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This site is about cars, all sorts of cars. Vintage cars, new cars, the mundane and the magical. And about the people who drive — and drove — them. (Nostalgia will be knife-spreadable here.) You’ll find personal stories of the people who drove race cars with skill and speed — Fangio, Moss, Phil Hill, Jimmy Clark, Fireball Roberts, the Unsers, the Rodriguez brothers. And, too, you’ll read of ordinary people who, alas, drive us to despair.

This site deals with what to drive (I recently experienced the Bugatti Veyron); where to drive (some great roads I’ll tell you about); and how to drive (some tips and admonitions to make those despair-makers more like me and thee.)

I’ve been at both driving and writing a looong time. I got my first driver’s license in 1940. Some ten years later I was writing about, among other things, cars. Some of those other things will show up here, too. But mostly cars, trucks and a few motorcycles. Well, an airplane or two. Yes, and skis. But mostly cars.
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Review: 2012 Fisker Karma

Car design is more subjective than car performance. Zero to 60 has a stop-watch time; braking has a distance; even cornering has measurable specifics. But design, though it has its canons, is more open to personal partialities. What appeals to me in the design of a car is a certainty of bearing and manner. Something expressing confidence that falls short of arrogance but wears its assurance like a favorite no-name watch.

Anyone conversant with automotive design would expect a car with the name “Fisker” on it to display the required aplomb. And indeed the Fisker Karma, a four-door four-place grand touring car has the calm effrontery to disrupt conversations mid- sentence, to snap a neck or two. Its presence is not immediately definable. I like that. And the design expends no effort to be ingratiating. It’s simply there. At a still point. The rest is up to you.

On “Bricks” and Hand Pumps: Musings on New Technology

[Published on The Detroit Bureau]

Tesla’s battery problems provide a much-needed warning.

New technologies — or new developments in old technologies – require their users to click out of their half-asleep automatic response and be consciously aware of the best way to deal with this new stuff. When the new patterns of response are tweaked to the most appropriate actions then it’s safe to revert to robot mode.

From long ago I recall my country cousins on the family homestead had a hand pump on their kitchen sink. The town-kid in me thought this “new” thing was the cat’s pajamas. But then it was updated to mundane faucets much like we had. Star-shaped with “C” and “H” in the center.

The old hand pump simply stopped its intermittent gushing when whoever was pumping stopped pumping. And when the faucets were first installed I remember my cousins had to sometimes turn back to the sink to turn them off. But not for long. The new twist-off behavior quickly replaced the pump technology in their automation map.

So leap decades ahead and ask Prius owners how many left their new car “on” all night when they first got it. Count the sheepish looks and not the hands. Shows you not everyone had Windows and were thus trained by Bill Gates to push “Start” to shut something off.

Now it seems that any owner of Tesla’s lovely little Lotus-derived Roadster, which is dependent entirely on lithium-ion batteries for its motive force, need to examine their automatic responses to a vehicle’s needs or suffer some egregiously costly consequences.

Photos and stories of Fangio, Stirling Moss, Phil Hill, the Rodriguez brothers brought to your car club gathering or corporate meeting. Questions answered. For a women's group: "Being Safe In and Around an Automobile." And along with Personal Car Consultant Fred Vang, "Choosing, Paying For and Tending To a New Car."

Write info@denisemccluggage.com.

6/23/11 - TRAVEL BUG
I think of Santa Fe's Travel Bug as "The Map Store" and confound people when I say that's where I'll meet them for tea (or coffee if they must.)

But there are more maps here than ever existed when cartography was middle-aged. Books too, travel guides yes, but books about the places as well.
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Youtube, Denise on "To Tell The Truth", 1959.



Findings: The Perfect Bungee
I’ve always said that if you couldn’t do it with WD40, a bungee cord or a skinny dime it didn’t deserve to be done ...

Findings: Motormouse
Not many sleek sports cars fit in a soft pouch, but this one does ...

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