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• The Top 25 Homologation Specials of All Time

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 18 April 2013

  

  Purpose-built racing cars – be they single seat open wheelers, sports prototypes, dragsters or any other automobile whose sole reason for being is to compete – have always inspired awe and been capable of extraordinary performance. But when it comes to truly connecting with the fans in the stands, these thoroughbreds are no match for production-based (even if it’s just the shape of the body) machinery. The idea of watching a particular car win a race and then walking out to the parking lot and driving home in or driving to the local dealer to check out an identical (save for some safety and performance equipment and a whole heap-o-decals) car holds widespread (if not universal) appeal.

  Of course, to stand a better chance at winning on Sunday so they can sell on Monday, manufacturers load their showroom-bred competition models with go-fast bits. However, many sanctioning bodies used to require (though, sadly, very few still do) that those same upgrades to be fitted to a certain number of the street-legal models Joe Bloe can buy, meaning the factories have to sell what are known as homologation specials in order to race that model. The annals of automotive history are brimming with such four-wheeled entry forms, yet we’ve managed to pare that manifest down to the 25 fastest, coolest and most outrageous ones ever to wear a license plate.

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• The Top 10 Debuts of the 2013 New York Auto Show

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 28 March 2013

  

  For a town where most of the residents share cars, and those cars have their own dedicated tunnels with their own power supplies for their electric propulsion systems, New York’s annual international auto show sure has become one of the hottest expos on the calendar. For the 2013 New York Auto Show now underway, there’s a stellar cast of world debuts from both home and abroad on display. But which of those debuts are the ones that will be hard to fuggetabout? Our 10 picks to attain that status can be found – Where else? – after the jump.

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• 2013 Geneva Motor Show: The Top 20 Debuts

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 5 March 2013

  

  More than a few people think supercars are an endangered species. All the concerns about flaunting wealth inequality and using lots of gas are just some of the forces conspiring to make these most athletic of automobiles less and less desirable for both builders and buyers. So we can look forward to a future with fewer tarmac-melting monsters and more plug-in kumbaya cracker boxes, right?

  Not so fast, kemosabe. If the lineup of world debuts at this year’s Geneva Motor Show is any indication, we may be entering a new golden age of 200+ mph hypercars. The difference this time around is many of them are a bit more responsible, with overdrive (and occasionally double overdrive) 7-speed transmissions and hybrid assist. Of course, these aren’t the only automotive stars in the lakeside Swiss municipality. Here are the 20 premieres that really stir our hot chocolate.

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• Sub5Zero Fantasy Collection: Marmon HCM V12

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 19 February 2013

  

  When locked in a life-and-death struggle, you don’t act like it’s business as usual, do you? Or “phone-it-in” when wrestling the force or entity trying to kill you? Of course not. The same has often been true of car companies fighting for survival in the marketplace. And during the Great Depression of the 1930s, nearly all of America’s automakers – particularly builders of luxury cars – found themselves treading water in a seemingly infinite ocean of economic malaise.

  One company that found itself aboard the S.S. Wall Street when it started taking on water was Marmon. Founded in Indianapolis by Howard Marmon in 1902, the company quickly garnered a reputation as a builder of fast, high quality cars. Marmon’s victory in the inaugural Indianapolis 500 in 1911 – with Ray Harroun driving the Wasp, which was based on the production Model 32 – garnered the brand even more respect and notoriety. But some bad timing and grandiose product planning would end up bringing the firm to its knees.

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• The Top 10 Debuts of the 2013 Chicago Auto Show

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 9 February 2013

  

  Although the Chicago Auto Show generally doesn’t get much love from the international automotive press, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t see any hot and significant new vehicle debuts. The 2013 rendition of the event is no exception, as we expect many of cars, trucks, crossovers and vans making their premieres under the roof of McCormick Place to make a lot of noise in the motoring world in the coming months and years. However, it is the following 10 vehicles that we expect to bring the most noise, both literal and figurative.

