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
Changing a car battery used to be one of the cleaner bargains in home mechanics. Remove two terminals, undo the clamp, lift out the old battery and fit the new one. The clock might need resetting a
Open the door of certain 1980s or early 1990s cars and a small buckle begins travelling along the roofline. Sit down, close the door and the shoulder belt glides toward the B-pillar, hopefully passi
A concrete barrier beside a highway looks like one of the least forgiving objects a car could encounter. It is heavy, rigid and often positioned only a few feet from traffic moving at serious speed.
Open the door of an American-market performance car from the early 1980s and something may appear terribly wrong. There is the dramatic driving position, a powerful engine and perhaps a body design
Wash a car in the evening and look through its wheels the next morning. The brake rotors may have turned bright orange. The change can happen quickly enough to feel impossible. The discs looked cle
A car can leave a collision with a crushed bumper, broken lights and a hood folded into an expensive-looking shape, yet every airbag remains neatly hidden. From outside, that makes little sense. Th
Walk past a parked car after dark and the cabin can seem completely asleep, apart from one tiny red light pulsing on the dashboard. Blink. Pause. Blink again. Since red dashboard lights usua
Solar panels on cars have always sounded like a great idea, although the reality has usually been less impressive. A few extra miles from sitting in the sun is nice, but hardly enough to change how yo
Cruise control feels wonderfully precise on a flat highway. Set it to 65 mph and the speedometer settles into place, leaving the car to handle the small adjustments that a human ankle normally makes.