Mystery Car Bonus Edition

The esteemed Robert Emslie runs the Mystery Car series every Friday. His pictures usually show a fragment of a fender and small piece of a chrome blinker bezel. Apparently that is enough for you mad scientists to conclude not only the year, make, and model of the car but also the engine firing order and the required lug-nut torque.

I will make it easy on you geniuses and post a picture of a whole vehicle. Almost the whole vehicle. Bonus points if you know the engine firing order.

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Hooniverse Asks Bonus: Is it time to rethink the trunk?

The main objective of the automobile is to transport people and their things. The problem seems to be that these days everyone has more things – MORE STUFF!!!

Our cars keep getting bigger and bigger because we need to move our stuff. We also want to move our people and stuff in relative comfort and safety. This is why new minivans are close in size to old full-size vans. This is why half-ton pickups are huge. This is why a new 2016 RAV4 is the size of a 2001 4Runner. This is why the station wagon, a sedan with with a hump, was replaced by a three-row CUV. And even then we still bitch that there is no trunk space with the third row up to put our stuff.

I am personally very guilty of it. I have a rather huge three-row SUV. I haul my two kids in it and occasionally other people’s kids. Despite living somewhat of a minimalist lifestyle, the trunk of my 4Runner is always at least half full. I got stuff in it: stuff for donation, stuff for sports, stuff for school, stuff for the gym, and even stuff for stuff. STUFF!

This has me thinking – is it time to rethink the automotive trunk?

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Land Rover Gets Storrowed

Storrow Drive is a lovely, if slightly congested, road along the Charles River in Boston. It meanders like the river and has several low overpasses along it. Each and every entry onto Storrow Drive is properly marked with low clearance signs. Despite that there a numerous accidents where a tall vehicle accidentally navigates onto a road. Sometimes they stop in time and are forced to back up. Other times they don’t stop and hit an overpass. The locals call it getting “storrowed.”

The picture above shows what happens to Land Rover LR4 that is on top of a car carrier that hits a low overpass. Oops. This did not happen on Storrow Drive but it did happen near it. The point is that there are many places in Boston where one can get storrowed.

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Review: 2016 Mercedes-Benz AMG G63

The biggest problem with the G-Class is that people buy it for the wrong reasons. This is a vehicle that, much like Land Rover’s Defender and Jeep’s Wrangler, was originally developed for utilitarian and military purposes. But now it is being bought by B-list celebrities, app developers, and athletes with freshly signed professional contracts. It stopped being an expedition vehicle and it became an accessory to a Prada dress, and that is rather sad.

Mercedes G-Class was launched in 1979. Since then, it has been offered in countless body, chassis, and powertrain configurations. It was a globetrotter, fire engine, and light military vehicle before becoming a character on the Kardashians. Because the appearance of the G-Glass has remained rather unchanged, with time it became iconic. It has undergone a constant evolution rather than a complete revolution every five years like all other vehicles.

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LeMons Grand Prix du Lac Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg 2016 Wrapup!

24 Hours of Lemons Grand Prix du Lac Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, also known as the Thompson race, is in the books. It has been in the books for quite some time actually but I’ve been too depressed to write about it. Here is the wrap-up video Lemons HQ.

Yes, we raced. Kind of. More on that later. :pops prozac:

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Lower 48 – The Twin-turbo Northstar-powered Tucker Torpedo

Friend of Hooniverse Mike WewontposthislastnamebuthereishisFlickr recently went to The Orphan Car Show in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Tucker was the featured brand this year and there were two original Tucker 48s present. Tucker 48 is a very appreciated vehicle here on the hoon but what we saw hee blew our minds!

A modified, or resto-modded, Tucker 48! Twin-turbo Northstar engine, slammed to the ground, modern wheels. What the shit Y U RUNE KLASSIK?!?!1??

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Review: 2016 BMW 750i xDrive

All you need to know about the new 7-series, code-named G12, is that it is simply ridiculous. It is not ridiculous because it looks or performs differently than one might expect. It’s ridiculous because, once seated, the driver or the rear passengers have things available to them that the world of cars* hasn’t seen yet. But there is more to just features, there is also the execution of these features, and that’s where the big bimmer excels.

*The Mercdes-Benz S-class may have many similar features, and it was introduced before the 7, but I have not driven it.

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Review: 2017 Nissan TITAN Platinum Reserve 4×4

Nissan’s original Titan, which I am familiar with because we used it as tow vehicle for our crap can racer, was a decent truck. It was a slightly scaled-down half-ton like the original Tundra. There was nothing wrong with it, just as there was nothing outstanding or special about it. It always was rather generic and remained that way through its twelve year life. This ordinary is perhaps best reflected in its combined 471,242 U.S. sales. That is much less than Ford’s annual average F-150 sales over that same time period.

The all-new 2017 Titan half-ton has a lot of room for sales improvement which is best achieved through innovation and originality. It started off well with the bigger Titan XD and its turbo-diesel Cummins V8. With it Nissan could have made not only a new half-ton pickup but they could have made a better pickup, a different pickup.

But Nissan didn’t.

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Paddock of 24 Hours of Lemons GP du Lac Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

The 24 Hours of Lemons GP du Lac Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg is history, and it was a hot one. More on our crappy performance later, as I am short on time now.

I am really short on time, so much so that I don’t even have the time to write anything. So, why don’t you just look at a whole bunch of random pictures I took on the paddock. Yes, that Golf is a modern homemade Golf Country 4×4 using OEM parts and it’s spectacular. Yes, that Pinto Cruising Wagon was dreamy. And yes, that GM PD-4106 was perfect.

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Wagon Wednesday: 2014 Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon

When it comes to modern station wagons, the Cadillac CTS-V Sports Wagon and the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG are the two most coveted ones. Both have powerful V8 engines that send their power to the rear wheels. Both handle and stop like proper sports cars but add the functionality of a long roof. Unfortunately we, as the American car buying public, have given up on station wagons. I will predict that some day wagons will once again become popular, but in the mean time we are all about cross-overs. Sad.

The good thing is that of the several hundred CTS-V Sport Wagons that were built, one is now on eBay. 556 horsepower, optional Recaro seats, Magnetic Ride Control, Brembo brakes, 19-inch wheels, it’s all there. If there is a downside is that it is equipped with the less desirable, but arguably better, automatic transmission.

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