Buying a 30 plus year old turbo powered car would be a nightmare. The only car on that list I'd even contemplate is the Vette. The rest are destined to be washing machines. ... View more

Back when I was a teen, my brother and I were rummaging through a graveyard of abandoned cars looking for a window motor for my girlfriend's (and future wife) car. We found one and my brother went about extracting it as I wandered about looking for other treasures. Unfortunately, he didn't release the tension on the counter weight spring and when he removed the motor, the mechanism sprang shut, trapping his hand in the machinery. I was on the other side of the graveyard when I heard his scream. It took over an hour to extract his hand from the door. On the way to the emergency room, my brother decided he was going to live and that the incredible looking injury with an exciting amount of blood was just lost surface skin.   Good lesson there. There still is some anger left in dead cars.  When pulling parts from a junked car, always be wary of it trying to bite you.  ... View more

I had a really nice GMC pickup for years that I used for "industrial" activities but as the years went on, I found myself driving the truck less and less. Eventually, I decided to let it go to another owner. To replace the "industrial" capacity of my former truck, I had an aluminum trailer built with an 8x5' bed.   The trailer is actually a far better hauler than the truck. The bed is down very low. It has a loading ramp and the trailer, topping out at 400lbs (with a 3500 lb. load capacity!), is easy to park and store at my house.   Recently, I had to pick up a pallet of windows from the local big box store and having the trailer as opposed to the pickup with its high bed, was a far better choice.    I tow my trailer with a Honda CR-V. Great combo.   ... View more

I'm sure everyone knows that the supposed Ferrari in the original film was in fact a fake. ... View more

Take a vehicle that's essentially unstable, add a huge engine and let an untrained populace buy it. What could go wrong?   I had a 2006 Rubicon. It was probably the worst handling vehicle I have ever driven. Great attention grabber but that's about it. Just driving it on wet roads was extremely challenging. The suspension is too stiff. The tires have way too much tread and the geometry spells spin and roll.    I'll pass. ... View more

I'm in the camp of leaving tanks empty. For any engine I plan on storing, be it a lawn mower, generator or car engine, I empty the tank and run the engine until it dies a natural death. Totally devoid of fuel. While some may think this is sacrilege, my thoughts are the less ethanol, the better. Once the remaining fuel evaporates, nothing is left but an inert engine. I store my toys in climate controlled rooms and garages so there's less of a chance of condensation from temperature changes.  ... View more

Two words: Ho hum. ... View more

I still love the Opel GT. Great car, super reliable and fun.  ... View more

Of the four, I'd easily pick the Cougar. It looks great, is a timeless model and can be had for a song. For me, I'd much rather have a small block GM model than a Ford. Much more fun to be had with the small block cars. ... View more

The best use of this car is to become either a large coffee table or scrap metal. What's the point of trying to resurrect it?   ... View more

For me, the box this Corvette ticks is the UGLY box. ... View more

Here's one that's served me well for decades: Keep tools and supplies in separate storage systems. I used to mix supplies like nuts, bolts, sandpaper, glue in with the wrenches, sockets, pliers and other stuff. It was maddening. Consciously separating them out makes finding that special tube of Loctite a lot easier.   Another rule I follow is to clean the shop/garage/work space before starting a job and ALWAYS after. If the floor is clean, it's far easier to find that retaining clip that sprung off than a floor covered with leaves and dirt. ... View more

Browsing this article, I came across the picture of the Country Squire that evoked an immediate memory of a horrible August trip from San Francisco area to Mexico back in 1965. Nine of us made the trek: Father, mother (six months pregnant), brother and two sisters, grandma, as well as the dog and the car HAD NO AIR CONDITIONING. It was the hottest, most miserable trip in the world. Why didn't we go to Lake Tahoe or maybe Montana instead?    The Country Squire wagon was reliable and reasonably efficient for a family of eight and a big hairy dog.   ... View more

