Earlier this week, my colleague Thomas wrote about a pretty awesome Jeep-branded off-road trailer. Small utility trailers like these have been around for several decades, and allow an off-roader or military to carry extra equipment, gear, and maybe vehicles with them. I’ve not been able to pinpoint exactly when, but these trailers eventually met at an intersection with the roof tent. While roof tents seem like a recent phenomenon, these have actually been around since at least the 1930s....

And the ute wins! But naturally, that begs the question: what is a “ute”? Dunno. All I know is there’s no way that car could have left those tire marks. Speaking of tire marks, who wants to go racing? Because we’ve got just the thing. Two, in fact. I was going to feature two other cars today, but on a whim I popped on to Craigslist and set some search terms: $500 to $2,500, manual transmission, within 50 miles of me....

My favorite kind of performance driving is driving on the snow. Here’s some video of me doing that with some folks at Consumer Reports: All of these cars had snow tires (well, Raph’s bug had some kind of all-terrain truck tire) and we were in a fairly controlled environment. Here’s what it looks like when you’re not in a controlled environment: — SeizureSalad ???? (@SeizureSalad314) December 23, 2022 The Mazda CX-7 driver almost pulls it off and gets a nice bit of countersteer there at the end....

That blue van up there looks to be an off-the-rack Grumman MT45 stepvan, also sold as a Freightliner MT45, or a Morgan Olson RouteStar, or some confusing combination of those names; it’s a boring, useful delivery van, and I think that’s the whole point. You see, Harbinger is in the business of making electric delivery van chassis, and I think they’re very smart to make them work with one of the most common van bodies available instead of succumbing to the temptation of making something sleek and cool and new looking that will get a lot of attention, but will be expensive and effectively unavailable....

See, the problem with operating an EV in winter is twofold. First, there’s the fact that lithium-ion batteries just aren’t happy in below-freezing temperatures. Recurrent Auto aggregated data from 7,000 EVs and found winter range to fall considerably below range at 70 degree temperatures. The popular Ford Mustang Mach-E and Volkswagen ID.4 both saw a 30 percent drop in range, a considerable impact on usability. Then there’s the matter of keeping the cabin of an EV warm....

Looks like the ugly two-tone Toyota Camry beat the ugly two-tone Chevy S-10. Lots of commenters mentioned the two-wheel drive Chevy’s lack of ability to handle the weather; guess you all aren’t fans of snownuts. Portland is, as so many people in town will tell you, loudly and repeatedly weird. But all too often it’s weird for weird’s sake, like the guy who rides a unicycle around town wearing a Darth Vader mask and a kilt and playing the bagpipes....

In 2021, I decided to continue a trend that I started the year before by picking up more of my dream cars, motorcycles, and buses. Back in 2020, I–like many Americans–-got furloughed and faced a then uncertain future. I decided to make the best of it by doing the things that I never thought were possible, including filling out a dream fleet. I kicked it off with finds like a $1,500 Audi TT and a $3,000 Buell Lightning XB9SX....

I visited legendary electric vehicle conversion company EV West a few weeks back (I’ll have a story on that soon), and while giving me a tour of his incredible facility, the boss, Michael Bream, told me about some bill SEMA was working on related to EV conversions. SEMA, of course, stands for Specialty Equipment Market Association. It’s a trade association of companies (including EV West) involved in the automotive aftermarket, and it’s probably best known for its annual SEMA show in Las Vegas — a show that usually features wildly modified vehicles like absurdly-lifted Jeeps and trucks and amazing restomodded old muscle cars....

Welcome back to Holy Grails, the Autopian series where we show off some of the coolest, most underrated cars that you love. I have to be honest with you, dear readers. Through this series, I’ve learned a lot about cars that I never knew existed. You’d think that with my serial Volkswagen ownership, I would have known about the Jetta SportWagen SEL, but I didn’t. A lot of unique cars seem to disappear into the pages of history, and this series exists in part to highlight them....

