The best way to tell if a (1975 and up) Bus is Brazilian is to look at the rear. If it has the long taillights of a 1972 and later US-spec bus and a Bay Window (as in, not split) front end along with traits from the pre-Bay Window buses (below the beltline engine air intakes on the sides, smaller windows with the corner windows, and hinged instead of sliding side doors) then it’s a Brazilian Type 2....
There she is again, waving charmingly from behind the wheel of that striking and strange car, one that David himself wrote about in a lot of detail last year, but so far we’ve not been able to identifiy her. I think we may be able to guess the rough time and place of the photograph, though; the Gaylord Gladiator’s Brooks Stevens-designed neoclassical body was built by the coachbuilder Spohn of Germany....
The paperback is available pretty much everywhere you buy books, you know, muffler shops, strip clubs, industrial gas refineries, all those sorts of places. Okay, sorry for the shameless plug, but I got books to move, baby! The warehouse needs the room to store copies of Martha Stewart’s Guide to Rebuilding The Iron Duke (1977-1993) so help a buddy out! Plus, if you’re an Autopian reader and send it to me with a way to send it back, I’ll sign it and draw a picture of a car in it for you!...
Sure, the green of that car from the door forward seems to be strangely darker than the green from the B-pillar back, but if one bright light green is good, then two is that much better. Let’s take a look inside the Brasilia, why not? Oh yeah, now we’re talking. What’s even more incredible about the Brasilia is that this is really just a Beetle chassis (well, the slightly wider Ghia one) and a tall-fan-shroud VW engine, and they still made this twin-cargo-area’d wagon work....
When I went to the RV Open House in Elkhart, Indiana I noticed a common theme among the RV manufacturers. Most of them brought the biggest, best campers that they had in production. I’m talking about campers with multiple bathrooms, laundry facilities, and interiors that look like a luxury apartment. And the technology is out there, too, from campers that park themselves to Class A rigs with lane-keep assist. Oh, and at the show I also found a bumper-pull camper that was so tall that it had an upstairs loft....
Now that I’m finally feeling better from weeks of sickness, I want to take a motorcycle ride. In a cruel twist, my part of Illinois is currently getting blasted by snowy weather. And next week we’re going to drop into negative temperatures. Oh, come on! I guess I’m staying inside and looking at some cars. Here’s what I’m looking at this week! 1950 Dodge B-4-D126 – $21,500 I’ve highlighted a number of Ford and Chevrolet trucks in this series, but looking back, not too many Dodge trucks....
This is a genuine shitshow, so we may as well get some clicks out of it at least, right? Also, we have a Full Disclosure policy here at The Autopian, so when we ourselves do stupid, unfortunate things or get weird rashes you can be sure that you’ll have a front row seat so you can really feel our pain and humiliation. Very, very shortly after this picture was taken of David’s Jeep pulling out of the driveway, we know something caused the XJ to overheat, and the power steering–maybe the belt, maybe the pump itself–failed....
It’s okay. I didn’t know it, either. (Still no edit button……) 🙁
Sure, there’s no announcement yet on the Mercedes-Benz press site, but if you can get into a special site for G-Wagen owners or find the right unlisted video, the three-pointed star is spilling some details. Let’s start with the obvious: The 4×4 Squared is now a full-on AMG model, adopting the G63 moniker. While this means that overall capability is slightly compromised by the current AMG front bumper, it also makes for some proper numbers....
Specifically, I mean the first-generation Mercury Tracer, because that’s the interesting one. Back in another life, when I had another recurring-on-Mondays series about kinda blah cars, I mentioned the Tracer, but even then I was mostly focused on the later generations, when the Tracer became simply a re-badged Ford Escort. But the first Tracer, built from 1987 to 1989 in Mexico (for the US market, at least) was one of the very few Mercurys of the era to not be some re-worked Ford....
I realize I just wrote an article about one of my cars breaking down, and I also realize that — given the abundance of crappy vehicles in my fleet, there’s risk of this website becoming overrun with vehicular obituaries — I promise, that probably won’t happen. But I’m losing sleep over this one, so I have to tell someone about it. One morning last week I was awoken by a phone call from my mother....
