Activate your prefrontal cortex with this one trick the auto industry doesn’t want you to know
This is Collector Car TL;DR: a weekly recap of what happened on Collector Car Feed, plus car auctions, listings, automotive news, and other things of interest to the average CCF Enjoyer.
The Videos
How Cheap Are Need for Speed Underground Cars Now?
The theme of this game of Price is Wrong is in the title: vehicles featured in the first Need for Speed Underground. It’s probably unplayable today, but NFSU was, as Netgear states in this video, the unofficial Fast and the Furious game. FATF would eventually show up in arcades and later on home consoles, but at the time. NFSU was all we had.
When Should You Stop Modifying Your Car?
It’s another episode of CarTaku, our radio format call-in advice show, and the big question today is “how much is too much”, both in regards to mods and maintenance to salvaged cars. CarTaku is a good time and I think we’re going to make it a more regular thing.
The Celica GT-S Is Immune to Collector Car Tax
A model-focused episode, we look at the 7g Celica, and only the 2ZZ-powered GT-S. Great high revving engine mated to a six speed in a two door hatch: this formula somehow never really caught on with enthusiasts. Sure, there’s evidence of the usual goons getting hold of them in the 2000s and ruining them, but they just never rose to the same level of clout as, say, a Civic Si or Integra GS-R, even though they’re absolute rippers with the same capability.
The News
Neuroscientist Finds Driving A Manual Lights Up A Brain Region Automatics Let Sleep
A Japanese study, led by the creator of Nintendo’s Brain Age games, “found that the physical sequence of driving a manual lights up the prefrontal cortex, the region that handles memory, attention, and decision-making”. I gotta say, no shit. You ever notice how stupid the average driver is every time you get on the highway? This is going to come off very boomerish, but people used to be better drivers. We need more sticks. Maybe we need court-mandated stick shift cars for repeat offenders.
Slate Auto’s radically simple electric truck starts at $24,950
The starting price of the Slate, which “leaked” earlier in the week, is officially a hair under $25K. This little truck is extremely polarizing: many complain that to spec it to their comfort level it will cost thousands on top of the base price, while many others interject that it’d be a great barebones commuter car or fleet vehicle. Personally, I think you add some speakers, and this would be a great way to keep miles off something you actually care about. But then again, so would just about anything else under (or substantially under) $25K, like a third gen Ford Ranger or a Honda Fit or… you know, literally anything. Even still, sorry to say this, but I do kind of dig the Slate.
Nissan’s Shareholder Meeting Was So Bad That Someone Nominated Fugitive Carlos Ghosn To Run The Company Again
“We need a person like Carlos Ghosn. He had bad aspects, but he had good aspects as well,” said one attendee who wanted to restore the indicted fugitive executive to the board he was ejected from following his 2018 arrest on financial misconduct charges. “I want such a leader.”
Ford rehires ‘gray beard’ engineers after AI falls short
A little hopium, for now: Ford has been forced to hire around 350 veteran engineers because it turns out automated quality control doesn’t work yet. Expect a few more recalls this year, I guess.
Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, added, “Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product.”
Charles Poon lol
The Cars
1995 International 3800 Bookmobile
It’s a bookmobile. It’s the only bookmobile ever featured on Cars & Bids. This would be a killer camper.
2009 Lotus Exige S 260 Sport
Can we exceed the average asking price of a 4th gen Supra with this Toyota powered gem? Literally a 2ZZ, basically a swapped MR2 Spyder, currently over $70K bid with a week to go. These are too sick, but that’s too much.
Team O’Neil Rally School 1988 Volvo 240 DL
Just a sick brick with a stick and a nice pic. This rally school has several cars listed this week, and every single hero image is the car drifting in snow. Pretty rad, and beyond that, you never see these in manual.
1991 Honda Accord LX Sedan
Want to see the power of Honda Tax? Follow this auction. This basic transportation has only 70,000 miles on the clock and “long term ownership”, although the seller acquired it (to dump on CaB) this past month. Probably a nice payday for him.
1987 Toyota Land Cruiser VX
Now that’s just a handsome truck: kind of a Suburban-meets-Range Rover vibe. It even has the All Terrain T/As with the white letters out. Somebody knew what they were doing here.
1995 BMW 540i
Six speed manual swapped and sitting nice. 150K on the dash but BMW boys simply do not care. This one ends within 24 hours and is one to watch.
The End
I’m noticing that more and more, seemingly with each passing day, the average driver on the highway is more distracted, more angry, and generally just worse about everything related to driving a car. I know this is “old man yells at cloud” energy, but damn, what happened to drivers? Is it the fact that newer cars have so much nanny gear in them you barely have to pay attention to the road and can just stare at your phone constantly? Is it long ‘vid? Is the current political climate just making everyone big mad, so much so that it comes out in the form of furious, dangerous lane shifting? Is it the lack of traffic cops for the past half a decade, allowing this to all boil over unchecked? It’s probably all that and more, but good god is it getting downright unpleasant to share the roads with these braindead dipshits.
I’ve got people drifting into my lane, slamming on their brakes for nothing, doing half the speed limit, doing double the speed limit, jumping out in front of me in intersections when I have the right of way (I had to swerve into an oncoming lane a little while back now to narrowly avoid some NPC)… it never ends, it’s always something, it’s never nothing. When is this going to be addressed? How? Is it by design so we welcome the self-driving future? The motherfr*ckers need a stick shift to light up that prefrontal cortex.
If you subscribed to the newsletter, you’d get a chance to win a Scion mix CD or some other junk in my storage unit. But look at you, reading this on the website. Anyway,
See you Soon™.
-Feed