Welcome to Must Read, where we single out the best stories from around the automotive universe and beyond. Today we've got reports from Forbes, GreenCarReports, and Road & Track.
I'm probably not going to spend as much on all the cars I'll ever own as this guy spent to restore one car.
What happened in between times? Hood and Lotman spent 18 months and 5,500 hours on a complete restoration of the “Jabbeke Jag.” They scoured the globe for replacement parts, rebuilt some parts from scratch—like the fighter-jet bubble canopy, which had been retrofitted from an airplane cockpit for the record-breaking race—and finished it with extensive hand work of painting and wood in the interior.
Now I'm a little sad we didn't go to this.
It's the suspension tuning that made the Crown Royal so entertaining. We haven't driven a new car this softly sprung in at least 20 years. And it's been a very long time since we've been able to feel a test car heel over on the sidewalls of its tall tires, as the body yaws and the mechanical components soak up every ripple and bounce on varied Michigan two-lane roads.
I really just need any excuse to run this photo of Sergey Brin.
Last week, Google Ventures made its single biggest investment ever when it pumped over a quarter-billion dollars into the on-demand car service, Uber. And that warrants some discussion. Ever since Google revealed that its “X” lab was working on autonomous vehicle technology, people have wondered whether the web titan planned to get into the car business. This always seemed like an unlikely scenario, since Google’s leadership team of Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt is a group of really smart guys.
Photos: Getty Images, GreenCarReports, Forbes
The Jaguar With The $900,000 Facelift