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Owning a convertible doesn’t have to be expensive

If you’ve always dreamed of driving through the country or along the coast in a cool and classy convertible but assumed that could never be a reality because of price, you could be wrong.

A web site, ClassicCars.com, has picked five used cars that fit the bill for summer fun, mostly small roadsters and under $10,000. Here’s the lineup:

MGB convertible

The MGB is called “every bit as fun and stylish as the pricier British roadsters.” There are many enthusiasts who own them and parts are still available to fix them, which judging from those we know who have owned one, you’ll be doing often. ClassicCars.com says the best years are 1966 or 1967. The 1970s ones are the cheapest.

Triumph TR6

The Triumph TR6 is set apart by what ClassicCars.com calls as “lusty six-cylinder engine.” It says the car has been underappreciated in the last decade, which could help when it comes to price.

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Even today, the Mazda MX-5 Miata is still made and has such devoted fans that Mazda has been able to drop the “Miata” part out of the name. It was introduced in 1990 and the early ones are fun because of their hidden headlights.

Nissan Juke driven 1 mile on 2 wheels, cool video

If you’re a car lover, you’ll probably think this is pretty cool. We do!

Driving up 1.16-mile hill climb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed is challenging enough to begin with, but it gets even more difficult if you decide to attempt the feat on only two wheels. British stuntman Terry Grant did just that, setting a new world record in a Nissan Juke Nismo RS — and breaking the record he set at Goodwood in 2011.

Grant drove two of the Nissan Juke Nismo RS’s wheels up a ramp and managed to continue driving the sporty crossover on two wheels all the way to the end of the course. He finished in 2 minutes, 10 seconds, setting a new world record for the fastest mile traveled by a four-wheel car on two wheels. That breaks Grant’s own record of 2 minutes, 55 seconds, which he set at Goodwood in 2011 in another Nissan Juke. (The outright record at Goodwood’s hill climb, incidentally, is 41.6 seconds and was set in a McLaren MP4-13 racing car in 1999.)

You can watch Grant’s achievement in the video here.

Bigger vehicles found to be safer

“Vehicle weight and price have a positive relationship with vehicle safety,” says Dietrich Jehle, MD, professor of emergency medicine in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Science. He recently did a study to determine whether or not bigger vehicles are actually safer than smaller ones.

Cars that you think are safe – regardless of their safety rating by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety –may not really be all that safe, if the findings of Jehle’s study are accurate.

“Neither media advertising nor the five-star safety ratings accurately reflect the level of danger or lack of danger in vehicles,” he adds. Why, you ask?

“When smaller cars hit a larger, moving vehicle, that change in velocity can force the smaller car to go into reverse, resulting in far more serious injuries to driver and passenger.” In this case, smaller vehicles would include any number of popular compact sedans, such as the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla.

So, which vehicles are the safest?

Click here to find out.

Planning tips for a perfect road trip

Summer is here which means road trip season is in full effect. Regardless of whether you’re hitting the road with friends or family, planning ahead is essential.

Road trips—where you take a long car ride and hit many stops on the way—present a unique set of challenges (and opportunities). Here are a few things you should keep in mind as you plan.

Plan your route and stops in advance

You know your destination, but deciding on your route and stops can really depend on your travel style. HowStuffWorks suggests you make sure everyone is on the same page before you leave to avoid being stuck in a car with unhappy passengers for 8 hours a day. If you have to travel with someone who’s style doesn’t mesh with yours, consider planning a shorter trip.

You’ll save yourself a lot of time and stress if you map out how you’re getting to your destination before you leave (obviously). These two services can help you plan.

Roadtrippers: We’ve talked about Roadtrippers before. The service uses Google-Maps based directions to lay out your route and helps you find all the stops along the way. You can now save trips and edit them too. With Roadtrippers you can also calculate fuel costs, time, and distance.
OnTheWay: Another app we’ve talked about before is OnTheWay, for iOS. The app can show you stops and restaurants along your route, but it can also help you find interesting things like museums, parks, and roadside attractions.

There are a lot of other apps you can use too, but these are two of the best. If you’re interested in some non-road-trip-specific travel planning apps, you can see what else we think is the best.

Get more helpful tips here.

What Features To Look For In A Car for Your Next Road Trip

Whether you’re making a trip to visit relatives across the country or enjoying a road trip with friends, long car rides can become uncomfortable. Simple attributes of your car will make the journey more enjoyable for all.

When I was 13, Cox and I had a heated discussion about the features and engineering that optimize a car for long-distance travel. Cox, a friend of my dad’s who had logged about a million highway miles, argued that the best machine for a long road trip was a silent, smooth-riding car like his Buick.

I scoffed. Buicks were bourgeois luxury barges that no real driver would be caught dead in. Although I had yet to drive a single highway mile, I declared that the ultimate car for a long trip was the Ford GT, a machine that had won the 24 Hours of Lemans. Never mind that the GT’s engine wailed away just millimeters from the driver’s skull, or that the interior was the size of a Guantanamo confinement box – this was a true driver’s machine that would be ideal for a major trip.

Or so I believed.

In the decades that have passed since that argument, I have learned a lot about what makes a great highway car – and I have also learned that the Colonel was smarter than I realized.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I did a 3,000-kilometre road trip to Georgia and back. We’ve done this trip in many different cars. In some, the trip was effortless. In others, it felt like a four-wheeled version of the Bataan Death March.

This got me thinking about the essence of the long-distance machine. What are the automotive qualities that make distance disappear?

To Read More Click Here