And surpisingly lots of Kias and Hyundais. I about strained my neck one day when I saw an Alfa 164 drive by. Biggest surprise was the '94-ish Ford Escort.

I know, right! The US even gives food aid to North Korea.

I visited Cuba this past January. It's an amazing place filled with increbidbly resiliant people. I took a ton of car pictures and have been slowly posting them on my blog (and will keep doing so in spite of the political carping I get - I travel to meet people, not support governments)

Anyway, Here are a couple cars…

A couple years ago up here in the Seattle area a Navy helicopter flew into a tight valley, under a bridge to rescue a kid who had fallen and injured herself. Impressive tight clearance flying.

Yeah, the Abarth does have a similar "alive"ness about it. You can rotate the car with weight transfer just like an old Rabbit GTI.

If we could ditch the electric steering, we'd get closer to the ITR's communicativeness. Add in a mechanical LSD and we'd be bang-on with the ITR.

Fiat! Bring me an Abarth "Corsa…

Yep, the hatchback can be had with a giant glass sunroof. That's what my car has, it's nice. The cloth roof offers more headroom though.

I've been surprised by how not friendly other Abarth drivers are when I encounter them in the wild. Just this week, I saw another white with red, just like mine and the driver refused to acknowledge my wave hello. Perhaps he thought I was hitting on him? Note that when I encounter other Abarths at autocrosses or the…

The Integra Type R is magic. I've never driven or autocrossed a front driver so good.

The Abarth is not bad, not on the same level as an ITR though...

My wife and I love our Abarth hatchback and are "this close" to trading it in on an Abarth cabriolet (AbCab? is that a thing?). Yes, the interior has hella chintzy platic in it. I don't care, the thing is just so damn fun to drive.

These are infectious little cars. I love it so much that I'm taking it on a week long…

Cool, thanks! I'll see what sort of deal I can get on a '13.

That looks like a decklid mount to me. Agreed, that wing would be happier higher in the airflow and with a Gurney flap.

Any word on what 2014 will bring to the Abarth? I'm thinking of trading my '12 Abarth in for an Abarth Cabrio. I'll probably be able to get a better deal on a '13 AbCab, but would wait if the '14s will have better interior materials or if we can get the Cabrio d'Italia here in the States (or even just a blue Abarth).

The best American small car is the Fiat 500 Abarth.

Nope, none of the factory race hot bits are on this car, this is LeMons after all. It's a mostly stock engine, it does have a cam and it's been bored a little bit.

It was a ton of fun. I think we're going to run the car in more events, it was really well received and worked very well.

Let's jump into the way back machine and consider the Twin H Power 308 cubic inch flat head straight six of the legendary Hudson Hornet. The Fabulous Hudson Hornet was a dominator in Stock Car racing leaving the V8 powered competition in its dust. Part of this was due to the wrenching wizardry of Smokey Yunick, and…

I was just racing a Hudson Hornet last weekend and was tweeted at by the Hudson Motor Company asking how we were doing (we won) and how the car was running.

How awesome would it be to work there...

I thought they were back already. PJ's facebook has been quiet lately, perhaps they're taking some well deserved time off?

I saw them setting up the tent for the Jag intro this past weekend (while racing a Hudson Hornet) at the LeMons event at the Ridge Motorsports Park. Have you gotten to play on the track yet? Video?