The Flight Plan On January 2, a 1979 Piper Warrior II PA-28-161 departed Apple Valley Airport in Apple Valley, California bound for Riverside Municipal Airport in Riverside, California. The pilot at the controls was 18-year-old Brock Peters, an aviation enthusiast who as CBS News reports, had obtained his pilot license just four months ago. Peters was flying his two cousins and grandmother on what was supposed to be a short and fun holiday flight....

[Editor’s Note: Welcome back to dynamics engineer Huibert Mees’s column, where the former Tesla Model S/Ford GT suspension designer can write whatever the heck he wants. It’s been a little while since you last read his work, but that’s not on him — that’s on me! There’s a bit of an editing backlog, but I’m being honest when I say that editing Huibert’s nerdy engineering pieces is among the most joy I’ve had as a car journalist....

That’s the focus of this morning’s dump, but we’ve also got more on the Tesla ‘Autopilot’ probe, and updated car sales numbers from luxury German automakers. What Happened To The Hydrogen Cars? It’s dangerous to base your theories on graphics on government reports, especially if the reports are of the wishful thinking variety. The report, which you can read here, is called “THE U.S. NATIONAL BLUEPRINT FOR TRANSPORTATION DECARBONIZATION: A Joint Strategy to Transform Transportation....

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. Hyundai And Kia Are Going To Space In case the new Kia Sportage didn’t look extraterrestrial enough, Hyundai and Kia are seeking to develop “mobility solutions” to use on the moon....

A clue as to why is here: As you can see, the Goggomobil is a rear-engined car. That dude there isn’t peering into the trunk, he’s looking at the engine, and his posture and expression are painfully familiar to me, as they look like the body language of someone thinking “why the hell won’t this little bastard start?” The crossed feet, the hands braced on the sides of the engine bay, that stare into the oily madness, desperately trying to figure out why the hell it’s not working – I know these all far too well....

What we had discovered was that some of our new suspension arms were splitting around the bushings. In the image above you can see what happened. The picture shows a cracked arm with the bushing already removed. This meant that the bushings were no longer properly held in place and the suspension arms could separate from the rest of the vehicle, potentially leading to very bad things, to put it mildly....

 Here’s how the cup holder in an E90 3-Series is supposed to work. Simply press the faceplate, and the dashboard elegantly extends a cupholder that ratchets down to your size du jour. Not only can one of these cup holders deftly handle anything from a slim can of Red Bull to a reasonably-sized milkshake, it also sits within easy reach yet out of the way of everything. It doesn’t block the shifter, the handbrake, the climate controls, the stereo, or the armrest....

First let’s finish up on our imported hot hatches from Friday: Close one! And I was watching the votes on Friday – it was tied several times. I had a hunch the Honda City was going to end up winning, but apparently the Alto had enough of you singing a different tune to give it the win. So: Onward. There was a fad in the late 1990s and early 2000s that you may have noticed: Automakers jumped on the nostalgia bandwagon with both feet....

Most people leave behind the toy trucks when “real life” kicks in. We forget all those playground fantasies, the worlds we built in our heads. We lose track of the simple joys of childhood; it all gets pushed aside into a corner and beaten down by the responsibilities and stress of adulthood. But does it have to? Can’t we take just a little time, when we need a break, to just go play with a toy truck?...

That’s what I expected, but I didn’t expect the little LeCar to be quite so polarizing. You all seem to really love them, or really hate them. Me, I could have fun with either of those choices, but the Monterey is more to my current tastes, I think. Today we have some disparity in size as well, as you can see by the two cars’ names. One of them isn’t nearly as small as it used to be, however, and the other never was as big as its name might suggest....

One of the best educators I ever had was a physics teacher named Mr. Poythress and one of the best classes he ever taught was when he let us use his Mercedes-Benz SLK 320 to make various motion-related calculations. Do I remember how to do any of these calculations? Let’s assume yes. [Editor’s Note: If I had to guess, one of them involved driving the car at a given velocity around a curve of a given radius, and calculating the minimum friction coefficient acting on the tires to allow the vehicle to make the turn safely....

