has a lifetime of experience as journalist -- as a magazine and newspaper writer and photographer, radio and television news producer and reporter, and guidebook author and editor, all focusing on travel, automotive, lifestyle, the environment and your rights as a consumer.
Gottlieb Daimler 1885 patent design for 'riding car'
The automobile was born on August 26, 1885. That is the day Gottlieb Daimler filed a patent for his ‘riding car’, the world’s first vehicle with an internal combustion engine. The world would never be the same, and 125 years later, engineers and designers are still tinkering with the size, power and performance of the cars we drive and ride. Daimler put a motor on a two-wheel vehicle, so purists might say this is the first motorized bicycle or the first motorcycle, not the first car. Let’s not quibble. This was the start of motorized personal mobility.
It took another year for his patent to be awarded, by which time engineer Carl Benz had applied for a patent on a three-wheel motorized vehicle, the Patent Motor Car. That same year, 1886, Daimler created the four-wheeled Motor Carriage.
Fabulous fact: the word automobile comes from the Greek auto, meaning self, and the Latin mobilis, or mobile.
Germany is justifiably famous for its great beer and wine festivals, which start in late summer or early fall and focus on regional wines, beers, and culinary specialties. The most famous is the Munich Oktoberfest, the world’s oldest and largest beer festival , which celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2010. Festival dates this year are September 18 to October 4.
The Munich Oktoberfest turns the city into party central. Dozens of huge tents serve food, beer and entertainment to thousands of people each night, and a sprawling midway lures visitors to Ferris wheels and other rides. Each of Bavaria’s beer breweries has its own tent and serves only its own beer, and of the beer tents serve tons of wurst, roast pig and chicken nightly, and every tent features an oompah band.
World's largest Oktoberfest beer festivals are in Munich and Stuttgart
Every few minutes, the band plays a rendition of the “Prosit” drinking song, and everybody stops chatting or eating or drinking to stand up and sing while waving their beer mugs in unison. It’s tough to resist.
I’ll admit — I’ve been there, and I’ve done that. And, I never ceased to be amazed at the strength of the waiters and waitresses who thread their way through the crowds while juggling up to eight one-liter mugs without spilling a drop. You’ll have the most fun if you pick one tent and stay there for the evening, rather than tent-hopping.
2010 Pebble Beach Concours features classic cars like a 1937 Horch 853 and concept cars like the Porsche 918 Spyder
The 2010 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is the 60th anniversary of what has become the most famous and most prestigious vintage and antique car show in the United States, perhaps even the world. The Pebble Beach Concours is this weekend, August 13-15, attracting thousands of classic car fans to Monterey and Carmel, California, to see historic models from brands including Bugatti, Pierce-Arrow, Cadillac, Jaguar, Rolls-Royce and Aston-Martin.
Pebble Beach also is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Alfa Romeo with a display of rarely-seen vintage roadsters from Alfa’s own museum plus privately-owned vehicles, dating back to 1910. The show always includes a ‘best in show’ award. Last year’s winner was a 1937 Horch 853. Horch is one of the car and motorcycle manufacturers which merged to become the Audi brand.
Pebble Beach also is where manufacturers show off their newest models. Last year, Bentley introduced its new flagship model, the Mulsanne, at Pebble Beach. This year, the 2010 Pebble Beach Concours debuts two brand new models, one from Porsche, the other from Jaguar, both making their first appearance in North America.
Hollywood icon Cary Grant and a vintage BMW Isetta microcar
Small cars are back in style, thanks to gas prices that peaked at $4 per gallon last year, and the additional power, style and comfort manufacturers have been able to pack into new models like the Ford Fiesta and Audi A3 TDI clean diesel, named Green Car of the Year by the Detroit News. Perhaps these will be tomorrow’s classics. Yesterday’s icons are on display at a very small car show in Chicago, the Tres Petite Concours: An Exhibition of Micro & Minicars.
The car show takes over the 900 block of West Armitage Avenue, in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, the weekend of July 17 and 18, 2010. The show features microcars and minicars from the 1950s and 1960s including the iconic BMW Isetta, a three-wheel vehicle with a single door that opened in the front, in front of the driver and passenger.
Another car being featured is the Fiat Cinquecento, the inspiration for the Luigi character in the wonderful animated film Cars. And the Citroen Deux Chevaux, also known as the 2CV.
Fiat Cinquecento, inspiration for Luigi in "Cars" Movie
Thousands of classic Ford T-Birds are gathering at Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan for a family reunion.
This year, the annual event organized by the Water Wonderland Thunderbird Club is a festival to celebrate the 55th Anniversary of the original model, in 1955.
The three-day Thunderbird reunion starts on Thursday, June [...]
American Graffiti Sixties Car and Concert Festival in London, Ontario, Canada
Rev up your engines and head for the Sixties in London — the one in Ontario, Canada, not the one in England. The Seventh Annual Fleetwood Country Cruize on June 4th and 5th celebrates the iconic coming-of-age 1973 film “American Graffiti”. Be whisked back decades at a recreation of Mel’s Diner with Candy Clark, Bo Hopkins, Cindy Williams, Lynne Stewart, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Be whisked back decades in time at a 40- foot drive-in movie screen that will be showing what else but the American Graffiti film. There’s also a kick-off dance under the big top and a rock ‘n’ roll concert featuring Sixties stars Lou Christie, followed by Brooklyn Bridge.
Book Expo America, NYC
Author Book Signing Peaceful Places NYC
My new travel guidebook
Cuba
Havana, Cienfuegos,
Trinidad, Santa Clara
San Francisco
Launch, 2011 Ford Fiesta
Dubai
Bangkok, Chang Mai
Beaver Creek, Colorado
Where I’ve Been
January
Beaver Creek, Vail, Colorado
2009
Miami - Audi A8 launch
Los Angeles Auto Show
Detroit - GM, Ford
St. Lucia
Guadalajara, Mexico
Frankfurt Auto Show
Stuttgart, Munich, Augssburg
Edmondton, Canada NASCAR
Churchill, Canada, "Polar Bear Capital of the World"
Taos, Albuquerque