Yesterday, I mentioned the Hop Rod while writing about Mitsubishi beer and immediately realized that I needed to write an actual article on this bizarre toy. After all, a pogo stick augmented by tiny explosions sounds like a phenomenally fun way to break ankles and spawn lawsuits. The motorized pogo stick was invented by Gordon Spitzmesser of Elwood, Ind. around the turn of the 1960s. Hey, it was a time of great optimism, if cars could have fins that an explosion-aided pogo stick could totally be a viable product....

Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday. The Chevrolet Silverado Is Now America’s Most Stolen Passenger Vehicle The National Insurance Crime Bureau, a long-running non-profit dedicated to fighting insurance fraud and crime, has released its list of the most stolen cars last year....

If you’re a member, you can see the draft video below. If not, you’ll see the final, polished video in my article on Monday!

Here’s the topline take: There’s no real consensus here, but there is a general sense that prices will broadly fall this year. Those we spoke to and quoted definitely agree that prices will go down, but how far things will sink is about as clear as mud. Let’s start with the Manheim Index. In case you’re not familiar, Manheim is one of the world’s largest wholesale car auction companies. While values quoted in the index are wholesale rather than retail, sheer volume means that there’s pretty good weight behind them....

There’s actually two types of experts we’ve reached out to in hopes of helping us understand how to save gas, an aerodynamicist and a powertrain engineer; both areas play into how many miles your car can go on each precious gallon. Let’s start with our engineer named Austin Wright, who majored in aerospace engineering and who works for a major automaker as a calibrator. Then, we’ll go into the powertrain side of the equation, which will be laid out for us by ECR Engines Technical director Andy Rudolph, who helps develop NASCAR engines....

— Sick.Codes (@sickcodes) August 14, 2022 While running Doom is cool in a “for the memes” sort of way, Sick Codes’ hacking of John Deere systems represents a milestone in the “right to repair” race. Right-to-repair is the concept that owners and independent repair professionals should have access to everything needed to fix a piece of equipment, such as a mobile phone, a tractor, or a car. If you’re a car enthusiast, you should be interested in right-to-repair as it’s a principle that offers you the choice of an independent specialist over a dealer, and allows you to fix your own vehicles....

Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday. NHTSA Seeks Information On Tesla Driver Monitoring Systems While advanced driver assistance systems do hold promise for making long journeys easier, humans are bad at monitoring things. Thus, almost paradoxically, it’s a good idea to have an electronic system monitoring how the driver’s monitoring an electronic system....

Earlier today, David explained his plan for transporting his first round of cars to LA from Detroit in an epic roadtrip with Otto and Jason. I am skeptical of this plan for many reasons, but misery is great content so I’m looking forward to reading about it. Plus, I adore Jason and Otto and any time spent with them is worth whatever inevitable hassle they may face. I would not, however, confuse Jason and my Lord-and-Savior, Jesus Christ, which is more than I can say for Man With A Reliable Jeep:...

I’ve seen similar car-brochure dashboard shots like this before, and I’m kind of conflicted about them. On one hand, I kind of like seeing what every damn light on that dashboard is for, but on the other hand I really have to wonder the value of showing you what you’ll see in the unlikely event that your car is struck by lightning. Or maybe if it’s trapped in the tractor beam of an alien spacecraft?...

So what the hell are we looking at here? This unusually grotesque creation is a modern example of a neo-classic car. Think Excalibur, late Elvis, Swarovski crystals; a once-wretched, now ironic depiction of opulence. Driving a neo-classic lets the world know that you know that it knows that all that glitters is bullshit. You’re in on the joke and it’s bringing down the house. As for this particular neoclassic car, it’s a Zimmer Golden Spirit....

I realized I needed to speak up about this – and I don’t think this is hyperbole – grave threat to the very human condition – because it’s somehow infected the new Cadillac Lyriq, and is now showing up on videos about the car, like this one done by none other than our pal Doug DeMuro: I have to hand it to Doug for maintaining his composure here; I can only imagine moments after this video was shot he was behind a tree, sobbing and vomiting and shaking all over, while one of Doug’s many handlers surrounded him, covering him with medicated salves and telling him that somehow everything will be fine....