Benny Kirk
1,646 ARTICLES
Polikarpov I-16: the WWII Fighter Pilots Preferred to Fly With the Canopy Removed
14 Jun 2022, 10:50 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / In the world of Second World War piston fighters, there are underdogs, and then there's the Polikarpov I-16. This small and diminutive-looking Soviet monoplane may have appeared like a little pushover to Axis pilots. But little did they want t...
Ending the F-22 Raptor's Production Was a Very Smart Move, Despite What Fanboys Say
13 Jun 2022, 20:40 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Between 1996 and 2011, a measly 195 Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor Stealth Fighters left the factory floor. If you ask aviation enthusiasts, lots of them will probably tell you that's nowhere near enough to make a real difference. Some even hail ...
Lockheed Martin Inks Deal With South Korea to Aid Development of T-50 Golden Eagle Program
13 Jun 2022, 18:34 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Major American aerospace and defense firm Lockheed Martin announced today that they'd inked an exclusive deal with the Korean Aerospace Industries company for future opportunities to help develop the new upgrade paths for the Korean T-50 jet f...
NASA's TROPICS Satelite Launch Ends in Disaster, Whole Mission Might Be in Doubt
13 Jun 2022, 18:06 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / NASA may consist of some of the best minds in all of science, engineering, and rocket technology. But even they, at the end of the day, are still human beings. So to say, they're capable of the occasional failure. Such was the case on June ...
This Capri XR2 is Mercury's Long Forgotten Convertible Sports Car, Now for Sale
13 Jun 2022, 17:02 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / In Europe, the Ford Capri name is almost as iconic as the Mustang is in the States. So to say, a sort of everyman's car with some real hooligan potential hidden inside. But in These States United, the Capri was somewhat of a throwaway moniker....
NYPD Reports Another Massive Rise in Vehicle Theft, Surprises Nobody
13 Jun 2022, 16:02 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Late last year, we reported on how the ongoing global health crisis has led to a wild uptick in the number of vehicle thefts affecting residents of New York City. From Brooklyn to the Bronx, from Staten Island to Queens, law enforcement city-wide h...
Pittsburgh Party Pedaler: For Lovers of Cycling, Beer, and, Well, Mostly Beer
12 Jun 2022, 19:49 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, produces more craft beer per capita than any other major city in North America. With so many kegs and barrels of the good stuff to be had around those parts, there's got to be a novel way of enjoying it all. Well, ...
Apple Should Stay Away From Building Cars, Stick to Apple CarPlay
11 Jun 2022, 18:34 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Our resident iOS/Android expert here on autoevolution is the wonderful Bogdan Popa. So when one of his articles covering Apple's repeated attempts at building an electric car comes across my desk, I can't help but give them a read. N...
Forget a New Mercedes S-Class, This 1949 170S is Infinitely More Classy
11 Jun 2022, 18:00 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / MAXmotive is one of those custom and classic car dealerships you'd expect to find in a marquee city. But no, it's located in a quaint little suburb outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it's filled with cars. And of all the classic i...
This Saab J35 Draken Made the Soviets Think Twice Before Messing With Sweden, Now For Sale
10 Jun 2022, 19:31 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Saab as an automaker is sadly no longer with us. Thanks a lot for that, GM. You bunch of accountants and pencil pushers you. But let's be honest, Saab's bread and butter have always been airplanes. This J35 Draken comes from a time when t...
Restomod Ford Model T Packs Toyota Surprise Under the Hood, Makes Purists Seethe
10 Jun 2022, 15:02 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / When it comes to American muscle, you don't mess around with tradition. Lest you be at the receiving end of a vitriolic tirade online or, heaven forbid, in person. But sometimes, the world is better off when edgy people break all the conventio...
Pittsburgh Residents Warned of Devious Gas Price Relief Scam, Because Humans Can Be Awful
9 Jun 2022, 18:24 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It's a tale of greed and selfishness as old as mankind itself. Some calamitous event rocks society and some scam artist decides it's the perfect time to make a quick buck. As emasculating as it is, $5.00 a gallon for 87-octane is pretty d...
Hellcat Swapped 1967 Plymouth Barracuda is Nothing Short of Perfection
9 Jun 2022, 17:17 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / We're coming up on almost a decade since the Mopar Hellcat engine made us fall back in love again with Chrysler's muscle. So do you think we've grown sick and tired of watching Hellcats get swapped into just about everything? Don...
60 Years Ago, Ford Aerospace Proposed an Insane Nuclear Powered Mission to Mars and Venus
9 Jun 2022, 01:33 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Ford is a mediocre car company. Or at least, it can be at times, especially these days. But there was a time, years and years ago, when Ford dipped their fingers into many other fields besides automotive. In the days of the Falcon, Thunderbird,...
Classic Ferrari 512M is One of Only 75 in North America, It Deserves our Respect
8 Jun 2022, 20:04 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The Ferrari 512 is the kind of Italian sports car perennially in the shadows of more celebrated models that came both before and after it. Not as sleek as the F355 and not as memorable as the 308, it's easy to get the wrong impression about th...
Meet Rampy, the Mid-Engine V8 Corvair Rampside That's Stealing Our Hearts
8 Jun 2022, 18:39 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The Chevy Corvair is an all-American classic people the world over love to clown on for being slow and unsafe, and the main topic of a famous book attacking the auto industry for not giving a rat's behind about safety. The Corvair 95 Rampside,...
These Are the Weirdest Warbirds of the National USAF Museum, One May Make You Laugh
8 Jun 2022, 17:38 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It's the procrastinator's Spring Cleaning here at autoevolution. After nearly a year of traveling the country showcasing the coolest automotive and aeronautical curiosities, a few sadly didn't make the cut the first time. So to k...
This Twin Engined Seaplane Survived Pearl Harbor, Spends Its Days in a Cozy Museum
7 Jun 2022, 19:25 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It's late-spring cleaning here at autoevolution. After nearly a year of traveling the country, showing you the most extraordinary items we could find in the automotive, aerospace, and motorcycle fields, there were bound to be one or two that s...
F1 Manager 2022 Dropping August 25th, Ready for Armchair GMs to Put Up or Shut Up
7 Jun 2022, 16:30 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / For a select group of people, playing a video game where you get to be the manager of a sports franchise is more appealing than playing the sport itself. This is true of both the FIFA Soccer and Madden NFL series to a certain extent. But now we can...
Hellcat Swapped Dodge Dakota RT Is a Truck Stellantis Is Too Scared To Build
7 Jun 2022, 15:42 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / There was a bit of debate back when the Stellantis group became the sole owner of Chrysler and its related brands a year and a half ago. That question was whether a global company based in Amsterdam could build cars that Americans genuinely wanted ...