Expert automotive insights and mechanical wisdom from three decades of hands-on experience. From legendary engines to shop secrets, we explore what really happens under the hood.
Maserati cooked its own engine, regulations took the heat out Some engines explain themselves. Others hit you. The Nettuno does the first better than almost anything else alive. The second — no. And that’s exactly what you need to know before someone sells it to you as the future of Maserati. Because the future is … Read more
WEIGHT IS THE ENEMY: HOW YOUR TWO-TON CAR DESTROYS ROADS, PARKING STRUCTURES, YOUR WALLET AND PROBABLY YOUR LIFE Everything you’ve been told at the dealership is wrong. Every SUV ad showing a happy family crossing a mountain pass. Every brochure promising safety through size. Every assumption you’ve made about progress and protection. You’re about to … Read more
Ford Boss 302 vs Boss 429: Ford Built Two Race Engines for Two Different Wars. And Won Both. In 1969, Ford presented the world with two of the most radical engines it had ever installed in a road car. Both carried the “Boss” name. Both lived in the Mustang. Both existed for reasons that had … Read more
The 428 Cobra Jet: The Engine Ford Invented Because of a Rebel Dealer Some engines are born in high-tech engineering labs. Some are the result of years of strategic planning and multi-million dollar budgets. And then there are engines born because a dealer in Rhode Island got tired of watching his Mustangs lose at stoplights … Read more
Motor Oil: What Your Mechanic Isn’t Telling You (And What’s at Stake If You Choose Wrong) Your engine has blood. It’s called oil. And most drivers have absolutely no idea what’s flowing through their engine, why it matters, or how much money they’re throwing away by ignoring it. Let’s fix that today. Because no, not … Read more
The Subaru Boxer Engine: Not Too Reliable, But Tremendously Effective Some engines earn your respect through their reliability. Some earn it through their performance. And then there’s the Subaru boxer, which earns your respect despite everything, because what it does well, it does so extraordinarily well that you forgive everything else. Subaru’s horizontally-opposed engine — … Read more
The PCV Valve: The €80 Part That Kills €10,000 Engines Some car components have the decency to warn you before they fail like EGR, DPF or the Dual Mass Flywheel. They make noise, throw a warning light, lose power in ways you can actually feel. Then there’s the PCV valve. A component that costs between … Read more
The Dual Mass Flywheel — The Part That Sent More Cars to the Junkyard Than Actual Accidents There’s a moment every diesel car owner dreads. Not the moment the check engine light flickers on. Not the moment you hear something weird from the suspension. No. It’s the moment your mechanic looks you dead in the … Read more
PSA XUD: The Indestructible Atmospheric Diesel That Moved an Entire Continent If any engine deserves the title “workhorse of Europe,” it’s the PSA XUD. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t powerful. It had no turbo, no sophisticated electronic injection, nothing that could be considered remotely exciting. But it had something worth more than all of that … Read more
Ferrari’s Flat V12 Engines: Why They Howl and Why Nothing Else Sounds the Same Some sounds are burned into memory forever. The rumble of an American V8 at idle. The shriek of a Japanese four-cylinder at 9,000 rpm. But no mechanical sound in automotive history comes close to the supernatural howl of a Ferrari horizontally-opposed … Read more
The Diesel Particulate Filter: Ecology by Design, Breakdown by Default They sold it to you as an ecological breakthrough. A filter that traps harmful particles from your diesel exhaust and makes the world a cleaner place. Sounds good. Sounds responsible. Sounds like progress. Until it breaks. Until they tell you it costs two thousand euros. … Read more
The BMW M57D30: The Diesel That Silenced the Sceptics In a world where “diesel” and “excitement” rarely share a sentence, BMW built an engine that defied every prejudice. The M57D30, the inline-six turbodiesel that powered the E46 330d among other applications, didn’t just prove that a diesel could be refined and powerful. It proved that … Read more
