Benny Kirk
1,669 ARTICLES
Extra Spicy 1965 Mercury Comet Caliente Restomod Needs as Much Attention as a Hot Mustang
13 Sep 2022, 22:03 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The classic 60s Ford Mustang gets all the love. Even other models from Lincoln and Mercury that might use components borrowed from the Mustang don't receive nearly as much attention. This 1965 Mercury Comet Caliente may not share much with the...
Chinese Manned Lunar Program Will Challenge NASA's Artemis, Aims to Mine Moon Minerals
12 Sep 2022, 11:46 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / In the acclaimed Apple TV series For All Mankind, the Soviets beat NASA to the Moon in 1969 after a series of engineering mishaps for the Americans that didn't happen in our timeline, giving the Communists the upper hand in the space race. Onl...
NASA Repairs Leaky Fuel Seals on Artemis I's SLS Rocket, Next Launch Try Sep 23rd
12 Sep 2022, 10:35 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Rocket launch scrubs are just a part of the territory. Even so, watching two back-to-back scrubs of the SLS rocket carrying the Artemis I Orion spacecraft to a trip around the Moon was like taking two football punts right in the feels. After a seco...
Garage Princess 1988 Toyota 4Runner Is the Stuff Dreams Are Made Of
12 Sep 2022, 09:36 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / What good is a late 80s Toyota product that doesn't have its odometer filled up to its eyeballs and a lifetime of memories piled up inside the interior? Doesn't it sort of defeat the purpose of building a vehicle as dependable and bulletp...
Meet Zombug, the Delightful 1972 Beetle Powered By a Radial Engine
12 Sep 2022, 08:45 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The largest sin the original VW Beetle ever committed was sporting a drivetrain seemingly made of wet paper bags. So to say, it could have been better in the power department. Well, we're not sure swapping the stock air-cooled Beetle engine fo...
Doug DeMuro Hails the Original Ferrari California a "Criminally Underrated" Enthusiast Car
11 Sep 2022, 20:08 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The words of Doug DeMuro are not the infallible divine words of some supreme automotive being. But that doesn't mean millions of people don't listen when he has something to say. So when he released his updated list of the most underappre...
Stunning 1966 Ford Galaxie Packs 390FE V8 Under the Hood, Pretty Mean for a Family Coupe
11 Sep 2022, 18:59 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / When it comes to fast Fords of the 1960s, everybody remembers the Mustang. But people who don't have knowledge of every engine that went into every sporty Ford to memory likely don't know you could have just about any car in the lineup wi...
Chevy V8-Swapped Toyota Pickup Ditches Sensibility for Rock Crawling and Mud Bogging
11 Sep 2022, 18:07 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The largest sin most people will ever levy against a late 80s Toyota Pickup truck is to only wish the engine were louder and more vivacious. Well, it looks like one anonymous private Autotrader user out of Pearl River, New York, decided to do jus...
BMW M62-Swapped Volvo 740 Is ABBA on the Outside, Rammstein Under the Hood
10 Sep 2022, 19:25 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The Volvo 740 sedan is a car so mundane, so unrelentingly sensibly Swedish, that it has about as much curb appeal as the masonry brick we can only assume inspired its design. That is unless you're a lover of quirky less-than-exotic cars like w...
New York City Wants More Cars and Trucks Off Its Streets, And It's a Huge Deal
10 Sep 2022, 16:38 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / New York City is not all that car-friendly, even at the best of times. But with a freshly installed new mayor full of vim and vigor forging his legacy in the Big Apple, it might be about to get even more unfriendly to the motor car than ever before...
Unrestored 1990 Silverado 454 V8 Fetching New Truck Money, Surprises Nobody
9 Sep 2022, 20:22 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / If there's one thing Americans love more than a strong military and an even stronger economy, it's classic V8 pickup trucks. There is a seemingly endless hoard of people ready to disembowel their own bank accounts to get within a few feet...
This Triumph TR7 Sports a Big Block Cadillac Surprise Under its Hood, Mostly for Burnouts
9 Sep 2022, 18:19 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The best big surprises come in small packages. Now, if you'll take a moment to stop giggling, we're talking about a car this time. But no, seriously, take a look at this tiny Triumph TR7 British sports car stuffed to the gills with a 472-...
First-Gen Chrysler HEMIs: Laying the Groundwork the HEMI V8 Dynasty Since 1950
9 Sep 2022, 03:51 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Times are changing fast in the automotive industry. That shouldn't come as a shock for anyone who pays attention to what global car builders are up to. But if nothing else, a worldwide forced transition from internal combustion to all-electric...
Cadillac 500 V8: Large, In Charge, Vanquished By Emissions Restrictions
8 Sep 2022, 19:22 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Even by the standards of the late 1960s, nobody really needed a V8 engine with 500 cubic inches (8.2-liters) of displacement, 600 lbs (272.1 kg) of dry weight (without the accesories), and 400-plus gross horsepower as their daily driver. But back i...
Liberty L-8: The Scaled Down V8 Variant of the Iconic Liberty V12 From WWI
8 Sep 2022, 12:23 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It's V8 Month here at autoevolution. A month-long celebration of all the engines with eight cylinders arranged in a V-formation and all the wacky designs therein. That isn't just limited to things with four wheels and tires. It includes a...
Ford 4.6-Liter Modular: the Most Misunderstood American V8 Ever Built
7 Sep 2022, 16:32 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / More so than in any other car-producing nation, there is and has been a disconnect between what the American auto industry believes its customers want to buy and what they actually want to buy. Whether or not it works out in the end when a finished...
Plain-Jane 2017 GMC Sierra Rocks Monstrous 10.3-liter V8, The Ultimate Sleeper
6 Sep 2022, 20:13 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The word sleeper in an automotive context gets thrown around quite a bit these days. With that in mind, a broad spectrum of custom cars and trucks fit under the sleeper umbrella. But what if you're looking for something on the more "extre...
Interview: Every Kilo Counts, Why the ESA's Service Module Is the Brains Behind Artemis
2 Sep 2022, 20:20 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / A space mission on a grand scale, the likes of the Artemis Program is one far too large for one space agency, one nation, or one company. That's why perhaps the most functionally vital portion of the spacecraft doesn't come from NASA but ...
Artemis I is Probably Go for Launch Tomorrow, NASA Press Conference Details
2 Sep 2022, 17:08 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / All eyes at the Kennedy Space Center were focused on the Kennedy Space Center news auditorium the day before Artemis I's second launch attempt in five days. After a disappointing launch scrub the first time around on August 29th, the media and...
Boeing Starliner and SpaceX Dragon Make Mean Faces at Each Other on Display at KSC Gateway
2 Sep 2022, 00:55 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Private companies have been aiding NASA's manned spaceflight initiatives since the very beginnings of the agency. In that regard, the only difference between the Apollo era and the era of SpaceX, Sierra Space, and Blue Origin is this time, the...