Ceramic coatings of headers supposedly has another benefit: Reducing heat in the engine compartment. This isn't a problem for most cars but for mid-engine cars like Ferrari builds, it's a real problem. Ferrari headers come equipped with covers that contain the heat but most after market headers don't. To prevent heat damage to delicate electronics and plastic parts, folks will spend thousands on blankets, coatings and all sorts of things.   Everyone who uses these heat mitigation methods claims "they feel" or "I think" or "it has to be" but nobody really has any data if ceramic coatings actually reduce the heat in the engine bay.   I opted to replace my OEM headers with Tubi insulated headers that look very close to the OEM but are far better quality and delete the pre-cats embedded in the headers. I know for sure that the welded on covers that insulate the Tubi headers will actually do the job.  ... View more

The leaning thing is a problem for us all. I dropped a rake on my wife's SLK320 a decade ago and still hear about it from time to time. I added a purpose built garage for my toys last year to avoid the other problems like laundry or pet food bags using my car as a table.   Living in the mid-South (Memphis) has its advantages too. No winter to speak of! I can drive my fancy car year round. No flat spots, winter storage or worries about rats and mice occupying my precious toy.       ... View more

Looks like a major theft of intellectual property. This is a crime against automotive history and should be food for the crusher only. ... View more

I had a problem many years ago with collecting mostly undriveable cars but was cured when I got married. Since then, I've been a one fancy car owner. Funny how that happened... ... View more

The only engine swap I've personally done was years ago when I bought a 1972 Camaro with a crushed rear end and another Camaro that was totalled in front. Pulled the front clip off of the rear totalled car and joined it to the front totalled car. Took all of like six hours in total and three people to move the chunks around. The end result was a nearly perfect car with a good title. Painted it a nice metallic light blue with a white stripe down the center. Great car. It took about a year and maybe 25 calls to the cops and code enforcement from my neighbors before all the broken bits were sold off and the last piece was trucked to the recyclers.  ... View more

This executive order is silly. In the intervening 15 years, it will be changed, revised, shifted, put off, altered, exemptions added and loopholes built in, if it ever comes to pass, it will be a watered down version. The question really is if it is even relevant?   By 2035, it is very likely that virtually ALL cars being sold throughout the world are electric. Not because it's groovy and green, but because it makes sense. There still will be a market for exotic ICE vehicles and people will still have their classics to fall back on.    The sky isn't falling folks. Just another politician trying to score points with another pointless pronouncement. ... View more

I had a lovely GMC SLT pickup that I bought new in 2002 and kept for 15 years. The thing hardly got used the last ten years of its life but I kept it in case I needed to transport something like a sheet of plywood or a load of (fill in the blank) for my wife. I vowed that the day it started to have problems, I'd sell it. That day finally came when it wouldn't start. It was an easy problem to fix but after that, I researched the selling prices of similar trucks, added $1000 and listed it for sale on Craigslist. The truck was still perfect with low miles and everything 100%. Within a week, I had a solid offer from a guy who drove all the way from Missouri (I'm in Memphis) and paid my asking price in cash.     I didn't want to lose the functionality of the truck so I bought a really nice custom aluminum trailer that would do the same thing as a pickup only with a lot fewer moving parts. The trailer is just as useful except it takes a minute to hook up to my Honda CRV. I sometimes miss the truck but I am glad it moved on to a good home. I just didn't use it enough.   ... View more

Start small. Start with broken lawn mowers and weed eaters. Try fixing those things and see if you like messing with the mechanics of engines. If you hate getting dirty, then you've got your answer. If you don't mind a constant grime in the cracks and crevices of your fingers, you may have a future playing in the car world.   One other suggestion... When it comes time to get your first car, get the best condition car you can possibly afford, even if it's not the car you want to drive. It's far better to drive around in a beat up Toyota than to have a broken MGB that you can't afford to fix sitting in your driveway.  ... View more

A Tesla has no soul. ... View more

Whenever I see an oncoming Tesla Model 3 or Y, I think of amphibious cars.  They look like boats out of water, or just not quite right. ... View more

