"Hack Mechanic" Rob Siegel knows about this BMW stuff... ... View more

It gets more interesting when stock-holder investment hype isn't the driving force and actual suitable (and desirable) product to market factors in (i.e., profits of actual vehicles sold is a large part of the valuation rather than vaporware promises). Investors want the next Tesla stock  --they don't actually care about EV, it's just that EV is seen as the money.   In the real world... I think "engine in hub" is a terrible idea for fleet driving anything but smooth highway delivery vehicles. Potholes and construction site trucks I don't see this working too well. ... View more

Electric-rotary hybrid RX9... I love that idea. Bring back the zoom-zoom kid while they are at it. ... View more

I seem to need my tire pressure gauge fairly often. ... View more

  if you google "convert Lincoln vacuum headlights to electric" there are some videos and a bunch of the top results point to the same eBay seller. People with other hideaway headlights seem to get directed to try adapting the available Lincoln kits as oddball Mercuries and such don't have as much support apparently.   I spent a little bit of time reading about it, and a few people at least suggest really going over the vacuum system (i.e., change all lines) first as that is relatively cheap to do and might fix it good enough to make you happy.   I can understand wanting to be free of vacuum however.   Good luck either way! ... View more

Do whatever makes you happy no matter what the rest of us may say.   If you think it may be flipped sooner than later (i.e., to seed the next project) then you may want to really define how much of a survivor the car actually is. Survivors can command strong prices in many cases including more than a restored example of some models. (and you aren't paying to respray --even DiY you have to buy the paint products, adds up for your recoup of investment).   If it is more valuable as a survivor, then only do what you need to do mechanically to make it safe an enjoyable. But remember the first point at the top too. ... View more

No mention of the refrigerant change (due to CFCs) that according to some sources has cost us 10 degrees of cooling in some vehicles. Ice cold AC in a 74 Monte Carlo... anything 90s plus I have been in not so much.   I get why the refrigerant change, just seems odd that no progress has been made on a next-gen refrigerant to get us colder again. Would be a selling feature I would think? ... View more

Put a double opera window in that rear side window to really give us that 70s vibe.   Padded vinyl top too, it would have been a special order to not have one likely.     Good job on this. I do think some of the earlier 60s Cadillac front end styling ideas would actually work better. This front end looks like some of the custom vans of the era that rather obviously just jammed something on there. ... View more

Build the car the way it will make you happy for a long time. Most people that give someone a car want that person to love it as much as them. You might not love it the exact same way (wild custom). You can always fully document it (i.e., if you fully restore it and take it to car shows it would be neat to see the customized era of the car too, like in a photo album). ... View more

There is logic in any multi-brand alliance (at least for cars) taking the global market and divvying it up to whichever name has the most brand equity in that particular region. Very silly that some companies still compete with themselves or allies on some turfs...   But serve the full market too. Yes you are going to have SUV and crossovers of 27 minor distinctions along a spectrum from small to mammoth.   But have a midsize and small truck too. Have a ute not just for Australia...   Surely you can develop a few actual cars too. Even if only 5% of the production is destined to be badged as Nissan for North America. So many cool cars in Japan and other places the last 30 years that we never got a sniff of in NA.   Personally I think a Nissan Evo would sell...     In contrast to what some companies are doing (i.e., GM) which is retreating to so few markets and product lines that they really just look like they are getting themselves set up for a merger (in name sale in reality) to benefit stockholders. ... View more

Hmm... Turnpike Cruisers came out in 1957 (more than 50 years ago) and 55 speed limit wasn't a thing until 1973? in USA. You don't promote a 55 speed limit unless it was higher somewhere...   Granted, I'm not sure many states had roads over 65mph back then (quite a few have over 70mph roads now). But it raises an interesting question of what speeds did the 50s and 60s designers have in mind? I'm not saying it is prudent to drive a 57 Mercury at 70mph in traffic, but on a 70 mph (or higher) road with little or no traffic I don't think that car lets you down or feels scary. A 1930s car... yeah probably scary. I'd be interested in others posting that have actually driven stock-spec cars at speed from these vintages.   As an aside, many offramps and such in my area were built to specs for speeds nearly double the usual posted limits. You can tell by the banking if you get out and walk them (not necessarily safe to do). It's a stark contrast to some of the newer ones that a person going slightly over the limit feels on the edge (or about to go off the edge of the road). ... View more

Utes have sold well in Australia for decades. The one pictured in the article is not even close to the ugliest of the breed. ... View more

