Got a hat tip from Jalopnik

I am not a car guy. But I did manage to get a "H/T" from one of my auto-blogging heroes, Tavarish, on Jalopnik for suggesting the idea for yet another one of his "eBay Challenge" posts. I'm afraid it didn't pan out as I had hoped -- I figured readers would suggest off-beat, interesting cars that could meet the Uber/Lyft requirements. But, instead, most of the suggestions were of a more practical bent. Oh well. Nevertheless, I was momentarily excited by the name check on a blog I read almost every day!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fixing the clock in a C2 Corvette

Image
After fixing the radio in the Corvette, it was time to tackle the clock. We tried mightily to revive the patient, but in the end, a heart transplant was necessary. The clocks in the "midyear" Corvettes (1963-67) are electro-mechanical units made by Borg Instruments. They were used in a bunch of other GM cars of the period, in addition to the Corvette. This article gives a nice description of the clock and what commonly goes wrong with it. These are analog, spring-wound clocks with an electric winder that is supposed to reset the spring mechanism every 3 minutes or so. To see how it's supposed to work, check out this video (currently at 460 views, many of which are from me!). The design doesn't exactly inspire confidence, as it depends on a set of 12 volt contact points reliably closing every 3 minutes or so, pretty much forever. Those contact points build up corrosion over time, which will kill the rewinding mechanism. Thanks to a bunch of threads on the
Read more

Five Year Miataversary

Image
  Five years, fifteen thousand miles. Time flies.  The car remains a joy to drive. As I anticipated when I bought it , I don't miss the extra horsepower you get in the 2019 and onward model years (aka ND2). That extra power is reportedly mostly at the top of the rev band, an area where I don't spend much time. The joy in this car, for me, is less about going fast than about the ways it engages you in the act of driving.  Cost of ownership? Here's the math:  Maintenance = $1,057 (basically oil changes, plus an engine air filter and transmission oil change) Depreciation = $500 (yes, Kelly Blue Book says I can basically get what I paid for it!) This makes the Miata by far the cheapest car to own that I've had, beating out my 2010 Honda Fit . Most of this is down the the crazy high post-pandemic used car prices holding depreciation in check. But that doesn't diminish the joys of simple reliability, which not all newer cars can provide.  Here's to the next 5 years! 
Read more

Car #1: 2002 Porsche 911 Turbo (aka 996tt)

Image
The first car on my car guy journey is a 2002 Porsche 911 Turbo, also known as the "996tt" (Porsche enthusiasts generally identify each major revision of the 911 by Porsche's internal numbering system -- in this case, 996 , plus "tt" for twin turbo, produced from 2000-2005).  So, why start with a 911 turbo? Well, it meets the requirements -- the 911 is a classic car enthusiast's car, and this vintage is currently at or near the bottom of its depreciation curve. It also checks all the boxes of a modern high performance sports car (420 horsepower, 0-60mph in less than 5 seconds, all-wheel-drive). In other words, it's a good representative of car that is catnip to a particular kind of modern, high performance, sports car enthusiast. That said, part of the reason this car is affordable is that Porsche enthusiasts love to complain about this vintage of the 911. They complain about the interior dashboard layout. They complain that the engin
Read more