American Honda collection

More here. I would really like to visit this and the Toyota collection in Torrance.

Porsche Museum photos

H/t to @slirt, who visited the museum last week. These are my favorite oddball cars.

356 B 2000 GS Carrera GT "Dreikantschaber":

C88:

597:

1996 Porsche 993 police car:

Street-legal 911 GT1:

Swabian ravioli with potato salad and roasted onions (8.20 euros):

FLA:

989:

984:

928 cabriolet:

Thompson Twins

I heard this song on the radio last weekend on the way back from Thunderhill. It's refreshing that they haven't sold out because, to date, I have not heard any of their songs as a jingle for dish soap.

100 years of Greyhound

To celebrate, Greyhound is showing its old buses around the country. They will be in the Bay Area tomorrow and I'm going to try to check them out.

Proud Prius owner

I saw this at the Office Max parking lot today.

I also feel like venting that Office Max's selection of medium binder clips is woefully inadequate.

1976 BMW motorcycle assembly video

H/t Peter.

Norwegian Mercedes biodiesel rap video

Norwegian ladies are big boned.

H/t rchen

The World's Fastest Cars (9): Buick GNX

I must admit that when I first saw this in my book 25 years ago, I was flabbergasted. How could something that looked so much like my mom's Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme be so quick?

Only 500 of these were built, and only in 1987. It was the last rear-wheel drive Regal ever built, so Buick wanted to go with a bang. Mind you, the original Grand National, which was what the GNX was based on, was already faster than the Testarossa and 288 GTO.

Here is how they compared:
GN: 0-60 in 4.9 secs, 1/4 mile in 15.7 secs at 97.3 mph
GNX: 0-60 in 3.9 secs, 1/4 mile in 13.4 secs at 105 mph

The book talks about how ASC and McLaren (of Michigan) were involved in the car's development, but it's not clear how they made the GNX more powerful than the Grand National.

Here is an old Car & Driver clip on the GNX:

The World's Fastest Cars (8): BMW M6

The big point in the write-up is the difference in output between American and European variants. I remember as a kid, reading Car & Driver, miffed by the fact that European models of the same car were faster and had more horsepower. The M6, which was known as the M635CSi in Europe, had 286 hp over there and "just" 256 hp here.

The World's Fastest Cars (7): BMW M5

The thing I noticed most about the write-up about the M5 in my book is how many times it mentioned "West Germany" and "West German". 

The other thing: Despite weighing 800 pounds more than the E30 M3, on the Nurburgring, the M5 cornered just as fast.

Here is the M5 car chase from Ronin, for your viewing pleasure.