Video: Korean Porsche Owner Chases Down DUI Suspect
Click here to view the embedded video. To those of us in the United States the idea of a police checkpoint is repugnant, but for much of the world it’s an everyday event. During my time in Japan, I...
View ArticleA Moment Of Reflection
Click here to view the embedded video. Two weeks ago we had a horrific accident here in Buffalo. It was the end result of a street race that saw a 47 year old man trapped in the wreckage of his car and...
View ArticleAffluenza Redux: Rich Guy Gets Slap On The Wrist For Drunken High Speed Chase
Click here to view the embedded video. Seattle’s TV stations are reporting that a wealthy businessman who led police on a high speed chase through the city of Olympia in his Ferrari F360 has been...
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Was The Government’s Divestment of GM Stock Insider Trading?
Back in 2004, perfectionist homemaker and well known TV personality Martha Stewart was charged with insider trading. As presented, the facts in the case were simple. Martha owned stock in a medical...
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Solar Roadways: A Modest Proposal?
Click here to view the embedded video. Last week, an amazing video popped up on my Facebook feed. Produced by a small Idaho based startup seeking funding from the public via an IndieGoGo campaign, it...
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The Culture Of Cars: Real Or Imagined?
I’ve been on the road for the last few weeks and one of the places I was able to visit was the Smithsonian Institution’s Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport located just outside of...
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Deliverance
An old car is a feast for the senses. The gentle curve of a fender or the sharply drawn body line pleases the eye while the clatter of valves and the whine of spinning belts combine to make mechanical...
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Thieves Take Students’ Project Car
The students at Los Angeles’ Norwalk High School learned about the 1978 Mark Hamill movie “Corvette Summer” in the worst possible way this week when the 1969 Nova that they spent seven years working...
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Classic Review: 1986 Pontiac Fiero GT V6
The Pontiac Fiero is one of those cars that is forever showing up on lists. A simple on-line search finds that it’s one of the 100 worst cars ever built, one of the ten cars that should be avoided by...
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TTAC Readers Call it: Town & Country Troubles
Way back on August 13, 2013, just two comments into the discussion in which I trumpeted to the world the selection of the Chrysler Town and Country S as the chariot of choice for the mid-size Kreutzer...
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Missouri Law Lets Thieves Scrap Your Classics
Kansas City’s KCTV reported this week on an attempt to repair a 2012 Missouri state law that has led to a dramatic increase in car thefts. The law, which allows people to sell vehicles 10 years or...
View ArticleAn Unexpected Lesson: Making the Long Trip Home
In addition to advice about the long-term benefits of wearing sunscreen, the world’s most famous commencement address included this bit of wisdom: “The real troubles in your life are apt to be the...
View ArticleSwimming Upstream: Importing a Car Into Japan
Back in July, just days before my family boarded a Boeing 777 to wing our way to Japan, a truck arrived at my home to haul away my Chrysler Town & Country. In the ensuing weeks, while we struggled...
View ArticleSwimming Upstream: Step 1 – Japanese Emissions and Noise Testing
The Town & Country is back at home and, frankly — no pun intended — I’m exhausted. As I had been warned, the necessary tests required an overnight stay for the van at the research facility and the...
View ArticleSwimming Upstream: Steps, 2, 3, 4 & 5 – Pre-Shaken
The quest to complete the importation of my 2013 Town & Country continues and, if the important successes I reported on last week were great strides towards the ultimate goal, this week’s progress...
View ArticleSwimming Upstream: 30 Day Countdown
It’s Friday and once again it’s time for an update from Japan where my efforts to get my Town & Country licensed and street legal continue unabated. Last week’s baby steps have led to modest...
View ArticleSwimming Upstream: The Final Hurdle
Since the last installment in this series, my attempt to get the family Town & Country officially licensed here in Japan has slogged relentlessly forward. After a week of such little progress that...
View ArticleSwimming Upstream: VJ Day
It’s been another exhausting day and, after wasting precious time trying to write some sort of clever introduction, I’ve realized that there just isn’t any point in beating around the bush. The...
View ArticleLemon or Lemonade?: A Visit to Yokosuka’s Vehicle Resale Lot
I had the opportunity this week to visit United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka, a U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, Japan originally established in 1866 by the Japanese Imperial Navy. The facilities are...
View ArticleLemon or Lemonade?: Zing in Your Thing
I had another opportunity to visit United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka last week and, naturally, I brought along my camera for another visit to the “Lemon Lot.” While my last visit noted the many...
View ArticleAn Unexpected Japanese Classic: The Honda Mobilio
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The Town & Country I worked so hard to import into Japan was supposed to be my wife’s. I had planned to buy whatever I wanted and, although I hadn’t quite...
View ArticleLemon or Lemonade: March Madness
February ends. March begins. What better way to celebrate the sunny-but-cool weather of early spring than by looking at military castoffs? Luckily, the Lemon Lot full of them, and some were quite...
View ArticleMirror Mirror: Reflections on Driving in Japan
A few weeks ago, one of TTAC’s Best and Brightest asked for my thoughts on driving in Japan. It’s not the first time the topic has come up. There were several comments in response to the series that...
View ArticleLemon or Lemonade: Enter the Imports
When I started kicking tires and taking photos at the Fleet Activities Yokosuka Lemon Lot, I was hoping to document the dark underbelly of the Japanese Domestic scene. I figured I would find all sorts...
View ArticleRiches to Rags: When Luxury Gets Old
The shopping center had seen better days. Most of its smaller spaces were vacant, long since abandoned with only the leaves left scuttling about on the breeze to give the empty storefronts the illusion...
View ArticleThinking About An Older, Sporty Car: What Do You Suggest?
The decision is in, and my long awaited overseas assignment has been postponed for another year. I still have a move in my future, however, but it won’t be outside the border it will be the heartland –...
