This Mini is the exact opposite. There’s so much help when it comes to basic clutch driving skills—automatic restarts on stalls, hill start assist, and rev-matching on gear changes—that it’s the perfect tool for a new stick driver.

Four weeks? Man that was fast. My car spent 7 weeks at the body shop when it got rear ended by a Bronco at the tender young age of 5 months. The bumper height mismatch meant that my trunk and both rear fenders took the full force of the impact. Total repair cost was $7000 on a $20k car, and that was 20 years ago.

My car had a broken ignition cylinder. The car would start, but as soon as you let go of the key and it turned back to the “Run” position, the engine would die. I was not in a place where I wanted to be with a disabled car. So, I drove it home. What’s that? You don’t understand how it’s possible to drive a car that…

That launch ramp needed a little curve to it. It looks like he had the right departure angle, but he needed a shallower approach angle.

If I’m getting the car to make sure my salivary glands get good exercise, it’ll be the Miura.

In my experience with United, I’m surprised this doesn’t happen every day. I missed a connecting flight just a few days ago because my first leg was delayed by weather. The first person I talked to said that the flight I missed was the last one of the day and I was going to be stuck in the airport overnight. The…

I gotta go with HandofWinter. Driving at 2/3 of your previous speed should have helped more than 4%.

The car is so fast that the glove box can’t even hang on @6:18.

Garlic ice cream is indeed good. You should go to the Garlic Festival in Gilroy, CA. They have garlic ice cream.

C3 Vette

Dang! I wish I’d seen this QOTD. The Beck 904 deserves to be on this list.

I learned that I HAD to watch the guys in the bay at least until I was satisfied that they had a clue. I once got a set of asymmetrical tires. The tech installed two of them backwards. Fortunately, I caught it before I left the shop and made them fix it. The next morning, I went out to my car to find the left front…

Wow! Only an 8.8:1 compression ratio and yet it needed 91 octane fuel.

In a clean metal container. It reacts with the metal and makes a non-reactive metal-fluoride surface layer. Just don’t dislodge that layer, and everything will be fine.

I’ll second the hate on murdering out a car. Tail lights should have a minimum required brightness. I can’t even begin to tell you how many cars I’ve nearly rear-ended because the sun was out and the reflection off the tail light was brighter than the light itself.

I saw one of these sitting in someone’s driveway last night. I had to read the badge on the back to know what it was. I’m surprised there’s still one out there in the wild.

Porsche 944 Turbo

Amen. I test drove a Mini and hated the ergonomics of the interior before I even got off the lot. It’s like someone challenged the designer to make a car where *every* *single* *control* was in an awkward place.

The first time I saw one in the flesh, I couldn’t stop staring. My mind just couldn’t comprehend that level of fugly.

Niven and Pournelle wrote an Orion-type ship into their novel, “Footfall”. The description of lift-off was, “God was knocking, and He wanted in bad.”