I saw a Hyundai Venue the other day. It looks like a car that doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up.
It’s like the lovechild of a crossover and a Mini Cooper.
Spotted on the street today, I had to park and walk back in the rain to take a look. It’s a Honda Acty Street van, right hand drive, but licensed and registered in MA. Cute as a button.
Nice painting. Suicide doors? Artist license?
Here in my hokey little jerkwater town electric cars are still somewhat of a novelty. The only ones that have become non-noteworthy are Tesla sedans, and even those aren’t exactly common.
But yesterday I saw, on the road in my tiny rural deep-red poverty-stricken backward hayseed butthole-of-the-state town, an honest-to-God Lucid Gravity. I didn’t even know they were for sale yet.
And then not 10 minutes later I saw a Honda Prologue. I had not seen one in the wild before that I could recall.
10 minutes after that I spotted a Rivian behind me. It turned onto the same road I was turning onto and I noticed something interesting. You know how Rivian has the distinctive white light bar with white light oval rings around the headlights? Well, when the turn signal was engaged those lights went out leaving the yellow turn signal (which is part of the same oval ring around the headlight) the only light on the front. When the turn signal canceled the white lights faded back on over 2 or 3 seconds. Neat!
Then, last night at a BSA fundraising dinner and auction, I spotted a Cybertruck in the parking lot. I should’ve gone over and walked around it for a better look but alas, I’m sure up close it would still look like a polished dumpster and nothing more.
So a good day for electric car spotting.
But the most interesting car I saw was an old Mercedes 300E. My fans and devotees will recall that I onced owned a 1990 300E that I sold when personal funds were short and medical bills were annoyingly numerous-- something I now regret. The one I saw yesterday had an absolutely beautiful paint job that I’m sure was a post-factory addition: a deep maroon/burgundy with that slightly metallic wet look. Stunning. It appeared to be meticulously maintained. It was not equipped with the 4-matic drivetrain, the only thing that kept that specimen from being a perfect 10/10.
No pics because I was driving when I saw all of these save the Cybertruck, and who wants to see another one of those? 
I drove to Eugene today and saw nothing interesting. I guess Fate got it out of their system yesterday.
I own a 2023 Kia Soul. I started shopping for a Soul in 2019 but I could not get over how ugly they were. The headlights were these big bug-eyed monstrosities mounted low on the bumper that reminded of a Nissan Juke or VW Thing. Generally I don’t care about a car’s looks but those Souls were bad. It sucked because otherwise the car was perfect for my needs. In '23 Kia did some plastic surgery and gave it a much-needed facelift.
So I pulled the trigger then.
It looks like that Hyandai was designed by the same guy who did the 3rd gen Soul.
I think so about the artistic license. It puzzled me for a while. But I do like the painting. It’s a painting of a very, very old photograph, so who knows. I have not seen, the photo. Some things are best painted with your mind. And that’s where they should stay.
Either that or it’s actually a T. Wooden wheels on an A are quite unusual.
Cool. Thanks for the info. The fender and light made it look like an ‘A’ to me. And a T makes more sense. A used T would be much cheaper than a new A. And… well I doubt this woman made a great deal of money. That she even drove is quite astounding for the time.
If it was a Model T then that is a handful to drive. It’s not like a modern stick shift.
Here’s a video from Jay Leno on how to drive a Model T.
Someone who drives a stick today would have no clue how to drive it. It’s more like a manually operated automatic transmission.
I’ve driven just about everything. I wouldn’t have a clue how to get a T to move. I saw that video. It’s just bizzarro.
But you know you want to try. I’ve added it to my bucket list.
In one video I’ve seen someone said driving a Model T feels more like driving an oversized riding lawnmower than a proper car. I know the controls aren’t exactly the same, but you do control the throttle with your hand like a lawnmower, and once you’ve got the transmission it just goes without the driver needing to touch any pedals, like a lawnmower.
Unless you’re going uphill in 1st gear. Then you have to hold the pedal down the whole time. It begs the phrase “a long uphill battle”.
I saw a Maserati Quattroporte VI this morning. Honestly I think it’s a pretty elegant looking luxury sedan. I know, it’s not what most people picture when they hear “Maserati”, but they actually have had four door sedans in their lineup going back to the 1960s.