One afternoon, instead of writing a feature about the terribleness of the Land Rover Freelander SE3, I was surfing the web, wondering if every automaker with a six-figure vehicle in its line-up has a partnership with a watchmaker. After all, watchmakers need to sell their wares, and who better to cater to than someone who can point to a car on an auto show turnstile, says “I want that one,” and promptly be put on an 18-month waiting list?
Read MorePress Release Rewind: The G35 Had To Win Motor Trend's Car of the Year
Every November or so, Motor Trend releases its Car of the Year press release where it announces the best new (or heavily-revised) car for the following model year. Primarily, it entails rounding up numerous press vehicles, testing them around some willing automaker’s desert proving grounds, driving them on the worst California roads imaginable, and then spending hours lamenting that the Mercury Marauder isn’t available with a manual.
Read MoreHere's Why You Should Go To The Ford Ecoboost Challenge
As a car enthusiast, I love attending events that automakers put on to get the average consumer into their cars. That’s because there’s free food, plenty of freebies like headphones, beanies, and caps, as well as the occasional gift card. Manufacturers put on these events because a) if people are willing to sit through hours of timeshare presentations for a $20 radio, there’s people willing to spend an afternoon test driving their products and b) they understand dealerships aren’t exactly the best places for sampling numerous models of their brand’s vehicles. (“Let me get this straight. You want to test drive the A3, A4, A6, and A8?! And you don’t know if you’re buying on a Saturday!? Go bother the Infiniti dealership!”)
Read MoreThe Next Great Automotive Investment? Manual BMWs.
As many people (and by many, I mean fifty) who’ve seen my Twitter profile know, I’ve been on the lookout for the perfect P38 Range Rover (the SUV that managed to reliably keep up with a BMW motorcycle in Tomorrow Never Dies) for a while. Over time, I’ve come to realize this is next to impossible because no P38 Range Rover was perfect when it left the factory, something proven by numerous Google searches on the subject.
Read MoreTwitter Short Takes Round-Up
If you've been following me on Twitter and were wondering what on earth all those descriptions of cars were all about, they were supposed to be my impressions of a car after twenty to thirty minutes with it. I went into what I was attempting to do in a Saturday post on Clunkerture, but mercifully no one noticed. I didn't realize the sheer amount of cars I drove, and honestly, I think so many tweets about a lot of cars definitely came off a bit obnoxious, so I'm probably never undertaking that experiment again. But I promised to embed all the tweets in one post. So in this post are all my reactions to the cars I drove during the Western Automotive Journalists 2014 Media Days event.
Read MoreA Clunkerture Experiment: The Twitter Short Takes
Back in April, the Western Automotive Journalists association had a Media Days event which involves getting manufacturers to send over all the cars that auto journalists love, allowing them to drive those cars on the Monterey backroads and then at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for brief periods of time in each car. (Putting “Mazda Raceway” in front of Laguna Seca is a must if you want road test Mazdas.)
Read MorePress Release Rewind: Land Rover Freelander SE3
Today’s rewind is on open-air Land Rover models that were available in the US. Unfortunately, this isn’t about the Land Rover Defender, which was excellent in every way and has held its value steadily for the last twenty years, to my chagrin, which is why I’ve been searching to the ends of the earth for a good P38 Range Rover, which is much, much cheaper.
Read MoreClunkerture Must Reads: The Reckoning
Yes, after weeks of not posting on Clunkerture, I’ve decided to publish something. I agree that it’s probably not something interesting to much of the audience (if there even is one). But since people do come here to read things, it only makes sense to provide a review of yet more reading material (in this case a 400+ page book), in between the weeks it takes me to put up a new post on Clunkerture.
Read MoreLet's Judge The Lincoln MKZ On Its Own Merits
Yes, I know you’ve read numerous reviews of the Lincoln MKZ. Before you skip this one, to keep readers (and myself) interested, I made a promise to myself that while reviewing the car that the terms “Ford” or “Fusion” wouldn’t exist in my consciousness. That’s because I’m sick of hearing those words mentioned throughout every MKZ review I’ve read in newspapers, magazines, and websites, and frankly, the Lincoln people are too.
Read MorePebble Beach Is The Ultimate Art Exhibition For Car Enthusiasts
Now, you’ve all gone to shows you didn’t like. You didn’t want to see that Miley Cyrus concert with your daughters. (But you needed to ensure she didn’t do anything risqué.) Maybe it was this morning’s sermon, where the pastor (who happens to read Buzzfeed) went on and on about the Oscars and how Jennifer Lawrence didn’t win. Or you were dragged to a Sylvester Stallone movie by your roommates where your group ended up being the only people in the audience. But most of us almost never want to be dragged into an art exhibition.
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