Rip out the interior? Doesn’t the upholstery have hidden zippers or hook-and-loop like most modern cars and, for that matter, furniture?

It’s certainly not that all old people are stupid or even unable to learn, but at some point it takes real dedication to keep current with popular culture, which tends to exclude the older generations both by design and through self-selection. This ought to be balanced by the ignorance of many younger contestants…

Mann is 40ish in 1971 and would have learned to drive when most cars had at best a windshield-mounted rearview mirror. The Valiant pictured has a driver-side door mirror, but no passenger-side door mirror, and even that was a relatively recent development; the driver’s side was standard on upper trims and optional on…

Maybe meh, but after the second-generation xB was intro’d there was still a place in Scion’s lineup for a car with fuel economy that didn’t suck and wasn’t quite as grim as the Yaris, and this was what the JDM Toyota lineup had available to trim out for North America.

Far from silly, it seems more prescient than many of the other experimental products seen in the first half of the 20th century. Panasonic eventually introduced the TR-001 “pocket” TV in 1970, a 2"x4"x6" box using a 1.5" B&W CRT developed in-house, with a removable magnifier. Sinclair finally held up the British end…

And it’s not a recent development. Even 50 years ago there had already been a 911, 911 Targa, 911T (which then stood for neither Targa nor turbo), 911S, 911E, 911R, 911L in just the 6-cylinder line, plus the 4-cylinder 912 and 912 Targa. By the mid-70s there’d also been a Carrera RS, Carrera 3.0, 930 Turbo, and…

I think he’s using one of those spray-on products that’s supposed to make you look less bald. Or possibly actual spray paint, since the real stuff is $.

It really dates back to the Reagan-era NHTSA. Bumper regulation got more strict from 1973 on, with bumpers eventually required to withstand a 5mph barrier collision with no damage to the bumper itself or to specified required safety equipment such as lighting. The anti-regulatory fervor of the early 1980s rolled back…

Well, automobile manufacturing has a different supply chain time scale than electronics. In 2009 backup cameras were supposed to be standard equipment in the US by MY2014, and it ended up being MY2019 for all vehicles. And some people still think of cars as a transportation device and not an entertainment platform.

Toyota’s Entune started to offer CarPlay what, a few months ago? And Android Auto was announced as a potentiality 30 whole days ago.

Aside from VW, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a washer fluid reservoir that was pressure-tight, though there may be some. The pump, electric or mechanical (in ‘60s Mustangs and Falcons, it was foot-operated), siphons fluid from the tank and pushes it through the nozzles, rather than keep the system constantly…

It’s not about one-handed usage for me; I’ve always used both hands even when I had an Optimus L9. It’s about being able to comfortably carry the phone in a shirt, jacket, or pants pocket, and there are a handful of phones that are now a year old that work for me (I have the Essential, and although it’s thicker I…

The fucking Kia Sorento goes from $30,500 to $47,500 in AWD trims, and I see plenty of the top-end ones on Kia lots, so Chevy sounds par for the course, MY2019.

What’s kind of odd to me about this vehicle is that it’s heavily Ford-based; besides the power train (originally the 2.5l Duratec V6 before the 3.0l came along), the platform and many bits under the body shell are the first-generation Mondeo aka Contour in the US. But Ford’s contemporaneous (although somewhat…

Well, the 164 was cribbed from the British Series I Jaguar XJ, while the Camaro was considered “Italo-organic”, whatever that means, so it may just be convergent evolution.

It’s a bit hilarious to me that we old folks are supposed to be behind the times, yet it’s younger people constantly whining about the progressive loss of 1960s-vintage mini-RCA jacks. I can’t even remember the last time I used one, but then, maybe it’s dementia.

Historic preservation is considered a public good, both for its own sake and because it displaces sprawl-inducing greenfield development that would occur elsewhere. Cleanup of toxic sites—and this building almost certainly is contaminated with lead and asbestos, and probably PCBs as well, among other things—is also a…

Critters are quite capable of finding their way into garages, and do so when the weather turns colder. I’ve mentioned my dad’s Avalon before, but as he grew older and more frail it got driven less and less frequently, and one time when I started it the vent fan made a lot of noise and no air came out of the vents. It…

I should clarify that I mean you could mount a roof rack and still be able to use the rear doors. The other one would be doable if you treat it as a large 2-seater, although I haven’t seen anyone manufacturing the pieces to do so.

Well, unlike another utility EV that shall remain nameless, it would be possible to mount a roof rack and carry a cargo box. Or kayaks. Or surfboards. Etc.