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The Ugliest Cars

Business Week reports on a survey done by Hagerty Insurance that ranks the worst car designs ever. Here are the results: 1. AMC Pacer 2. Yugo 3. Ford Pinto 4. Pontiac Aztec 5. Chevrolet Vega 6. AMC Gremlin 7. Chevrolet Corvair 8. AMC Matador 9. Ford Edsel 10. Chevrolet Chevette I don't know exactly how this survey was conducted, but it looks like the 2,500 respondents thought of the ugliest car from their own past. In the past couple of years, I've seen some very ugly newer... READ ON

Article

Hail to the King Midget

There's really nothing like a humiliating incident that has oxidized into a funny story. I learned this early on from my father, whose timing and delivery is largely influenced by mid-80s John Candy. During car trips or any other kind of captive audience scenario, we'd beg him to burst into a rendition of "the King Midget story." The short version is that his father had a brief infatuation with this very special kind of vehicle (the King Midget!), and mortified his children by insisting on driving them... READ ON

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Who flew before the Wright Brothers?

Orville and Wilbur Wright are generally credited with being the first in flight. Whether that's true depends on your definition of "flight". If you mean controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, then that's what they are known for, but even that may not be quite true, since controlled and sustained are not black-or-white terms. There were plenty of aviation pioneers working on flying in the nineteenth century; after all, we had automobiles and balloons and... READ ON

Article

Beached limos

It's with a fair amount of chagrin that I admit I've never been inside a limo. I've loitered on the hood of one, briefly, for reasons completely devoid of interesting subtext, and I've stopped next to one at a red light, been simultaneously harassed and cajoled by the passengers teeming out of the sunroof. But when I read reports of limos being beached, I'm a) amused, saddened, and, as a fellow driver, empathetic b) plagued with the urge to ride in one already! I missed the boat at my prom--I sailed in on... READ ON

Article

Driving truck, and then just driving

When I used to look for summer jobs, I always thought it would be instructive, if not entirely profound, to drive truck. I knew a few kids who had satisfied the CDL paperwork and suddenly boasted routes up and down I-5 transporting garlic and tomatoes. But the convenience of service jobs abounded, and I never got around to climbing aboard a rig; however, the romance of the job lingered until various high school classmates and then a member of my family joined the fleet and could properly devastate my... READ ON

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Boat Names

Ok so, all this talk of baby name consultants makes me wonder about the boat-naming industry. Since boat names are generally longer, and often complete phrases, maybe people actually invest as much time naming boats as naming children...? My father, a sailor, always talked about this boat named Rebecca Lynn and then one day he finally sent me a picture of it: well wouldn't you know. And then when I was in college my dad let me name his fishing boat: Get me away from here I'm dying, after a Belle and... READ ON

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5 Cars That Became Metaphors (deserved or not)

1. Edsel=... READ ON

Article

You know you can't have: liquids

If I'm to believe my parents, it appears that "liquid" was my first word. Sentimentality aside, I've always accepted that liquids would be instrumental in my life. But I was never sure how...I'm quite certain that everyone in this country is painfully aware of the apparently infinite guises of liquids-that-must-not-pass-airline-security. And it's possible that at one point or another, some of you have been informed of the necessity of a plastic baggie. Now, I'm so completely fine complying with federal... READ ON

Article

Some ice for your tube ride

While we're on the subject of international mass transit, ifÂ you frequent the London Underground, you might soon be benefiting from a cooling systemÂ that'sÂ more rudimentary than you'd think: melting blocks of ice. They'd be positioned in refrigerated holding tanks located beneath passenger seats; whenever the train goes underground, refrigerationÂ gets shut off to prompt melting. When the train goes back up, the ice refreezes. Engineers hope to debut this "technology" as soon as next... READ ON

Article

Taking Credit Where It's Due

I'm not sure what's stranger, the fact that the supposedly "classy" Kingfisher has made such a boastful response ad (shouldn't they be above that), or the fact that Kingfisher is India's premium beer, and they've decided to use the same name for their new air service. I'm not certain Americans would trust the pilots on Coors Light Air, or Pabst Blue Ribbon Jetways, but the new airline service seems to be doing pretty well so far! Pic via... READ ON