1993 Mazda RX7 (FD3S)

What can I say about the FD...beautiful styling inside and out plus it's got a twin-turbo rotary. If you've never driven a rotary engined car before, it feels very different...very smooth and very quiet until you are starting to redline...even then the sound is unlike a piston engine.


I bought it in 1999 (about the same time as my 1971 P1800, talk about digging a money pit for myself and these were my daily drivers!). I remember when I was in the market for my first car (after college) in 1992, this car just came out. I thought it was the most beautiful Japanese car ever. Of course, I didn't have the finances to get this, but I did get another Mazda, an MX3 with the "world's smallest production" V6.


I kept this for about one year due to a lot of mechanical problems with the car (I replaced the transmission and radiator - ultra expensive) and the turbos would have needed to be replaced soon after. I sold this to a guy who actually flew down from S.F. to buy this car. A few years later, I saw this same car back in L.A. Weird huh.

1971 Volvo P1800

I found these photos while I was cleaning up my house last month. My 1971 P1800, I was only one year old when this car was manufactured! I bought this around 1999 and kept it for about one year. Why did I buy this? Like most car guys, I just wanted to get a vintage car, sort of a rite of passage for gearheads I guess. Plus, this thing is a beauty (check out the fins), Swedish car styled by an Italian designer.


Trivia: this was actually the model used by Roger Moore in the TV series "The Saint" in the UK. You've probably never seen the show unless you lived in Europe. I put a lot of money to fix this car: new original grill surround, new brakes, new tires, new original wheel rings, new original exhaust, new original steel trim pieces, new interior leather/carpet. I remember going to the only mechanic in town that knew about this car almost every week to fix something.


I remember going to work in this thing and going 80mph on the freeway and everything was vibrating/buzzing in the car (and the rearview mirror fell off - everytime). Total insanity! Towards the end, with most foreign vintage cars, the parts were extremely hard to find and it was very difficult to bring this car to the standards I wanted. A buyer came with his whole family to check out the car and bought it on the spot.

Jaguar C-XF

I was browsing photos of concept cars at the 2007 Detroit Autoshow on Autoweek.com. The concept that strikes me the most intriguing is the Jaguar C-XF concept. Jaguar vehicles up to now (and I'm including the new XK) are not really that desirable, way too conservative and retro. But if they can make the upcoming S-Type look very close to the C-XF, they will get a lot of buyers who would typically not even consider a Jaguar. Ian Callum definitely is back in fine form with this design. I have always been a huge fan of his work, his Aston Martin DB7 is still brilliant. The headlights of the C-XF concept is a modern interpretration of the traditional Jaguar quad-headlights. The rear lights is very Aston Martin, which is a good thing. The muscular proportions and high waistline conveys substance and it looks the part for a luxury class vehicle. Things are definitely going to change around for Jaguar if the execution is done right.