Alex is joined by none other than Donald Osborne to talk about the interesting POS, sage suggestions for sellers and politicians everywhere, self-editing, ignoring one’s own hard-earned advice, cars as an investment in happiness; driving a Le Monstre replica at Goodwood, and adventures on the old Targa Florio route.
It was a battle of the longroofs for the seventh installment of our 2026 Michelin and BFGoodrich tire giveaway, with well over 120 of you casting your vote! The competition turned into a nail-biter between the 1982 AMC Eagle wagon and the 1971 Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback, and in the end, the Squareback came out on top by two! Congratulations to its new owner, @Schertzer.
You, our esteemed BaT community, came through with a variety of 1980s rides that certainly didn’t disappoint. Bravo! Of course, there can only be one winner, and this week our favorite comment of the bunch was left by BaT member @ant:
Summer is winding down—has your workplace emptied out? For those of us remaining, it can get awfully lonely. Fortunately, BaT’s list of Weird & Wonderful cars is here to provide a distraction, if but for a time. We have a curated selection of the strangest, coolest, and most interesting cars found on BaT within the last seven days. But we say that with a caveat: our “short list” of candidates numbered more than 50 this week, and while we could not feature them all below, we can guarantee that there are a lot more to find over on our Live Auctions Page.
A week ago I was in the TT and rolled up next to a biker sitting at a stoplight. Three in the afternoon and hotter than blazes here in mid-August southeast Idaho. He was riding solo on a late-model Fat Boy—black on black. Was wearing what Hog riders all seem to wear: an unbuttoned leather vest over a tattered black t-shirt, leather chaps over worn and torn black jeans and a set of scuffed and scarred steel-toed boots. No helmet, of course, just a do-rag, but I saw a beanie-cap strapped to his rear pillion rack—in case he had to go to Oregon, I supposed. His face was mostly hidden by a bristly salt-and-pepper grandpa beard and his eyes were shielded by mirrored wrap-around Terminator shades. His skin looked thick and weathered and was deeply tanned, so deep it took a moment for me to see his arms were slathered shoulder-to-wrist with an ornate selection of tattoos. Flames and skulls and dragons and tombstones inscribed with initials and dates and symbols I didn’t recognize. He noticed me noticing him and gave me a big tobacco-stained snaggle-toothed grin then flashed me the peace sign. I flashed him one back and the light went green and he twisted the throttle and dropped the clutch and roared off to parts unknown. And as I watched him disappear into the shimmering horizon, somewhere inside my head Steppenwolf suddenly started to play.
Prancing horses at the racetrack are nothing new, but the era of “drive your 250 SWB to the track, race it in anger, and then drive it home again” is long gone. Over the last several decades, racing has become a sophisticated and specialized pursuit requiring sophisticated and specialized machines. In the last 20 or so years, Ferrari—never one to leave their racing heritage unmentioned—started offering track-focused versions of their volume models for special clientele.
In this latest installment we talk about the problem with Cobras, balancing accuracy with crowd appeal, iconic opening scenes, the dumb downshifts in every racing movie, Tracy Letts, evil composites, 17″ wheels that almost ruin everything, 218 on the Mulsanne, the folder situation at Ford, and the movie’s ranking in the pantheon of racing films.
After 2025’s massive turnout, BaT was elated to be asked back to sponsor the Clear Lake Auto Social Society (CLASS) Car Club’s 42nd annual car show in Clear Lake, Iowa, on August 7th and 8th. Our intrepid staffers made the trek down from the Twin Cities Friday afternoon through what can only be described as “torrential” rain, but the skies soon cleared for the yearly cruise-in and ceremonial lap around the lake.