classic car

  I'm excited because I get the satisfaction of reporting this before Autoblog or Jalopnik, which I both sent tips to. I was getting stuff ata local gas station when a guy who obviously has a sense of humor pulls up in a 2001 Buick Century Custom. The catch? It had hybrid badges all over it! Each front fender had a GM Hybrid badge on it, which reminded me of a Rolls-Royce with hybrid badges I saw on Autoblog a few weeks ago. The car even went a step farther, with little 2-mode badges on it on a logo on the back of the car. I immediately snapped some photos and sent in some tips to a few major automotive blogs. But I still get the satisfaction of being the first to report on this, this thing.

  So you're visiting your cousin Bob who lives in Neenah on Saturday, September 12th? Make sure you come to the biggest event in Green Bay for car fans, an event held on the property of a well-known custom car shop, Big 3 Performance, and Shelby Parts and Restoration, which if you haven't seen on this blog before is a world-renowned Shelby Mustang restoration shop. This car show will showcase everything from a Lamborghinis to Barracudas, with a Dyno available for use and drag racing down the stretch of public road, which is a Wisconsin road so you don't have to worry about bits falling off. Big Three Performance, known for their custom 650hp Mustang, will be the main host of this event, with many judging categories for imports, restored classics and domestic customs. This show will be located at 2215 O'Conor Road in Green Bay, and if you're nearby on the 12th, be there. You can find more info on this show at  http://www.big3performance.com and you can click on the "Annual Auto Show" link in the middle of the page.

The world's cheapest car, the Tato Nano, is vouching on launching in the US after some redesign to meet standards, and I was surfing their website today when I ran into a fun configutator which includes decals and Y-spoke wheels reminiscent of ones used on Shelby Cobras. Another thing worthy of mentioning is that there are regular colors and then "luxury colors", which change the trim level automatically by selecting them. So if you like the yellow that we've seen the Nano in most but don't like the giant black-plastic piece on front and want it to be body-color, you can't do that because you can't have the luxury level with a base color. anyways, the configurator is at http://tatanano.inservices.tatamotors.com/tatamotors/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=182&Itemid=203, but if you don't want to copy and paste that mouthful you can just click on this post's title and it'll bring you to the configurator. It'll distract you sufficiently from work.

With Obama pushing 35 MPG by 2016 for cars, many enthusiasts are worried about their next-gen supercars being limited to only 100 MPH to meet the standards. Of course, there is merit in that thought, as we all know from the late seventies. But I know that there are ways to meet and beat these standards while keeping our cars muscular and quick, ways that weren't even a forming idea in an engineer's head during the malaise era. Here are some ideas to get us through the CAFE standards fast: I mean seriously fast, not to mention in style.

A few days ago I was driving down the road when a red convertible coming from the other direction caught my eye. From far away I thought "Hey, a Datsun 260Z converted to a droptop!", then as it got closer "Austin-Healy 3000? Jaguar E-type?" And then, as the car was only 30 feet away I saw that it was, in fact, a 1965 Ferrari 275 GTS! This was the highlight of my day, as in northeast Wisconsin a genuine expensive car driving around is a thing you see every half a year unless you're lucky and know where Shelby Parts and Restoration is.

Inspired by the recent Concours d'Lemons in conjunction with the real Monterey Concours, I've created this special Lemon Edition Youtube video reel for your enjoyment (and/or disgust).

If you're a Mercedes-Benz fan or an obsessed car person like me, you've probably heard of Brabus, a famed tuning house for Mercedes-Benz products Anywhere from the SLR Mclaren to the Smart Car. But something you may not have known until now is that Brabus also has a new customization for none other than the Lotus-based, electric Tesla Roadster.

On July 30th, the special 2010 Ford Mustang ended up selling for a quarter-mil at auction. If it hadn't have been for the Ford factory-done origins, a GT with performance upgrades from Ford Racing Performance Parts, a glass roof, and some GT500 body upgrades probably would've gone for $50,000 with a nice paint job. But because of the point that it can be advertised as a "factory-built custom" or a "one-off special", it goes for a lot more and will probably outsell all competitors with similar upgrades in the future.