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Auto-Biography Archive
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Auto-Biography: My ’66 F100 Finally Gets A Roof Over Its Head After Spending Its Whole Life Outside
Posted on June 23, 2024 | 20 CommentsBetter late than never? In a sign of mellowing that seems to come inevitably with old age, I’ve become a bit less harsh on my cars (and people?). I was […] -
Auto-Biography: The Volvo Concept Car – A 700-Series Preview
Posted on June 23, 2024 | 15 CommentsBy late 1979, I had been a full-time permanent employee of Volvo of America Corporation for nearly two years, a welcome change from my earlier status as a “permanent temporary” […] -
Auto-Biography: Gen1 Taurus – My Father Finally Takes My Advice and Treats Himself to a Nice Car
Posted on June 16, 2024 | 41 Comments(first posted 6/17/2018) Father-son relationships can be complicated. Sons naturally want to exert their ever-growing prowess, which is a good thing when it’s channeled properly, but when it […] -
Auto-Biography: The Volvo RoadSport — Volvo’s Turbo Powered 1977 Show Car
Posted on June 16, 2024 | 8 CommentsThe RoadSport was another special project I was fortunate enough to be involved in during my early years at Volvo. To set the stage a bit, we’ll first take a […] -
Auto-Biography Capsule: 1965 Ford Falcon Futura Hardtop – The O’Neill-Mobile
Posted on June 15, 2024 | 40 Comments(posted at the Cohort by Staxman) (first posted 6/13/2018) Maybe I should start a series of the cars of my Boy Scout troop leaders. The memories made riding […] -
Auto-Biography: The Volvo Safety Concept Car Of 1978
Posted on June 9, 2024 | 16 Comments“Cars are driven by people. The guiding principle behind everything we make at Volvo, therefore, is, and must remain, safety.” This sentiment was originally attributed to the Swedish automaker’s co-founders, […] -
CC Memoir: My Checkered Career With Checker Cabs
Posted on June 4, 2024 | 94 Comments(all photos by the author) (first posted 8/25/12) My first real job was in the summer of 1964 when I worked for a taxi company in San Juan, Puerto Rico. […] -
Auto-Biography: The Volvo 343 GT Project
Posted on June 2, 2024 | 27 CommentsOne of the parking-lot curiosities I noticed after joining Volvo of America Corporation in mid-1976 was a diminutive, boxy two-door sedan that bore absolutely no resemblance to any of […] -
COAL: The ’67 Alpine — A “Failure to Proceed”
Posted on May 26, 2024 | 7 CommentsAll was well for the first several months of my ownership of my first “fun car”, the ’67 Sunbeam Alpine. I drove it to work a few times, braving […] -
Auto-Biography: Emblematic of Emissions
Posted on May 19, 2024 | 28 CommentsOne of the significant contributors to what is sometimes referred to as the “Malaise Era” in automotive history was the industry’s need to comply with increasingly strict exhaust emissions […] -
Auto-Biography: Lost Vintage Snapshots of Niedermeyer-Mobiles Found (1965-1982)
Posted on May 14, 2024 | 29 Commentstaking my brothers for a drive, age 12 I visited my youngest brother Franz in Seattle a couple of weeks ago and asked him about old family photos. He dug […] -
Auto-Biography: Volvo and the Odd Man Hypothesis
Posted on April 28, 2024 | 15 CommentsThe “odd man hypothesis” was first advanced in Michael Crichton’s 1969 seminal techno-thriller novel The Andromeda Strain. Crichton presented it so convincingly that for decades afterward, I believed it to […] -
Auto-Biography: The ’74 Audi Fox Becomes a Commuter Car
Posted on April 21, 2024 | 14 CommentsWhen we last left this saga, I was deep into my year at Syracuse University and had exposed my ’74 Audi Fox to the worst of a typical Central New […] -
Auto-Biography: Thinking Small in Syracuse — The PTV (Personal Transportation Vehicle) Project
Posted on April 14, 2024 | 14 CommentsMan, I really hit a nerve with my Audi Fox recollections. Who would have thought that a simple, square-rigged, German two-door would have elicited such emotion? There are more foxy […] -
Curbside Classic: 1968 Chrysler Newport – My Fountain Of Youth
Posted on March 26, 2024 | 67 Comments(first posted 3/26/2018) Most of us have fond memories of the cars of our youth. Didn’t you just love the stuff that was in showrooms before you reached, say, […]