Three days after writing my last post, The New York Times published three articles on the Trabant by Towle Tomkins. Now, anyone can experience how just how badly the worst-of-the-worst commie cars drove. And it seems this horrid little car has a small fan base in the U.S. A Red Menace That You Can Drive [...]
Posts from ‘November, 2008’
Achtung, Trabant!
If you’re on my mailing list (lucky you!), you’ve probably seen my little marketing cards that use images of the Trabant. And it would be reasonable for you to ask, “Why?” Well, mainly, I use the Trabant as an attention getter. The Trabant, a product of East Germany’s centralized communist experiment, ranks among the worst [...]
Yet Another Car Blog
Welcome to the “Web 2.0″ version of the AudaMotive Communications web site, built on the WordPress platform, and hosted and administered by me on reliable GoDaddy servers. I’ve been working on the transition from a traditional web site to the WordPress platform for some time, and you’re looking at the result of that work. I [...]
(Super) Chevy “Celebrity”
Can you tell from my blog entries that I like the new Camaro? In my post “Perfect Pony?” I discussed good proportions for a modern ponycar. Chevy prefers the term “sports car” to avoid that lineage to the original Mustang, but the Camaro is no sports car. At first glance, the published specs for the [...]
Driving the MINI Diesel
This past September, participating in the International Motor Press Association (IMPA) annual test Day in the Poconos, I drove a MINI Cooper diesel evaluation model along some of the back roads near Split Rock Resort. I’m partial to the MINI to start with; if this model were offered in the U.S., I might prefer it [...]
All American Racers?
I originally wrote the following as a sidebar to a “Dodge Wins Daytona 500″ story for Mopar Action magazine earlier this year. It was not published, however. The car in the photo, in case you can’t tell by the decal tail lights, is a “Camry.” All American Racers … Sort of. When Toyota clinched its [...]
Win on Sunday, Bankrupt on Monday?
Rob Kinnan’s editorial in the September issue of Hot Rod magazine (“Wake Up Call”) suggests a new money-saving move for Chrysler, Ford and GM: dump factory support for NASCAR. Sounds controversial, no? I think it’s a good idea, for all the reasons Kinnan cites in his column. Earlier this year, I wrote a piece for [...]
Perfect Pony?
Writing about the possibility of a 4-cylinder turbo Camaro in a previous post reminded me of the car I always thought was the “perfect ponycar” back in the 1990s – the first-generation Mercedes-Benz CLK (1997-2002). Benz owners, and maybe my friends at the brand, might shudder at those words all falling in the same sentence. [...]
