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Posts in "Driving Impressions"

Monday, August 8th, 2016

It's been a while, hasn't it, which is fine. Just means it's going to take us a while to catch up.

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Tuesday, October 21st, 2014

Day 1 | Day 2 | Days 3-7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10

After a thankfully peaceful night in a vaguely Psycho-esque motel on the outskirts of Bend, I lingered downtown for most of Day 9, because really, why would you want to leave? But then I remembered that my destination that night was Tahoe, or close to it—which meant I had to make it to Crater Lake before dusk.

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posted in: Driving Impressions  Road Trips  Videos  

Tuesday, May 6th, 2014

TLDR: I sold the pano roof last week, drove various places with the top down, and also found time to go drive things in the Nevada desert with Toyota.

Now let's look at some pictures!

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posted in: 500Benzlife  Driving Impressions  

Thursday, February 6th, 2014

When I saw the ad for a black-on-black panoramic hardtop in San Diego, asking price $2,000, I guess it was only a matter of time—I've been ambivalent about these round-edged contraptions, but I know they can go for around $3,000 on eBay, and they're so rare that this guy bought a wrong-colored one and changed everything to match.

I still wasn't sold on it as I started negotiating, but when I got the price down to $1,800, you know what, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

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posted in: Driving Impressions  

Thursday, December 12th, 2013

So I took the 500 Benz out for its weekly exercise the other day (it spends the rest of its time under wraps, and yes, I still owe you a June->October-slash-maybe-November-too update), found myself entering the 5 South freeway from the Dodger Stadium exit, and realized that I had stumbled upon a pretty level and lengthy on-ramp with no one behind me.

"Self," I barked, "Let's get zero to 60 on camera and analyze the hell out of that video."

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posted in: Driving Impressions  Videos  

Saturday, June 15th, 2013

What's the proper way to celebrate a year of 500 Benz ownership? Well, let me tell you: it starts with having a couple new parts installed, continues with an early dinner at Malibu Seafood, and obviously ends with a drive up some canyon road—preferably one with a little rocky mountain action at the top.

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posted in: 500Benzlife  Driving Impressions  

Saturday, May 25th, 2013

Had the hardtop on for the past couple months, and I gotta admit, the 500 Benz is a better car for it: the solidity factor approaches that of an S-Class, and the sense that the R129 gives up little if anything to contemporary cars is magnified to the max.

But since my parents happened to be around to help last night, I decided to take the top off for the summer, and damned if I don't like the car more this way, cowl shake and all.

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posted in: Driving Impressions  

Monday, May 6th, 2013

The first question when I'm flying out of LA on a press trip is obviously how I'm going to keep the 500 Benz's noble German sheetmetal door-ding-free, and last Wednesday the answer was this handy diagonal spot on the roof of the Renaissance LAX.

Then I start to wonder about what I'm driving and where I'm driving it, and in this case the answers were "the new 2014 Lexus IS sedan" and "San Francisco," respectively.

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posted in: Comparisons  Driving Impressions  Videos  

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3

As it turns out, the aforementioned uncle500benz daily-drives a silver 2006 Maserati Quattroporte—you know, the one with the single-clutch automated manual transmission and detuned 4.2-liter Ferrari V8.

This was going to be a most excellent wine-tasting taxi.

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posted in: Driving Impressions  Road Trips  

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3

Not surprisingly, rain was in the forecast for San Francisco as mrs500benz and I packed for her aunt and uncle's place last Friday morning, so I prevailed on her to help me install the 500 Benz's hardtop, which had been sexing up my living-room wall ever since my man Johnny Turbo helped me take it off a few days after I bought the car.

In brief, installation can be something of a challenge when the hardtop's on the third floor, the car's in the basement, and you don't have the little rolly cart that Benz originally included to help you wheel the top around...so I naturally captured the whole carnival on video, and then we headed north to see what the Benz feels like with its helmet on.

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posted in: Driving Impressions  Road Trips  Videos  

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

My personal jury's always been out on YouTube car-review sensation Chris Harris: there are some people I really respect who like the guy, and I would personally love to meet him and figure out how to make my job a little more like his, and he can clearly drive the proverbial snot out of whatever he's sitting in...but to me, his videos too often miss the mark in various ways, notwithstanding their million-kabillion views.

To wit, I just watched his "Mercedes SL Driven: New & Old" video (above), which proceeds from the premise that "the best way to understand the new SL is to trace its heritage"—and I cannot fathom why it features every past SL except the two modern ones, i.e., the R129 and R230 models.

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posted in: Driving Impressions  Videos  

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

One of the occupational hazards I face is that I'll hit stretches where I'm too busy driving other cars to do anything with the 500 Benz.

Case in point: while the suspension-challenged Benz stewed silently in the garage earlier this week, I had to go evaluate a 2013 Porsche Boxster S PDK.

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posted in: Driving Impressions  Videos  

Friday, March 15th, 2013

Okay, so I had to bring back the DeAndre Jordan dunkface today, because his reaction to that dunk—let's call it a "Something amazing just happened and I don't know what else to do" grimace—is precisely my reaction every time I flat-foot a fantastic engine.

It's my version of Jeremy Clarkson's trademark "POWERRRRRR!" battle cry, and I a professional driver briefly entered that zone early this morning when a closed course suddenly presented itself.

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posted in: 500Benzlife  Driving Impressions  Videos  

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

First things first: the check-engine light from a few days ago had reset itself by the time I turned the car on tonight, so I guess I was right about the hose—and you should feel free to join me in exhaling deeply.

But more to the point, I just got back from a random 100-mile midnight drive on the 101, top up for a change, and I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs about the 500 Benz's highway manners.

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posted in: Driving Impressions  

Sunday, January 13th, 2013

So after the photo shoot, I put the camera on a tripod and shot some barely legal video footage of the 500 Benz.

Then I threw together my first YouTube video using a random editing program I found, and the results are weird for multiple reasons.

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posted in: Driving Impressions  Videos  

Thursday, December 27th, 2012

Spoiler alert: I'm already marinating a future post that'll be called something like, "Why isn't this car a classic?"

Might have an answer for myself right here: the thing rattles and shakes over bumps like an '89 LeBaron.

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posted in: Driving Impressions  

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