It is Dad’s birthday. He would have been 92 this year, had his fine mind and artistic hand not been dragged down by the shackles of dementia. He was the real Car Guy- he designed them and drove them and lavished us with his passion for them. It has been a wild ride, these last […]

It is unseasonably crisp again this morning. The humidity slid back a bit yesterday, but the skies have cleared and it is cool for an August. There was no reason not to take the Bluesmobile to the dealer for the 90K Platinum servicing. I wondered what the $700 surprise was going to be this month, […]

It was 2002. I was taking my son back to school at Ann Arbor, and I was going to stash the hot rod up in the Little Village By the Bay. I did not want to have the new paint on the fenders out in the Virginia weather, and Raven had a heated garage spot […]

(1969 Pontiac GTO Judge, named for the comic mantra on the Rowen & Martin Laugh-In television variety show. Photo Pontiac Motor Division. RIP). OK- too strange out there, between the Ebola outbreak and politics as usual. There are convoys of armored limousines all over town and anyone with a brain is staying away from the […]

(German mounted lancers- Uhlans- who opened our version of the Hundred Year’s War.) I am not going to stop writing the car stories, but there is a reason I am going to take a break from the subject today. As you may recall, we lost our last American veteran of the Great War last February. […]

At some point I know we need to address the Japanese imports. Like the Germans, who emerged from the ashes of World War Two to produce quality cars like the legendary Mercedes line, the Audis and Bimmers, the Japanese did something even more fundamental- they literally transformed the American car market, and occasionally record sales […]

(Author and activist Brock Yates fills up the Ferrari Daytona piloted by racing legend Dan Gurney on the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, 1975. Photo Car and Driver Magazine.) A pal wrote me about a scheme to deliver recreational vehicles to Snowbird destinations down south, saving the owners the inconvenience and expense of driving […]

“I do take one drug now – for fun – and, maybe you’ve heard of it, it’s a new thing, I don’t know if you have or not. It’s a new thing, it makes you small. [ indicates size with fingers ] About this big. And, you know, I’ll be home, sitting with my friends, […]

(The District Boundary Stones. I have a great deal of admiration for the people who hacked out the forty miles of underbrush to place them. 36 are still in the ground, and I am short of visiting only one of them). Shortly after my life took a dramatic new course in 2001, I started a […]

“For what it’s worth, and to add to the Beetle conversation, Dad (RADM Mac Showers) owned two of them. The first was a black 1961 model affectionately known as “The Raisin.” It had a cool accordion-style cloth sun-roof which nearly took up the entire roof of the car. Was much like an old camera bellows. […]