I'd be surprised if Falcon convertibles differed greatly in tech from any Ford of that era.   Redthundervert posted this on a T-bird forum:   "Intermittent Top Operation - About two weeks ago the top operation became intermittent. If I held the top control switch and let the operation go through its complete opening or closing cycle it worked fine, although sometimes nothing would happen when I pushed the control switch to start the operation. If I stopped the operation in mid-cycle it often wouldn’t start again. It would always eventually work again if I turned the ignition off and on and kept trying over a period of several minutes. After doing many checks and tests, I finally decided to check all the relays starting with the top control safety relay (fortunately before I had taken the back seat out again). I tried to jumper the relay plug to bypass the relay coil and discovered that the jumper connectors fit very loosely in the relay plug and would fall right out. Once I tightened up the relay plug connectors using pliers the jumper wire stayed securely in the plug and the top operation worked smoothly again. I plugged the relay plug back into the safety relay and everything works fine again, at least for now until the next gremlin strikes! This winter I’ll be going through all the relay plug connectors to make sure each connector in each plug has a snug fit"   some other tips (i.e., one suggestion is neutral safety switch issues can impact top????) on the forum: https://www.vintagethunderbirdclub.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=17248     Good luck! ... View more

If the front end looks like an Escape it will suffer the same ignored fate as the Honda Ridgeline  --a perfectly capable vehicle for what most people actually do with their full sized trucks.   If it has a Bronco-ish front end it has a chance. If it comes in more than 4 colours of grey, black and white it has a better chance. If it isn't crazy money (most current midsize trucks, and the Ridgelines cost out the same as the heavily discounted full-sized around here) it will sell.   I don't mind the Maverick name recycle here by the way even though they are totally different types of vehicle. Courier is not the right kind of name to bring back... whereas I could see a Dodge (Peugeot/Fiat/whatever) bringing a Rampage to market.   Having learned the story of where Chevy got the trailblazer name (Vic Hickey) it's more embarrassing than I thought what they have done with Blazer... ... View more

Looking at it again...   -Isn't there a tiny spear of a hood ornament?   -is that adhesive register marks and/or mount clips outside of the areas contained by the braces, that is to say: this hood had a one-piece style insulation? ... View more

When Pat Ganahl revived Rod & Custom magazine the careful restoration-as-was-customized of this car by Jim McNeil was an ongoing feature. He (Jim) had owned it for a long time then, and I am talking about 1990s car magazines. Very cool that he still has the car today. ... View more

Spoom, I totally see Riviera too from the top-side view.   However, when I look up Riviera hood insulation the asymmetrical bracing doesn't match anything I looked at.   By the 70s many (GM at least) had gone to the one-piece insulation. Some Thunderbirds used 7 piece in 60s --but searching "7 piece hood insulation" didn't solve the riddle for me. But then I am assuming this hood didn't have a one-piece covering everything.   I looked up some AMC, Plymouth and so on... front lip of hood goes over the grill is tricky to visualize (i.e., 69 Chevelle has a panel in front of the hood, 70 doesn't) and you can't just say "oh that was only cars in 63-65" although that may be the best range.   The hood dimensions would help a bit (i.e., it kind of looks like 66 Corvair too, but then that wouldn't need hood insulation).   Watch... it will be from a 70s Japanese car. Fun topic. ... View more

Shot in the dark here... but Mike Wolfe of American pickers fame has fan-boyed out about similar machines on the show. Not saying he knows how to use your machine, but wouldn't be surprised if he knows a person that might. Even the audience of the show may be a good resource.   So maybe there is a facebook/instagram way to get this question to the fans of the show at least? ... View more

I'm thinking there would be less angst over the Mach-E if the widebody look was what we were getting. Or make it a no-cost option (hah... that will never happen). Make it a style choice, not a checkbook choice.   Reminds me of the Ford Explorer Sportrac which didn't look quite right, then at the very end they turn a prototype version into the Adrenalin model and you look at it and think "Why wasn't that what these things looked like all along?". ... View more

I enjoyed reading this. Stories can make a car so much more interesting than it otherwise should be. Now I want to know about Olivia's Fox in ten years.     Love the kangaroo stripes on the car by the way. ... View more

This story could be put together as a Super-bowl level Ford commercial.   Passing the tools, passing the passion. Bronco. ... View more