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• The Top 10 Debuts of the 2013 Detroit Auto Show

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 15 January 2013

  

  The Detroit Auto Show (the proper name, North American International Auto Show, makes our eyes and ears hurt) is traditionally the first major auto show of the calendar year, and it’s reprising that role in 2013. And befitting its status as a kickoff event, it often sets the tone for the rest of the season’s shows both here in the U.S. and abroad.

  If that’s the case again this year, then we as car enthusiasts have a lot to look forward to in 2013. The Detroit Auto Show is the site of some significant concept and production vehicle debuts, many of which combine exceptional performance, style and efficiency into one machine. But which of these will be the most memorable in the months (if not years) ahead? Here are the 10 debuts that we think have real staying power.

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• Top 25 Coolest Gadgets at CES 2013

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 12 January 2013

  

  The annual Consumer Electronics Show just wrapped up in Las Vegas and, as is the case every year it seems, there was an embarrassment of digital riches on hand. Whether your interests cover mobile electronics, stationary electronics, or both, there were at least dozens of things that would have caught your eye. But if we had to pick just 25 gizmos or gizmo accessories that stopped us dead in our tracks and say aloud, “Huh, that’s pretty cool,” the following would be those two-dozen-plus-one.

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• 2012 LA Auto Show: The Top 10 Debuts

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 29 November 2012

  

  A traditional post-Thanksgiving rite here in Southern California (along with shopping on Black Friday, all the while hoping you aren’t trampled, stabbed, shot etc.) is the Los Angeles Auto Show. Granted, it’s not a very long-lived tradition, the show having moved from its previous January date opposite the Detroit Auto Show just a few years ago, but in car-dependent (if not car-loving) L.A., it has become a major happening.

  Recent major international auto shows have had relatively even mixes of fire-breathing performance cars and squeaky clean and green electric and hybrid vehicles making their debuts, and the 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show is no different. But which premieres happening next door to Staples Center are the most noteworthy. Here, in a semi-random, non-chronological, are our picks.

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• Mecum Auctions Holds Its First Collector Car Sale in Anaheim

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 20 November 2012

  

  When we heard a few months ago that Mecum Auctions would be holding a collector car auction at the Anaheim Convention Center (located literally across the street from Disneyland), we were beyond stoked. Yes, we’ve been to a couple of Barrett-Jackson auctions before, and have watched countless Barrett-Jackson and Mecum auctions on TV, but we were curious to experience a Mecum sale in-person. Also: We rarely turn down the chance to check out hundreds of cool cars and trucks all in one place.

  So behind the Orange Curtain we ventured, and into the main hall we walked (The auction occupied three of the convention center’s four sprawling ground-floor halls.). Immediately, we saw row upon row of gleaming sheetmetal (and, in the case of the scores of Corvettes on offer, fiberglass). And much of the content of many of those rows was really high quality. The paint, panel fitment and other indicators of how much time, money and effort were spent on a restoration on dozens of cars was terrific.

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• Carbon Revolution Wheels Are Tomorrow’s Rims Today [w/ Video]

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 5 November 2012

  

  Car wheels have, like all wheels, always been round, but they haven’t always been made of the same material. The early ones were wooden, not unlike the ones found on the horsedrawn vehicles from which early automobiles were derived. By the late 1920s, steel wheels – be they wire spoke, large “artillery” spoke or stamped disc – had became fashionable. It would take decades more for aluminum to enter widespread use in automotive rolling stock, but now it and steel are the two dominant materials in the industry; occasionally you’ll see magnesium wheels, but they’re seldom seen off the race track.

  So what’s the next step in wheel materials? We’re inclined to believe it’s carbon fiber. Multiple companies have manufactured wheels featuring carbon fiber rims or centers in recent years. However, all have been multi-piece affairs, with the carbon component bolted to a mate that is either carbon fiber as well or metallic. Now, though, a young company called Carbon Revolution announced at the SEMA Show that it is ready to turn the wheelmaking world on its head with the first one-piece, 100% carbon fiber wheels for automotive applications.

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