I can’t speak for the USA, but some other parts of the world, credit score still boils down to “Can I trust this person enough to lend them money?”. If that person abruptly cancelled a secured loan and the outstanding balance of the loan was more than the value of the object, yup, that’s going to hurt your credit…

If there’s one thing that Jalopnik needs more of, it’s accountancy-based humour.

I never really understood the business strategy behind these Merkurs. Why would Ford bring a European Ford back to the home market when they already had good products in their home market which benefit from economies of scale?

Putting men on the moon was absolutely political; it was the culmination of the space race. The Soviets had put a man into space first (on a terrifying mission which stretched their technology & processes to the limit), and the USA had a couple of high-profile failures in the early stages of the race; putting a man on…

Hovercraft are really terrible at being boats. They are noisy, unreliable, unsuitable for long voyages, and unstable in sea states that the average naval vessel could easily cope with (I once crossed the English Channel in a hovercraft, and made copious use of airline-style sick bags). Admittedly they don’t have a…

Alternatively: Just take whatever you want, off a ship.

If you really have an irresistible urge to buy old British military vehicles, most are disposed of through http://www.mod-sales.com/ so that’s the best place to start your search, although there’s a secondary market...

GPS had not been invented yet and Maultsby was too far north to rely on ground navigation systems, so the pilot navigated reading the stars. Unfortunately, in part due to the Northern Lights, Maultsby got lost and started heading in the wrong direction: into Soviet airspace.

This one is pretty tricky; I think we’re looking at an Autocar DC cement mixer from somewhere in the 1950s, but I’m not certain. There were White trucks that looked a lot like this, too. This is one of the few non-French vehicles that seems to be in the movie, too.

Sure, Wes Anderson always makes films with the same distinctive style. So many flat spaces and sparse sets. They’re still enjoyable films.

This has been happening as long as there’s been a car industry - it attracts optimistic people who like engineering but maybe don’t have a solid grip on how business works.

I think it was ... losht in transhlation.

In developing countries, you can still see L-series Mercedes bullnose trucks, which are still hauling despite decades of dirt roads, 250% overloading, tainted fuel, and shade-tree mechanics. The last time I went to Mauritania there were really only three kinds of vehicles on the road - Mercedes 190E for rich people,…

My dad was a geek, before the word geek was invented. Very technically-oriented, numerate, practical. He fell in love with an old Rover, which (by virtue of being an old Rover) needed lots of difficult repairs on a regular basis.

Owning a Lotus 7 clone is like owning a yacht: Your two happiest days are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.

My mission in life is to challenge stereotypes and upset expectations. Consequently, I drive a sensible Volvo estate as though I’m a Playstation-addled teenager in a hot-hatch. I refused to park my Smart car sideways. When I had Mercedes luxobarges, I set the speed limiter to 70 (although that was mostly because I…

Forget about the customer for a second, and think about the relationship between Tesla and the dealer.

This project required a huge, enormous amount of work to achieve something that most people wouldn’t notice at all, apart from recognising it as Just Another Old Car. So, I give it 8 Jalopnik points out of 10. Obviously it can’t get the last 2 points because it doesn’t involve second-hand Fiat tooling from the 1960s,…

Explain this to me one more time, as though I was a simpleton, or a friendly labrador. Amber was safer than white, so the law changed to require amber,and carmakers adopted amber, then the police tried to stop people changing from white to amber and even arrested them...? What? Why?