2001 - View this thread

Way of life ending for NASCAR fans as coolers banned from racetracks. Is this an example of increased security or overt paranoia? "Right now you don't know who you can trust, you don't know who the guy sitting next to you is and you don't know if his cooler could be a bomb."
posted on Sep 19, 2001 - View this thread

Is "street racing" as popular outside the Bay Area as it seems to be here? Have there been tragic accidents taking the lives of non-racers elsewhere? Will these idiots be emboldened by the release of "The Fast and the Furious" this weekend?
posted on Jun 22, 2001 - View this thread

Xenon-gas-ignited, high-intensity-discharge (HID) headlights for cars have stired up some controversy, but should they be banned? I wouldn't mind one bit if they were outlawed!
posted on Jun 7, 2001 - View this thread

Bipartisan Support for SUV Mileage Reform U.S. enthusiasm for gas-guzzling SUVs is itself fueled by idiotic federal policy. These passenger cars have been classified as "light trucks" since 1975, when they omprised only 20% of all U.S. vehicles. Today, SUVs are nearly half of everything on the road. Result: DOT says gas mileage is at a 20 year low. Bush and Cheney distort the truth a lot in order to push pro-oil-drilling agenda. Read what retired president Jimmy Carter says about their misinformation and scare tactics.
posted on May 18, 2001 - View this thread

Mystery-Machine chic? The newest "fad"-mobile? Or the vehicle of choice for today's demanding soccer-mom? Bring out the ex-hippies, it's time for the VW Microbus. Flash required.
posted on May 17, 2001 - View this thread

K....A....B....O....O....M....! Rolls Royce is recalling five of their 2000 and 2001 models after discovering a design flaw can cause the cars to EXPLODE. While only 539 vehicles are affected, 408 are in the US. The flaw was discovered after a technician put the first tank of gas into the $360,000 (!) vehicle, started to drive it and hit the switch to roll up the windows. The explosion blew out all the windows and damaged the convertible top and the interior.
posted on May 13, 2001 - View this thread

Dale Earnhardt didn't die of seatbelt failure. An expert hired by the Orlando Sentinal to examine the autopsy photos we discussed earlier concluded that the restraint system didn't fail, and his injuries will just have to be blamed on something else. Hooray for freedom of the press!
posted on Apr 16, 2001 - View this thread

Teresa Earnhart Speaks about the attempts by some folks to acquire her husbands, (Dale Earnhart) autopsy photographs.
posted on Mar 5, 2001 - View this thread

The Unimog, a converted German military vehicle manufactured by Daimler-Chrysler will be sold as a luxury vehicle in the US later this year. (This ten-foot-tall, six-ton beast dwarfs the Hummer.) According to Unimog marketing manager Bruce Barnes, "even in Scottsdale, Arizona, moms will want to take it to the grocery store. It's a head-turning vehicle." It seems to me this thing pretty much condemns itself, but here's a tree-hugging press release to chew on.
posted on Feb 28, 2001 - View this thread

California on verge of gutting goals for electric cars, Ed Begley Jr and the rest of California hangs collective heads in shame.
posted on Jan 25, 2001 - View this thread

Changing the Climate offers a new sport - Tagging SUV's Not as destructive as Phonebashing, but it's still vandalism.
posted on Dec 27, 2000 - View this thread

Oldsmobile succumbs. Another auto nameplate goes the way of the dodo... and Plymouth... ending up nowhere but in memories. While corporations seem to want brand above everything else, doesn't reducing the number of brands equal a contradiction?
posted on Dec 12, 2000 - View this thread

The AAA is best known for free maps, 24-hr towing, jumpstarting cars, and now, ruining the environment. Opposing auto pollution controls? Funding highway construction lobbying groups? Against airbags? Did you know what the AAA was really up to?
posted on Nov 17, 2000 - View this thread

Free TiVo? Heck, I want a Free Car. I don't care if Amazon is selling Cars online now, I want my next car to be free. This company gives you a free car, wrapped in advertising, for up to two years. Not a bad deal considering the cost of cars these days. You can get a Ford explorer (no word on the tires) or a VW beetle. I'll be watching my TiVo TV from the back seat!
posted on Sep 27, 2000 - View this thread

Alarming example of consumer vigilante-ism! What do you do when the car dealership reneges on their financing and won't reimburse you for the car alarm you had installed? This is hilarious.
posted on Aug 2, 2000 - View this thread

VW New Beetle Grand Prix...that's just dope.
posted on Jul 13, 2000 - View this thread

Car-free Cities
Would you like to live in a city where everything you need is within a five-minute walk? Where you can get from one side of a city of a million people to the other in less than thirty minutes? Where the air is clean, people are healthy, children and the elderly aren't dependent on others to get where they want to go, and life is beautiful? You can have it all--just ban cars.
posted on May 29, 2000 - View this thread

Autowraps This company will pay you up to $400/month to wrap your car in advertising. Intriguing, but not exactly aesthetic...
posted on Apr 21, 2000 - View this thread

Got Rice? If you've ever lived in any metropolitan area in North America with a small Asian population, you've likely seen some of these cars on the streets.
posted on Apr 16, 2000 - View this thread

CarTalk's Worst Cars of the Millennium...teehee!
posted on Apr 3, 2000 - View this thread

Another domain battle begins, as the Honda Motor Corp. is suing the owner of honda.net, a fan site owned by a web designer. The owner has his own take on it, and Alan Herrell wrote a nice summary too. Come on Honda, let it go, this is a pointless fight.
posted on Feb 25, 2000 - View this thread

Like some people, I'm obsessed with traffic. I was very happy to hear that Toyota is developing chips to drive smart cars, since groups of people in cars can't seem to drive very well on their own. I've studied traffic for years (living in LA means lots of "time in the lab") and have actually tried no-stopping experiments and observed merging behavior. People seem to use their brakes too much, or over-react to people ahead tapping their brakes. I can't wait until the day traffic flow can be controlled by computer, LA might be livable again. Just to prove to others that this is in fact a thinly-veiled simpsons newsgroup, Homer and Bart benefited from similar driving-assistance technology in episode #AABF13.
posted on Feb 9, 2000 - View this thread

The Mostly Ruthless Destruction of the 1981 Dodge Omni is a hilarious site mentioned on the glassdog boards. A few guys systematically set out to destroy a worthless old car. I especially enjoyed the side-impact test. After tons of punishment, they eventually just beat the crap out of it and haul it off to a junkyard.
posted on Jan 21, 2000 - View this thread

Honda's releasing the first electric-gas hybrid car this year. It claims to get up to 70mpg too. I love innovative vehicles and cutting edge design, but I have to admit I think it's butt ugly (although, this does remind me of my old CRX). I bet they'll want $30k-$50k for it too. So close, yet so far... (update: they want about 20 grand for it - not that bad for an electric/gas car, but it is still just a two-seater)
posted on Jan 21, 2000 - View this thread

I stumbled upon the EV world today, a site dedicated to electric car news. They have some good articles, like this one on Nissan's new electric station wagon, and of course they have the requisite Ed Begley Jr. photo on their main page.
posted on Dec 16, 1999 - View this thread

Finally, someone sat and wrote down the rules to yelling Shotgun! When I was in high school, only one of my friends had a car and we developed our own intricate set of rules of when you can or can't legally yell Shotgun! and expect to get the front seat. The shotgunrules.com site is more in depth than anything we ever came up with though.
posted on Oct 7, 1999 - View this thread