Anyone who forgets to clear the memory on his/her camera can occasionally be surprised with a few forgotten treats.  I just re-discovered a trip last summer to visit the ghosts of Mr. Norm’s Grand Spaulding Dodge in Chicago.

Norman Kraus was a dealer who became the Mopar performance car king.  Not long after he started selling Dodge products in 1962, Kraus shoved a 383 big block V8 into a compact Dart body just to show corporate executives that it could be done.  Mr. Norm, as his newspaper ads would refer to him, can be credited with everything from the 440 ci/375 hp V8 Darts GSS (Grand Spaulding Special) to working on the cars used in The Blues Brothers.  His dedication to performance even made Mr. Norm’s Grand Spaulding Dodge the number one Dodge dealer in the world by the early 1970s (read the full chronology here).

But all this was in better times.  Insurance killed the muscle cars, and high gas prices would slow his emerging custom van business.  Mr. Norm sold his share of the company in 1977.  The business would not make it through 1980.

The dealership would occasionally reopen under various used car businesses over the next few decades, but the facilities and its neighborhood were in a steady decline.  I would catch up with it near rock bottom.

Finding this place is not tough considering the dealership was named after its cross streets on the west side of Chicago (just make sure to do it in the daytime.)  The massive overgrowth on the lot signals that it has been quite some time since anything was parked here.  Today it is near impossible to imagine rows of Hemi cars flanked by shagin’ wagon custom vans.  A peek between the planks of the former sales office and showroom’s boarded up windows reveals a sad site.  Every Mopar heart hopes to see classic signage or possibly even a few parts, but the only thing visible is decay.  Much of the place seems to be littered with trash, but some of it seems like construction garbage, so there is still a little hope for another resurrection.

The truth is, just like the old Yenko Chevrolet building, Grand Spaulding Dodge is a relic past its heyday.  It is sad to see in person, but it is hard to be truly upset. If Mr. Norm’s Grand Spaulding Dodge had lived through to today, I would have found myself heartbroken.  To survive the last few decades, there would have been K-Cars, Neons, and Calibers parked on the hallowed ground that used to be reserved for Hemi, Six Pack, and Max Wedge machines.

Mr. Norm’s Grand Spaulding Dodge may not look pretty today, but in death, it preserves its legacy.

A recent drive in a new Mazda6 revealed a great sedan with sporty looks and the pickup to match.  Unfortunately, no matter how good the car is, it cannot save the company.  No one car can do that for Mazda because the company is too small as an independent in today’s market.  The survival strategy for this company with clever ideas but a lack of production size is somewhat reminiscent of a British firm.

Lotus has had more names on other people’s cars then their own.  This ranged from headlining the (Ford) Lotus Cortina sold in the U.K. to the Isuzu Impulses with the small “Handling by Lotus” badges on the fender.  Their engineering branch kept the company afloat in the lean times, and a modified situation like this seems to be shaping up at Mazda.

For example, Mazda is partnering with their cross-Japan rival to get a new subcompact on the road.  The next Mazda2 will also have a Toyota clone built a Mazda’s facility in Mexico.  Obviously they are not the only ones spreading the cost of little cars (just talk to Peugeot-Citroen,) but Mazda is far from done sharing.

The Mazda MX5 Miata was born out of the idea of building a European-style roadster with Japanese reliability.  This has been a great distinguishing trait of the company since 1989.  Now the idea has come full-circle as the next Mazda Miata is being developed jointly with Alfa Romeo so that the Italian firm can resurrect its famous Spider.

Moreover, Mazda is actively looking for partners that might want to use their latest engine, the SkyActiv series.  This motor platform is the future of the company, but they are more then happy to have other badges on the engine cover so that they can continue to come up with other good ideas like, well, SkyActiv.

Mazda’s most unique ace in the hole is the rotary engine.   They were not the only ones to use it, but Mazda has been the only company to successfully offer one for an extended length of time.  While the latest Wankel died with the RX-8 in 2011, it seems Mazda is still working on its development.  They are even rumored to be shopping around the idea of a compact rotary-electric hybrid motor to companies like General Motors.

In the end it appears that Mazda is selling out its engineering ideas and independent thinking to other companies so it can continue to have a future in making Zoom-Zoom cars.  This strategy can either be beneficial as Mazda gets to keep some corporate independence, or disastrous if consumers would prefer a car from a more staid brand like Toyota.  Still, just like Lotus, we’d rather have their ideas spread across the industry then not have them at all.

