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People either love to hate minivans, or have completely forgotten about them, even though they’re the most practical, comfortable form of transportation a family of four or more can get their grubby, peanut butter-smeared hands on.
I’ve always had an affinity for grandpa sedans, especially fast ones. Ask anyone who knows me. I even drove my son home from the hospital in a ’74 Olds Omega sedan I’d souped up with a 383 stroker and some other choice parts. So when I got the chance to try out a brand-new Kia K900, it pushed all the right buttons, being a much nicer, much faster version of the ’65 Malibu sedan I also (foolishly) own.
The redesigned-for-2019 Subaru Forester doesn’t top the charts at any one thing. But it does do a lot of things reasonably well, including serving as a capable, reasonably-priced family hauler.
The 2019 Ford Edge ST is certainly quicker than its more pedestrian stablemates, but it lacks the raw performance capabilities of its smaller, more famous cousins, the Focus ST and the Fiesta ST. As a more-exciting-than-stock family car, it does just fine, even if the asking price is a little stiff.
As any car enthusiast in a relationship knows, it’s easier to own something boring and inoffensive to all parties than something fun that really gets under the skin of your partner. That, dear friends, is why the Volkswagen GTI Rabbit Edition was less of a rabbit that it was a unicorn. My wife, who usually confuses press cars with one another—citing either their uniform dullness or, in the case of the “fun” ones, their uncomfortableness and/or impracticality—loved the GTI.
It’s a fading, crumbling snapshot of America as aspiring industrial superpower and as self-contained promised land. It’s part self-promotion, part nostalgia and all variety of landmarks, roadside attractions and stunning natural scenery. The sum of all its parts is a story—a story about leisure, escape, progress, decline. As it stands Route 66 is, in its way, the story of America.
When and where I was growing up in the 1980s and early ’90s, the Volvo 240 wagon was the default car for a family to have. Well, other than minivans. Volvos were spacious, comfy and had a reputation for being very safe. You know, the safety cage thing. The closest thing to that today is the new Volvo V60 wagon.
I couldn’t use the 2019 Lamborghini Urus’ most aggressive mode with my kid in the back because, well, the acceleration doled out more force than his little neck could handle. Of course, he still loved every second of it. And you don’t have to be a kid to get seduced by this thing.
The redesigned 2019 Ram 1500 is big, capable and nice to look at. On paper, it seems like an adept family car considering how many toys, consumables (diapers) and other assorted baby-related flotsam most parents find themselves traveling with. But the Ram is also utilitarian by nature, and did I mention big?
Once in a while, you hear an old war story that restores your faith in humanity. Usually it involves a moment of quiet in the midst of chaos; some singing or the sharing of a few condiments. But how many of them take place in mid air?
If you want to see the edge of civilization without going to the desert, look no further than Southern Louisiana. Several versions of apocalypse have come and gone there, so I drove down to True Detective-land to see what these various disasters had left behind. Some of what I saw was beautiful and some wasn’t pretty, but it was all very interesting, and had me asking myself what comes first: humanity or nature.
Comedian Bill Hicks once said, "Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a jet ski, and you never see an unhappy person riding a jet ski." Mr. Hicks, and most of those who have copied his quote since, never saw someone ride Kawasaki's new 310-horsepower jet ski, the Ultra 310. The rider of this brutish machine may be having fun, but that person, particularly if he or she is a rookie personal water craft pilot, will also be terrified.
If you ever chance to visit the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tenn. – and you really should – one of the first things you'll notice is that whoever dreamt this place up thinks differently abut cars than most people you know. Wading through the rows of gleaming Tatras and Steyrs and Reliants and other cars the majority of Americans would find unfamiliar, you'll eventually notice that one of the cars isn't gleaming at all: that's Jeff Lane's dull, rusty 1974 Volvo 142 coupe, Big Orange.
Forget all about Jimmy Fallon and that puddle of beige goo Lincoln has been calling cars of late. Let's go back to a time when Lincoln meant class. It meant style. It meant "personal luxury" and all of the loud polyester tie, wide lapel wearing glory that entails.
