Indeed. I lucked out last time I was in Philla, got to see them take out some 30's road race cars. Included one alfa that was an actual mille milga winner, a supercharged MG, a second alfa, and something french.

My personal favorite of the Lars Anderson events is microcar day. The cars are the strangest things on the face of the planet, and not only do they parade drive to the show, but they have an organized system where they give all the visitors rides in the things. Line forms on the hill under the trees, and the cars…

Choice of car to destroy is difficult, no matter what you pick, someone will get pissed off. Witness Top Gear, and Austin Marina's, a car in the same spiritual place as a PT.

Well that T63 I used to get power density numbers, is actually 135 lb, and 500 kw. To get the weights to match, I used two of them. That it resulted in a 4 digit kW figure was icing on the cake.

Iron weighs 450 lb/cu ft. I use it to build things, and need to move it.

If you don't have to contain reciprocating motion, you need a lot less structure. A turbine should always wind up lighter. That 290 lb in a turbine gets you within spitting distance of 1000 KW of power output. (and that's based on T63 numbers)

There are almost no diesel engined airplanes, and lots of turbine engined ones. This should say something about weight of turbine vs diesel. Of the three options, (turbine, spark ignition, and compression ignition) diesel is the heaviest. Cylinder pressures in a diesel are much higher than spark ignition engines,…

The real problem with series hybrids is the energy losses in the charge/discharge of the batteries. Its real hard to beat a metal shaft, at least when you don't have to change direction too many times. The motor/generator can be in the high 90's efficiency, the batteries can be south of 80%. If you don't have to…

Stirling's have very poor power to weight ratios. They are operating at or near atmospheric pressure, so they need to be huge to make any significant power. Power is a direct function of piston area and cylinder pressure. A combustion engine has cylinder pressures north of 500 PSI, your average Stirling the…

For tailgaters, a friend installed what he calls the Yuppie switch. Push it, and every light on the back of the car comes on. Includes both turn signals, the backup lights, the third brake light, etc. He says it works well, but if all cars had them, I bet it would soon get ignored.

What do you make of me, a "boomer". I got driven around in a bunch of things, sedans (yup families used to buy those), wagons (There was this old Mercury that my father had, came with the 429 "Turnpike cruiser", noted for coming with factory dual 4V. Would pass anything but a gas station). A variety of small…

Its called a series hybrid, and they aren't as efficient a system as the parallel hybrids in use by almost everyone. The problem is that adding and then removing energy from batteries isn't that efficient, especially compared to a metal shaft.

Well the rest of the world calls it regenerative braking. The author should have used the correct term.

They are doing it on purpose. They want people to know at a glance, that the machine in question is something different, and that the company is looking to the future. Usually such things are just seen as concepts at car shows, not in actual production.

You warm up a bit faster, and your engine temp doesn't fluctuate so much. Flow in a cooling system is rarely constant, typically the thermostat opens, the hot flows out, the cold takes its place, and the thermostat closes again. In cold weather, the water has time to get really cold while sitting in the radiator, so…

If you have a car with a slit opening in the grill, and no easy access to the front of the radiator for the cardboard, use a foam pool noodle. Soft so they won't mar paint, and the diameter is a good fit with the typical slit grill.

Rear wheel drive? check. Van so there is no weight over said wheels? check. Owned by a cat? check. Buy your overlord's litter in early November. Buy a years worth. Unload it in March.

That would be an issue, but they don't deflect the chains on these. A straight chain is amazingly efficient. Bike chains as typically used, not so much. The real enemy of a bike chain is the water/abrasive mix they normally get run thru. Rusty and worn aren't the obvious signs of an efficient system.

Chains can be as efficient as spur gears. Losses are in the 1% range.

Yup, want a new gear, and the shifter sends a letter to the transmission requesting the change. Sea mail.