Alex Unleashed on Cars

  When the oil crisis hit in 1973, the US car market was devastated. They’d gotten used to big powerful engines with single digit MPG figures and then to suddenly have to create small and frugal cars was a big upset. America did try to make muscle cars in the oil crisis era, but they were mere shadows of their former selves. This lasted throughout the 70s and 80s until 1988, when Chrysler engineers decided to make a car in the image of the Shelby Cobra to put America back on the map. I’d also like to clarify something; the Vipers engine is not literally a truck engine as the block in the Viper is aluminium and the truck’s block is cast iron but apart from that they are both very similar. In fact, the block was made by Lamborghini (who were owned by Chrysler at the time). The Viper really did reignite the love and pride Americans had for their cars, here was a 160 MPH no-compromise supercar that could out-gun all but the most expensive exotica. That said, owning an early Viper...

  At times the future of the car and the motorist can seem scary. The oil will one day run out and there are those in the media and online who try to convince us that the electric car is some sort of satanic contraption whilst those aforementioned folks and governments also ignore other solutions to the issues of going net zero and powering the cars of the future. But, those who read and write about cars know that the future is actually pretty good and that the present day mirrors that of the very early days of the car when there were multiple choices for what powered cars, in the old days, it was petrol, steam and electric. Now it’s, electric, hydrogen and synthetic fuels. Both me and James May agree that BEV’s (battery electric vehicles) are a stop gap solution, in that, for now they are the closest thing to the solution that will solve the issue of cars and pollution, much like hybrid cars did in the 2000s and early 2010s prior to the likes of Tesla and Renault EV’s taking o...