i spied a curious 1996 volkswagen golf parked in and around the general vicinity of my work-place. upon the first sighting i assumed it was owned and customized by some wacky artist trying to assert his/her artiness as it is always parked by a cluster of fine galleries. the next time i saw it i decided on two things: 1) i need to do a bit of research (which these days counts as spending 15 seconds on google) 2) i had to have one. i quickly discovered these multicolor golfs were factory made limited editions of approximately 260 cars and came in 4 color variations…. you can tell the original color of each version by the roof and rear pillar colors…. this car was originally blue and then panels were switched at factory. if anyone knows of a good condition harlequin for sale with a manual transmission i have cash money waiting for an acquisition. (photo courtesy Chris Haak as i haven’t been able to capture my local harlequin in motion)

for some reason the sighting of this lone ferrari 328 in paris reminds me of the masterful paul bowles prose le bapteme de la solitude. having purchased a vintage ferrari within the last year, i can almost equate the following passage with the experience of purchasing, owning and driving a ferrari… stupid, i know. there is something broken about a man who decides to buy a ferrari… a self destructive and nihilistic act… here it goes: “It is a unique sensation and has nothing to do with loneliness, for loneliness presupposes memory. Here, in this wholly mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares, even memory disappears; nothing is left but your own breathing and the sound of your heart beating. A strange, and by no means pleasant, process of reintegration begins inside you, and you have the choice of fighting against it, and insisting on remaining the person you have always been, or letting it take its course. For no one who has stayed in the Sahara for awhile is quite the same as when he came. Perhaps the logical question to ask at this point is : Why Go? The answer is that when a man has been there and undergone the baptism of solitude he can’t help himself. Once he has been under the spell of the vast, luminous, silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute. He will go back, whatever the cost in comfort and money, for the absolute has no price.”

the first generation honda prelude was a curious ‘sports car’… merely a sports car in name as surely a true sports car cannot be created based on a honda civic and conjured together with a few stretches of sheet metal, a paper-clip and some chewing gum. most first generation preludes (1979-1982) have been resting in the bone yard for quite a spell by now. this example sported large diameter wheels and was in excellent condition…… a rare sighting of a car whose philosophical heritage at best can be traced to the volkswagen beetle derived karmann-ghia, but that is giving the prelude and honda a hell of a lot more credit than due.

relying exclusively on the iphone to shoot photos has its hazards and can produce random accidental results. i have positively identified the subject as a 1964 cadillac de ville based on forensic research of tail fins. this car was heavily modified complete with a sawzall convertible top and outrageous paint…… so i scrambled to to get my iphone ready to shoot. the iphone can have unpredicatble shutter speeds and though the car was in frame, by the time the shutter opened and closed we were left with just a tiny snippet of fin. but damn it all to hell, i do like it !

the 2001-2006 iteration of the mini cooper was a game-changing automotive break through. with uncanny performance, quality, design and of course the bulldog ‘wide stance’ this car was unlike anything offered before or since. BMW, in its infinite wisdom, recognized that the public was ready for a small high performance hatch-back ‘luxury car’. wait a minute, a hatchback ?? yes! a hatchback. a throw-back to the eighties and continuing in the path blazed not only by the original mini but also by the VW GTI and peugeot 205, this mini was definitely no chevette. who woulda thunk this was possible ? certainly not rover, bmw’s initial partner in the project as rover wanted an economy car, whilst BMW supported a small sporting car and finally prevailed and thank goodness they did !

this jaguar was spotted zipping around the Arc de Triomphe in paris france, which was a spectacular sight to behold….. it is amazing there wasn’t more accidents as the cars zip about seemingly willy-nilly with no lanes nor ryhme-reason. the series III jaguar xj6 is a very nifty car, i once owned a 1987 and from a design perspective it was uncanny inside and out. i shudder to think that many of these cars received chevy V8′s at the hands of misguided ugly americans thinking they were improving them.

(Spotted in portland on highway 26 east) When Alessandro de Tomaso acquired Maserati in 1976, he had ambitious plans for the marque. His plan was to combine the prestige of the Maserati brand with a sports car that would be more affordable than the earlier high-priced models that had traditionally made up the Maserati range. In fact, Maserati ceased making supercars like the ones developed under Citroën ownership altogether, like the Bora and Khamsin. The Biturbo was initially a strong seller and brought Italian prestige to a wide audience, with sales of about 40,000 units. Sales figures fell in subsequent years, until de Tomaso sold the company to Fiat. Biturbo is number 28 in the BBC book of “Crap Cars” and is Time Magazine’s worst car of 1984. (from wikipedia)