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Adventures in wrenching – Playing the odds
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Of the three cars that litter the space immediately surrounding my house, our 1995 Peugeot 306 is by far the easiest to work on. It’s massively less complicated than the Audi or the Rover – it has just the one camshaft, not two or four, and it actuates just two valves per cylinder, not five…
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The Carchive: The 1984 Nissan Prairie
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It’s back to brochures for this Carchive installment. The last one we covered was the 1980 Dodge Imports – ostensibly rebadged Mitsubishis that sold on value and economy, yet somehow image and fun, too. Today we look at a machine with absolutely no sense of vanity, no illusions of grandeur, no upmarket pretentions. The Mk1…
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Hooniverse Asks: If you could be a car designer….
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Who’s watched or read “High Fidelity”? In that superb film / novel, Rob Gordon (John Cusack) decides that his dream job is as a music journalist for Rolling Stone, specifically between 1976 and 1979. He’d get to meet The Clash, Crissie Hynde, The Sex Pistols, David Byrne and get loads of free records. It was…
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Off on a tangent: Alternative control techniques
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It was supposed to be a break from cars. We’d been living practically off-grid for a week, beginning with five days in our favourite corner of Cornwall for some R&R, before moving to the ‘Beautiful Days’ folk and rock music festival in Ottery St Mary, Devon. It was while watching a band called Lau, that…
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Carchive Special: The European cars that caught me unawares
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As we know, true car geeks will feverishly devour any relevant information that comes their way on their journey along the path to enlightenment. The thing is, though, that information doesn’t necessarily arrive in the order you expect it to. When I was growing up, my local newsagent stocked all the most popular British car…
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eBay finds: W126 Mercedes S-Class….hatchback.
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Once upon a time, the hatchback was invented, and we saw that it was good. It allowed small cars a far greater degree of versatility than cars with a separate trunk could offer. Gradually, it dawned on carmakers that this extra practicality shouldn’t be the exclusive domain of the hard of spending, and larger, more…
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The Carchive: The 1980 Dodge Imports
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Our last visit to The Carchive took us to mid-sixties Luton, where the Vauxhall Viva veritably glistened with all the trappings of mid ’60s British austerity, providing a striking contrast from the American iron we’ve looked at over the last couple of weeks. We’re heading back Stateside today… or are we? This 1980 Dodge Imports…
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The changing times of the true Car Geek.
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As a kid, I used to love knowing more obscure facts about cars than anybody else. In primary school, and at the beginning of junior school (before testosterone took over and my school year descended into Lord Of The Flies, albeit a more violent version) my automotive leanings even got me off the hook for…
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Quick Spin: 2017 Chrysler Ypsilon. Y not?
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Five doors, two cylinders, and a wildly inappropriate bonnet badge. What’s not to like? The Lancia Ypsilon was / is a fascinating footnote in FCA history. Still available new in Italy only, it has long beaten a retreat from other markets, and never made it to the USA despite wearing Chrysler badges in many territories,…
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The Carchive: 1966 Vauxhall Viva
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The last few weeks have been a little Americentric, so I figured I’d stick a little closer to home today. We’re staying with 1966, but visiting Luton, Bedfordshire to take a look at the upgraded Vauxhall Viva range. Keep the last fortnight’s AMC Rambler and Marlin, and the Buick Riviera before that, in mind and…
