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141.73 mph, 100 Years Ago: A Pictorial History Of The Blitzen-Benz
100 years ago, just 25 years after the automobile was invented, a car reached the speed of 141.73 mph while the earth shook. The car could have done it a few years earlier. The pavement had to catch...
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Going Where No Car Has Gone Before: A Pictorial History Of The Unimog
My first car was a Mercedes. It wasn’t mine. I was 8 and was not allowed to own a car, let alone drive it. It also wasn’t a car, not in the technical sense. It was a Unimog. This is its story … The...
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Pictorial History Of The Mercedes-Benz 320
Mercedes-Benz 320 (W 142 series, 1937 to 1942) in the Streamline Saloon version, also known as “Autobahn Kurier”, 1938. In 1937, Mercedes-Benz had a familiar problem: It lacked a car in what we would...
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Tycho’s Illustrated History Of Chinese Cars: How China Bought Off The U.S. In...
I came across this vehicle in a parking lot in Beijing. It is a Ford Tempo GL. The Tempo was made in the US from 1984 until 1994, the white car in the parking lot was a second generation Tempo,...
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A Pictorial History: The World’s First Metrosexual Car. Fair Lady At Home,...
In the 80’s, I took a sabbatical from marketing and propaganda, and managed a record distribution company in the U.S. My warehouse manager was Rick, a redheaded bear of a guy who also could have been...
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日本の警察の車: The Cars of the Japanese Police
They can cuff me anytime. Hot girls in short skirts are the first things that leap into my mind whenever anyone says anything about the Japanese. The internet has not helped to change that, in fact it...
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In the Year 2525 – The Best Cars of Science Fiction
The best science fiction tells human stories set against a backdrop of strange worlds or futuristic cities. Because pacing and plot are more important than lengthy, accurate descriptions of the...
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The Encyclopedia of Obscure Concept and Show Cars: Part One – Acura to Chevrolet
1973 Ford Pinto Sportiva Concept Is it a cliche to say that as a writer I try to avoid cliches? Anyway, I do try to avoid the word legendary (see Dash Parr on being special), but some concept and show...
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The Encyclopedia of Obscure Concept and Show Cars: Part Two – Chrysler to Ford
1954 Chrysler La Comtesse Part One, Acura to Chevrolet, is here Yesterday, we started are look through concept and show cars from major car companies that may have slipped your attention by being...
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The Encyclopedia of Obscure Concept and Show Cars: Part Three – Honda to Mercury
Continuing with our look at long forgotten (and some not so long forgotten, but forgotten just the same) concept and show cars from the major automobile manufacturers. Part One, Acura to Chevrolet, is...
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The Encyclopedia of Obscure Concept and Show Cars: Part Four – Mitsubishi to...
Mitsubishi HSR III from 1992 It started with a photo of a strange looking Pinto with a targa style roof and it metastasized into an encyclopedia of just about every concept car you never heard about....
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The Encyclopedia of Obscure Concept and Show Cars: Part Five – Pontiac to Volvo
1998 Pontiac Rageous All good things, even obscure and maybe even not so good, must come to an end. You can see previous installments of the Encyclopedia of Obscure Concept and Show Cars here, here,...
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A Walk Down The Memory Lanes Of The Japanese Car. Tour Guided By Lexus LFA...
Last weekend, we were in Kuniyoshi, Chiba, the peninsula across Tokyo Bay, to check on some old cars. This is what and who we met. TTAC’s cross-cultural adviser, Frau Schmitto-san walked by what...
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Beep Beep! Nash Metropolitans That Are Not Waiting for the Crusher
One of the things that makes Murilee Martin’s Junkyard Find series so engaging is not just his fine writing and photography, it’s the elegiac nature of the subjects and their settings. As with any...
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The Automotive Photographic Art of Zoltan Glass
A photograph of a driver sitting at side of the Nürburgring course, reading a newspaper, his Bugatti racer next to him. Zoltan Glass c. 1931. Zoltan Glass was an amateur car racer and professional...
View ArticleAutomotive Wayback Machine: The Jam Handy Organization Archive
Click here to view the embedded video. You may never have heard of Henry Jamison “Jam” Handy, but almost a century before TV producer Matthew Weiner conjured up the fictional persona of ad man Don...
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“… The Engine Sounds A Bit Agricultural”
1946 Ford 9N Tractor, full gallery here I’m sure that it’s a cliche to say that as a writer I try to avoid cliches. While gearshifts often do fall readily to hand, it’s not a good idea to put that in...
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Duesenberg Model J Murphy Body Roadster – One of These Is Not Like the Other....
One of these cars is not like the other. A while back I wrote about the replica Duesenberg Murphy Roadster that former GM designer Steve Pasteiner’s Advanced Automotive Technologies fabricated for...
View ArticleA Selective History of Captive Minitrucks, Part One: When America Couldn’t...
I was having a conversation with a female friend a few weeks ago and she admitted to having “fooled around” in no fewer than four different brands of minitrucks during the Nineties and Oughties. I...
View ArticleHow Aviation Pioneer Glenn Curtiss’ Set A 136 MPH Land Speed Record With His...
There’s something about motorcycles with seemingly impossibly huge engines that captures people’s fancy. Mention “V10 motorcycle” and people will bring up Chrysler’s V10 Tomahawk show vehicle, but...
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