Archive for December 2005

On a crowded freeway a few days ago, a fellow member of the San Diego Miata Club had a run-in with a catering truck. According to one account of the accident, the catering truck started to change lanes and sideswiped the Miata. Then, realizing what had happened, the truck’s driver overcorrected, lost control, careened off…

I began my coverage of the SEMA Show – the automotive aftermarket’s four-day extravaganza in Las Vegas, with a side trip to a Nevada Corrections (and automotive fabrication) facility and a look at neat, extremely affordable consumer products (AutoMatters 165 and 166). This will be my last installment about the most recent show. The first…

In past columns I have addressed the subject of technology-driven efforts to significantly improve fuel economy. You may recall reading my two-part report (in AutoMatters 130 and 131) on the presentation by Dave Hermance of Toyota about what Toyota has been working on. Ford, with their Escape hybrid, was the first of the major automobile…

Quite a while ago I ran into Dusty Brandel at a monthly meeting of the Motor Press Guild in Los Angeles. She is the hard working, long time President of the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Association (AARWBA, pronounced “Aruba”) – the other Press organization that I belong to. Dusty asked me if I…

The differences between IRL cars, Champ Cars and even Formula 1 cars may seem subtle to the casual observer. What clearly stands out is that they are all fast, loud, open-wheeled race cars. I once had the good fortune to drive a less powerful open-wheeled race car. It was a Formula Ford and I was…