Steve Parker Motoring / The Car Nut: DESIGNERS OF 1970 PLYMOUTH BARRACUDA AND 1967 NSU Ro80, FIRST PRODUCTION SEDAN WITH A WANKEL ROTARY ENGINE, PASS ON

Thanks for visiting our main website, and please visit our other websites, including the automotive blog at the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-parker), the Santa Monica Daily Press newspaper (www.smdp.com; my column, Tornante, runs each week) and our new Facebook group, DRIVING CRAZY. We also host LIVE radio shows each Saturday at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern and Sunday starting LIVE at 5pm Pacific/Eastern on www.TalkRadioOne.com. Saturday it's THE CAR NUT general interest auto show, Sunday WORLD RACING ROUND-UP, which is self-explanatory. Please join us LIVE or check-out the podcasts anytime which are posted right after the live shows' conclusions. Based on a background of more than 35 years as a journalist covering the worldwide car, truck, motorcycle and motor racing industries, from drag boats to F1, we've created this site so we never have to pull any punches with our opinions and analysis; we're beholden to no one and nothing but ourselves and you, our readers, viewers and listeners. This is definitely not just another "never met a car we didn't like" website clone. We've done our job; now it's your turn. Please tell your friends about us, and don't forget to let us know what you think. And thanks again for stopping by.

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EXCLUSIVE PHOTO ALBUM! 2009 GUMBALL RALLY 3000

See Steve's exclusive Gumball Rally video from NBC-TV's Whipnotic website (copy and paste): http://www.whipnotic.com/videos/viewvideo-558.html Over 120 gas-guzzling super-exotic sports cars, Hummers, Cadillac Escalade SUVs and an occasional interesting older car roared on May 2, 2009, from a California beach-side parking lot directly onto I-10, the Santa Monica Freeway, also known as the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway, for the start of this year's Gumball Rally. The world's most politically-incorrect automotive street event, the Gumball Rally 3000, left Santa Monica (CA) Pier on Saturday, May 2, 2009 and headed toward its ultimate destination of Miami, FL eight days later. Participants reportedly paid $44,000 per car/team to enter the event. Though the Gumball stresses the skills of its drivers (and their cars) there are only two race track "special section" stops scheduled for the 3,000-mile long event, which will be run on public roads with all entrants subject to all highway rules and regulations. All photos (c) 2009 by www.SteveParker.com

Car Nut Memberships

Steve Parker, "The Car Nut", is a proud and long-time member of AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, SAE, the Society of Automotive Engineers, CCCA, the Classic Car Club of America, AACA, the Antique Automobile Club of America, SAH, the Society of Automotive Historians, and SEMA, the Specialty Equipment Market Association, Serving the World's Automotive Aftermarket!

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April 13, 2008

DESIGNERS OF 1970 PLYMOUTH BARRACUDA AND 1967 NSU Ro80, FIRST PRODUCTION SEDAN WITH A WANKEL ROTARY ENGINE, PASS ON

Please check our HALL OF FAME (or click on the highlighted text to the left) section for the life stories of two important automotive designers who recently passed. John Herlitz, 65, was the designer of, among many other well-known Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge cars and concepts, the 1970 Plymouth Barracuda. Also, the designer of the first production sedan to ever be sold with a Wankel rotary engine, Claus Luthe, died at age 75. The NSU Ro80 broke many engineering barriers; General Motors tried for several years to develop their own Wankel rotary, but could not overcome problems with engine reliability, among other things we write about in Luthe's obituary. (Photo --- 1970 Plymouth Superbird; the Pontiac GTO Judge was GM's "answer" to the Superbird, which started life as a Road Runner with an extended nose ... But the changes to the RR didn't end there).