Every year, I do 52 Junkyard Finds for The Truth About Cars, 52 Junkyard Treasures for Autoweek, and 104 Junkyard Gems for Autoblog, and you’ll find links to all 1,800+ of those posts at the Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™. Out of those 208 junkyard vehicles that I documented last year, I have chosen the ten that I liked the best. Four from GM, two from Toyota, two from Ford, and one apiece from Lancia and Subaru, all in chronological model-year order. Enjoy! Read more »
Filed under: Junkyard if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on The 10 Best Junkyard Finds, Treasures, and Gems of 2019
Article tags: Down On The Junkyard, Junkyard, Junkyard Find
The BRIBED stencil has been a Lemons Supreme Court tradition since the first South Carolina event in 2008. Since 2012, every race has had a unique stencil, which has resulted in seven years of commemorative artwork on the race cars of teams who wanted to keep it fair. Here are the stencils applied to racin’ machines during the 2018 Lemons season. Read more »
Filed under: 24 Hours of LeMons Buttonwillow if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on The BRIBED Stencils of the 2018 24 Hours of Lemons Season
Article tags: 24 Hours Of LeMons, Bribes, Judicial Bribes
Starting in 2012, the judges of the Lemons Supreme Court began making a unique stencil for each race, applied to the cars of teams showing the proper obeisance to race officials via generous gifts (before that, we’d use the same stencils until they got lost or wore out). Here are the stencils of the 2017 24 Hours of Lemons season.
Read more »
Filed under: 24 Hours Of LeMons if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on The BRIBED Stencils of the 2017 24 Hours of Lemons Season
Article tags: 24 Hours Of LeMons, 24 Hours of LeMons Bribed Stencils, Bribes, Judicial Bribes
During my recent trip to Tokyo, I noticed that the manhole covers and other pavement-mounted access panels were interesting objects. Here are some photographs. Read more »
Filed under: Uncategorized if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on The Manhole Covers of Tokyo
When a team gives a generous tribute to the all-wise and scrupulously fair justices of the 24 Hours of LeMons Supreme Court, they receive a hand-made commemorative stencil sprayed onto their race car. We feel that this is better than the judicial leniency they were hoping to get, of course, and all right-thinking racers (who know what’s good for them) agree with this sentiment. The 2016 LeMons season saw 18 new BRIBED stencils, so let’s look at the full set. Read more »
Filed under: 24 Hours of LeMons Buttonwillow if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on The BRIBED Stencils of the 2016 24 Hours of LeMons Season
Article tags: 24 Hours Of LeMons, 24 Hours of LeMons Bribed Stencils, Bribes
Spray-painting a stenciled image on the car of a team whose members give generously to the 24 Hours of LeMons Supreme Court has been a tradition since the first South Carolina LeMons race in 2008. The 2015 season saw the largest number of BRIBED stencils yet, with five artists cutting 27 unique custom stencils. Read more »
Filed under: 24 Hours of LeMons Buttonwillow if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on The BRIBED Stencils of the 2015 LeMons Season
Article tags: 24 Hours Of LeMons, 24 Hours of LeMons Bribed Stencils
The 24 Hours of LeMons Supreme Court has been stenciling the cars of teams that grease our palms with justice-ensuring gifts since the early days of the series, but it took until the 2012 season for the LCS to start creating a fresh stencil for each race. To see the stencils of the 2008-2011 seasons, go here, for the 2012 season’s stencils go here, for 2013’s stencils go here, and for 2014 just keep reading. Read more »
Filed under: 24 Hours of LeMons Buttonwillow if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on The BRIBED Stencils of the 2014 LeMons Season
Article tags: 24 Hours Of LeMons, 24 Hours of LeMons Bribed Stencils, Bribes, Judicial Bribes
Chief Perp Lamm and Assistant Perp Pon at LeMons HQ have been producing race-wrapup videos for every race starting in 2012, but it’s sort of a pain to search for each one on YouTube. Here they are, all together. Read more »
Filed under: 24 Hours Of LeMons if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on All the 24 Hours of LeMons Wrapup Videos (so far) In One Place
Article tags: 24 Hours Of LeMons
