A biweekly roundup of automotive news good, bad and just plain weird:
Hamilton dealer puts Jeep underfoot
A vintage car is exactly not like a vintage wine: it does not improve with age.
However, values do go up, and thus a simple idea was born. Why not build the Jeep equivalent of a wine cellar?
Bay King Chrysler in Hamilton, Ont., has an unusual new feature in its showroom. Walk in and you can walk over top of a 1943 Willys Jeep, buried in the floor with a glass roof. The dealership has had the vintage car for a while, and the idea of displaying the brand heritage underground echoes a similar feature in a house that had a glass floor looking down into a wine cellar.
Car Talk's Tom Magliozzi passes away
It was never really about the cars. When the Click and Clack brothers - Tom and Ray Magliozzi - bantered away on NPR, they were more likely to be imparting folk wisdom than DIY help for your cars. The duo was quick-witted, given to good-natured ribbing, and occasionally they'd pull a gem out of the oilpan.
"Happiness is reality minus expectations." Remember that old chestnut? You can thank Tom Magliozzi for it. He passed away this week at the age of 77, to be missed by all.
Car Talk ran from 1977 until 2012, and was far and away the most popular show on NPR in the latter decades. As it became an institution, people who couldn't care less about cars tuned in, just to hear the brothers chortle away and make fun of each other. They were a comedy duo, but never a mean-spirited one.
Tom, the senior of the two Magliozzi brothers, was educated at MIT, and famously quit his job after a near-miss accident on a Massachusetts highway. The brothers opened a garage, started a talk show, and the next thing you knew an inspiration became a national institution.
Old episodes of Car Talk are still worth a listen today, even if you can't call in to ask for advice on your car trouble. After all, the brothers weren't talking about the cars - they were talking to the people who owned them.
Jet-powered Peel Microcar
There is, I think, nothing better than a truly bad idea. So here's one: why not attach a jet engine to the one-time world's smallest car?
The Peel trident, a 49 cc single-seater car from the mid-1960s, was built on the Isle of Man and has features like no reverse gear. It's small enough to be picked up and trundled around, and in one memorable Top Gear segment, Jeremy Clarkson drives it around the BBC offices. Indoors.
Anyway, somebody apparently decided it would be a good idea to strap a jet engine to one of these things and run it down the dragstrip. Surprisingly, nobody died, and the elapsed time was rather slow.
However, you have to wonder what other tiny cars could benefit from huge injections of massive power. The Scramjet Isetta. The Turbonique Goggomobil. The Rocket-Propelled HMV Freeway.
If anyone needs me, I'll be in my garage, possibly slightly on fire.
New Mazda MX-5 takes to the racetrack
Mazda's MX-5 (nee Miata) is the most popular roadster the world has ever seen, and the most-raced car in the world. Mostly that's because Mazda has been racing these things right out of the gate, with the lowcost, easy-to-run Miata Spec series providing inexpensive wheel-to-wheel action for beginners and up.
The new car, known as the ND by chassis code, is thus generating plenty of excitement. It looks fantastic, and while we're not quite sure what's going to power it underhood, it's lighter by far than the outgoing model and should make an amazing racer.
In fact, it does make an amazing racer. Debuting at the 2014 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show, Mazda showed off the racecourse version of their MX-5, fitted with a rollcage and big sticky tires. It looks simply fantastic.
The third generation car will continue to race all through next year, but come 2016, a global MX-5 challenge will pit drivers from multiple countries to find out who's best. After local heats, the cream of the crop will converge at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca to battle for the championship. The winner also gets a shot at driving Mazda's prototype Skyactiv race car.
Toyota effectively wins SEMA
Speaking of SEMA, you see all sorts of stuff at the show from wild to wacky, from impressive to eyesore. Mostly eyesore, actually, come to think of it.
However, it's hard not to be impressed by two of Toyota's efforts this year. First, they made a Scion cool. Then they made a Camry even cooler.
The first concept is a Scion xB with '70s style paint and a porthole window. It's amazing, a disco-groovy shaggin' wagon with a chocolate-brown interior and shag carpeting on the windows. That's right: shag carpet windows.
Even more impressive is the Camry Sleeper. Basically a plain-Jane looking silver family sedan, peer through the windows and you'll see a glint of tube frames. Yes, that's a dragster under there. An 850 horsepower, tube-frame dragster capable of quarter-mile times of nine seconds.
Amazing! And not street legal in any way. Still, SEMA is all about showing off, so it's nice to see a car that's no show, and all go.
Watch this space for all the best and worst of automotive news, or submit your own oddities to [email protected].
