Here's a little guessing game for you. I took the above photo in the early 1970's during my time as European Accounts Group Creative Director for the J. Walter Thompson ad agency. The location was near Caserta, a small town in the south of Italy, the purpose an advertising shoot. The car was a pre-production prototype, meaning that it was virtually identical to the vehicles that would come off the assembly lines but was hand-made at the factory. The dollar value of the subject vehicles was around a million, so you can be certain we advertising types kept our hands off except to indicate where we wanted the cars positioned for photography. There were two versions of the same car, each with minor styling differences to suit different markets. One was a little softer, a touch more rounded than the other which was crisp and sharp by comparison, both vehicles typifying the personalities of their home countries... or so the marketing mavens thought. There's no prize for the first correct guess (hey, I'm a blogger, what would you expect?) but to the winner goes the honour of recognition. Replies in the Comments section below, please.

Thanks to Leslie at the AntiqueCarsClub blogsite I've just discovered ModernMechanix.com, an amusing Web site devoted to yesterday's mechanical marvels. Among them a bicycle that replaced the wheels with "legs" and an amphibious aircraft that doubled as a submarine. Don't ask why! But the story I especially enjoyed was "The Trailer Grows Up" by Julian Leggett. Rather than dwell on the perils and pleasures of vintage trailers he outlines why modern versions are vastly superior in both comfort and safety.

I've never had a desire to travel with a trailer especially after being scared half to death by one while returning to Toronto from the Indianapolis Speedway. As the car and its trailer approached our Corvair on a 2-lane highway, the trailer began swinging back and forth, on the verge of being totally out of control. Luckily the driver had the intelligence not to slam on the brakes.

During the weekend my buddy Mel and I were discussing the merits of the Smart, which we both like very much, especially with today's fuel prices. But Mel was quick to point out that the large objects he'd recently brought home in his Mazda 3 hatch would never have fit in a Smart. That prompted me to suggest that some entrepreneur should develop a small trailer for the Smart, suitable for carrying goods that won't fit in the tiny space behind the seats. Think it's not powerful enough for a trailer? The other day I saw one pulling a 15' powerboat, apparently with relative ease. So there's my free "get rich" idea of the month, folks. I'll take 10%, please.

Bob Lutz should have hung in with Chrysler, which would have made better use of his unique talents than GM has done to date. And Maximum Bob, I'd guess, would never have approved those ugly boxes that represent the current corporate image. During his time with Chrysler the engineers created a 200-mph hybrid electric/gas turbine race car that the company hoped to campaign in endurance races like LeMans. Representing advanced American technology, it was named the Patriot. In tests the car didn't work well because its turbine/high-speed flywheel/electric motor drivetrain was too heavy. Sadly, the Patriot was never heard from again; the brand name was eventually attached to a Jeep. Nevertheless Chrysler and its engineers deserve credit for attempting to break out of the race car design box. Hemmings offers more on this advanced concept in its most recent newsletter.

I live in fear of being left behind in communications technology. Way back in '78 the ad agency where I was creative director of the GM Canada account gave a computer to every secretary and enrolled them in a (DOS) programming school. Typically then I would have created TV commercial scripts on an IBM electric typewriter and handed them to my secretary for re-typing into a produceable format. When I realised what our lovely ladies (they also brought our morning coffee) could do with a computer I asked my boss if I could participate. Not that I wanted to put my secretary out of a job but why should everything be typed twice? I was slapped down with the comment "computers are for women." In 1983 I bought my first desktop computer, taught myself, and since then have struggled to keep up-to-date.

To get the About Cars Guide job in 1998 I learned some html basics and became moderately adept at photo manipulation. My downfall came with the acquisition of a cellphone two years ago. I live in a town of 14,000 souls. I have three friends and a few coffee house acquaintances. Who on earth am I going to phone during those daily power walks? I bought the cell during a Toronto family visit when a B&B landlady refused to let me use her landline except in emergencies. I still use it in Toronto trips but as the batteries quickly run dry when not in use, most of my cellphone activity consists of recharging. Worse still, the keys and info are so small I can barely read them.

Which brings me to the subject of this blog. David E. Davis, one of America's finest auto writers, on his retirement as publisher of Car & Driver, created Winding Road, an online car mag. Lots of good stuff, superb graphics, minimal ad revenue. David E. retired again, fed up with the problems of running an online business. Now Winding Road has added a new site, NextAutos.com. According to its FAQ's page "NextAutos.com is a smart place for car people to learn, share and connect. On our site you can access expert information about thousands of vehicles, write your own articles, upload your photos and videos, and connect with other users. On your Dashboard page (you must be registered to use this feature), you can pull together all your stuff (including feeds from other sites as well) and run your own little automotive universe." A look at the site leaves me confused about which is Winding Road and which is NextAutos.com and why. But hey... maybe it's me. Maybe I really am being left behind. Check it out and add your comments below.

If this doesn't stir your romantic juices, gentlemen, nothing will! Imagine the fun of driving a 1959 Austin Healey Sprite and parking by a seaside lighthouse with a lovely British "bird" as your companion. Unless you own a vintage Sprite it's a moment in time not likely to repeat itself. But for a mere $195 you can hang a print on your living room wall and imagine that moment every morning as you sip your ritual coffee. A giclée on watercolor paper by Gary Whinn, this is one of the latest offerings from CarArtInc., which showcases works by car designers and automotive fine artists. It has over 500 examples of 60 marques for sale. It also helps foster children by assisting development of the Extreme Gravity Racing Series, an exciting competition notable for wildly different designs by European and Californian car studios. Personally I favour paintings of cars in situ, looking as we might have seen them years ago, which is why I fell for this beauty.

This blog, friends, has little to do with automobiles but I think you'll enjoy it. During WW2 the Lockheed Burbank plant was turning out thousands of planes, among them the Hudson bomber/trainer, the Lockheed Harpoon, and the magnificent P-38 Lightning twin-engine fighter. Military authorities believed it might be vulnerable to attacks by Japanese aircraft although no enemy carriers had been sighted anywhere near California. And so, in one of the most incredible acts of camouflage ever created, the roof of the giant factory was rebuilt by the Army Corps of Engineers to look like a typical residential suburb. Homes, streets, shrubbery, even cars were put in place. The Japanese attack technicians would have been completely fooled. Or would they? In wartime, spies existed on both sides. Who's to doubt that someone might not have tipped off the enemy? In a delightful twist of irony, Subaru's Indiana plant landscape is a "designated backyard wildlife habitat." Deer, coyotes, beavers, rabbits, blue herons and other water fowl live in peaceful coexistence with cars, not warplanes.