I keep getting calls about how I'm "In a great position to trade in my Luxury Compact Vehicle in, and get a NEW CAR for the same payment or less". Never mind that my "Luxury Compact" is a base model Mazda2 with no cruise control. I've been declining their offers with declining politeness lately.

Briefly, yes.

I've seen plenty of Jeeps running around Southern California with very minimal fender coverage. There's enough that you could *techincally* argue that the fender extends past the wheel, but only near the doors. There's almost no coverage for the area of tire from ~9 o'clock to 12 o'clock. I think that would look…

Why bother with Fenders? Maybe a small roost deflector, but these?

That'll happen when you're laying down paint in a humid environment. He could have wet-sanded it smooth, but I don't think that was within the spirit of what he was doing. I'm sure it looked just fine for what it was.

I usually call to schedule appointments, actually, even though I use the Internet to do almost everything else.

Yield Strength isn't the issue with Aluminum, it's damage tolerance and failure mode.

The point is that it's fun to drive. I'll concede that it's slow as fuck, no argument there, but as a hatchback it's surprisingly spacious inside for it's footprint. I have the current 2 and I can think of maybe two times when I've needed something larger (towing my project AW11 home was one), it inhales a lot more…

Once I get mine running I'm looking forward to this as well.

Mass Centralization FTW!

The best/worst section of the ExPo forum is the For Sale section. So much goodness, at pretty much every price point. It makes my wallet hurt (in a good way... I think).

This would be the least surprising thing since Frank Underwood announced he'd be running for reelection.

Now, the thing about the guys who completed this project is that they are one of the top Mazda builders in the country, if not the world. These guys (then working for Fisher at Autobarn Mazda, which was sold to CJ Wilson before this Renesis Miata build began) built their own Mazdaspeed version of the Mazda2, they’ve…

I've seen one in (neon) green at my local grocery store. It had a big flat black stripe too. They are available. Spectacular vehicle.

1st Gear: Or Maybe A Crossover

They have metal 3D printers right now, we had one in college. They are crazy amazing and give you a ton of control, but they're also very expensive. Our system cost a few million dollars, and the operational costs were also astronomically high. It only made real financial sense when using ultra-specialized alloys…

Petrov is making an extended analogy using Ladas as an example. As he describes them, they were crappy, tiny cars with no heat that you'd hit your head in while going over a speed bump. Ladas, though, weren't particularly small, really. And while you could certainly argue that Ladas of the Soviet era were indeed…

"We're evolving," says Eric Shepherd, president of Rolls- Royce North America, about the shift into a sportier model. "Take a 22-year-old guy who just sold his app company for $22 million. When he gets behind the wheel of a Wraith, he's hooked."

A fuel cell (again, I'm simplifying wildly) takes a source of hydrogen, oxygen from the air, and chemically combines the two to produce a flow of electrons (electricity) and water. Fuel cells were used on the Apollo spacecraft, since they were a great way to get both electricity and have a source of drinking water,…

Each year, high school and college students participate in the CyberAuto Challenge, where they join automakers, policy wonks, and engineers to explore the technical side of cars. It's organized by Battelle, a non-profit R&D group that focuses on security and connected vehicles, and it's been running for going on three…