Category: Stuff I wrote

I could take or leave the whole Singer Por-sha phenomenon, but Preston Lerner does some great work tracking the development of their newest take on the air-cooled engine. What’s depressing about the article is that Porsche themselves should be able to do anything that Williams F1 can do. We were told 20 years ago that EU noise regulations were the reason that the air-cooled engine could not continue. The real reason was, most likely, cost. The M96 engine costs half as much as its predecessor, and the current mill is probably cheaper still. Can you imagine a modern GT3RS with the Singer/Williams engine? It’s enough to make me a Por-sha fan again.

Continue Reading →

This is the ADVENTURE issue of R&T so naturally it features an ADVENTURE BIKE doing ADVENTUROUS things. If you’re not ready for that level of adventure, however, may I show you something from our Milder Adventure Department?

Continue Reading →

The ever-perceptive Mr. Klockau found this Fleetwood Talisman for sale in Amarillo. Those of you us listen to George Strait — that did not include your humble author until he met a country girl from New Mexico — will no doubt be reminded of the relevant song.

If you’re bored today, here are some links to my last Fleetwood Talisman adventure:

Continue Reading →

For various inside-baseball reasons which do not merit discussion in these pages, I have been working hard over the past year at diversifying the outlets to which I contribute. The first fruit of this was my inclusion in the rebooted Issue One of Cycle World. Here’s another example.

Continue Reading →

This month’s issue has all sorts of supercar and superstar stuff in it, most notably another sentimental and fascinating piece on Alois Ruf and his work by Sam Smith, but the dedicated reader will eventually work his way back to page 56 where you can read my investigation of a thoroughly diverse luxury trio. Each of them is impressive in its own right but it was the Navigator Black Label that made the strongest argument for a space in my driveway. It could replace the Silverado and a luxury car to be named later. Of course, for the $100,315 sticker price, you could get my Silverado plus a gently used Lexus LS460 or Mercedes S550.

Life is full of tough choices when you’re rich! Since I’m not rich, I’m going to keep the fleet just the way it is. My days of running a pair of brand-new full-sized Germans at any given time are long gone. On the other hand, one of my readers just alerted me to a couple of leftover 2017 Accord V6 6MT coupes in California. Surely there’s no harm in having three of those, right?

If you have not yet read the ZR1 review, it’s up at the R&T website. As always, thank you for reading and for participating here at Riverside Green.

If you’re tired of reading “ride-along” reviews of the 2019 ZR1 written by people who weren’t allowed to drive it, today is your lucky day. Last month, I spent two days driving the ZR1 around the NCM West circuit. Was it fast? Yes it was!

How fast was it?

Go look at last year’s Performance Car Of The Year testing. See how fast the AMG GT-R was? It was very fast. The ZR1 is faster. How much faster? I can’t say, at least not yet.

There are plenty of other things that I can tell you about the ZR1, however. They can be found on page 24 of the May 2018 Road&Track. Check it out, why dontcha.

For years, Cycle World shared an office with Road&Track on the West Coast; they also shared the crowd-pleasing privilege of publishing Peter Egan’s musings. Today, both magazines continue to release work by the individual oft-acclaimed as the “new Peter Egan”, an obscure former BMW mechanic and not-quite-six-foot-tall manlet who writes under the deliberately generic nom de plume of “Sam Smith”, chosen in tribute to the English pop singer whose music is rivaled only by the soulful work of Darius Rucker for center stage in Sam’s heart.

Unfortunately for the readers, “Sam Smith” commands a remarkably stout freelance fee due to the immense number of exotic cars and motorcycles that pass through his grasping fingers at a torrential rate. Therefore, to save money on their newest issue, Cycle World called on yours truly, the Lowest Cost Choice Of The Low Priced Three.

Continue Reading →

On Sunday night, Ford debuted its 2018 Bullitt Mustang with the aid of Steve McQueen’s granddaughter Molly McQueen (nee Molly Flattery) and the recently-unearthed Mustang GT used by McQueen in the chase scene of “Bullitt”. I was there and I can attest that the Mustang is in perfect survivor condition. (Miss McQueen, by contrast, appears to be in showroom shape.)

The entire story of the original Bullitt Mustang is in the new issue of Hagerty Magazine, written with care and attention to detail by Larry Webster. Once you’re done with that, turn to page 48 to read about how I tested a restored 1964 Lincoln Continental against a 2017 Continental Black Label. They’re both brilliant cars, and if you’re shopping for a proper luxury automobile you should give the new Conti a serious look.

If you have $42,000 burning a hole in your pocket, and you really like Miatas, then you will want to read about our Flyin’ Miata Torture Test. Danger Girl and I teamed up with Indycar vet Alex Lloyd and a cast of, um, about half a dozen to run a turbo Miata around Laguna Seca for fifteen mostly uninterrupted hours. It’s rare to see a product deliver so completely on its promises, particularly when the product in question comes from the aftermarket. It took a while to get this into “print” for a variety of reasons but it’s finally up. And for the record, DG and Alex were running about the same pace. Does that mean that Alex was slacking, or that Danger Girl was shoving? Only the Traqmate knows.