John’s comment the other day about print being dead or dying got me thinking about the car magazines that I buy. It’s true that newspaper and magazine circulation has been shrinking, but like anything, the pick of the crop always survives. And really, if you’re going to spend your hard-earned money on car magazines they may as well be good ones, right? Being a one-eyed Mopar fan, I subscribe to Mopar Muscle and Mopar Action. Both are always informative and have a lot of tech articles, but I’m probably going to drop my subscription to Action because I prefer the editorial style of Muscle. Also, because I’m a car nut, I do occasionally stray to the dark side and read about other makes, and for this reason I can often be seen browsing the pages of general-purpose mags Muscle Car Review and Car Craft. Those are my top choices—what are yours?

Have you ever had one of those freaky moments with your car when something really odd happened? It happened to me last week when the gears in my Valiant all moved up a notch. Drive was suddenly in neutral, neutral was in reverse and park had vanished completely. It turns out that my gear box link bush had decided to give up the ghost. This reminded me of another freaky event that I heard about: the Mopar in question had worked perfectly for years but then one day the owner found he couldn’t turn it off! The car turned on and ran beautifully but when it came to switching off the motor it refused to do so until the battery was disconnected. Apparently the metal around an earthing wire had rusted and the problem was solved by moving the wire to an area where there was no cancer. What about you—have any freaky malfunctions plagued your car?

So maybe you’ve done an advanced driving course or two. Or you might be a weekend racer who enjoys getting your thrills around the track or on the strip. Either way, you might think that you have pushed your driving skills to the max. Well think again, because it’s time to take it to the next level. In my part of the world, Driver Dynamics is offering stunt driving courses, and they seem to be the real deal. While it’s only a one-day course, it has participants practicing multiple 360 spins, 180-degree handbrake turns, and two-wheel driving. But the real icing on the cake with this course is that participants get to do ramp-to-ramp jumps. How about you guys—anyone done any stunt-driver training before?

Do you suffer from driver’s remorse? Is there something you’ve done on the road that you regret, like cutting someone off in traffic or flipping them the bird? I did something about 20 years that I’m ashamed of and would never recommend as a course of action. Some friends and I were out on the town, but the area we were in was notoriously difficult for parking. After driving around for half an hour we finally came across a spot, only to be cut off by another car. To add insult to injury, the occupants laughed and pointed at us and one of them gave us the bird! I simply kept driving and eventually found another spot. But the mistake those guys made was that I knew where they were parked, and yep, I responded to their slight in a totally idiotic and childlike manner. At the time I was carrying a tyre valve tool that allowed me to remove the valve internals and let the air out of the offending car’s tyres. I knew it was wrong, but I had to wonder what their reactions would be when they realised that not only were their tyres flat but they were unable to pump them up. Still—hardly my proudest moment. Do you suffer from any driver’s remorse?

The car scene is like any other in that certain trends come and go. I remember some trends with fondness, like when Vans were cool back in the 70s and 80s. However, there are some that I wish would just go away. One of them is this whole "rat rod" thing. As I understand it, the term refers to a hot rod or custom that appears to be in an unfinished state, evoking the run-what-you-brung days of hot rodding, when owners would use whatever was on hand to get and keep their cars on the road. I don’t have a problem with that, but what really annoys me is that quite a few people are stating that they have a "rat rod" when what they do in fact have is just an incomplete piece of crap. Then there are those who I just don’t understand, like this gentleman selling his so-called rat-rod Rambler on eBay. There’s nothing "rat" about this ride—it’s just a matte-black Rambler with red wheels, so what? I don’t know if it’s really just come down to throwing around a trendy term, but as far as I’m concerned you either have a hot rod or a custom whether it’s finished or not. I think it’s time we buried this entire "rat rod" thing. What do you think?

As you might have noticed, I’ve been having some problems with my Valiant recently. First it was the water pump that failed, and then last week it was the ignition switch. Unfortunately this has resulted in the mighty Valiant being off the road longer than I would have liked. It’s too far to walk to the train station in the morning, and I simply refuse to leave my Plymouth parked there. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I’ve had to resort to another type of car: I have been driving my sister’s Hyundai Excel while she’s overseas. Every Mopar bone in my body is telling me not to say it, but I have actually been impressed with this little econo box. It runs on the smell of an oily rag, it’s easy to park, and being a stick shift it does actually get up and go when needed. Admittedly it will never give me the power, performance and comfort of my own cars, but it does the job for short trips around town I’d be happy to recommend it to anyone who’s after an econo box for urban commuting. Do you drive a car that people would be surprised to see you in?

