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Do You Drive a Humble Car?


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Last weekend in Seattle I saw an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, a Bentley Continental Flying Spur, a Maserati GranTurismo, a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Porsche 911 Carrera 4S. All on the same day.

These are cars that scream for attention. People don’t drive these cars because they appreciate the ease of transporting themselves from one point to another. These cars are driven because they invoke some kind of primal response and demand that passers by take notice.

These cars are not humble.

These cars are loud. They are obnoxious. They are fast, over-the-top playthings for adults with money to burn.

These are cars the pope would advise against.

Depending on who you are, that will either make you want them more, or cause you to wonder what kind of car the pope might approve.

Yes, car culture has reached the point where the pope himself has weighed in, and he has one word of advice:

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New Life for Cars of the Past


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If you watch Breaking Bad, you know that Walter White drives an old Pontiac Aztec everywhere he goes. The car gets driven hard, has been through countless ordeals, and yet it soldiers on.

Of course, none of it is real on the show, but it’s still interesting that producers chose a car that is universally hated and chided as one of the world’s ugliest vehicles of all time.

Maybe, though, the show has given a second life to Aztecs everywhere. No longer are they weird afterthoughts from a forgettable era, they are now, somehow… cool. Especially ones with a perpetually broken windshield and one steel wheel.

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What’s the Perfect Used Summer Roadster?


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I have a new mission in life:

Find a roadster.

Summer’s here, and fun, fast open-top driving should arrive with it. I have some summer road trips coming up, and they would be infinitely more enjoyable behind the wheel of a rear-wheel-drive thrill machine.

I’m thinking something small, light and quick, but still masculine and powerful. So the Miata is out.

Something new is out, too, as finances currently dictate that I fill the garage with a pre-loved used model. Well, truthfully, finances also dictate that I wait until I have a garage, but that’s just a matter of logistics.

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When Used Cars Were Owned by Rock Stars


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As a teenager in Washington State in the 1990s, it was required that I be a huge fan of Seattle grunge music. Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, The Melvins, Pearl Jam… they were all required listening. More so, perhaps, than actual school work. (Do my required reading of The Great Gatsby, or listen to Nevermind again? Not a difficult choice.)

As we all know, the thrill of the music was overshadowed by tragedy, as both Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Layne Staley of Alice in Chains died young.

We’ve covered on this blog the van that once belonged to The Melvins. Cobain drove the band around in it before his own band hit it big. The Melvan, as that 1972 Dodge Sportsman is known, was for sale for $100,000 not long ago. It didn’t sell, was relisted at $50,000 and still hasn’t found a home.

Apparently the market for old beater vans isn’t very hot, even with a connection to a rock legend.

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Will Dodge Disappear Next?


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If you’re like me, when you hear the name Dodge, you still think of beefy pickup trucks. Never mind the fact that Chrysler took all of Dodge’s trucks and moved them under the Ram brand back in 2009.

That shift left Dodge with nothing more than a couple of cars, two SUVs and a van. The plan was to turn Dodge into a sporty car brand, but so far the new Dart is as close as we’ve seen to anything new and exciting. With some recent news about some Dodge vehicles getting discontinued, is it possible Dodge will cease to exist?

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