Top image: Mazda USA

If it were not for the roof, this factory would just be a footnote in Fiat’s history.  The facility was unique because cars would move up floors as they were being built, and the finished product would end up on the roof.  The cherry on this industrial-sized cake was high-speed test circuit.  This is where everything was tested from the production line Fiat 500s to the 160 mph Turbina concept car — all from six stories above the heart of Turin.

Fiat stopped production at Lingotto 30 years ago, but finding it is not hard.  When the cars moved out, a shopping mall, exhibition space, two hotels, and commercial offices moved in.  So there are plenty of signs for commercial space mecca, but any daydreams about driving up to the roof to do a few private hot laps should be squashed now.  Instead, this journey is all about what still remains from one of the world’s most intriguing factories.

Lingotto is hardly impressive from the outside.  The squared-off building looks like it could just as easily have made textiles in New England as legendary Italian cars.  The only hint that this place is different is that small pieces of the rooftop track’s sloped turns can be seen from the ground.

Since I don’t know enough about Lingotto, and I the data plan on my phone is shut off due to monstrous international rates, this is going to be an old-fashion fact-finding adventure.

Starting this expedition is very simple, because all roads lead to Lingotto’s second floor known as the “8 Gallery”.  This is the only tourist-friendly level with a colossal shopping mall that takes up the entire floor.  So anyone traveling with a non-automotive spouse can use visiting Lingotto as an excuse for picking up some Italian fashions.

I head southwest in search of any stairway or elevator that will take me up the next four floors.  I eventually dead-end at a security door with a hole large enough to look through.  I can clearly see one of the spiral ramps that the cars once took to the roof, success!…sorta.  Try to move in any closer, and the staff at the Intesa San Paolo Bank (who happen to have their lobby right next to this door) may want to have a word with you.

Since I don’t know how to beg forgiveness in Italian, I go in search of the northwest ramp.  The other end of this complex is home to everything from a movie theater to a dental college, so the ramp is used as part of the emergency exit system.  Access is quite open.  Simply hop on at any floor and proceed upwards — just as the Fiats did when they were produced decades earlier.

Just before the top, Olympic fans can can peer into a glass-walled lounge that looks like the doors were locked after the 2006 Winter Games and never touched again.

The ramp ends at a small greenhouse landing whose isolation is confirmed by the graffiti covered floor and smashed liquor bottles.  A sloped wall is unmistakably the underside of the track’s banked turn.  This is the perfect place to sneak onto the roof if the doors were not welded shut to discourage misfits from getting on the track….Strike two.

Visiting the ramps and only the back parts of the roof only make me determined to get a real view at the whole thing.

I start searching every stairway and corridor on the second level (i.e. the places that are really only open to those who work at Lingotto.)  The entire floor space between the ramps is large enough to land a plane, but has many small alcoves that hide access to businesses above and below the second level mall.  As I get a little more adventurous I stumble into the Lingotto police force headquarters, countless alarmed stairwells, and an auditorium full of Fiat executives in training.

Eventually I come across elevator tucked away from plain view.  It only has one destination available, a restaurant called La Pista Del Lingotto.  Those who speak Italian probably would have headed for this first considering the name translates to “The Track of the Lingotto”.

It seems like this article could have been a lot simpler if it just opened and closed with “Follow signs for La Pista Del Lingotto,” but there is a price for this access, literally.  Lunch starts at around $35 per person.   For those who don’t want to pay the price of a Six Flags ticket just to see a roof, the good news is the track is visible from the restaurant’s glass elevator.

The restaurant is not busy on off hours so you can remain in the elevator for extended periods of time.  A special bonus is watching delivery vehicles attempt the banked turns of the track as they bring supplies to the restaurant.

Along the way I also discovered that Lingotto’s hotel offers some views of the track, but having the lunch would certainly be a cheaper option.  Those who know a few people at Lingotto can make their way to the Globe, a rarely open rooftop private lounge/helipad that was added after car production stopped.  Also €4 gains entrance to The Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli — a rooftop art gallery.  This would offer an amazing track view, except it has no windows.  Still, you can catch glimpses of the track from the glass elevator and the gallery lobby.

So the moral of this (possibly too long) story is that there are many ways to get on top of the world’s coolest factory if you’re willing to get creative.  Happy hunting.