Not being negative, just throwing some realistic caution into the discussion: $3500 seems low to me. If I imagine your car as a squarebody truck (A language I speak better) and use reproduction panels (available and cheap for said truck) I am going to be well over $1000 for the front end stuff alone and that is using the cheap stuff. That isn't painted or put on. That isn't fixing trim, mirrors, bumper or the wheel. Windshields aren't cheap either... Not sure if this site is a good one or not... but MG prices seem to vary and some are scary: https://mossmotors.com/exterior-body-panels ... View more

Cool tip. I've never seen "stubby" sockets like this before (and I spend a bit of time digging through old tool piles  --love the vintage tools).   Look up "crow foot wrench" for another neat thing to help with hard-to-reach ... View more

I live in the middle of Ontario, Canada.   The select few that love the Monarchs, Meteors, Fargo trucks and such are mostly restoration purists. These cars are not popular, but the fanbase is deeply passionate (cool car + patriotic wrapped in one, some like the oddballness,  usually family tie as well).   When people go to sell a nice one of these cars they seem to price them the same as the most desirable similar car. Doesn't matter if it isn't quite an equal comparison so a base model 55 Meteor will have the asking price of a top of the line Ford Crown Vic. Not sure if these sellers get their coin, but almost always the ask is high.   You can probably post your driver-quality hood ornament at least at the price of a quality reproduction of 50s hood ornament which seems to be in the $70-150USD range. You could also post it at $500USD and like a patient fisherman wait for the one "gotta have it" person to come along. Since they don't make these... somebody in theory will eventually have to have it. Just make sure you post it on some Canadian sites (i.e., Kijiji) and/or look into some of the Facebook groups centered around Monarchs. ... View more

Wildcat auto wrecking comes with a pretty strong endorsement   https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/wildcat-auto-wrecking-mopar-slinging-salvage-yard/     I have heard good things about Flatla in Canadian Hot Rod Magazine... https://www.flatlaautowrecking.ca/     The Graveyard Carz should know, but do they answer? The actual business was  Welby's Car Care in Springfield, Ore owned by Mark Worman but 10 years of TV who knows? ... View more

Enjoyable article.   This is the Thunderbird the 2000s reboot should have done. Tidy this up to modern standards without the modern gimmicks (i.e., toss bumps and more grill on everything) and keep the back seat usable with headroom  --and sell it at a price that not just retired professionals can afford.    ---aka be to BMW, Mercedes and such what Corvette has always been to GTs and supercars: the democratized option for the masses. ... View more

Fun article. Glad some posters mentioned the influential 1953 Studebaker.   E-series Studebaker trucks begat 2nd Gen Dodge Ram   Shelby Daytona (more than Cobra if you really look at them) begat Dodge Viper       ---Lutz involved in both by the way.   Not a direct doppler... but so many design cues introduced (or at least seen in North America on a volume-selling car) on the first Buick Riviera became standard design language for decades after. ... View more

EV1 engineers started Tesla to my understanding. Big leaps of faith in battery tech improving is a reasonable short answer for GM getting cold feet and killing the program.  Elon came in after with money and hype (which a start-up needs).   Tesla Roadster innovative sure... Model 3 looks like every other jellybean since Ford Taurus went that route. ... View more

Thoughts this article spurs:   -We don't need to excuse these automaker decisions. History has shown them to be wrong about many things, many times. GM and Ford both had well-developed minivan concepts in the 70s  "it won't sell"...   -not developing a new platform I can see. If the Fit (and Fusion for that matter) still meet safety standards then the reason for not making them is cutting autoworker jobs as you already paid for the platform so keep using it. "Free up the line to make crossovers" is a funny excuse I don't buy. Many, many lines have been closed in North America in the last 15 years.   -Honda makes generally great and/or perceived as great vehicles. But they have gotten out of touch on price-point. If Ridgelines were 10k cheaper and came in a few actual colours so they didn't blend in with all the Pilots you could probably sell enough to make up the difference in mark up. Fit could sell like gangbusters if it was actually affordable like the entry-level Hondas of 30-40 years ago.   There was no market for a British sports car. Mazda proved us wrong on that one. Honda could have been the last one standing on the stick-shift mid-size family sedan (Accord) and built a pillar of identity on that. Someone is going to sell a vehicle to these niches, especially if the masses ever wake up to how boring conformity crossovers are. Conceding that doesn't mean we need 6 companies selling a stick-shift midsize family sedan. But boy, it's going to be ironic when the only car you can buy in North America is a Jetta or Subaru and they "bizarrely" are profitable. ... View more