SevenStock, the annual gathering of Mazdafarians at the company’s USA headquarters, is coming. This year the event will feature Mazda’s 24 Hours of Daytona endurance racers, including 1979’s winning RX-7 and this year’s winning RX-8. Drivers from both teams will be there, meeting the fans. In addition, there will be tech seminars, vendors, raffles and tons of old school rotaries. Full details after the jump. (more…)
California may not have much rust, but it’s got something far, far worse: lawmakers on the constant attack against old cars. The latest culprit is Assemblyman Dave Jones, who has drafted a bill that would require all cars 15 years or older to undergo annual emissions testing (currently state law says pre-1976 cars are exempt).
Even worse, Jones is, as SEMA discovered, trying to sneak this in as an amendment to an unrelated bill!
Do we really have to go over why these laws are… what’s the term… stupid? Apparently so. Here we go again:
Old cars make up only a tiny fraction of the total number of cars and trucks on the roads today.
The majority of collectors do not use their vintage cars as daily drivers.
And most of all, encouraging the disposal of an old car so that a new one can take its place does not account for the manufacturing costs of the new vehicle.
This is merely the latest in a string of attempts to send more old cars to the scrapper. Earlier year this year a similar bill was introduced but defeated thanks in part to those who wrote in expressing their outrage/sound reasoning. However, California and Texas also have buyback programs designed to take old cars off the street.
Come on, legislators, think about it. How much fossil fuel does it take to turn a pile of iron ore buried in a mountain – along with plastics, rubber and assorted chemicals – into a new car? Let us get every mile we can out of these old cars, whose pollution costs generated during manufacture have already been paid for.
The hearing is set for August 28. If you are a California resident – or are simply pretending to be one – please write to your legislator and express your views on the subject. Thank you! Full details and legislator’s email addresses after the jump. (more…)
A couple of months ago we told you about a 1958 Toyopet Crown with a very unique history, having served as one of the cars of the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco, that sold for a record. $22,322. It’s one of the first Japanese cars imported to the US and its sudden appearance in the marketplace caught many by surprise. The winning bidder has now been revealed. (more…)
Speaking of microcars, someone sent in four old Subaru 360 commercials to Jalopnik today. The car’s $1297 price tag and 66mpg are heavily touted, as is the price of a carburetor, just 13 dollars. I guess when you’re calling your own car “Cheap and Ugly” right there in the ad, cheap is the selling point you want to go with. These spots also raise the question, when did they change the pronunciation from SuBARu to SUbaru?
Microcars are on a roll! First a duo of Subaru 360s finishes 1-2 in their class in the Liége-Brescia-Liége, and now a Honda Z600 has broken the 600cc class land speed record at Bonneville Speed Week. We first came across Evil Tweety last year when we pitted it in a hypothetical Blaze of Glory Deathmatch against jet- and ‘Busa- powered Z600s. JNCers, including Evil Tweety’s own driver Eric Burns, voted for JETBOY as their chariot into the afterlife, but that was before anyone knew this bad bird could hit 106.531 mph on the salt flats!
Congrats to fearless pilots Eric Burns and Chris Clay!
Two UK-based teams have taken first and second place in the Spirit 425cc Class of the Liége-Brescia-Liége microcar rally. Covering 2000 miles through Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy and Slovenia, these little kei cars even conquered the Stelvio (not Kev’s dream car, the Alpine road) and Gavia Passes of Italy, some of Europe’s most grueling terrain.
Regulars know that this year marks Subaru’s 50th anniversary, but 2008 is also the 50th anniversary of the Liége-Brescia-Liége. It was started in 1958 during the Suez Canal Crisis, which threatened to cut Europe off from its oil supply in the Middle East. In response, rally organizers wanted to prove that small, fuel-efficient cars could perform just as well as their gas-guzzling counterparts over Europe’s most demanding roads (making it all the more disappointing that we’re still grappling with the same oil issues today). The original allowed only cars 500cc or under, and the intense schedule meant almost three non-stop days of driving. The modern rally is a bit more leisurely – 10 days, and cars up to 1000cc are allowed.
Congratulations to Jane Puttock, James Ewing, Vic Sayer and Craig Lawson!
Just a quick reminder for you east coasters, the 8th Team Toyminator show drops next Sunday, August 31. It’s located in South Plainfield, NJ and admission is free! For more information, check this thread or visit TeamToyminator.org.
Sorry for the short notice, but this just came down the wire. Tomorrow, August 23, will be the NJ Z Club’s annual show in Bridgewater, NJ. Looks like last week of August in Joisey is shaping up to be old school central with the Team Toyminator Old School Toyota show coming up the following weekend (see next post). For more information, go to NJZClub.com.
UPDATE: JNCer QuasiMondo has posted pics of this show. Click here.
Back in 1979, you may have seen this flash across the TV while kicking back in your rec room. But don’t think of it as a commercial, think of it as a public service announcement ensuring that you don’t miss out on a guaranteed money-making investment!
Mazda’s RX-7 had just come out, and you were probably still kicking yourself for passing up on the MG TC, ‘53 Corvette and 240Z. We’re not sure what’s bolder, proclaiming that the RX-7 would be an instant classic, or acknowledging the classicosity of Nissan’s direct competition. Can you imagine Mazda calling any Nissan product “extraordinary” and classic in an ad today? Keep in mind the 240Z was only 9 years old at the time.
Which leads to the inevitable question, if you were making this commercial in 2008, what future classic would you have, say, an RX-8 pull up next to?
California may not have much rust, but it’s got something far, far worse: lawmakers on the constant attack against old cars. The latest culprit is Assemblyman Dave Jones, who has drafted a bill that would require all cars 15 years or older to undergo annual emissions testing (currently state law says pre-1976 cars are exempt).
