Ok, now I’m starting to think that Tom McCahill just had a fetish about imagining Chinese men in uncomfortable situations.
By the way, if you want to see just how much safer modern cars are than cars of this era, check out this video put out by the insurance institute on its 50th birthday. It’s a collision between a 1959 Chevy Bel Air and a 2009 Chevy Malibu. Guess who wins.
McCahill Sounds Off On Safety
Uncle Tom blasts so-called “safety features” and suggests ten ways makers can cut traffic deaths.
By Tom McCahill
IN THE automobile business right now the topic of safety is as hot as a naked Chinaman in a barrel of tabasco. With various professors fronting for them and spouting statistics by the yard, carmakers in newly-tailored angel suits have set out almost en masse to halt highway slaughter.
Now this is a noble undertaking, the good Lord knows, and I am all in favor of anything that will save even one life on the road. But the trouble is, the safety campaign so far has not shown much evidence of being overloaded with realistic thinking. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve never really thought about it, but it must be really hard to come up with new and interesting superlatives for things you like.
“…Dr. Porsche’s engineering with such cars as the SSK had the same head-spinning effect as a pipeful of poppy dust to a Chinese playboy.”
MI Tests the German Porsche
If money is no object and you are looking for a small competition car that’s really loaded with TNT, this is it, our Uncle Tom reports.
By Tom McCahill
THE late Dr. Ferdinand Porsche was the Hopalong Cassidy of the automobile business. For 50 years he engineered mouth-watering cars for generations of big boys to dream about. What Hopalong does for the kids today, old Doe Porsche did for their old man’s old man by building cars with all the intrigue of a Left Bank dive. His fame started back in 1900 with the chassis and power plant of the Austro-Daimler and really came to a boil with his SSK Mercedes and later the famed Auto-Union. Doctor Porsche got more sex appeal on four wheels in a single day than Minsky could cram on a runway in 30 years. To the real gone automotive nut, Dr. Porsche’s engineering with such cars as the SSK had the same head-spinning effect as a pipeful of poppy dust to a Chinese playboy. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m not really clear on how the paddle wheel works. Is it flexible? It seems like it would be very unhappy on ice or concrete if it’s not.
Automobile Sleigh Develops Speed of 35 Miles an Hour on Snow Roads
LESTER COBB, of Norway, Maine, has invented an automobile sleigh which will not mire in ruts or drifts of snow. It drives and operates like an automobile. A paddle arrangement gives it traction. The auto-sleigh is geared for rapid traction and 35 m.p.h, is a comfortable speed with it. It is declared that the deeper the snow the faster the speed of the sleigh.
I’m not really sure what the point of this photo is. Why are we comparing the size of a bus to a plane? The bus is pretty nifty looking though. The front kind of looks like a Darth Vader helmet. Or I’ve been playing way too much SWTOR lately. Probably the latter.
World’s First Motor Coach Sleeper Compared with Huge Monoplane
THE world’s first motor coach sleeper has been completed with accommodations for twenty-six sleepers. There are upper and lower berths similar to those of an elaborately fitted Pullman car. The sleeper was taken to an airfield for comparison in size with the Ford monoplane.
