I saw a 1st-gen Porsche 911. Man are they small!
I’ve seen similar side by side comparisons of the 1960s-70s era Dodge Challenger and the new ones. Everything is bigger now.
I saw an Olds 88 on the street at the bank, that’s a 25 year old car.
That C3 was in the same place again but it didn’t look the same: jagged stripes on the sides and the rest a solid color. Maybe it wears wraps.
Last night I saw what I’m fairly sure was a (white) Lotus Emira It was quite dark and it drove past quickly but I can’t think what else it might have been. It’s surprisingly exotic-looking compared with the models I’m used to - or just has much more modern styling, I suppose - and I briefly thought it was an unknown kind of McLaren until I remembered seeing pictures of new Lotus models. Oddly it sounded electric, even though it’s still got a petrol engine and it definitely wasn’t the Evija (which is electric). Maybe it was just a very high-revving engine whine - I suppose if it was electric, I wouldn’t have heard it at all.
It’s nice to see a genuinely new Lotus. I’ve not seen an actual new model or new car for a very long time, and the older ones have become uncommon now too. And it’s good that it looks exciting, too - when I watched out for cars as a child, Lotuses always looked good and were among the most exotic cars that you ever actually saw. Ferraris were very rare and Lamborghinis almost unheard of back then (I think I was 18 before I saw a Lamborghini Countach in real life, and I only remember seeing two different real ones plus another that turned out to be a replica when I saw it up close. Not like now when the current models sometimes seem to be everywhere, especially the Uruses).
Jaguar XK120, right hand drive. It was absolutely beautiful and going nowhere very slowly in Hollywood traffic.
A Jeep Wrangler Rubicon on 37s, but what really caught my eye is the ARB air compressor mounted under the hood.
Me want!
.
.
Aftermarket, I assume. What would you use a compressor like that for?
People that are serious into 4-wheeling will often let a lot of air out of their tires depending on the terrain. Rock crawling, sand etc.
The compressor is to re-inflate the tires.
Exactly. I normally run 36 PSI, but I’ll air down to 10-12 and this creates “float”, where the tires will float on top of the sand (for example) instead of digging in and getting stuck.
If one happens to be driving on soft sand or dirt (or mud) and gets bogged down, stuck, then immediately stop spinning the wheels. At that point all that is happening is they are digging in deeper, getting more stuck. Let some air out of the tires, down to about 15 PSI, and the car will often simply roll away and pull you out of that predicament.
When the tires are aired down one must drive carefully, lest the rubber separates from the rim. Avoid sharp, fast turns and driving straight and fast and hitting bumps. Slow and controlled is the way to go.
This is me (and my wife) out on the trail with my daily driver, a diesel Jeep Grand Cherokee. This is how we roll.
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
Yeah my buddy’s and I used to do a lot of 4-wheeling in Colorado. After High School graduation, 4 of us hit the trails. Two short bed Chevy trucks (quite capably really) and an FJ 40 with a 327 v8 dropped into it. Two weeks of sort of circling the mountains of Colorado, trying to stay off road as much as we could. This was back in '79. Lot more trails back then.
Colorado is Trail Heaven!
I saw this today (ignore the overly zoomed and cropped screenshot from a surveillance camera)
I believe it’s a mid 80’s Chrysler New Yorker. It was at my store today and parked in such a way that, even though I was inside, the front end was probably less than 10 feet from me, just on the other side of a window. Before even noticing anything whatsoever about the car, what caught my eye was the sealed beam headlights, and then the fact that it had a hood ornament.
It was in, at least from where I was standing, very good condition. Whoever owned it, has clearly been maintaining it.
It reminded me of the cars I learned how to work on. Big cars with big engines and lots of space in the engine bay to see (and learn) what you’re doing.
Chrysler changed the name of that car several times during the 1980s. So that could be a:
- 1980-1981 Chrysler LeBaron
- 1982 Chrysler New Yorker
- 1983 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue (That might be about the longest car name ever)
- 1984-1989 Chrysler Fifth Avenue
Most likely it’s a mid-to-late 80s Fifth Avenue.
Ironically that was considered a “small” car compared to what what Chrysler was making in the 1970s.
An absolutely clean looking 2020 Camaro in a lovely dark red shade. It had an aftermarket wing and exhaust on it. No biggie except that it has been snowing all day and the roads are salty as heck and this had no sign of having been on a salty, slushy road. How did he do that?
I couldn’t get a good view of the back, so I’m not sure. There’s a small medallion just behind the rear window, no 3rd/opera window and ‘vents’ in front of the front door. Based on that, and your options, I’d go with the Fifth Avenue as well. I randomly pulled up an 83 and an 89 Fifth Avenue and they seem to match.
It looks like the Fifth Ave had a either a 5.2 or 5.6 L engine until 1990. But even the New Yorker’s 3.0l engine is an entirely different animal compared to today’s 1.5-2.4L engines. FWIW, I have no issue with modern engines, but IMO, it was easier to learn how to work on the older ones, if for no other reason, because you could see what you were doing or even watch someone else work because they weren’t shoulder deep in wiring harnesses and evap hoses. OTOH, it’s nice not to have to, literally, climb into the engine bay to reach something.
Kept in a garage or just ran it through a car wash and by the time you saw it, it had only been on the road for a short amount of time?
Today, a brand new, just off the lot, only 8 miles on the odometer, stunning “Rapid Blue” Chevrolet Corvette C8.
Also today, a first generation Porsche 911 Carrera, and a Porsche 928 with 5-speed manual. The 928’s shift pattern is a 3-gate “H” with R at the upper left, 1st at the lower left, and 5th at the lower right. Just like the 924 I drove for my high school graduation gift in 1979 (a rental from Porsche of Avon CT).
I saw one this morning, same color. It seems an unlikely car to drive in 30 degree weather with snow flurries and the salt trucks have started to do their thing.
Actually, a RWD car with mid-mounted engine does very well in snow. The weight is over the drive wheels.
My first car had that layout (‘79 Fiat X1/9) and it was great in the snow. Unfortunately the only snow picture I have of it was from when the slush was thick and heavy and wet on the NY Thruway. No harm done. We were quickly pulled out and back underway.
That was in a bad 1983 snowstorm that followed us across Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa, and then again in Ontario and New York. We passed many accidents, lots were 4x4s.
That Fiat was a great little car.
- In front of my parents San Francisco house, before starting our cross country roadtrip. I’m on the right with my brother.
- Snowbound on the NY Thruway in an April 1983 blizzard.