Car Throttle

This is the third and final chapter of the Brief History of the Muscle Truck Series.  Click for Part I and Part II. When the new-generation F-150 debuted for 2004, Ford showed a 3rd generation Lightning concept with it.  It featured serious power and some really neat technology, but sadly never went into production.  The 3rd Gen Lightning Concept's engine was still a 5.4L Triton Modular V8, but this time with the block cast in aluminum, and twin-cam 4-valve heads replacing the single-cam 2 valve heads on the last Lightning, making a nice even 500bhp.  It still used a supercharger mated to an air-to-water intercooler, but with a cool

This is a continuation of The Brief History of The Muscle Truck. If I've kept your attention this long, hold onto your seat: it's about to get faster. At the same time the big-block Chevy 454SS was being developed, in another division of GM, engineers were cooking up a performance truck with an entirely different recipe, a truck that lives on in legends and myths today: the GMC Syclone.  First, a minor point: yes, Syclone is spelled wrong.  Mercury (remember them?) held the trademark for the Cyclone name, and Ford wasn't about to give it up to their rival.  The Syclone was a remarkable vehicle in many ways, but mostly for it's ability to leave a stoplight like someone had strapped

Muscle trucks are one of life's gloriously pointless indulgences. They make absolutely no sense in any traditional regard.  If you wanted functionality and utility, you'd get a pickup truck.  If you wanted to drag race off stop lights and burn rubber like it was going out of style, you'd get a muscle car.  Why would you want both in the same vehicle if it would seemingly do neither task very well? Well, because it's a ton of fun, that's why.  It's a distinctly American product, a huge engine stuffed somewhere it really doesn't belong, the only benefit being the smile it puts on your face when you stomp the gas pedal.  Sure, some of these trucks would manage single-digit fuel consumption if you enjoyed the loud pedal

Most automotive enthusiasts whose knowledge goes beyond surface level can tell you about the demise of the classic British sports car. Once the mainstay of young people that liked to live fast and die young, it died a protracted death in the late '70's at the hand of it's then-unorthodox replacement: the hot hatch.  Cars like VW's GTI, Peugeot's 205 GTI, and many others offered all of the grip, acceleration, braking, and fun but with many times more utility and reliability.  The most well-known poster child of the British roadster was without a doubt the MGB.  Introduced in 1962, the replacement for the antique MGA quickly became a status symbol and a lifestyle.  When it went out of production in 1980, it was a shadow of

Did any of you know that when I started writing this sometime in early August 2010, Toyota did not have any overtly sporty car in their current vehicle lineup aside from the Lexus LFA (which is a Lexus, and not a Toyota)? This is the world's largest car manufacturer and once upon a time we could walk up to any Toyota showroom and buy a Supra, Celica, MR2 or an MR-S. Now, if you take a walk into a Toyota showroom and start asking the salesman whether they sell sports cars, you now get a blank stare. There may also be some blinking of the eyes and some thought process going on inside the head of the sales man, who could be thinking, “What's a sports car? Does

The second generation Honda CRX is a modern classic. It was previewed at the end of 1987, sold from 1988 to the end of 1991, and it was a fabulous little car with a superb lightweight (approximately 900kg) front wheel drive chassis (double wishbones up front and a multi-link set-up at the rear) and if you were driving the VTEC 1.6-litre version, it also had an absolutely high tech (at the time) engine that made all the right noises. I happened to stumble (actually at a garage I am a regular at) upon two of these fabulous cars being spruced up after years of neglect. This white one is a JDM Si version with the 1.6 litre twin cam version that made around 135bhp. It was

The motoring press has been making a huge deal out of the upcoming Aston Martin Rapide, which is basically a DB9 with extra doors and a longer wheelbase.  I'll admit, it is a big deal - finally, there's an ultra-luxury sedan that's actually attractive.  (I'm looking at you, Panamera.  And Quattroporte.  And new XJ.  And Merc CLS.  And BMW 7-series.  and...)  But people act like this is strange foreign territory for the tiny British brand, when in fact it hasn't been that long since there was a four-door automobile wearing the illustrious Aston Martin badge. While the Rapide is (and I think will be) considered a classical beauty, the previous Aston sedan was a bit more... divisive.  Polemic.  Opinion-splitting.  Some people might say ugly. But it's something

Just how far would you go to restore a car? Would you dive to the bottom of a frickin' lake and haul an old wreck of a car just to resurrect it like Lazarus? You would, or at least I would, if it was a 1925 Bugatti. And that's just what some total nut jobs, er, I mean, dedicated gearheads will be doing. When I was a little kid, my dad found a Kaiser Darrin in barn (no, literally in a barn) that was all there, but needed to be gone through and completely restored. Let me just put it this way: There was hay in the engine compartment. But by the time he got through with it (my dad, being a tool and die maker

So what happens to concept cars? All the major manufacturers crank out about three or four concept cars a year. About half of them are non-running prototypes, rollers, if you will. I've seen concepts where bits of the dash were clearly made out of wood (I could tell because they hadn't done a very good job of sanding or painting said wood). But then there are the concept cars that are runners. They have engines and can start and be driven. Those are rare, and car companies generally hold onto them, but not always. I know a guy in Sacramento who has a car collection that is 80% Chrysler concept cars from the 40s and 50s. Yes, they all run, and yes, it is a very,

Brands in the US come and go, seemingly with the changing of the seasons. The fact is we have a fairly volatile marketplace - much more prone to fluctuations of consumer needs and wants seemingly on a day-to-day basis than most other markets.  When gas is cheap, we buy pickups with 6.0L 400bhp V8's.  When it's expensive, we buy every Prius and Jetta diesel we can get our hands on.  We're a fickle market. So it's always a huge gamble launching a new brand in the States.  Sometimes it goes very well - see Malcolm Bricklin's experiment of selling funny little Japanese runabouts in the US in the late sixties, quirky two stroke things called Subarus.  Mitsubishi took a big gamble when they entered the US