Circus-style towing isn’t so unusual. Hence the name - circuses and travelling fairs tend to use it, as they might have to pack up once a month or so, rather than covering epic mileage every day like most truckers; so they make a different trade-off between time, power:weight ratio, and the capital cost of trucks…
Conventional engines also achieve higher efficiencies (and higher MTBF) when tweaked for applications at constant load and steady RPM. Petrol, diesel, turbines too. That improvement in efficiency and reliability is not a unique advantage of rotary engines; it applies across the board.
But if you *start* with an engine…
Why does the “handbrake” have to be in the middle of the prime cupholder real-estate? We can go back to to the old-style umbrella-handle brakes, or maybe the Mercedes ones which were operated with an extra foot-pedal and released by a small handle on the dashboard. I really miss my 4-pedal C-class.
Is that an AEC Matador in the background of the first Australian army photo? #obscuretrucks
“Unreliability” is probably best understood as a description of American trade policy rather than the technical qualities of specific car exports.
If you were running a business right now which imported into or bought inputs from the USA, you wouldn’t just do the usual boring assessment of current policies and tariffs…
duurtlang is wise.
Torchinsky makes the best Jalopnik!
The car-buying equivalent of a ski-slope with double-black diamonds is a salvage auction, or any Craigslist advert which is “Selling on behalf of my friend...”
Experience has shown that everything tastes better when dipped in Worcestershire sauce.
That’s not cab-forward. This is cab-forward.
It’s a great idea for a sporty car which is also affordable and environmentally-friendly, but the engine and gearbox haven’t aged well.
It’s beautifully executed - I’m sure every stitch in the fabric and every weave in the carbon fibre is in exactly the right alignment - but to me it looks like an ugly mishmash of old and modern.
A few years ago, I saw a bus doing this in Swaziland, at an incredible angle, maybe 20 degrees or so. It was an ancient bus body built on an even older Mercedes LA-series truck chassis (the ones with a stubby bull-nose). The bus was full of passengers. Even by Swaziland standards, the driver seemed oblivious to other…
Robb is wise.
The Penguin of Doom is wise. This site doesn’t even have consistent spelling; why should it have consistent beliefs and principles?
This is why I love Jalopnik.
Years ago, I had a Mercedes estate; a W203. I was young and optimistic and thought it could do anything; I thought it was reliable, and fast, and spacious, and so on.
There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with using Twitter, just like there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with duck tape and baling twine as an engineering solution.
Any move which reduces Elon Musk’s influence over Tesla would be good for the business in future, and hence for the share price. There’s no obvious end to the drama; Elon-gate is going to stretch out for a long way.
I propose we split Tesla into two:
1. A newly-established car-making business which has cool engineering…
Let’s try a car-buying analogy.
Everybody should drive a Mercedes V12 at least once in their life. The checklist works like this:
