Car Throttle

So a while back, I did a post about the death of my Saab 900 SPG via transmission explosion. It was a tragic event for me; so tragic in fact, that I went out and bought the antithesis of my beloved C900 Turbo: a Honda Accord. And while I've grown to love the Honda over the 14,000 miles or so I've put on it since August (seriously), I've come to realize that man cannot subside on VTECs alone.  In fact, 'tis a meager existence to merely pilot a vehicle like the Accord.  Since I've owned it, I've upgraded a few minor things to make it more to my liking (metal shifter bushings and a Comptech short shifter to fix the awful stock shift mechanism,

There are a lot of things I love about Saabs.  You're probably tired of hearing about it by now. For that I apologize.  I tend to be a bit of a specific-interest writer, catering more towards the whole "old European Car" demographic than the "hey, there's a new Audi press release out!" demographic.  As far as what it is in particular I love about Saabs, it's a bit difficult to really nail it down because, frankly, there are a lot of things.  But one of the big things is how these cars sound. (Ed's note: I began work on this article a while before my Saab's gearbox bought the farm and I gave up on the whole concept of daily driving an archaic European sports coupe

Observe the intro image to this post.  That's my key-carrying carabiner, with a modern Honda automobile key attached to it. As I write this post inside my home-away-from-home Starbucks coffee, there's a 2007 Honda Accord sedan sitting outside which this key fits into the ignition switch of.  The title says "James Mackintosh," and if you look closely you can see the faint outline of a "CarMax" sticker on the back of it. ...WHAT?!? Me? The constant preacher of the joys of old-car ownership?  The person who said "I'll chew off my own foot before I own an OBD-2 car!!!"  Why do I, of all people, have the perfect example of car-as-transportation-appliance now?  Well, let me tell you.  It all started with a rattling noise... About three weeks

It's 92 degrees and sunny here in Raleigh, North Carolina. The antique air-con in my 900 SPG doesn't have a chance of keeping up with the heat, so I just roll down the windows, peel back the sunroof, turn the fan up, and bask in it.  I generally tend to think of the 900 as more of a winter car- the heater's monsterous, heated seats are nice, and the front-heavy front wheel drive chassis is more advantageous for getting up snowy hills than attacking corners.  It's days like these I dream of having a summer car. For me, a summer car has to have a drop top.  That's a no-brainer, obviously - convertibles and summer are like peanut butter and jelly.  Feeling the wind in your hair,

Apologies to third-wave Ska/Punk band Streetlight Manifesto for the title paraphrasal, but it seemed appropriate. I was driving around with a long-time friend of mine in North Raleigh when we came across what has to be the best night-time photoshoot location anywhere.  I can't say exactly what it is, except that it's a service bay at a local Audi dealer.  Oh, crap - I gave it away.  The lighting here was too cool to pass up, so we arranged the cars and did a little miniature photo shoot.  My friend's snazzy suit is entirely unrelated - he was headed back into Raleigh after a party, but it really seemed to fit the feel of the shot.  These images were shot with my Sony point-and-shoot as usual,

As a self-proclaimed DIY kinda guy, there's one thing I'm embarrassed to admit  I've never done: changed my own brake pads.  Illogical, sure.  But I've always thought of the brakes on a car as being a bit too important for a relative noobie like myself to dig into without risking massive consequences.  But in the never-ending quest to get my 900 SPG up to snuff, I finally realized I had to bite the bullet and do something about the brakes. The pads weren't totally worn out, sure.  But the brakes on my 900 were nowhere near up to par with the power it puts out; you can accelerate hard, but then you've got to really plan ahead with your braking.  Part of this is due to the

Some of our readers may know that for a while, I ran another website called SaabSnaab. (Yeah, isn't that clever?)  Sadly, SaabSnaab has since lapsed into non-existance while I figure out what I'm going to do next for my own site, but in the mean time I think that CarThrottle is a reasonable place to spout my disturbing Saab-related ramblings.  After all, we've got a wonderfully eclectic mixture of readers with interests everywhere between Tesla and Galant VR-4's; this post is bound to resonate with someone.  I'm actually making this post on Brian's behalf, who requested a continuation of my previous Life With An Old Car article via email.  This is a continuation of my observations in Part 1. A Cool Old Car Is Less Than

The reason old cars feel old and tired is that everything has a lifespan. Rubber bushings crumble and fail, hinges loosen and sag, plastics become brittle and rattly - sort of like humans.  Time may heal all wounds, but it's not a great beautician.  The best way to give an old car a new lease on life is to replace tired, worn out components - and the suspension is a fantastic place to start.  My SPG had a set of "God knows how ancient" KYB Gas-A-Just dampers on it when I bought it, and they've always made me pretty uneasy.  They've always felt a little floaty and underdamped, plus the serious terminal rust on the shock bodies I discovered when I mounted the new tires made

Sometimes, as I go through the internet I find something that's so damn cool it must be shared. This is one of those cases; I actually stumbled across this gem of a car on CarDomain's most excellent blog, and went in search of more information on this wicked custom Saab. All the images are from this build thread on the forums of savarturbo.se, which - although I don't know any Swedish - I'm going to venture a guess at being a Swedish tuning car forum.  The car started life as an early-build Saab 99, which had around 85 horsepower.  It's still got a Saab engine, but it's turned around backwards and mated to the Quattro 4WD system from an Audi 100.  It's hard to gather details

Saabs and Snow go together like peanut butter and jelly.  It's a Swedish thing. They're just designed to perform well in bad weather - which makes them pretty rugged road rally cars, if you so desire.  Team D, an amateur rally team from the north, decided that an '85 900 Turbo was the perfect choice for the Alcan Winter Rally.  I'd have to agree. For those unfamiliar, the Alcan Winter rally is basically a test of how huge your balls are.  It covers 4,850 miles from Seattle, WA to Jasper, Alberta - which is pretty far north.  It's a ten-day event that tests reliability, common sense, and driver endurance.  Of course, the 900 Turbo passed with flying colors.  I particularly loved Team D's caption for