On cars, old, new and future; science & technology; vintage airplanes, computer flight simulation of them; Sherlockiana; our English language; travel; and other stuff
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, R&T WAXED ELOQUENT about muscle cars countering a U.S. automaker racing ban and swiping car names from good, honest foreigners. Today it continues in its road … Continue reading
R&T GOT ALL NUTSY in 1964 about the Pontiac GTO’s name, but they were also recognizing the category of “muscle car.” Wikipedia cites Merriam-Webster defining the category as “a group … Continue reading
“WHAT WITH FIRESTORMS, EARTHQUAKES, MUD SLIDES and, as I begin this report, torrential rains, flooding, even a tornado, Southern California had hardly been a boring place of late.” So wrote … Continue reading
R&T CALLED IT “the lightest, most compact and most economical Maserati we have ever tested.” This and the following images from R&T, April 1974. It was fifty years ago, and … Continue reading
IN R&T’S 1978 “10 BEST CARS FOR A CHANGING WORLD,” the Morgan +8 Turbo garnered the coveted Henry N. Manney III Intransigence Can Be a Virtue Award. The magazine noted, … Continue reading
THIS ALL STARTED IN PART 1 celebrating a bargain mid-engine sports car, the Fiat X1/9. Here in Part 2, we pick up with 1980. Fuel Injection, 1980. Replacement of Weber carburetion … Continue reading
FIFTY YEARS AGO, R&T SAID THE FIAT’S X1/9 “is the first good-looking open mid-engine roadster available to buyers of modest means. In nearly every way imaginable—handling, ride, looks, comfort, luggage … Continue reading
WIFE DOTTIE’S NIECE LINDA RECENTLY came upon strips of b/w negatives shot by Dottie when I drove a Formula Ford at what I believe was the last competitive event at … Continue reading
YESTERDAY R&T found the 1957 Lotus Sports to be likable enough, but “for which we can discover no useful purpose.” It was not inexpensive and would not be particularly competitive … Continue reading
“AN IMPRACTICAL, HIGHLY DESIRABLE COMBINATION,” R&T wrote in September 1957. And October 1983’s Peter Egan wrote about “Crate Expectations.” Curiously these were very similar cars: The 1957 Lotus Sports was … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 