I am surprised that I am this upset, but yet I still feel compelled to share a stunt from a couple of morning show radio DJs who have watched a little too much Top Gear.  The team at the Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show tried to combine a cheap car challenge with a race to the English coast.  Unfortunately for the audience, the U.K. radio hosts were ambitious to think this act was anything but rubbish.

Two presenters drove an Austin Allegro from central London to Portsmouth — an epic journey that, according to Google Maps, is a less than two-hour drive without traffic.  Along the way the listeners/viewers were treated to mediocrity-aspiring bits like going to Krispy Kreme, achieving 70 mph, or filling the gas-powered car with diesel.

The last one was a mercy kill for the audience, but the deathblow for the car.

The Austin Allegro is the U.K.’s equivalent to the Chevrolet Vega or AMC Gremlin.  Once voted the worst car in Britain, it is far from the ultimate driving machine.  But today it enjoys a Yugo-like cult following that creates a nobody-beats-up-my-brother-but-me attitude.  It seems I am even one of those who has a bit of a soft spot for them as seen by my grin as I posed with a couple of the little guys in the above left gallery pic.  So no matter if this was intentional or an idiot’s collateral damage, the Allegro did not deserve to die from this force-fed stunt.

I don’t want to reward the radio station’s actions by featuring the video on this site, but at this point, I’ve written about it too much to stop some from seeking it out:

This stunt does not offend my love of classic cars (no matter how loosely “classic” is used here.)  It offends my sense of comedy.  While there was not much value to the Allegro, it was in good enough condition that it did not need to meet its demise at the hands of those who consider penis jokes a cornerstone of how to make their living.

These radio geniuses were trying for a piece of Top Gear, when the TG boys had already proven a much better way to kill an Allegro years earlier:

Next time Absolute Radio stick to what you know best…stay indoors and away from the camera.

Ducati is being bought by Audi.  I’m excited about this Italian going German because it will likely mean the return of one of my favorite brands: NSU.

Audi has carried the torch for a few long dead brands.  Up until 1985 it was known as Audi NSU Auto Union AG, even though NSU built its last car in 1977 and Audi replaced DKW as the prominent Auto Union brand in 1965.

Anytime I’ve spoken with Audi’s executives in Germany, they make their appreciation for the company’s history known.  NSU has deep roots in both cars and motorcycles, so a purchase of Duacati would give them a long-awaited opportunity to pay tribute to a brand lying dormant.

NSU is a personal favorite because they were the least German of the Germans.  They valued engineering like any stereotypical Deutschlander, but they also were spunky like the English or Italians.  NSU had some crazy ideas like feet-forward streamlined motorcycles, or allowing their car customers be the guinea pigs with the rotary engine.  The former obtained land speed records in the 1950s; the latter killed the company.

Just because I want the return of NSU, doesn’t mean I think that one purchase of a motorcycle company will fully bring back the car/bike brand.

First, NSU is not likely to ever return as a car company, because there is no need for a new NSU car.  Sure Audi recently flirted with a rotary engine with the A1 e-tron, but just because Audi is using an NSU idea doesn’t mean the whole name comes back.  Just look at the Audi TT — it carries the Audi name but the origin is a sports version of the compact NSU Prinz.

Second, Ducati is already a builder of supreme sport bikes.  It doesn’t need the NSU name to help sell high performance machines, and Audi is too smart to try force the NSU name on Ducati without a good reason.

Instead, I’m holding out hope for one of those great ‘ideas from a shed’ stories.  The kind of tale that starts with a few Audi engineers getting inspired by the Ducati purchase.  They let their hair down into free-flowing mullets, and after a few late nights working in someone’s home garage, a new and cool idea in motorcycles will emerge.  Ducati will have the ability to produce it, and Audi will have the power to slap an NSU badge on it.

That’s the realistic dream.

The St. Patrick’s Day parade in Delray Beach, Florida, was started in the 1960s by a pub owner who decided it was time to have a little fun.  He created an impromptu autocade by stopping traffic as he wandered through downtown.  Today the parade is significantly larger and more official, but the spirit of random amusement is still alive.

There is no better example of this than Billy (I’ll omit his last name to protect his innocence,) who kept a vehicle just to run in this parade.

