This is Jay Leno’s 1938 Tatra T87, a Czechoslovakian car with  a rear mounted engine and a great look.

apparently the fin at the back makes the car a little hard to handle in windy conditions, till you get used to it…

I found this video on Jalopnik, and Jay Leno does such a great job speaking of the car that I will leave the stage to him.

Jay’s Garage a good place to go and dream…

I can never resist a beautiful car, and you’ve got to admit - this is the real deal. I found it on a blog called Cars Photos, and the blogger named it “suicide doors”.

I was wondering why these door are called suicide doors and this is what Wiki says:

The name reflects the increased danger of the door falling open if it becomes unlatched while the car is moving. The potential risk is obvious: when driving at speed, the fast moving air around the car creates an area of low pressure, which acts as an outward force on the door, trying to open it. This usually doesn’t matter as the latch or lock is keeping the door closed. On a conventional car, if the door becomes unlatched, the fast moving air around the car, which is going in the opposite direction to the car, will force the door closed. Whereas with suicide doors, the fast moving air, again moving opposite to the car, pushes the door open. This can be dangerous if the occupant is not seat-belted.

This problem is greatly increased when driving around a bend. Lateral g-force combined with the low-pressure air moving around the car will fling open an unlatched door, and the occupant will be thrown out if not wearing a seatbelt. In reality, this is very unlikely to happen because the locks for suicide doors are specially built to withstand greater forces than most locks. Most modern cars with rear suicide doors have front doors which overlap the rear doors so the latter can’t open unless the front door is open. Another safety device is to use a lock that prevents the rear doors being opened unless the front doors are open, such as is used by Rolls Royce.

Some erroneously believe that the name stems from the fact that if in an emergency, the user exits the vehicle whilst it is moving, the door will hit them upon exit.

 

With the prevailing green line of thought, it was only a matter of time till classic car owners of green mind, heart and pocket would try to convert their vehicles into Hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles.

Two of the better know people who have done this, are Prince Charles, Heir to the English throne, and Neil Young, the Canadian rocker.

Both the English Prince and the Rocker are doing it in style!

Neil young told the Wichita Eagle

“With all this talk about gas, people are saying we should go to small cars, but I love big American cars with power. So does everybody else. Why give up on that? I asked Johnathan that first day if we could take a huge American car like this, 2 ½ tons, 19 ½ feet long, and make it so you could drive it without ever refueling. Something practical. Something that would change the world,”

Young is also making a documentary on the conversion process titled “Linc-Volt“

“It’s the story of the resurrection and re-powering of the car that represented the American dream…  America is never going to be frugal. It’s too big; the roads are long, the people are big, they like big cars. So there’s a challenge to figure out how to retain all those things and be clean,”

Prince Charles on the other hand, is doing it English style…

He is converting his Aston Martin DB6, his 21 birthday present from his mother Queen Elizabeth, to run on 100 per cent bioethanol fuel, distilled from surplus British wine.

The prince has been wanting to do something about his carbon footprint and although he only travels around 200-300 miles a year in the Aston, He still wanted it to be ecofreindly.

This bio fuel is only slightly cheaper than conventional petrol but produces 85% less carbon dioxide.

Just in case you were wondering - he gets ten miles a gallon on it, which is the same as 4.5 bottles of wine (talk about drinking and driving…)

source

source

Cheapo, from El Cheapo Custom Works intoduced me to the Mad Fabricators.

This should give you and Idea of whom the people are and what they are doing

I thought they were pretty cool, what do you think?

Hemmings has a great flikr collection with many contributors, dedicated to antique cars in from all aspects and points of view.

One of the contributors ryanchirnomas, posted a great series of vintage licence plate that are all wonderful as licence plates and as photographs.

This

1952 VA Ford Truck

and this

1939 MD Plymouth

Are my personal favorites.