COMPACT COMPARO PART 2
R&T INTRODUCED ITS READERS to compact cars in November 1959. Yesterday in Part 1, its chart identified 21 of these with wheelbases between 100 and 110 in., and the magazine’s … Continue reading
COMPACT COMPARO 1959 PART 1
WHAT WITH OPULENCE GONE WILD in the late 1950s domestic auto scene (and increasing popularity of foreign cars notably the Volkswagen Beetle), compacts were a rational response. R&T was there … Continue reading
ON GRAUPEL AND A STRANDED CAN-AM CAR
I WAS RAISED IN CLEVELAND and spent undergrad years in Worcester, Massachusetts. So snow is nothing new to me. Indeed, it’s where I learned about not just drifting snow, but … Continue reading
TIME FOR HYDROGEN (AND NOW WE MEAN IT)
“NO LONGER ’20 YEARS IN THE FUTURE,’ ” writes Lindsay Brooke, Editor-in-Chief, in SAE International Automotive Engineering, February 2023. “Hydrogen and fuel cells are a vital, high-growth solution for carbon … Continue reading
FRATER, CAN YOU SPARE A DENARIUS? PART 2
TODAY WE CONTINUE WITH TIDBITS gleaned from Michael Kulikowski’s “What the Badger Found,” London Review of Books, February 2, 2023. The Drachm. Kurlikowski describes, “… the large silver coin that … Continue reading
FRATER, CAN YOU SPARE A DENARIUS? PART 1
HAVE YOU STOPPED USING COINS TOO? Credit card and online transactions have all but eliminated my use of metallic cash. I used to collect them in a baggie and, once … Continue reading
THE EGG, THE HINDI, AND I
A RESTAURANT REVIEW in The New Yorker, January 30, 2023, and an article in The New York Times, February 6, 2023, got me thinking about eggs. Here are tasty tidbits … Continue reading
ENOUGH ELECTRON GUZZLERS?
IN SAE AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING, February 2023, Editor-in-Chief Lindsay Brooke addresses “electron guzzlers,” what he calls today’s equivalent of muscle cars of an earlier era. Lindsay writes, “It’s time to acknowledge … Continue reading
007, YOUR CAR IS READY (IF PREMATURELY)
THE 1959 ASTON MARTIN DB-4 could well have been 007’s first car, though it wasn’t. His Bentley 4 1/2 Litre (first appearing in the Casino Royale novel, 1953) was “almost … Continue reading
XERXES, SERSE, DEFT MARKETING, AND PRONOUNCING THE COMPOSER’S NAME
AWHILE BACK WHEN I TRAVELED a lot, I enjoyed live performances of the Michigan Opera Theatre, including a memorable Magic Flute enjoyed with a bunch of Detroit teenagers. Now renamed … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 