It was a 1978 Gremlin X.  The car may have been semi-prestigious in AMC circles considering it was the Gremlin’s last production year, but this one had already seen better days.  “It was a ‘Push-it-in, Pull-it-in, Drag-it-in’ special,” said Billy when he discovered the car in 1997.  “I saw it sitting behind the dealership, the salesman felt bad charging me for it because it didn’t run: blown head gasket, no brakes, no floor boards and tons of rust.  We agreed upon $250 tax, tag, title and towed to my mechanic in Delray.”

Billy got the Gremlin running (barely).  He used a friend’s auto body shop to patch up the bodywork, the interior was treated to some leftover leopard print fabric, and the car received a fresh coat of lime green paint.   “I put a chrome strip on the bottom of the door that read ‘LIME GREEN LOVE MACHINE’.” A parade legend was born.

The rust could not be contained, and within a few years the Gremlin was once again in a very bad way.  The solution was 24 tubes of liquid nails and some green shag carpeting.  The fuzzy Gremlin was rechristened the “Shaggin’ Waggin” and once again hit the parade route.

The carpeting also had a positive effect of becoming the first bit on insulation the Gremlin had in years.  “The carpet stopped a lot of the odd noises,” Billy recalled.

From this point on Billy would give the car a new theme each year and pile in as many friends into the Gremlin who would dress the part.  The Gremlin would be altered and resprayed to match the motif.  Every new year Billy elected to paint over the shag carpeting considering it was now integral to the bodywork.

Other themes included Dukes of Hazzard, Hooters restaurant, Starsky & Hutch, Michael Jackson w/children (no kids were utilized or harmed in this incident), and Talladega Nights.

The Gremlin was always in a state of near self-destruction.  “Every parade we added two cans of stop leak to the radiator, the muffler broke in half and the exhaust leaked into the car slow and steadily,” remembered Billy.  “Cracked windshield, the rubber fuel lines corroded and were leaking directly onto the engine block.”

By 2008 the car was sadder than ever.  It was a miracle the rust had not buckled the Gremlin into two halves.  The painted over carpet was so thick that the doors could barely open.  It was now even hard for anyone to find motivation to work on it for one last parade.

Billy had a simple solution.  A hit of black paint and some red Christmas lights, and Kitt from Knight Rider was born.

Just in case those in the parade could not make the Firebird-Gremlin connection, Billy wrote “Don’t hassle the Hoff” along the doors as well as pasted a few of The Hoff’s more embarrassing press photos on the Gremlin’s large rear c-pillar.

The final piece of Kitt came in the form of two twelve-inch speakers mounted on the roof.  These were connected to an amplifier/CD player home unit that was likely pulled from someone’s living room earlier that day.  Billy had made a CD of the Knight Rider theme song, but unfortunately no one could figure out where the repeat button was on the player (remember this is St. Patrick’s Day.)

So that’s how I got to be one of the Gremlin’s last riders.  My job was to hit the play button after each time the single-track CD finished.  A small task that still fills me with Guinness-fueled pride when I think about it.

The Gremlin Kitt (or “Gremitt” as I called it) was a delight to the crowds as it slowly rolled through downtown Delray Beach.  It was also a constant annoyance to the three floats in front of us who had to endure two hours of the same two-minute theme song — the DJ could not realize how loud it actually was due to green beer and a mild exhaust leak.

The Gremlin didn’t live through that March.  “I finally put my bike in the back and drove it to the junk yard,” said Billy.  “It stalled every left turn and I coasted into the lot.  I gave them the title, keys and the car for $400.”

Billy pedaled himself home, and an era was ended.

This Saturday will be my first Delray  St. Patrick’s Day since the last ride of the Gremlin.  Amelia Island and/or the Geneva Motor Show has gotten in the way, and so I haven’t had to think about the Gremlin in a while.  I know Billy will be there.  He’s now a family man, and we’re all a little older.  So this year we’ll be off on the sidelines, but we’ll find some way to pay tribute to the best damn float that ever leaked fuel on that parade.

Even with the Bond cars on display at Beaulieu, this collection had significant vehicles in attendance such as the Aston Martin Vanquish from Die Another Day, the BMW Z8 from The World is Not Enough, and the Aston Martin DBS from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.  But there was one car missing: the iconic silver 1964 Aston Martin DB5.

