Had a '68 Beetle with an automatic stick. God, I hated that thing. Used to start in low gear from every stop, even though you weren't supposed to, just to feel some torque.

This thread could only exist on Jezebel, where mildly humorous/interesting stories go for cold-eyed vivisection by people who are either tone deaf or hell-bent on being miserable.

I was a 21-year-old college student when I snail-mailed (this was 1991) a story I wrote for a class to Automobile. The lady herself, whom I'd been reading since I was about 10, called to tell me she loved it. They gave me $2k for the story, the first magazine piece I ever sold. It won a big award and I wrote stuff and…

Jesus, no shit. Enough, already.

If you don't know this already, keeping it in the fridge makes it last 3-4 times longer.

I had a Del Sol with the B16 motor in it; the thing wasn't super fast, but I autocrossed it and had a blast driving it on the street. It was stolen from in front of my house on election night 2004. When it was recovered about 24 hours later, it looked like a surgeon had removed the engine, tranny, computer and…

I didn't say this yesterday, but I'm in a worse mood today, so I'll say it now: Hey VW, why don't you take some of the money you spend to build (interesting but ultimately) ludicrous horseshit like this, and use it to get some of the great cars you sell elsewhere certified for the US?

A Chrysler parts guy told me, when I expressed the same sentiment, that it was engineered that way to "locate the battery away from the engine heat" so it would last longer.

Amazing piece of biography, well worth the read. But settle in—it's 1400ish pages.

Just read The Power Broker a couple of months ago. That book is an absolute masterpiece.

Seconded.

And even if you went through with it, how long would it take to get tired of the great poon, leaving you right back where you started? It's all great poon when its new poon. Usually.

It's also Tambor, not "Tambour." Jesus.

To a Sea Monkey, you're now more evil than Hitler.

Try this.

Super awesome color. Really wish there were more green cars available these days. That kinda metallic olive that Ford was using back then looks really good to me these days, too.

I had a '72 Skylark convertible; it was white. I've always hated white cars. Then I found that the name of the color Buick put on that car was "Apollo White" (like the rockets that were contemporary to the car).

Don't forget breakfast.

This may be a case where the scale of his fuckups at Ford was so utterly eclipsed by his later adventuring in SE Asia that everyone has forgotten about it. Like the sun with a candle held up next to it, Vietnam washes out everything else the man ever did.

Neat trick making each of your sentences dumber than the one before it. Like a Russian doll of fucking stupidity.