Saturday Car Thread 08/31/14 - [Niedermeyer's Dead Horse & KBDaBear]

Welcome to the Sunday edition of the Saturday Car Thread.

I blame Comcast.

The Brooklyn Bridge, under construction.

Co-blogger, RD Brewer, sends along this terrific article from Supercompressor which ranks all of the Bond cars:

Sure, you know all about James Bond's enduring affinity for Aston Martins and Lotuses that are just as lovely under water as they are on the road. And if you're a hardcore aficionado, you likely know that 007's first cars were actually old Bentleys, back in the days before Sean Connery gave a face to MI6's top man.

It should go without saying that a scientific ranking of all of Bond's cars is absolutely impossibl -- and besides that, it's boring -- so what follows is a thoroughly subjective list of every significant car that Bond drove, rode in, chased, or was chased by.

And, as all our rankings tend to be on this site, it is correct.

Smokin'!

Teen takes once-in-a-lifetime test ride in Lamborghini. Sad.

"Excessive speed" is suspected as a factor in the crash.

Iowahawk goes to a doozy of a car show

Autoguide.com's Under $30,000 Performance Car Shootout: Part I

Be sure to scroll down the page to find the links to Part II (test track) and Part III (the winner is!)

Dinesh D'Souza reminds us of this not-so-gentle guide for how to handle an encounter with the police: Keep your hands on the wheel. (NSFW warning for coarse language)

Take it away, KBDB:

1940 Ford Coupe: Prehistoric Muscle Car: The '40 Coupe was a huge hit with car buyers coming out of The Depression and its popularity with hot rodders and dirt track racers lasted for decades. But it was its popularity with the moonshiners of Appalachia that created a whole new class of motor racing that's with us today known as NASCAR.

Sturdy, simple, and powerful for the early 40's, the '40 Coupe was powered by a 221 c.i. Flathead V8 that put out 100 hp but was easily upgraded by gearheads of the time. It was the perfect car for moonshiners due to its unassuming appearance of a traveling salesman's sedan, the large numbers of them on roads, its power and its huge trunk. With stiffened suspension, souped up engines and driven by talented steel nerved drivers, it was still widely used by the runners well into the 50's with the more powerful powerplants Ford was putting out.

It wasn't long before the competitive nature of the drivers led them to hold races on primitive dirt tracks to decide who was the fastest and the best. Before long they were holding regular races for paying spectators and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was established in 1947.

The '40 Coupe remained a staple of 50's and 60's hot rodders, today it's still a holy grail for customizers and collectors. In dirt track racing, the first Modified Class of dirt track stock cars were mostly Ford Coupes from the 1937-1940 period.

Ranking for States for Driver Freedom and Which Ones Treat Us as Enemies of The People: Not surprising that Washington DC and New York State rank the worst, nor does New Jersey's ranking at 4th worst surprise me as a native of that state. If you live and drive in NJ and have never gotten a ticket, odds are pretty strong that you've ridden a bus the entire time you were living there. Nazi hunters should have raided the NJ DMV, I'm pretty sure they would have gotten as big a haul as they found in Buenos Aires. Then there's the NJ State Troopers who I swore outnumbered civilian cars on the highways when quota time rolled around. Do you think California has tough emissions standards? New Jersey requires emissions checks yearly along with a full vehicle inspection whereas California requires smog checks every other year and no other inspection requirements. Throw in pavement surfaces that look like they were hit by heavy artillery, poorly painted lane divider lines, confusing and poor road signs, and road designs that haven't been updated since the time of the Model T. Of course they have those tributes to road engineering idiocy called jughandles that some engineer thought was a better idea for a left hand turn than a turning lane standard on normal 4 lane roads.

Is Fuel Cell Generation the Auto Technology of the Future? This is for the Science-y loving Morons who have an understanding of the challenges in developing the cars that we'll be driving (if we're allowed by our Betters in The Government) in the middle to latter part of the 21st century. Ever oppressive emissions and fuel efficiency standards along with the natural evolution of technology are numbering the days of the internal combustion engine. Hybrids like the Synergy drive Priuses are compromises, the Volt uses the engine to charge the batteries for electric motors, which is basically the same technology used 80 years ago by diesel-electric locomotives. Electric cars still haven't solved the problem of batteries that need to recharge for hours from the grid and have a nasty tendency to spontaneously combust.

Fuel Cell generation if feasible for inexpensive mass production would eliminate the need to recharge from the grid, making the car as ready to go as an engine powered vehicle. What the fuel cells are supposed to do is process hydrogen to create electricity onboard to power the electric motors. There are some large obstacles at this time that keep the hydrogen cells years away, but I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough to know what those barriers are.

A few years back, James May of Top Gear test drove one being developed by GM's research lab in Germany.

Honda and Hyundai are betting heavily on hydrogen fuel cell tech, Honda revealing a FC concept at the LA Auto Show in 2013 and Hyundai bringing their concept this year to the Geneva Auto Show

Since NDH .. uh ..forgot (cough) to include one of my Compliance Pics from last week, here's one with a bit more fabric covering for your Labor Day enjoyment:

Please feel free to send any complaints or commendations to us at Twitter: Nied's Dead Horse and KBDaBear.

UPDATE: An earlier error, despite it saying right there in the tweet, that it's the Manhattan Bridge, I mistakenly identified it as the Brooklyn Bridge. Whostaa gonna do?

posted by Open Blogger at 12:00 PM

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