Car Throttle

Cars and Coffee is always an opportunity to see both the newest, coolest stuff (the first Nissan Leaf I saw was at Cars & Coffee) and some old classic iron as well.  It seems like each month there's a "star," a car that people crowd around to get their first good glimpse of.  Guess what it was this month? If you guessed it was the Fisker Karma, you'd be correct.  There was a crowd around the Finnish-built extended-range electric vehicle like flies around a pile of rotten fruit.  Errr, bad metaphor.  And if that looks like a GM LNF (which I really need to stop writing about), that's because it is.  This is the first Karma I've seen in the flesh, and the overall impression

Right across the street from Charles Agapiou Bentley/Rolls Royce on Santa Monica Blvd is the kind of dealership you could just stand and drool in for a while.  Heritage Classics is exactly what it says on the label: a purveyor of high-end desirable classics parked wall to wall.  Unlike a lot of classic dealers, this one didn't seem to specialize in one marque or even genre: there was everything from a classic Porsche 356 to a Cadillac Eldorado.  But what lured me in the door first was this... A Ferrari 330GTC, what I think is probably the prettiest front-engine V12 Ferrari ever made.  Styling by Pininfarina, a 4.0L Colombo V12 breathing through six carbs up front, a five-speed, two seats and independent suspension.  The

I'm almost done with the Los Angeles car spotting articles.  In these last two sections, we'll be looking at two dealers in Hollywood to give you a taste of the good life.  Going down Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood, in search of an In-N-Out Burger (which I can report is just as good as everyone says it is!), I saw this Rolls Royce Corniche convertible parked curbside.  Hmm... And a jet-black Bentley Turbo R behind it.  If there's a better name for a Bentley out there than Turbo R, I'm not aware of it.  I got out of the car and wandered up the sidewalk into the front lot of Charles Agapiou Ltd Bentley/Rolls Servicing and Sales.  A dealer and shop that specializes in

I'm back in North Carolina now, where you can swing a dead cat without hitting a Bentley.  On one hand, it sucks.  I like seeing exotics constantly.  On the other, it's nice that exotics remain exotic. I walked around LA the whole time with my camera around my neck for you guys - so I'll continue now with day two and three of car spotting in LA.  Hope you enjoy it! Classic cars, especially older Japanese cars, seem to have a much longer shelf life in California's relatively mild, dry climate.  This 240Z would have a lot more rust bubbles over here in North Carolina.  I could do without the period window louvers, but YMMV. You could do worse for your commute than driving an

Sometimes I realize I have a certain lack of perspective when it comes to the car thing.  Perhaps it's a regional thing.  I'm in Los Angeles for a few days (a family member is getting married), and some of the cars that raise eyebrows in Raleigh would be taxis around here.  If there's an area in the US that embraces car culture more fully than the city of Angels, I'm not sure what it is.  This is a place where a C-class Mercedes is like a Taurus, and you routinely see more than ten Bentleys a day.  It's special.  My shutter finger has been getting tired.  Check it out. See, in the middle of the eastern seaboard, a CL55 AMG Supercharged is the kind of

Sometimes staying up late on a Saturday night is a good thing. The thing about living in Malaysia is that there are many food stalls and car washes open till the wee hours of the morning. This means that one can actually enjoy having coffee or tea Al fresco whilst having their car washed. So we did just that last weekend and so did a lot of others. And amazingly at about two o’clock in the morning while we were winding down our session to head home, we saw a Lotus Evora drive by into the car wash beside us. It isn’t often you get to see one in the flesh over here. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches and those Japanese performance cars are everywhere in Malaysia’s capital Kuala

It is, to be kind, a rough time to be a Saab dealer.  And I suppose any time is a rough time to be a Spyker dealer.  But with Saab still not actually making any vehicles in Tröllhattan, and people not buying a whole lot of Saabs in the first place (Saab sold 323 cars in the US in June, which admittedly is almost 50% more than they sold in June of last year, but still less than Suzuki, Porsche, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mitsubishi...), Saab dealers everywhere have to do something to make sure people realize they're still alive, and they're still selling cars.  And in fact, they're still selling very good cars - like the new 9-5 Aero XWD, which I test drove, and will

I've been bad about getting out to Cars & Coffee. It's always held relatively early on Saturdays, and to be honest I'm not a fan of waking up early on Saturdays.  It's always worth it, of course.  This week I was determined to make it out there, and the IV drip of coffee was totally worth seeing exotics stacked like cordwood in the Brier Creek parking lot at 9:30 in the morning.  There were some really interesting vehicles to be seen, along with about 30 late model Corvettes.  You know you're in rare company when 30 Corvettes look mundane. I'm fairly certain they never made Fiero convertibles.  A little research on Google shows there were conversion kits for these back in the day,

At the end of last year, I made a post compiling some of the random cool stuff I've seen around Raleigh. It's been a few months, and I've continued to see more cool stuff, which I am happy to share with you all.  Comments at the bottom! A '91 Alfa Romeo 164 LS 5-speed, in almost perfect condition.  This was a trade-in at Hendrick Fiat of Cary on a new 500 - you almost never see these cars (running) in the US any more.  There's a lot of Saab 9000 underneath, but still awesome. A Daihatsu Hijet mini-truck used as a parts runner at Leith BMW in Raleigh.  Note: sticking a BMW badge on it, does not make it a BMW!  Very odd to see

While everyone is busy with the newest, latest and possibly greatest supercars that are currently being launched over at this year's Geneva Motor Show I somehow think that it is appropriate for Car Throttle to showcase a modern classic; the Ferrari Testarossa. This car, like the Lamborghini Countach, the Ferrari 512BB and the Ferrari 288GTO were dream cars that we often found tacked onto walls of many an adolescent school boy all around the world. The Ferrari Testarossa was also one of the maddest, bar the Countach ever to grace the wall of the school boy. Produced from 1984 to 1996, including the later 512TR and 512M models, the Testarossa or “Redhead” was designed by Pininfarina and was famous (or infamous) for introducing those massive