One of the benefits of being a Justice of the 24 Hours of LeMons Supreme Court is the very generous gifts given to the Court by racers who hope to keep it fair (a wise move, considering that the LeMons Supreme Court considers the Moscow Show Trials and Wild West Justice to be its legal role models). In the five years since I’ve become a LeMons Supreme Court Justice, the role of the BRIBED stencil— a spray-paint stencil that tells the world that this team has greased the wheels of justice— has evolved into a race-specific commemorative device that also tells the world I was at this race. You can read about the first few years of the BRIBED stencil tradition here, and I covered most of the 2012 season’s BRIBED stencils here; today, we’ll look at the complete set of stencils used during the 2013 LeMons season. Collect them all! Read more »
Filed under: 24 Hours Of LeMons if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on The BRIBED Stencils of the 2013 24 Hours of LeMons Season
Article tags: 2013, 24 Hours Of LeMons, Bribes, Judicial Bribes
When I moved to Colorado from California in 2010, I left my Toyota 20R-powered 1967 Austin-Healey Sprite at Evil Genius Racing in Sacramento, with the idea that I’d come get it someday. Instead, other projects intervened, and I gave the car to the captain of the Licensed To Ill 24 Hours of LeMons race truck. Then he didn’t have the time to get to the project, so he sold it to a guy who seemed very enthusiastic about the project. Six months later, it’s up for sale again, and I’m featuring it in this week’s Project Car Hell on Autoweek. Here are the links to the things I’ve written about this car in the past: Read more »
Filed under: Project Car Hell if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on Project Car Hell Car #1 Back On the Market!
Article tags: 1967 Austin-Healey Sprite, 20R Sprite, Austin-Healey, Austin-Healey Sprite, MG Midget, Project Car Hell, Sprite
I’ve been gathering 24 Hours of LeMons team T-shirts since 2007, and I’ve finally photographed the entire collection. The complete gallery, with all 380 shirt designs, may be viewed here. The Car and Driver version, with smaller gallery but more description, may be seen here.
Filed under: 24 Hours Of LeMons if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on The Team Shirts of the 24 Hours of LeMons
Article tags: 24 Hours Of LeMons
I wrote a four-part series for Popular Mechanics about parting out a Lexus suspension donor for my ’41 Plymouth project, and it’s a little difficult to navigate the PM site to read all four parts in sequence. Here are the links:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Filed under: Stumblebums if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comment (1)
Article tags: 1941 Plymouth Hell Project, 1992 Lexus SC400, eBay, Lexus SC400, Parting Out
I’ve been covering the 24 Hours of LeMons as a journalist since 2007, and I started doing a BS Inspection roundup post for each race in early 2009. The BS Inspection, which takes place on Friday (unless it’s a 24-straight-hours race, in which case it takes place on Saturday), is where you see all the team costumes, admire all the cars with ill-advised engine swaps before they blow up, and watch the panic of the teams whose cars are nowhere near ready to go. A lot of good stuff gets coverage in the BS Inspection posts, stuff that often gets overlooked afterwards due to the excitement of the race, and so I’ve put links to all those posts in one place. Enjoy.
Filed under: 24 Hours Of LeMons if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on All the LeMons BS Inspection Posts, Together At Last
Article tags: 24 Hours Of LeMons, BS Inspection
For the American Irony 24 Hours of LeMons last weekend, Team Resignation finally paid heed to my requests that they convert the Richard Nixon likeness on the roof of their Ford Escort into an animatronic Nixon Robot (as depicted in my novel). The mechanism was a bit crude, but it gave their Nixon a certain clanking appeal that Disney would be wise to emulate for the robots in their “It’s a Small World” ride. Read more »
Filed under: 24 Hours Of LeMons, 24 Hours of LeMons Chicago if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on “Well, I’m Not a Crook!”
Article tags: 24 Hours Of LeMons, 24 Hours of LeMons Chicago, Art, Ford, Ford Escort, Nixon, Racing, Richard Nixon
I’ve been going through the videos on the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™ YouTube account and thought it might be nice to share some of my favorites in one convenient location. So, here ya go! Read more »
Filed under: Uncategorized if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> Comments Off on A Treasury of Puzzling Murilee Martin Videos