This week, we have some more gorgeous classics, an underrated modern sports car, and even a fan favorite. I search the entire country for a good balance of price and vehicle condition. But sometimes, some really cool cars end up for sale with really high prices. It’s disappointing, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with window shopping and dreaming. So join me in looking at some fun cars, motorcycles, and neat trucks from the past and present....

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. Rivian Might Be Making Some Cuts While the Rivian R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV have garnered wide acclaim, the greater scope of things at the EV startup seems a bit less than easy....

If you asked me what’s one of the most underrated cars ever made in the modern day, I’d say it’s the Volkswagen Touareg. When you look at one, you might be inclined to think it’s not that serious of an SUV. I wouldn’t blame you, because it looks round and soft like a crossover. It doesn’t look like something that you’d ride in to conquer Moab. And that’s part of what makes it great....

Here’s where the logo was first seen, at seven seconds into this little ten-second video: 8PM ET: https://t.co/xDcXS7rZ9R pic.twitter.com/U5EJoquQV3 — Ford Mustang (@FordMustang) September 14, 2022 And now we know the head-only logo is going to be used on a manual-transmission (fine, or 10-speed automatic), track-focused variant with a 5-liter, 500 horsepower Coyote V8, which Ford suggests is their most powerful non-turbo V8. There’s road-going and more track-focused variants as well, along with special handling packages....

The name is important. The original Ford GT40 that inspired these cars was impressive for a first start, but the car everyone remembers is the Ford GT40 Mk II that went on to finish 1-2-3 at Le Mans. But that wasn’t where Ford’s racing story ended. The company produced even more winning cars, including the long-and-fast Ford GT40 Mk IV that went on to win in 1967. Appropriately, Multimatic (the Canadian company that builds these machines) is going to only build 67....

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. Record Average New Vehicle Price Expected For August Consumers really do keep on consuming. Reuters reports that August’s average new vehicle transaction price is expected to soar higher than giraffe nostrils despite interest rate hikes....

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. New Car Market Still Hotter Than Venus Did interest rate hikes do anything to cool down the new car market? It turns out, probably not. Reuters reports that the car market is still running red hot despite expected delivery increases....

The reason I say the Bantam Boulevard Delivery is the only vehicle of its kind ever made will become clear as I describe it: it’s a compact, luxurious, elegant, convertible delivery van. I’m fairly certain that peculiar combination of traits has never all been used to describe one vehicle. Delivery vans, even small delivery vans, are by no means uncommon; Japan is crammed full of useful little Kei-class delivery vehicles, for example....

[┴p- ¡ʎʞsuᴉɥɔɹo┴ ‘noʎ uɯɐp ˙uɹnʇǝɹ I ǝɯᴉʇ ǝɥʇ ʎq sǝɥsɐ pǝɹɹɐɥɔ ʇnq ƃuᴉɥʇou ǝq llᴉʍ uɐᴉdoʇn∀ ǝɥ┴ ǝqʎɐɯ ʇɐɥʇ uɹǝɔuoɔ ʎɯ ǝʇɐɔᴉunɯɯoɔ oʇ puɐ ‘sᴉ ǝlɔᴉʇɹɐ sᴉɥʇ pɹnsqɐ ʍoɥ ʇsnɾ ʇno ʇuᴉod oʇ ǝɯᴉʇ sᴉɥʇ ǝʞɐʇ oʇ pɐɥ I ʇnq ‘uoᴉʇdǝɔǝɹ llǝɔ ǝlʇʇᴉl ʎɹǝʌ ɥʇᴉʍ ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ lɐɹnɹ uᴉ uɹɐq ɐ uᴉ ɯ,I ˙ʎɔɐɹ┴ pᴉʌɐp sᴉ sᴉɥ┴ :ǝʇoN s,ɹoʇᴉpƎ] Granted, you don’t see these bumper stickers out in the wild that much anymore, at least not to the degree they were seen in their mid-’70s heyday, but somehow this bumper sticker is still part of the cultural landscape....