I have no problem believing that the US driver’s license doesn’t make a significant difference to safety. I’m a firm believer in the concept of licensing drivers, but it’s pointless when the licenses get handed out like candy and bad actions barely have consequences. We have a high number of foreign drivers in the…

A cousin works for one of the largest manufacturers of the machines that make plastic bottles for beverages.

I’d love to see them, but alas, I’m allergic to slideshows.

Engine looks like an AJ16, which was an improved version of the AJ6 for the final few years.

A colleague bought an Audi Q2 and paid lots extra to put 19" wheels and offroad-looking cladding on it, but skipped on the quattro, because “we don’t need quattro here on the coast”. While she is right in that there is less snow at the coast than in the mountains, the piece of coast she lives at still gets enough snow…

On my previous boat there were handles glued to the window glass that stayed on for the 14 years I had it, I have no idea if they’d ever come off under previous owners, but I do know that they did not come off under the next guy who had it for close to 10 years.

I miss the old days when Audi would let you order quattro on even the tiniest poverty-spec engines in Europe. A friend loved his A6 quattro with 125 hp and lawnmower-levels of torque, it took sweet forever to get up to speed on the motorway, but it would slowly and surely get him up every icy hill out in the boonies,…

There’s a 2008 CL for sale near me with 9 year old discount tires. Yikes!

My father bought a used Audi A6 that had his local dealership go “huh?” when it came in for servicing, with one service manager explaining that such a car “should not exist” and was not orderable through their systems. The largest TDI, with all the bells and whistles, including navigation when that was rare (90s), yet…

I do miss the days when the affordable European brands had large sedans that offered interior volume on par with the premium brands at a lower price point.

The Carisma-based S40 will always have a special place in my heart for letting my cousin walk away after a driver coming the other way on a rural 50 mph road decided to turn left in front of her without warning, but neither generation is a $15k car today.

My first civilian employer had three vans:
- The old: Noisy, vile suspension, tiny cargo area, but decent engine.
- The new: Relatively good noise insulation, comfy suspension, huge cargo area, but very little engine power.
- The VW: Excellent noise insulation, nearly as comfortable suspension as the new van, had a rear…

Reminds me of when my then-MIL got a nasty cut to her forehead because of a lightning strike: The breaker box in her house had a metal lid, and the lightning strike blew that lid off the hinges, sent it flying through the room and nailed her right above the nose.

First 90 days? Uhm, okay.

While the concept of a coupe is certainly valid on modern cars, in terms of proportions it’s still approximately 3' too short for its height.

When we burn any kind of hydrocarbon, or even plain old coal, we get CO2. The O2 comes from air. Where do you suggest the C comes from, if not from burning the fuel?

How it’s done in Norway:
- All regular police officers must have a 3-year degree from one of the police colleges, police staff officers typically have a degree in law. There are no shortcuts for military or otherwise, police college is the minimum, with no transfer credits.
- All police colleges across the country have…

Yup, most German and Nordic unions seem to be something pretty different from the norm in several English-speaking countries. Coming from a place where unions are the norm, and generally rational and reasonable, I had a shocking encounter with a couple of unions in England. I later observed how management were running…

Communications hardware for governments and big business. The chips are frequently identical across the range, the circuit boards perhaps 80 % common from low-end to high-end, and the software installation package is the same for all, though the operating system will only load a selection of files relevant to the…