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Why are my tires turning brown? Protective ingredients in the rubber can work their way to the surface, leaving a brownish film known as blooming. Road dirt and brake dust can look similar. Blooming i
What was the Mercedes braking bag? It was an experimental underbody airbag shown as part of the ESF 2009 safety programme. When sensors judged a collision unavoidable, the device would deploy a high-f
What was the Saab Toppola camper? It was a removable living module fitted into a compatible hatchback after its rear hatch was taken off. Developed in Sweden in the early 1980s, it gave a passenger ca
Why does the low-fuel light sometimes come on early? Some vehicles base their warning on estimated driving range, so higher fuel consumption can trigger it with more fuel still in the tank. The warnin
Does Nissan’s self-healing paint actually work? Scratch Shield can help fine scratches in its clearcoat recover over time. Nissan says recovery depends on temperature and scratch depth, sometime
How did a Mercedes taxi reach 4.6 million kilometres? Gregorios Sachinidis kept his 1976 Mercedes-Benz 240 D working in Thessaloniki for decades. Its recorded distance came with substantial mechanical
Can tire shaving help when you need to replace one AWD tire? Sometimes. A specialist can remove tread from a matching new tire to bring it closer to the wear of the other three. It may avoid replacing
The speed readout was there a moment ago, floating neatly above the bonnet. Put on sunglasses and it fades, perhaps to the point where it seems to have disappeared altogether. An expensive electronic
Open the boot of most small cars from the 1960s and you would expect shopping, a spare wheel or perhaps a toolbox. In a Citroën 2CV Sahara, the engine would be taking up much of that space. The o
Topping up the washer tank ought to be one of the least complicated jobs a car can demand. Open the bonnet, find the right cap, pour. There is no good reason for it to become an ongoing conversation w
Being unable to put fuel into an almost-empty car is a peculiarly annoying problem. There is diesel in the pump, space in the tank and apparently no reason the two should have trouble meeting. Yet the
A delivery van usually gets noticed because it is blocking something. Nissan found another way: give it a face, a rounded shell and the proportions of a snail that has somewhere to be.The S-Cargo
Deer whistles offer a particularly appealing bargain. Attach a small device to the front of the car and, supposedly, the air passing through it will warn animals before you reach them. There is no scr
A Porsche with oars sounds like something its owner bought after an unfortunate encounter with a flooded road. In the 1950s, however, Porsche was developing a vehicle for which getting into the water
The Ford Nucleon looks as though someone moved the passengers forward to make room for a very important piece of luggage. Its cabin sits near the nose, leaving an enormous rear section between the fin
A retired police car can make an ordinary used-car listing look expensive. There is plenty of room, a purposeful set of steel wheels and the promise of hardware built for a harder life than the school
Among the cars in Citroën’s heritage collection sits something that makes even the company’s stranger experiments look quite sensible: a helicopter. Two seats, a bubble-like cabin and
There was a time when a dead battery in a manual car meant looking around for two people willing to help. One took the wheel, the others pushed, and with a little speed and a well-timed release of the
The car has stopped. Your foot is on the brake, the selector says P, and everything feels settled. Then you release the pedal and the car shifts slightly on its wheels.On a slope, that little move
Open the back of an early Honda CR-V and the cargo area looks ordinary enough. There is room for shopping bags, a muddy pair of boots, perhaps a cooler. Then you lift the floor panel and discover that