View ArticleRolling History Or Rolling Junk Pile: Which Would You Own?
Last week, I wrote a short article about my impending relocation to Kansas and asked for your input on my plan to purchase some kind of an old car to play around with while I am there. I got a huge...
View ArticleUp And Out Of A Hopeless Situation
Sometime in the middle of the night, while I was hard at work moving pallets, opening boxes and arranging Christmas merchandise on the sales floor of the giant wholesale buyers’ club, the clouds moved...
View ArticleEU Secretly Planning To Add Police-Controlled Kill Switch To All Cars By 2020
The British Newspaper The Telegraph is reporting that, if senior European law enforcement officials have their way, all cars entering the European market may soon be fitted with a remote shutdown...
View ArticleTrue Confessions: Revealing My Secret Crush
I was about eight years old when I fell in love the first time. She was a long, lanky and curvaceous piece of work, sexy and sophisticated, and I knew the moment that I first laid eyes upon her, her...
View ArticleA Testament To The Urealized Dreams Of My Youth
According to the clock, it would still be more than an hour before the sun slipped over the Western horizon and sank into the Pacific, but from my place behind the wheel of my 74 Nova beneath the...
View ArticleTesting The Limits Of Civil Obedience: An Experiment
Yesterday, while folks in the Southeast were getting hammered with their second severe winter storm in two weeks, the skies over Buffalo were wonderfully bright and sunny. Of course, when you count the...
View ArticleDo You Remember Rock And Roll Radio?
In my office is a clock radio and, if you are a child of the ‘70s or ‘80s, you already know which one. Made by GE, it has a red LED display, a plastic wood grain case and mounts one tinny speaker on...
View ArticleStrict Enforcement of NY’s Parking Laws Affects Official Vehicles
The New York Times reported Sunday on how strict enforcement of parking violations in Manhattan is causing problems for government agencies as they are forced to reclaim official vehicles that have...
View ArticleJapanese Tourists Spark Chase, Get Spiked
The Japan Times is reporting that a car driven by Japanese tourists had to be stopped with a spike strip after its driver failed to stop despite the fact she was being pursued by at least three patrol...
View ArticleThe 1980s: When Worse Was Better
With the wife and kids out of the house on Sunday I finally had a little private time. Naturally, I did what a lot of men do when they find themselves home alone – I caught up on the current season of...
View ArticleMercedes-Benz Lets You Enjoy The Outdoors, One Steppe At A Time
Mongolia. The name evokes images of vast, sweeping plains, burning deserts, high mountains and deep, crystal clear lakes. Born to the horse and with restlessness is in their blood, the wanderlust of...
View ArticleLeno Talks Nissan IDx: What’s Left Unsaid Speaks Volumes
The Nissan IDx concept, which debuted at the Tokyo motor show back in November of last year, is in the news again, this time appearing on YouTube as a part of the popular Jay Leno’s Garage series. We...
View ArticleAlternative Technologies: The Power Of Steam
The verdict is in. After two popular articles on the inner workings of the transmission, it is clear that TTAC loves technical articles about complicated mechanical devices. Always one to try to get...
View ArticleStill Thinking About A Small & Sporty Car: On To Something
I’ve spent the past few weeks examining the possibilities. Some of you might remember an article or two that I wrote back in January about my desire to find something sporty and fun to drive once the...
View ArticleThe Manly Art Of Stick Handling
I was browsing the internet the other day and came across a website that purports to be “A guy’s post-college guide to growing up.” Normally I avoid websites like this. I learned about the manly arts...
View ArticleRental Car Review: 2013 Chevrolet Camaro SS
The Victory Red 2013 Camaro Super Sport that awaited me on the third floor of what I still think of as the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport’s “new” rental car facility was not my preferred choice....
View ArticleFinal Fight Of The 300
At the big blue water tower, Interstate 90, known locally as the New York State Thruway, sweeps in from the east and turns sharply southward to skirt the city of Buffalo. The main interstate is joined...
View ArticleSmart Cars Damaged In Stupid Prank
San Francisco’s NBC affiliate is reporting on a new wave of vandalism sweeping the City by the Bay, car tipping. At least four Smart cars were flipped over Sunday night, by what one hooded-sweatshirt...
View ArticleTesla Fires Back Against Accusations Brought By Lemon Law King
Tesla has fired back against the accusations brought in a lawsuit filed against the company earlier this week by a Wisconsin attorney and self-described “Lemon law King” Vince Megna. Mr. Megna’s...
View ArticleAt Toyota, Craftsmen Get Hands-On In Search Of Innovation
Twenty years ago, as a young Merchant Mariner, I was sent to Japan where the ship I was assigned to, the Sea-Land Spirit, was undergoing a major refit. The ship had begun life as a LASH ship, a vessel...
View ArticleTown And Country Update: Road Trip
I last wrote about my 2013 Town and Country S at the end of November when it was just three months old and had only 1500 miles on the clock. At that point the big van had yet to be used for anything...
View ArticleQOTD: How Do You Use Your Horn?
Yesterday, someone had the audacity to honk at me. It wasn’t one of those cheerful little toots that a person might use to get someone’s attention when waving them into traffic, but a full-on ten...
View ArticleMotorist Faces $48,000 In Fines For Mounting Cellular Signal Jammer In Car
Network World is reporting that a Florida man who installed a cellular telephone jammer in the back seat of his Toyota Highlander is facing $48,000 in fines levied by the Federal Communications...
View ArticleBeauty All Around Us: Artists Use Industrial Bi-Product To Make Jewelry
Imagine Detroit at its height, enormous factories and mile-long production lines running day and night, a roiling, churning symphony of man and machine where thousands of workers joined together parts,...
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