#BAT

The Fast and the Furious franchise was the spark the dry powder keg in the Japanese domestic market (JDM) enthusiast world needed. Huge action and impressive racing scenes exposed newbies and diehard fans of other types of cars to models like the Nissan Skyline, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO, and the now-unobtainable Toyota Supra. We don’t see these cars coming up for sale often, but a whole load of impeccable Japanese metal is heading to auction on Bring a Trailer. 

I wrote earlier this week about how BAT has broken me.

In the post, I mentioned how I browse for Fox-body Mustangs. I do this because my dad owned one when I was young and I owned one for a few years between high school and early college.

I suspect many of us have one, two, or even three models we look for when we browse sites like BAT.

Like most automotive journalists — and car enthusiasts in general — I have three ways of goofing off online that involve the cars. One is reading sites like this one. Two is building and pricing cars from mild to wild — from affordable to only if I win the lotto — on manufacturer’s consumer configurators. The third is browsing the auction site Bring a Trailer (BAT) to see what’s for sale that day. Someday, the just-right Fox-body Mustang will be available and within my budget. Someday.

[Note: A significantly expanded and updated version of this article can be found here]

That air presented the greatest obstacle to automotive speed and economy was understood intuitively, if not scientifically since the dawn of the automobile. Putting it into practice was quite another story. Engineers, racers and entrepreneurs were lured by the potential for the profound gains aerodynamics offered. The efforts to do so yielded some of the more remarkable cars ever made, even if they challenged the aesthetic assumptions of their times. We’ve finally arrived at the place where a highly aerodynamic car like the Prius is mainstream. But getting there was not without turbulence.