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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Faux Asymmetric Wheels
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One of the fancier options common on upmarket car models are asymmetric or “directional” wheels. These usually have some sort of angled “vane” or “turbine” spokes that ostensibly function to extract hot air from around the brake rotor. (Whether they are functionally effective in practice is an unending topic of forum flame wars lively debate.)…
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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Motor Vehicle Manufacturers with Aviation Connections
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In the responses to last Friday’s Hooniverse Asks, several of you brought up aircraft or aircraft engines built by automotive manufacturers. Today, I’d like to start our week by exploring this connection further. Let’s list all the automotive-aviation connections we can. The Caveats (there are always caveats): Engines, airframes, avionics, and all other airborne products…
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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Center-Mounted Headlights
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Mounting a headlight along the center-line of the vehicle is one of those recurrent ideas that seem offer plausible advantages with a minimum of technical difficulty, but for some reason simply don’t become popular, either with the public or with designers. But there have been a number of production cars that have tried it, and…
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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Thieving Foreign Parts Bins
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Low-volume car models are somewhat notorious for raiding existing cars’ parts books for easily adaptable components. Rear light assemblies are a case in point. The De Tomaso sourced the Pantera’s tail lights from whatever designs Alfa had sitting around, and there was a downright incestuous level of British parts-bin raiding by Bristol. Lotus, however, endured…
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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Non-Circular Steering Wheels
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Last Friday, our esteemed Mr. Emslie asked, “Non-Round Steering Wheels, Brah! or Blah?” Many of our readers cited specific cars thus equipped in their responses (amiable, informative, and entertaining—as always). Unfortunately, the hivemind didn’t produce a definitive list of every car that had something other than a perfectly circular steering wheel. So, let’s keep the…
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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Cars named for mythical creatures
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Thanks to the fertile minds of Greeks, Romans, sailors, fantasy authors, and peasants living in thatched roof cottages, there is a nearly limitless catalog (or, if you’re Chris Haining, “catalogue”) of fantastical, nonexistent creatures. And fortunately, most of them 1) sound like they’d be pretty badass, and 2) have been around long enough to be…
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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: "We should add a hatchback version!"
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An old friend of mine once recalled his father car shopping at the local American Motors dealer in the fall of 1972. He was torn between the utility of the Gremlin and the styling of the Hornet coupe — both of which had been out for two years — until the salesman took him around…
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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Single-Year Model Names
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Combine the effort automotive marketing men put into developing public awareness of model names with the intellectual property value of a legally-established trade mark, and it is understandable why car model names, once established, are often recycled over and over. But, some model names die fast and quiet. These are names tainted by a bad…
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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Cars named for speed
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Cars are marketed on the promise of many different characteristics: practicality, mobility, luxury, social status, or perhaps some sort of vague feeling that you live in another city. Since outright speed seems a bit dangerous, allusions to high performance are often couched in terms such as “Sport” or “GT”, rather than an overt reference to…
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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: DOHC Straight Sixes
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‘Round these parts, we love straight sixes. But they can sometimes be regarded in America as outdated, low-tech beasts (except for BMW fanbois, of course). But the inline-six engine has progressed over the years into something as advanced and sophisticated as any other internal combustion configuration, including the use of dual overhead camshafts. In fact,…