Blog Posts by: Rusty Blackwell   G

HITS 2014 Chevrolet Corvette – Even tracking this car’s unveil on Twitter and Instagram while getting my kids ready for bed at home on Sunday night, I could tell the new Vette was a big hit. After finally seeing the car in person, I liked it a lot ...    Read more

Monday at the North American International Auto Show, Nissan announced that it has chopped the price of its electric Leaf by some $6000, or 18 percent, for the 2013 model year. The car’s base price is now $28,800, plus destination, for the new S trim level. This was partially made ...    Read more

The Jetta and the Passat accounted for 64 percent of Volkswagen’s North American sales in 2012, its best year in the market since 1973. One of the most glaring absences from the full-line carmaker’s lineup is that of a three-row SUV or crossover. The CrossBlue concept hints at a future ...    Read more

As concept cars go, the Lincoln MKC Concept is pretty clearly on its way to production. Sure, it has a number of concept-only features (shaved door handles, sword-pointy sideview mirrors, one-piece seats, etc.), but you can tell that something like this will be in showrooms soon. Lincoln officials will not ...    Read more

Best day of work: Saturday January 28, 2012 I don’t get out of the office as much as some other folks, but on this day I was the stuntdriver for an off-the-wall comparison test that road test editor Christopher Nelson and I concocted. We took three fancy, all-wheel-drive ...    Read more

This morning, Automobile Magazine sat down with Mopar chief Pietro Gorlier in a small cubicle in the middle of the Ram truck stand of the Detroit auto show. Gorlier has been a high-level executive at the Fiat Group since 2003, and the Italian has been president and CEO of Mopar, ...    Read more

Until spending some time behind the wheel of a bus-driving simulator, I’d never rolled a vehicle . Apparently eighteen-ton buses don’t like to take interstate exit ramps at high speeds, even onscreen. The Minnesota Valley Transit Authority’s bus simulator in Burnsville, Minnesota, is used to train bus drivers to operate the ...    Read more

Car enthusiasts and collectors from around the globe have gathered en masse in Monterey, California, for the sixty-first Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance this weekend. One­—or rather, five—of the biggest attractions are the various accompanying auctions that blanket the Monterey Peninsula from today through Sunday, from the likes of Bonhams, Gooding ...    Read more

Thousands of spectators, hundreds of show cars, and dozens of vintage racing cars endured extreme heat and humidity in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, over the weekend during the twenty-ninth annual Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix (PVGP), which benefits the Autism Society of Pittsburgh and Allegheny Valley School. I sweated along with everyone ...    Read more

If the prospect of owning this Boss 302 Trans-Am race car and complementary cab-over Ford flatbed doesn’t give you chills, you’re not human, as far as I’m concerned. Bringatrailer.com recently dredged up the matching set, which was carefully built to replicate the car that won the historic 1970 Trans-Am ...    Read more

It’s not very often that a forty-seven-year-old sports car is sold by its original owner, but this 1964 Porsche 356SC coupe is a supercool example of that uncommon occurrence. Like the 1960 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint that was my favorite a couple weeks ago, this Porsche is a ...    Read more

The controversial finish of the 2011 Indianapolis 500 (one month ago today) was nothing compared to the debacle that was the inaugural 500 one-hundred years prior. None of the forty cars that started that race could come close to turning a lap at 100 mph, but keeping track of ...    Read more

As usual, there were plenty of fabulous old cars for sale on Bringatrailer.com in late May, but this 1966 Chrysler Newport convertible was easily my personal favorite. Mopars were my first automotive love (it’s a small miracle that I selected three Fortnight Favorites before picking my first Mopar), and ...    Read more

Cool vintage Fords seemed to be the theme for Bringatrailer.com over the past couple weeks. My favorite was definitely this 1964 Ford Falcon two-door wagon, a clean time-warp machine from California offered -- and currently still available -- as a BaT Exclusive for $7000. It’s a minimally optioned vehicle ...    Read more

Having kids changes a guy’s life. If you’re a car guy, it likely means that your days of driving a two-seater are more or less behind you -- or at the very least dependent upon whether you can find a babysitter, how often you want to abandon your family in ...    Read more