Vehicles spotted in your neighborhood

Trip to EMEA, you get to see something other than a mid-size SUV.

London was silly with DB11s. Here are 2 of the 6 I saw in one day around Kensington.



Maserati also in Kensington.

Mid-size Jag SUV in Kensington

In the parking lot of St. Thomas Hospital in London, a 4-door Smart Car. Never seen one before.

Moving onto Milan.

R8 convertible.


I went to a scambio (swap meet) in Imola on the weekend. Some cool bikes.



Ended up in Geneva. Who doesn’t like a slammed wagon sporting 19s?

Those motorcycles are amazing! Thanks for sharing!

looks like a good trip, Iab!

I love these old Cherokees. This one on newer Jeep wheels really pops. It is almost like an SUV version of a Volvo 850 wagon.

I couldn’t resist these Mercury Cougar tail lamps.


It was DTM day at Cars and Coffee this week:























Every so often I tell someone that I could just put my kids car seats in the front of an old Miata/914 and people shout, “THAT’S ILLEGAL!” No…it’s just not safe if there is an airbag. +1 for this Ferrari owner!

same with 2 seat pickup trucks. Not illegal with a 2 seater and I think all 2 seaters have the ability to turn off the passenger airbag for this very reason.

It’s not just the airbag. Infant seats must be rear facing. Kids should be in car seats in the back. I don’t know if it’s illegal but what’s having a dead kid vs a cool car anyhow? Older kids in vintage cars are fine but I would never put a baby in a death trap like that.

R

Hope that Ferrari is a joke.

Theres no saying thats an infant seat - most car seats now are designed to convert to boosters. The one I have is designed for kids up to 50 lbs, so a 30-40lb child shouldn’t be at any higher risk facing forward in the front of a 2-seater as long as the airbag disengage works as intended.

Every car I can think of that I owned back to ~2010 would auto disengage the passenger airbags if it detected more than ~20 lbs on the seat. I usually set mine off even with my briefcase or takeout.

People used to stick their kids in the middle of the first row with nothing but a lap belt or in the backwards trunk of a station wagon where they’d be the first things hit in a rear impact…somehow most of us survived the 80’s.

Rear facing should be in the back. It’s always safer to be in the rear seats in an accident, but let the kid live a little.

FYI: My dad drove an El Camino until I was 8.

Ray, what age did you start letting your kids in the Miata? My nephew wants to go in my TT but he is only 4.

I sold the Miata when my first one was born :~( I’m more responsible than my dad.

This is a forward facing 5-point seat. Could be a 4-year old in there…

Back seat is safest, obviously. But plenty of people use pickups (as stated earlier) and two-seat cars to transport children. Front seats have a weight sensor to activate the airbag, if there is one.

‪I can’t think of the last time I saw one of these GM “DustBuster” vans in such mint condition. With all the simple autonomous car concepts coming out this looks pretty on trend right now. ‬

Wow. I am being a dad as bad as my own dad was. Deliberately.

My old man still has the Miata, that he bought in h i s midlife crisis. He is 75 by now. My daughters had been whining and pestering me, that they wanted to go with that cute little car from the youngest age. It was a price, that when tall enough to ride on a child booster in the front each of them could go with granddad to have an ice cream.

Imagine those brimming faces young and old.

Of course we are acting more responsibly than the last generations, but we are also on the verge of overdoing it. Some little sprogs have wristwatches on them, which are traceable.

P.S.: The first time I was in a Ferrari I rode shotgun with my best pal in his uncles 328 GTSi. Will never forget the ride and how we both squeezed on one passenger seat as his uncle was either talking on his mobile phone (late eighties!) or busting the speed limit, or both.

Let your kids live a little !

mo-i

Could be tragically ironic. Just sayin.

(Says the guy who went 0-100-0 in under 8 seconds at about age of 8 in the passenger seat of a competition-ready 427 Cobra.)

There is this dealership about 4 blocks away called Matthew’s Memory Lane Motors…





First class meeting of the fall quarter at UW was last night. I planned to park in the usual lot on the edge of campus, where you have to walk up seven flights of stairs. Saw this shiny new car parked in the lot as well so I thought I’d get a photo of my truck and this thing. Talked a bit with the student who showed up, and threw his backpack in the rear before getting in. “Nice car.” “Thanks.”

$300,000 college beater.
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