AVRO TYPE F
PILOTING—IN or out? This was a fundamental question during the first two decades of aviation. Some said a pilot needed intimacy with the air flow to optimize control. Others thought … Continue reading
HRG CAR-TO-PITS RADIO
CAR-TO-PITS communication is taken for granted today, especially in the grander levels of racing. Yet the first cars to use this feature came in 1948, long before pitboard communication was … Continue reading
BRAZILIAN CARS
A RECENT report from the Associated Press titled “Cars Made in Brazil Are Deadly” makes for fascinating reading (http://goo.gl/A1bKq). In particular, typical of the BRIC (Brazil/Russia/India/China) group of quickly developing … Continue reading
GETTING THE COLOR RIGHT
AS REPORTED in Science magazine, 3 May 2013, researchers have solved a historical quandary with plenty of time to get things right by early 2015, the 150th anniversary of a … Continue reading
FERRARI 212 EXPORT BARCHETTA
THE 1951 Ferrari 212 Export Touring Barchetta wasn’t the first Ferrari that I ever drove nor the most recent one. But it was certainly one of the most memorable. The … Continue reading
AN (OLD) WAY WITH WORDS
“Hear me, mother! Pull that black worm off the bark and give it to this old man. And no spitting in the ashes!” Amazingly enough, this is an ur-speech. Spoken … Continue reading
CHARLIE CHAN AND CHANG APANA
JUST AS Sherlock Holmes owes much to Scottish doctor Joseph Bell, famed Chinese-American investigator Charlie Chan owes a lot to Honolulu police detective Chang Apana. I’ve enjoyed accounts of them … Continue reading
STOUT BUSHMASTER 2000
WILLIAM BUSHNELL Stout designed the Ford Trimotor in the mid-1920s, but I doubt he imagined that—three decades later—he’d update his design and call it the Stout Bushmaster 2000. The story … Continue reading
MERCEDES-BENZ GLK250 BLUETEC
DIESELS AND Daimler-Benz go way back. In fact, the world’s first passenger car powered by Rudolf Diesel’s compression-ignition engine was the 1936 Mercedes-Benz 260D. The newly introduced GLK250 BlueTEC 4Matic … Continue reading
LAGO DI GARDA
THE LARGEST of Italian lakes, Lago di Garda is about 1 1/2 hours east of Milan, just past Brescia (of Mille Miglia fame). The lake has an irregular hatchet shape, … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 