Smart left America in 2019, but I continue to follow the brand’s story. My love for Smart is over 14 years strong, and I’m always looking for new upgrades and Smarts to pick up. I mean, I have five Fortwos spanning five different years, three generations, and two types of engines. I still have to get a couple of Forfours, a Roadster, a Crossblade, an Electric Drive, and a Fortwo cabriolet....
The base-model Integra retails for $30,800 (excluding destination charge) and features a CVT automatic gearbox, a 10.2-inch all-digital gauge cluster, an eight-speaker stereo, smart key entry, a sunroof and leatherette upholstery. Moving up a notch, the A-Spec trim stickers for $32,800 and should make the Integra look like a $30,000 car. A-Spec models get 18-inch alloy wheels, blacked-out trim, a lip spoiler and red gauge needles. But the Integra you really want is the $35,800 A-Spec with the Technology Package, which unlocks the no-charge option of a six-speed manual gearbox with limited-slip differential....
[Full disclosure: Hyundai Canada graciously let me borrow this Elantra N for the week so long as I returned it with a full tank of high-octane gasoline and wrote an article on it.] So what do I mean by polish? Well, a good sport compact car should be a riot to drive but not completely unlivable. Sure, the likes of the Dodge SRT-4 and Mazdaspeed3 pushed sport compact boundaries, but they weren’t excessively uncomfortable....
Things Were Good At Harley In The 1990s The 1990s were a bountiful time to be the Bar and Shield. Harley had spent the 1980s getting reinvigorated, and it was paying off. The company was no longer owned by American Machine and Foundry, it launched the Evolution engine, and the Wisconsin-based bike maker begged the government to stem the flow of cheap Japanese motorcycle imports. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the Memorandum on Heavyweight Motorcycle Imports and imposed a 45 percent tariff on imports with greater than 700cc capacities....
South Korean is having a moment, with both the film “Parasite” and the TV show “Squid Game” dominating conversations recently. While they’re both different genres, each project is a reflection of the country’s creatives grappling with the impact of rapid industrialization and the resulting economic disparities. “Seoul Vibe” isn’t exactly in the same tradition, though it isn’t without some societal critique. Set on the verge of the 1988 Seoul Olympic games, the whole nation of South Korea is coming to terms with the end of a military dictatorship and the rise of a new, democratic society....
It’s remarkable how many weird and awesome vehicle designs trace their roots back to the oil crisis. Americans in the 1970s learned real quick that their rides got horrific fuel economy, leading to buyers and companies downsizing. The era brought on smaller cars, some pretty wild vehicle designs, and even challenged the airline industry. We’ve written about a few of these from the Creative Engineering Jutta, to fiberglass camper trailers, and even the failed Dassault Mercure airliner....
Again, to clarify: this is rear mid-engine cars with a back seat, not front-mid engine cars. All good? Well, before we do that, we should probably define our terms as best we can. As I see it, there’s three main categories of where you can shove an engine in a (combustion-engined) car: front, middle, and rear. And, the “middle” category has two subcategories: front-mid and rear-mid. To define these categories, I think the axle centerline method is best....
History on this exact camper is hard to find. And in fact, I’ve found just a few of examples of them on the entire internet. You might think, as I initially did, that this is a custom job. But it isn’t, and it was supposed to be a super-economical RV. As the folks of Tin Can Tourists note, Silver Streak trailers were the creation of the Curtis Wright Company. It should be noted that this is not Curtiss-Wright, the airplane manufacturer....
In case you’re curious, that’s not terribly far off the price of a new, base-trim Corolla, which starts at $21,550 before delivery. Toyota’s three-cylinder, 300-horsepower demon-hatch starts at $35,900, before delivery. The final price for the car Max got offered was more than twice that at $77,597 after taxes and fees. Perhaps needless to say, Max didn’t pull the trigger and remains GR Corolla-less as of this writing. “I’m not into this markup game with dealers,” said Max, who is based in Santa Cruz, California....
