The biggest engine on this list is more than 1.5l smaller than that.

My father had a red ‘59 in 1969. He had an unerring eye for junk; I only remember that car as a driveway ornament, though I remember a lot of misadventures with the ‘64 Fintail he bought next. Mom says the ‘59 had an electric clutch that would disengage every time my dad rested his hand on the shifter. I’ve said for…

It might not be as sporty, but a ‘61-64 T-Bird with a front disc conversion, shoulder belts and a Bluetooth head unit would be coooool.

That’s what he has owned, I think he feels like he's moved into a different time of life.

Well if I do, you’re not getting one because I don’t like your attitude. The fact, though, is that there are millions of terrible cars out there that will go farther, faster, with more safety and protection and less maintenance than a Model T. The Model T was obviously groundbreaking, and it put the world on wheels,…

I had two 1st-gen Scion xBs. Not only my favorite cheap car, my favorite car, period. If it weren’t for the stupid meaningless check-engine codes and the hatch handles that tend to break, these cars would be damn near flawless. And I didn’t even get to drive a 5 speed.

I guess that's why so many people are daily driving them today. 

The project that inspired my paper was based on cow manure, so the draft animal/machine dichotomy was less of a factor. Also, we already have huge surpluses of grain, so I expect this dystopian future would still be able to feed is, our livestock, and our vehicles. Especially after a zombie apocalypse.

Look at the color chips in an early 70s VW brochure. Why are things so much worse 50 years later? Why can’t engineers make a safe roof with pillars like a ‘65 Corvair? Why can’t designers look back at 125 years of history and figure out what does and doesn’t look good on a car? I count myself lucky that I’ve never…

I disagree that the Ptolemies didn't care about Egyptian culture. The evidence is all up and down the Nile that they adopted it and used it to placate their subjects. I expect they still held onto their alien nature behind closed doors; colonizers always like to feel different and superior to the colonized.

Ok then, it needs to be done. Reminds me of the R&T cover story 40-something years ago about a VW Golf that was really a Porsche 928 under the skin. The interior of a RWD Taurus would be pretty snug for its size, but I guess no worse than a Mercedes, BMW or Jag of similar dimensions.

But I assume they would have had to make it RWD, so it wouldn't share much mechanically with the standard Taurus?

Back when I argued, I argued with one guy (around 1990, pre-web) who said he knew EVERYTHING about Hondas and that they never made a car before the Civic, and later with a guy who said the DeLorean DMC-12 was the greatest car ever built. At least that one was a matter of (bad) opinion.

Wouldn’t Brough have called his top model something other than SS100 if it had that much power? The Rapide would do about 115-120 with 45 HP. Even with increased drag, more than 4 times the power would have to get you to at least twice the top speed.

Speaking as someone who crossed the Rockies, and the Grapevine, in a motorhome with a 351 Windsor, a 440 Hemi sounds awesome.

I had a buddy in high school who specialized in sleepers. He had a Monza with a 400 small block, it was his daily driver but he also raced it until he blew up the rear end. The last time I saw him, he had a Caprice wagon with a Z28 305 (it was still the '80s at the time, so this passed for hot) and a Ranger with a…

I’m a big fan of Corvairs, but the engine is really 1.5x something that Ferdinand Porsche plagiarized 25 years earlier. It only looked advanced through Detroit goggles.

Maybe that's why so many of them are sitting in garages with home-from-the-dealer mileage?

Did they ever put a 302 in a FWD? Could they?

In the ‘90s I worked in a Brit bike shop. We got lots of bikes that had been sitting for 10+ years, and the gas in their tanks smelled like acetone. Once in a while we’d get a Spanish 2 stroke that had old, old premix in the tank, and that was a slightly different smell. Obviously there was no way any of these bikes…