Being the car nut that I am, I sure don’t like seeing a classic car going downhill. You may be familiar with the story: someone owns a piece of motoring history but doesn’t realize what they have (or doesn’t care) so the car doesn’t get looked after. I’ve seen this Chrysler Coupe quite a few times in my area and I finally decided to have a look at it on Saturday. On the surface it appears very salvageable but after taking a closer look, I’ve concluded that it has just become a beat-up daily driver that needs a total restoration. The sad thing is that it’s actually a rare car. Chrysler Australia only made a small number of Coupes in the early 70s. You’d think that with this kind of rarity, someone would be keen to restore it to its former glory. We can only hope that the owner might eventually sell it to someone who has the passion to give it a chance at a second life, and if I had the money, I’d make the owner an offer myself. Have you ever been frustrated to see classics put out to pasture?

I have always found it interesting to see how many "concept" cars never make it beyond the prototype stage. Typically, they show up at a few motor shows and then are never seen again. Often these cars are just being used as test beds for drivetrains that will go into standard models, or they have simply been a marketing tool to heighten interest in a brand. One example that comes to mind is the 2004 Ford Cobra concept. It was a great looking car, but sadly it never went into production. Not to be deterred, Denis Bedford from Australia decided that he would build a 2004 Cobra replica kit. Those who know their Aussie motoring history would realize that if anyone could pull this off it would be Denis. He earned his place in automotive history by first producing his Volkswagen-based Sabre kit cars, and went on to produce a vintage Cobra kit as well as a GT40 kit. While he eventually sold his interest in DRB Sportscars, retirement apparently did not sit well with Denis and it wasn’t long before the first 2004 Cobra kit, rebadged the "SC 540," rolled out of his factory. Because the car is based on a modern BA Ford Falcon drivetrain, construction should be relatively simple as it uses the complete wiring harness and other major components such as brakes, gearbox and motor. I’d really like to know what Ford and Carol Shelby think. What’s your take on this new kit car?

I have to say that I’m always surprised by the number of ads that you find on eBay and in car mags where owners are selling their cars because they have "lost interest" in their projects. I sometimes wonder why they’ve lost interest: was it because they realized that life isn’t like a TV show where your car gets restored in an hour, but can in fact take months or even years? Did it just suddenly stop being enjoyable and just became hard work? There are a couple of things that may help you keep your project alive. Before you even buy the car of your dreams, you should consider what will be involved. Will it be a cosmetic makeover or will you be doing a complete nut-and-bolt restoration? Will you be doing most of the work yourself or will you be farming it out? Once you set aside the emotion involved in buying your project and hit it with a dose of reality, you’ll have a clearer perspective of what it is you want to achieve and how you might go about doing it. Then, once you do get started on your project, it’s important to keep yourself motivated. It’s not always clear sailing and you should know what motivates you just in case your project does bog down. Personally for me, going to car shows helps a lot. I get excited by seeing how my car could look by seeing other completed examples. So what motivates you to keep going with your project?

Ever told yourself "this won’t take long" when starting a job on your car? I did this on Saturday, and unfortunately I was wrong. The water pump on my 265 Hemi had given up the ghost, and replacing these is usually a pretty easy job—all you need to do is remove the radiator and hoses, unbolt the fan and then remove the water pump and replace it with the new unit. But of course, the new water pump didn’t take: I noticed a leak so I had to repeat the process to reseal it. When I removed the radiator a second time the cooling tube that runs from the transmission into the bottom of the radiator cracked, but the only way to replace it required dropping the exhaust! What should have been an hour-long job wound up taking me about half a day. And the annoying thing about all of this is that I only replaced the water pump a couple of years ago. Recently I also went through two converters for my LPG (propane) system in one year! I have spoken to some friends and we have all come to the same conclusion—there’s a ton of parts on the market that are not being made with the same quality as compared to 20 or 30 years ago. After all, my other Plymouth is 40 years old but it still has the original water pump, and a recent exam showed it to be in great condition. What do you think, are some repo parts not being made as well as they should be?