I had a problem with the throttle bodies (there are two) in my Ferrari 360. The list price for to replace them (Ferrari demands that we replace in pairs) is $1750 EACH and I need two. Instead of just buying the new ones, I spent a lot of time figuring out exactly how these marvels work, how they fail and how they can be tested. In the process, I developed a Bosch Throttle Body testing system that can accurately determine if one of these gadgets has degraded or failed. I used it to successfully find the bad unit and bought a couple of used ones from eBay and was able to qualify one that matched the performance of my good throttle body.   Here's a video showing an early version of the tester in action.   The tester records the results on an SD card for later analysis.   Here's an example of two old vs. a new throttle body showing the lag in performance as a curve. The two "old" throttle bodies used in this test ultimately ended up in my car and are working just right.   All electronic gadget used in our cars are degrading. Some degrade gracefully, others, catastrophically. It's up to us to figure out how to keep these gadgets performing so our cars stay running in top shape.  ... View more

My fun car, a Ferrari 360, is notorious for having an unreliable gas gauge. For cars like this, a good question to ask oneself is "when did I get gas last?" While a seemingly ridiculously obvious thing, several folks on the FChat forum have had this exact problem. So check for obvious things as well as the impossible.   Gated Ferrari 360 Spider in Azzurro California / Crema ... View more

I have a CNC machine with a spindle that requires two wrenches to change an end mill. One wrench has a key attached to it that controls the power to the spindle. The key has to be in and turned for power to flow. The second wrench doesn't have a key. Well, naturally, one day while I was tired and in a hurry, I forget to remove the second wrench from the chuck and fired up the spindle to 14,000 R's. That second wrench became a missile and smacked right into my shop window. That was an expensive and messy experience. It could just as well have become an accessory to my forehead.   There's a lesson to be learned there somewhere... ... View more

I hate RV's. Had one for ten years, supposed to be one of the best made, a Newmar Mountainaire with a tag axle. What a piece of crap!   If you're going to get an RV, instead, get a nice truck and a 5th wheel unit. You'll save a BOATLOAD of money and have a nice truck for free. When you decide you've had enough of the RV insanity, you can dump the crappy 5th wheel and still have a nice truck.   RV's are for suckers. I was one for ten years and learned my lesson the hard way. ... View more

I had a 71 Capri that I bought for $1000 in 1975. It was a fine example but had been discounted because the clutch was just about shot. Up to this point, I had never attempted a major car repair but I figured "How hard can it be?"   I needed the car for work and school so drove it for a month with a shot clutch. I finally replaced the clutch over a holiday weekend. Turned out to be an extremely simple job that I was a able to do with my limited tool set lying on my back in the apartment complex parking lot.   Once the clutch was fixed, that tiny 4 cylinder engine proved to be quite a good match for the lightweight Capri.   The car met its end when an elderly women in a Cadillac Eldorado punched it from a stop sign, rammed me into another car, a telephone pole and a third car coming the other way.   After the carnage came to a stop, I jumped out of my smashed car, ran over to the Cadillac, flung open the door and exclaimed "Lady, Do You Have Insurance?" That was a bad moment. I had no concern for her wellbeing. She was fine though.   She told the police officer who finally showed up after an hour that I "Appeared out of nowhere and hit her car." She got the ticket. I got my money back for the car and I bought it back from the insurance company for $100. There wasn't much left worth salvaging except that nice engine, transmission and new clutch which I sold for $400.    My next car was an Opel Manta with a spun rod bearing. I bought it thinking "How hard can it be?" to fix. That repair was a bit more difficult but did it lying on my back in the apartment complex parking lot.  ... View more

I always like the Samurai. It's the ideal vehicle for tight and narrow conditions. I rented a Samurai twice on visits to the Virgin Islands and it was the perfect car for the islands. Sure, it may have incredibly poor handling and can tip over by leaning out the door but otherwise, a fine specimen. ... View more

My all time favorite British car is the TR-6. I had a Spitfire for a number of years and it was a pretty good car, everything considered. The TR-6 would even be better. People complain about the Lucas electronics and reliability problems with electrics. Sure, you may have trouble with light switches and the horn but the engine has a carb, a distributor and a coil. That's it. No fool injection, no ECU, virtually no emissions with the 70's versions. The pre-1972 models have regular steel bumpers too. Parts are cheap, plenty of enthusiast interest and lots of aftermarket upgrades available. What's not to like? ... View more