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Cars Had Ashtrays Everywhere Before They Found a Sensible Place for Coffee

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

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Your Car’s 17-Character VIN Is Hiding More Information Than You Think

A vehicle identification number has the charm of a password printed by a malfunctioning office computer. It is long, awkward to recite and generally ignored until an insurer, parts supplier or registr

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That 15-Year-Old Car Has Only 30,000 Miles. Its Easy Life May Not Have Been Easy

A remarkably low odometer reading has a way of making every other detail fade into the background. The paint may be dull, the tires may look suspiciously old and the service book may contain a de

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The Steering Column Once Pointed a Steel Shaft at the Driver. Then Engineers Made It Collapse

Drivers spend hours holding the steering wheel without giving much thought to what lies behind it. Remove the trim, switches and wiring, and the basic arrangement appears simple. A shaft carries th

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Those Fake-Wood Station Wagons Were Copying Cars Built by Cabinetmakers

The woodgrain paneling on an old station wagon rarely fools anyone. Even when new, the printed vinyl was not likely to be mistaken for hand-finished mahogany. It was wood in the same way a kitchen

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This $94,000 Porsche 550 Replica Is Too Small For The Road

Porsche’s electric Boxster is still waiting in the wings, but there’s already a brand-new electric Porsche sports car you can buy for less than $100,000. There’s just one small probl

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Automakers Covered Millions of Metal Roofs in Vinyl, and Buyers Happily Paid Extra

Automotive fashion has produced few ideas quite as curious as taking a finished steel roof, covering it in textured plastic and charging the customer extra. For several decades, buyers did exactly tha

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Everyone Says Pop-Up Headlights Were Banned, but That Is Not What Actually Happened

Few automotive features can make a parked car look as alive as pop-up headlights. Turn the switch and two neat sections of bodywork rise from the hood, pause with theatrical precision and reveal the l

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Honda Built Navigation Before GPS Using Helium, Transparent Maps and a Glowing Green Dot

There was a time when getting lost required some commitment. A driver would unfold a road map across the steering wheel, locate two towns that appeared to be printed directly on top of one another, th

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Rubber Is Naturally Pale, So Why Did the Automotive World Make Every Tire Black?

A bright red car, a metallic blue car and a taxi painted the color of a highlighter will normally leave the factory with exactly the same footwear. Black tires. The color seems so inevitable

AutoExpert
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