In fairness to the organizers, a genuine DB5 used in a Bond film is quite hard to obtain.  Of the two cars used for Goldfinger, one sold to a private collector in 2010 for $4.6 million, and the other disappeared fifteen years ago… and I just remembered that I was standing at the scene of the crime.

In June of 1997, Aston Martin DB5 chassis #DP/216/1 was taken in a heist worthy of a Bond film.  Thieves came to the small Boca Raton Airport in dead of night, circumvented the security system, dragged the car out of the hangar, and then disappeared into the darkness.  The car never surfaced, and the case was never solved.

Chassis #DP/216/1 is considered to be the ultimate Bond collectible.  This was the only car originally fitted with the machine guns, oil sprayer, bullet shield, ejector seat, etc.  The second car was used for glamor shots (when it worked), and it was only outfitted with the gadgets when Bond’s DB5 became an icon.  If this were not enough, DP/216/1 is also highly prized in the Aston world for being built on a prototype chassis for the DB5.

So it is no wonder that a significant Bond DB5 would not want to show up to the scene of the ultimate Bond car heist.  After all, if you owned the other Goldfinger car (or two of the other DB5s used to promote the film,) you would be quite suspicious that this “event” was really just a trick by SPECTRE to get their hands on the rest of the double-oh cars.

The reality is much grimmer.  Although the theft was never solved, it has often been rumored that insurance money was a great motivator behind the Bond car’s disappearance.  Stories have swirled around — everything from the car being stripped for parts to it being thrown out of a plane over the ocean.  Regardless of gossip, the famous DB5 was declared a loss, and the owner received around $4 million for the settlement.

At least the car’s complete vanishing has a lack of closure that leaves the door open to my imagination.  I spent the rest of my evening only half paying attention to the vehicles of 007 and the hangar full of irony.  The rest of me was picturing Aston DP/216/1 in Blofeld’s basement as a trophy for the closest he ever came to catching Mr. Bond.

Mutually Assured Destruction, also known as MAD, is a stalemate that happens when two sides of an argument are so heavily and equally armed that no one goes to war because both sides are destined to lose.  But have Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ forgotten this military term when they planned to go to battle in the North American market?

It is not difficult to understand how these two companies got basically the same car.  Scion represents Toyota’s low cost lineup, and Toyota owns a part of Subaru.  But for how identical these two attractive coupes are, I can only hope that the auto executives fully understand the cannibalistic nature of these twins.

For example, if some corporate wizards have research that shows Scion can sell 40,000 FR-Ss annually over here and Subaru can sell 10,000 BRZs (not actual figures used), they hopefully realize total annual export to the North America IS NOT 50,000.  They share many of the same potential customers who want a sports coupe, and in the end, they have to chose one brand.  If Scion and Subaru are not financially prepared to take customers from each other, both cars could miss sales targets and destroy each other.

That is, of course, if customers are not completely annoyed that two companies are trying to sell almost exactly the same car. It is great that these cars combine Subaru sportiness with Toyota style (yes, in the world of Subaru, Toyota is the one with style.)   Selling nearly identical cars is accepted in Japan, but the FR-S/BRZ mashup is the kind of inter-corporate badge engineering not seen here since General Motors in the 1980s.  No one applauded when a grille became the largest distinction between an Oldsmobile and a Buick.

The Scion and the Subaru do offer some minor distinctions.  The suspension is probably the largest difference.  It is similar in both cars, but they are set up to give different driving characteristics.  This is the kind of driving feel that journalists and enthusiasts may recognize, but honestly, the average consumer will likely have a difficult time distinguishing the differences in the two razor sharp road burners.  So both cars are good, but once again, indistinguishable to many potential customers.

These cars may not even have to worry about stealing customers from each other if the FR-S and the BRZ cannot find a proper place in their brand’s lineup.  Scion and Subaru are both entering new territory with these sports cars.  So both coupes have great potential to help their badge, but there are also some easy pitfalls.

The FR-S is to Scion what the LF-A is to Lexus.  It is a great car to put at the top of the range to hopefully have some of its style and magic trickle down to the rest of the lineup.  The only problem is halo cars are often limited production, high price vehicles whose greater purpose is public relations more than sales.  That is the exact opposite of the aim of the FR-S.

Toyota should have some fear about customers walking into the Scion dealership and realizing that a $26k FR-S is the most expensive car to wear that badge by 35%.  As the first Scion to start above $20k, can the FR-S appeal to young professionals?  Will it pass the corporate parking test?

