Let’s say you regularly pine for some rock climbin’, mud-slingin’, feel-good four-wheelin’ — you just love off-the-beaten-path driving and no-holds-barred adventure where others fear to tread. There are several options to choose from, but our favorites are the custom-built and bad to the bone ICON 4×4 CJ3B or the special edition Jeep Wrangler Moab, both of which will conquer rocks, mud, stream and snow with aplomb.
It’s a well-known fact that the mellifluous sound of a Ferrari V12 is ultimate bellow of the vehicular gods. The now-famous Ferrari V12 first showed up in the 1947 125 S, the Italian automaker’s first roadgoing car.
Irv Gordon looks young for his age. If you were to divide the almost three million miles he’s driven in his 1966 Volvo P1800 by the national average of miles driven per year, he would be 220 years old.
The BMW M3 easily shows up in the top 10 performance cars on just about every critic’s list. With the new M3 just on the horizon, it’s time to pay homage to the original: the BMW E30 M3.
Since General Motors introduced the first Hydra-Matic automatic some 70 years ago, the world has been divided between two types of drivers: those who push a clutch pedal and shift, and those who do not. But in a world where fuel economy takes up the majority of the automotive attention span, a third possibility looms: the dual-clutch transmission, or DCT.
It’s hard to keep a longstanding car model fresh and consistent over the course of decades. Cars such as the Chevrolet Corvette, the Honda Accord and the BMW 3-Series are a few models that have stood the test of time.
Looking like the combination of a duck’s bill and a chisel, the Lancia Stratos was developed as an homologation car (production numbers to justify its rally racing intentions) a year after the revolutionary Lancia Stratos HF Zero car debuted. It was a car with virtually limitless rallying potential based on its design and performance.
In the current automotive landscape, true environmental halo cars don’t exist. Volkswagen, however, has produced their own version of a hippie halo car.
If driving at geologic speeds in the passing lane or shaving while driving weren’t bad enough, American drivers cemented their poor automotive tastes by killing the station wagon. Today, there are fewer than ten wagon models offered in the states.
The venerable station is no longer what it was: a dowdy people hauler that oftentimes “sported” less than favorable designs (faux wood paneling, anyone?). And though the American populace now prefers cross-overs, station wagons still survive in the domestic automotive landscape.
It’s easy to marvel at modern supercars — the Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari 458 Italia and Lamborghini Aventador. They’re remarkable automobiles that almost defy logic, packed with technology that can turn just about anybody into a semi-competent driver.
The prospect of a German supercar in the 1970s had the tenor of something that simply shouldn’t be done, like the Italians producing a mass-market station wagon for the states. But BMW went out on an automotive limb and put just such a car in the works — the glorious and rare BMW M1.
Sunglasses are sunglasses, right? If you’re serious about safe driving, the answer is a resounding no.
Lamborghini never does things quietly — and that’s a very good thing, especially when the goal is to draw the rapt attention of the automotive world. But one model in particular marked the inception of Lambo’s radical styling flavor that would span decades, even into the present: the Countach.
The mud pit looked impossibly deep, twin ruts at least two feet high and half full of a murky stew from the rainy spring. “Does this thing ever get stuck?” I asked.
The Mille Miglia, or “thousand miles” race, in Brescia, Italy is an automotive mecca of sorts. A direct descendant of the legendary race that occurred from 1927 to 1957, the event now showcases some of the legends of automotive racing.
Einstein once said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results was the very definition of insanity; obviously he never studied lap times. In fact, we’ll take the track over studying the theory of relativity any day.
Welcome to Octane Icons, a new series born from our newly minted Octane channel. In the coming weeks, we’ll bring an enthusiast’s mindset to a vehicle that has made its mark on the automotive world, whether by design, engineering, performance, historical significance, influence or all of the above.
Like a shoebox filled with letters from your old girlfriend (you don’t still have that, do you?), no one wants to open your car’s glove compartment. What on earth could be in there — a non-functioning drugstore flashlight, insurance cards from 2009, a Spandau Ballet CD, perhaps some ketchup packets?