After a stunning racetrack debut complete with scantily clad, real life pinup girls, Speedycop and the Gang of Outlaws' airplane car made a respectable finish at this weekend's 24 Hours of Lemons race. We watched the Spirit of Lemons' build with anticipation, wondering how it would fare in an actual weekend-long schlep on a racetrack. It wasn't fast, but it didn't fall apart, and there's something to be said for that.
In Italy, old Fiat 500s are ubiquitous the way aging VW Beetles are everywhere else. They weren't around for as long – from 1957 until 1975 (as opposed to the Beetle's much longer five-plus decade run) – but they make a lot of sense on narrow Italian streets, so a lot of people bought them over the years. Here in the land of plenty, such tiny cars are almost non existent.
You may have spent your entire winter holed up on a project car and forgotten that there's other stuff to do out there. But don't worry. Where skiing is concerned, sometimes it pays to lag. Deals and more pleasant weather conditions can sweeten your better-late-than-never experience. Here are some of the best places to go late season.
Will North Carolina have to relinquish its "First in Flight" license plate slogan to Connecticut? Evidence suggests that a German-born inventor began flying around the New England state nearly two and a half years before Orville and Wilbur Wright launched their now famous Flyer 1 at Kill Devil Kills, N.C. in 1903.
Saudi Arabia is a special place. It has many venerated traditions, one of which unfortunately, is that every woman must have a male guardian, or mahram. The mahram is usually a woman's husband or father, and their permission is required for most things, including travel. Yes, believe it or not, this is a real thing. In 2013.
Have you ever wanted to drive an ambulance, lights blazing and sirens wailing in rush after glorious rush to rip people from the jaws of death and take them to the hospital? It can be pretty cool, but usually, driving an ambulance is all about getting a patient to the proper care with the least amount of patient-upsetting craziness possible. After all, you don't want someone to die of a heart attack after you've already saved them from dying of a heart attack.
The '91 Caprice was a lot of car. More than 18 feet long and tipping the scales at 4,300 pounds, it was huge. As John Davis noted, it was also there to show all those dopey minivans everyone was driving who was boss. Plus, at about $97 per inch, what a great buy!
We've all had crappy jobs, but some are more memorable than others. For me, the most memorable — and really the most enjoyable — minimum wage job I've ever had was also the most brief. A Volkswagen shop owner in Virginia Beach hired me to strip a bunch of derelict Beetles and chop up their rusted carcasses with a Sawzall.
Someone, somewhere, must have decided that Aston Martin grilles sell cars. First Ford ripped off the look for it's Fusion revamp. Now, Subaru — after turning it's Legacy wagon into a bulbous minivan a few years ago to sell more cars — may join the club; the Aston Martin grille club.
It's been 151 years since the USS Monitor — the U.S. Navy's first iron-clad warship — sank in the Atlantic Ocean near the Outer Banks of North Carolina. But the remains of two sailors found in the wreck's turret in 2002 will finally be laid to rest with full military honors this week at Arlington National Cemetery.
As America's Arsenal for Democracy shifted its Nazi-ass-kicking apparatus into high gear during WWII, the rivet reigned supreme as the fastener of choice for heavy manufacturing. Everything from buildings and bridges to planes, tanks, and automobiles were stuck together with rivets, fastened into place by air gun-wielding factory workers.
Don't you hate shoveling your car our of a five-foot-tall bank of snow after the plow man comes down the street? Well, this particular plowman thinks it's funny, real fackin' funny. But posting a YouTube video of his F-bomb-rich rant on how great he thinks burying people's cars and driveways got Mark Hussey fired. Justice has been served to this huge Masshole.
We all know that Italians have a knack for crafting sleek, beautiful automobiles. Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini — if you're the type for such a thing — all produce some of the most lustworthy machines known to man. But did you know that Italians build pretty drones, too?