Every ambitious corporate nubie is concerned about his/her image.  So before buying a FR-S they are all going to wonder if they park next to the boss, will he respond, “Scion, eh? I think we got one of those for my son when he went off to school.”

If you don’t believe this is a problem, just talk to the folks at Subaru.  The last time they offered a sports coupe in the USA was the SVX.  When it debuted in 1992, its $26,250 base price was 25% higher then an option loaded Legacy, the next car down the ladder.  The SVX was a critic’s darling, but Subaru stuck its financial neck out too far and only sold 12,273 SVXs here in five years.

The FR-S is a far prettier car than the SVX, but it is suffering from a larger financial gap than the Subie.  This problem would not be quite so bad if those who are timid about spending that much cash on a Scion FR-S did not have the option to get basically the same car across the street at the Subaru dealership.

Since the days of the SVX, Subaru’s image has changed.  The company now has a bit of a rebel image thanks to the WRX (the Outback has also helped sustain a granola image, but I’ll leave that alone for now.)  Subaru has also broadened its offerings and raised their prices a bit, to where a sports coupe like the BRZ fits into the lineup as opposed to leads it.  In fact, it can be purchased for about the same money as the WRX.  But that doesn’t mean the BRZ fits well with Subaru either.

The BRZ will be the first Subaru sold here since 1980 that does not offer some form of all-wheel drive.  Subaru even had to change its motto from “The Beauty of All Wheel Drive” to “Confidence in Motion” because of the rear-wheeled BRZ.

The BRZ will likely do a good job of attracting a new crop of people to Subaru, but because it is so different than anything else, will these new customers want anything else from Subrau?  What about the Subie loyalists? How many are going to give up their beloved all-wheel drive to get a swoopy coupe?

In the end, I love both of these cars.  The Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ represent some of the best sports coupe style and substance for under $30,000.  My concern comes purely from a business standpoint because neither one of these cars fit well into their lineups.  This means they have the potential to be shining stars that help expand the horizons of their brands.  On the other hand, they could kill each other as they have to fight for the same confused customer.

The next generation of cars will likely kill some of our next generation of drivers.  I am sure of this thanks to a demonstration by Ford.

All of the car companies are developing technology that allows cars to talk to each other.  Similar to a wifi signal, the cars of the future will be able to locally broadcast all of their pertinent information such as GPS position, speed, rate of acceleration/deceleration, if brakes are being applied, and other data.  The signal is uniform, so cars of all makes can talk to each other.  This allows all the cars to create their own virtual grid that can detect a possible collision.

Ford happened to give this demonstration by running journalists thought a driving course at full speed.  There were other cars running around, but all were hidden by obstacles.  In each case the cars detected each other and alerted the driver before anyone could make visual confirmation.

This is all great, right?  Well almost…

Those of us who already know how to drive know to constantly scan our surroundings, so having the car do it, too, is a great help.  But what about those who will first learn to drive in this era of truly smart cars?

A few years after this technology is standard in all vehicles drivers will begin to assume that the car will do the accident avoidance.  All of us will get a little lazier about our safety habits.  I’m willing to bet that while the experienced drivers will only be on auto pilot occasionally, the new drivers may put their lives solely in the car’s hands.

This is not a problem ignored by the automakers.  Ford specifically mentioned during its tech demonstration that it was working on ideas to retrofit the car communication system into older models.  The problem is that to modify these older models takes an active plan by the automakers, the government, and each vehicle owner.

How often do you take your car in for a recall? Can cars that pre-date the microchip support this technology? How many classic car owners will let the dealer turn a wrench on their pride and joy? Do you think everyone will want what is basically a black box in their cars? (most don’t know they already have one.)

Questions like these mean there will certainly be a gap between cars with the communications technology and the old ones that keep the info to themselves.  So, this creates a situation where the statistically least responsible and most irritate drivers (i.e. teenagers) will be relying heavily on computer intervention for accident prevention.  Also, it is likely the heavier and less responsive cars (i.e. classics) that will not be communicating with the automobile grid.

Like ammonia and bleach, this is a recipe for disaster that most people know to avoid but still occasionally happens.  And just like that chemical mixture, this car communication cocktail seems just as deadly.

I am convinced that this new technology is worthwhile and necessary.  I also know there will be some tragic results with people caught in the gap.