As it is winter, there have not been very many interesting cars out, as most devoted car watchers will know. Because of this, I have been forced to do other things to fill my life with cars.
      I have found a number of very good books about cars, including Cars A Celebration by Quentin Wilson. My mother thinks the title is quite funny-she laughs when ever she sees it. I also like Corvette from the Inside, by Dave McLellan. My mother always says that I'm probably the only person who ever checks out books like that. Dave McLellan was the Corvette's chief engineer from 1975 to 1992. He was a very remarkable figure in the Corvette's history, along with Zora Arkus-Duntov, Bill Mitchell and Harley Earl. He even helped create the ZR1!
      I have been using an easy programming language to make a car video game. The language is called Scratch. I call it pre-programmed programming because instead of typing commands you drag little blocks across the screen and stack them together like Lego bricks to make the program. The game is fairly simple to play-you use the arrow keys to drive (up is forwards, back is brakes, and you use the left and right arrows to switch lanes) and there are other cars that drive around that you have to avoid. The track is straight, so you don't have to steer. It is taking a long time to make, however, because I am giving it a simulation manual transmission and making RPM and speed gauges. I will try to put it on the blog when it is finished.
      Recently, I have been reading about old cars (surprise, surprise) and I have found a number of cars produced in the '40s, 50s, and 60s that get better gas mileage than most modern cars (excluding hybrids). I am talking about real cars too, not the BMW Isetta (which had a motorcycle engine and couldn't drive on half of the roads in the USA because it was too slow), but cars that could go about 70 miles per hour. Most of them got about 40 miles per gallon. This leads me to wonder what modern car designers are doing? Aside from designing cars that get about 20 miles per gallon, I mean. I would think that if they could make cars that could go faster than the speed limit on the highway 60 years ago, and got such good mileage, why can't they make cars like that now? It seems like even with all the safety and emissions regulations, they could still make cars at least that good now? (Like I said, I'm not counting hybrids because they are too expensive.) And those cars had just about no aerodynamic aids, so that was a serious disadvantage for them.
      Also, I have discovered a new band (it's not really new, but I didn't know about it until very recently) called The Rip Chords. The only reason I'm mentioning this now is because just about all of their songs are about cars. I especially like their song Sting Ray. It makes references to the lyrics of Little Deuce Coupe by The Beach Boys. Also, the song Maybellene by Chuck Berry, one of my favorite guitarists, talks about cars in the lyrics (also, it is a very good song).