Here's a link to more bizarre amphibious vehicles (not necessarily cars) https://youtu.be/jtHNRxVZy9g. And it comes complete with Hagerty advertising! ... View more

Years ago Werner Hartman, a bodyman friend in Cincinnati, stuffed a Crosley engine into an Isetta 300. It would lay two black rubber strips (kept the original two wheels with a very narrow track in back). But he never could figure out a cooling system- it would overheat in a few minutes. He was an odd person anyway. He had a wooden leg. When strangers would come into his shop he would sit and talk while crosslegged. He would keep pulling up the sock on his wooden leg and finally grab a hammer and nail the sock to the leg, freaking out the visitor. My father had one of the first Isettas in town. His trick was to nose into the curb in front of the bar and walk straight out of the front of the Isetta into the bar. ... View more

Great and insightful article, but some of us have dipped our toes in the camping pool and believe camping is driving for hours (or days) for conditions you wouldn't accept if you had stayed home. As for me, I just got an email that I have a free night at Red Roof coming. So I won't get to watch the next campsite as they pull up in a converted schoolbus and their eight kids put up their party lights and their custom carved "We're the Jones family from Johnson City, Tennessee" sign. ... View more

Love 'em all. Well maybe not the Dodge so much, as I always thought it looked like it was designed by a committee that wasn't on speaking terms.  The Astons ? Thumbs and big toes up. P-1800ES? You betcha! Woodie wagons are neat but they make me schizo- I never knew whether to have them Ziebarted, Terminixed, or both. ... View more

This is an ad for a Lincoln I sold over the weekend to a Chrysler engineer who wanted one like this since he was a kid- and he's happy. I sold it for the estate of a close friend and thought it would be tough selling a luxury car with a stick shift. Not at all. Several responses and sold in three days! Check the last lines. RARE BIRD !!!  2000 Lincoln LS 4door with a 5-speed. Yes, a stick and a clutch in a luxury car.  "Drive me to drinkin' with that HotRod Lincoln". This is not my car. I am selling it as a favor for the estate of one of my oldest friends who passed away 3 weeks ago. I got it for him in the first place, and finding one is no small feat. This is from the period when Ford owned Jaguar and this is basically a Jaguar S-Type with American electrics. Quick, agile, comfortable, actually defines the overworked term "Sports Sedan". I obtained it for Bob in December, 2001. He was always a car guy and when he passed he owned a 1966 Pontiac Bonneville (stick) that he purchased new, a 39 Ford street rod, a 67 Eldorado convertible, a 2016 Accord EX-L daily driver and others  He was a mechanical advice columnist for the national Cadillac Club newsletter. He was an expert on auto maintennce and any inspection of this Lincoln will show what good and regular care can do for a car. He was more than that- he was **bleep** about his cars. He always bought a "beater' to drive in the winter and kept his babies in the garage in any inclement weather, The brake calipers and rotors, always first to rust, are shiny like they are two months old. This is a great road car- before he became ill he and his lady friend would drive the Lincoln on long summer trips to visit car mueums and used it to once drive the length of Route 66. Actual 80, 571 miles, looks like 5000. Body, finish and interior sparkle like it's one year old instead of twenty. Perfect? No, the only defect I can find is the A/C needs a recharge. That's it. Tires, brakes, all mechanical and cosmetics excellent. Bad news? If you only have one leg or are a just plain shiftless person you won't be able to drive this. We want to get you in our clutches. Get on the stick and see what mint means. ... View more

From experience, if you get a car made by PSA and FCA you better belong to AAA. ( I have a Doctorate in Automobiles from Charred Tush University.) ... View more

There's an old saying, "The best makeup on a woman looks like she isn't wearing any". ... View more

Having been a used imported car dealer for over 60 years, where do I start? Here's a few.    Getting ready to restore a 1950 Riley 2.5, I found a parts car in St. Louis and had it trucked in. It arrived and wasn't a bad car but smelled gross. On the back of the driver seat was a map pocket. Sticking out of it was the remains of a cat that chased a mouse into the pocket. It had the mouse in its mouth but couldn't extricate itself from the pocket. God knows how long it had been there.    I often buy cars in Florida. I fly with my wife to pick them up and spend a few days, sort of a working vacation, and often invite friends along. I bought a Honda HR-V with low miles and nice. Quite happy with it but I kept seeing motion out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't see anything when looking closely. This went on for a week in Florida plus a couple of days to drive home. After I got back to my business we took the car apart to detail and under each of the covers over the bolts holding down the seats was a nest of roaches. We took the seats and carpets out and thoroughly cleaned them all but I never told my wife and friends what they had been sitting in for days.   I bought an old Cadillac at an auction about 100 miles away for a friend who also was a dealer. I drove it back for him but was embarrassed since it was a pink metallic with oversize wheels that looked like a drug dealer's car but that's what he dealt in.  As I drove along the freeway I felt the center armrest and found a slit in the armrest side. Idly sticking my fingers in I found a loaded nickle-plated .38 snub-nose revolver. I guess it didn't just look like a drug dealer car, it was.   There are lots more but these are ones that stick out in my mind. ... View more

Folks used to joke, quoting the Honda advertising of the time, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda"- and the horniest hillbillies on a Harley. ... View more

Let me qualify this comment that it was narrated to me by a close friend who got it from his friend, a top manager in the Allante project. The first pre-production car was flown from Turin to Detroit and finished to test drive. The first concern was noise and leakage where the top met the top of the windshield, quite unacceptable. So they flew it back to Turin for a design correction. It came back the following week and seemed acceptable. The manager said they were curious how Pininfarina had corrected it so fast and what was done. They pulled back the trim and there was the solution in the header, Newspaper was stuffed into the front of the top. ... View more

My bodyman's son is in the Air Force and works in the ground crew for C-5 Galaxy transports. The Air Force was ready to ground all the C-5s because the nose wheels were locking up and they didn't know why- but it was dangerous. This young man who grew up working on cars showed them how to jack up the nose wheels and spin them while holding a screwdriver to the hub and to his ear, thus verifying that it had a bad wheel bearing. The hi-tech experts were dumbfounded at this "revelation" and he got an award for saving the taxpayers who-knows how much money. Sometimes the old fashioned basics are the best as mentioned above. ... View more