Having problems registering a metermaid vehicle as a motorcycle in California? Print this out and bring it to the DMV and your life will get infinitely easier:

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/vehindustry/vin_memos/vin2011/11vin16a.pdf

Ok, we’re going interactive. Anyone can now add new postings (use that link on the right to register), and anyone can post pictures to the new user picture gallery. I hope it works, would be great to get input from the various Silly Little Tribes…

Feedback definitely invited.

A pic of Maxime’s Barbie car showed up on my favorite San Francisco blog today, Mission Mission.

Gar, we left Barbie for maybe 10 minutes and came back to a stabbed rear tire. I’m not saying I entirely blame them, I know they thought we were metermaids, and lord knows Maxime is rolling the dice by keeping that blue on white paint job, but still, people.

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but apparently two Isettas are hiding out in the San Francisco BMW dealership…

Thanks Lynn!

I put LEDs on the under-carriage of my car and god damn does it look bad-ass. They change color and throb when I want them to. Life is good.

Renzo sent this in and said “Just in case you feel like your Morgan 3-wheeler is too sensible, this 1966 Velorex features a vinyl covered steel tube frame and Jawa 2-cylinder motorcycle power. The engine can spin in reverse so the car has four forward and four reverse gears.” Why on earth???

Loving this Westcoaster for sale on Phoenix Craigslist (mirrored here). Its about the first time I’ve ever read the words “1965 west coaster” and “runs great” anywhere near each other. Super sweet ride, wish they had some pics of the inside. Its weird though, you’d think anyone capable of restoring that thing would know that “Westcoaster” is one word. Maybe he’s selling it for someone else?

And thanks Costas from the crazy cool Art Car Central blog for sending this over.

I’m not sure if “masthead” is exactly the right word, but I’m loving whatever you call that pic on top of the page.

Lynn Freidman took it the day we were being photographed by the Wall Street Journal (ahem).  She took lots of other great pics that day, a  few of my favorites being:

Cari Tuna, the author of the Wall Street Journal article and the woman with the greatest name ever, on the left. And Raz, showing Rupert Murdoch how its done.

Keef demonstrating one of the dangers or perks of driving a retired metermaid vehicle.

Diamond Dave's ride, which I always insist on calling the Cherry Tomato

About an acre of silliness

Thanks again Lynn!

I can’t tell if this is a Monty Python skit or a Salvador Dali painting, but whatever it is I like it. What on earth is up with the giant German shepherd? And a whole *case* of whiskey? And how does this indicate that this woman is “knowledgeable”? The mind boggles, and Christ I love that car.

Yum. From the Tamerlane’s Thoughts blog.

Simon from the email list is wondering who’s been the furthest in a Cushman or Interceptor. As he explains:

“My wife Julia did the 300 miles from SF to Gerlach in 1 day, then back a few days later. Who’s been the furthest?”

Maxime and I probably don’t have the distance record, but I’m pretty sure we have the style-point record.

And years ago I’m pretty sure I set the off-road Cushman record when I drove 50 or so miles of crazy dirt road, and instead of me breaking down I wound up fixing everyone else’s flats.

Anyway, anyone else have any stories to tell?

Dave in Kansas made us all look like amateurs by introducing us to his BMW Isetta art car collection. Holy crap!

On New Year’s Eve we needed to haul a few curbside couches to the party. I’m thinking we could have fit at least one more on there…

A blog called “The Walter Mitty Commuittee – True Adventures for Regular Folks” has some fun posts about Bryan’s adventures around Seattle in his new Interceptor. Some fun dispatches from the road, makes me want to take a ferry.

Lorelei sent in these ridiculously amazing pictures of a microcar meet in Germany in 2000.

The battery in my camper died, and Maxmie came and gave me a jump. Barbie looks unfazed.

If I understand correctly, the Dezer Collection is a vehicle museum in Miami where the vehicles are for sale. Its an amazing trove of silly car porn with pages and pages of explicit pictures of engines and whatnot, from every revealing angle, lovingly presented in soft lighting. Excuse me I need to go drink some ice water.

Its interesting to order the vehicles by price, and once you reach that $40,000 zone you start seeing some awesome silliness. Here’s a few of my favorites, though there are many many more to see. Click each pic for more pictures of each and, if you’re so inclined, the price…

And wax figures too? What more could anyone ask for...

I love me some love Messershmitt

Corbin Sparrow electric

1968 Tippen

We’re on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today!

The video near the top of the page is priceless.

The slideshow is good too but they left out all the best pictures…

Here’s a few from Chris Zim. This might be my favorite picture in the entire history of photography:

Mike’s not only doing donuts in an Interceptor (hard), but keeping completely calm too as he almost tipped over in front of the camera crew going like 40mph. Amazing.

Lots more amazing pics by Chris Zim here.

And Lynn took some great pics too.

From the Lost in Jersey blog. There’s a couple more on that page too. Love the gloves.

It still doesn’t suck driving a homemade photobooth built onto the back of a Cushman around Burning Man for a week. Some words and pictures about the experience are here, and the pictures it took are here. There’s also some pics of Mabel and I building it. Ironically I never get any good pictures *of* the boof, but lots of good pics happen inside it.

Bob from the email list sent this in with the following description, which I can’t improve upon:

Reliant Robin
Quirky UK 3 wheel car
Video
Much tipping and crashing
Not dial-up friendly

Enjoy.

The green one definitely needs to be named “The Skittle”. (Sorry Nicole for stealing your joke).

They came from this page. The write-up and most of the comments are moronic (“I only feel safe in SUVs”), but wow those cars.

Dunno where it came from or what the back story is, but I’m admiring the clearance on that thing. Maybe he jacked it up a bit? My Cushman and Interceptor would be bottoming out like crazy.

Or as Mike from the email list put it, “Who’s mailster is that and why are they playing GI Joes?”

Thought I’d put a link to the story of my previous car, The Bushman.