A flower vase seems like an unlikely thing to find beside a car’s speedometer. It cannot tell you whether the engine is overheating, help you find your way home or hold a takeaway coffee. Yet a
A classic car could provide a cigarette lighter within easy reach of the driver, another for the front passenger and sometimes individual ashtrays for the people in the back. Yet bring a cup of coffee
The automobile conquered continents, crossed deserts and survived two world wars before anyone decided it desperately needed a secure place for a paper cup. For much of automotive history, drivers
Fresh motor oil is reassuring stuff. It pours from the bottle in a clear amber stream, looking clean enough to belong in a kitchen rather than an engine. A few hundred miles later, the dipstick can
It is a cold morning. The windshield is cloudy, the cabin feels like a refrigerator, and the defrost button has just been pressed with all the optimism available before coffee. Then the A/C light come
A flat tire has a special talent for ruining your mood instantly. It never happens when you are relaxed and free all afternoon. It happens when you are late, already annoyed, parked somewhere t
A lot of people talk about summer tires the way people talk about hot sauce. They want the most extreme one. The one with the biggest number, the most grip, the most bragging rights, the tire t
Anyone who has ever hit that wall on a long drive knows the feeling. The music stops helping. Coffee stops helping. Rolling the window down stops helping. At some point, the smartest move is no
Fifty-three and a half percent. That’s how many roadside breakdowns come down to tires, not engines or mysterious sensors—just rubber that never got a second glance before a family pil
I still remember the day I fell for the pitch. My hatchback had just come out of a basic wash, and the detailer, towel in hand, grinned like he’d discovered electricity. “If you reall