Benny Kirk
1,648 ARTICLES
Lament the Death of Cheap, Basic Trucks? This 1990 GMC Sierra 5-Speed Will Soothe You
18 Dec 2023, 00:39 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Can you name something that should be dead simple but winds up being more complicated than any logic-driven person would ever make it? We can. It's the simple act of going to a dealer and buying a brand-new, simple, honest work truck with mini...
JDM-Spec '97 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado Snuck Its Way Into the States, on Sale for Cheap
17 Dec 2023, 22:28 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Importing JDM classics to North America is a chore and a half. You have to purchase the vehicle from a certified importer, sign more paperwork than the average DMV session, and pay enough in import and excise taxes to fund another couple of U.S. wa...
Hydrazine: Explosive, Toxic, Carcinogenic Rocket Fuel That Makes Gas Look Like Tap Water
16 Dec 2023, 04:40 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Chemical fuel is nasty stuff to squishy, vulnerable flesh sacks called humans, from the noxious, flammable vapor of gasoline to the pungent stench of diesel that permeates for hundreds of yards in either direction. There are so many ways and more e...
U.S. NRC Approves First Molten Salt Reactor in 50 Years, Here's Why It's a Huge Deal
14 Dec 2023, 19:00 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / By most ostensible measures, molten salt-based nuclear fission reactors could dramatically change the global energy grid years or even decades before the first commercial fusion reactor is ready for service. But over 50 years after America's f...
Ares: NASA's Canceled Super-Heavy Rocket That Didn't Make Practical Sense
14 Dec 2023, 04:05 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / If you follow the news around space travel these days, you'll be liable to be inundated up to your eyeballs with claims that NASA's SLS rocket, the heart, and soul behind the Artemis program, is an overpriced, unaffordable albatross that ...
This '73 Chevy Chevelle SS 454 is the Right Engine, Wrong Model Year
13 Dec 2023, 02:56 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / If there's one story that keeps being replayed in the story of the muscle car, it's how 1973 was the year the clock struck midnight. Through geopolitical tomfoolery completely divorced from the day-to-day goings on at Detroit's big t...
Chuckles Garage’s 2JZ-GTE-Swapped Toyota Pickup Smokes Paganis and McLarens in Raw Speed
12 Dec 2023, 16:26 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / We'll never get bored of Toyota 2JZ engine swaps. There's just something that appeals about an icon of a JDM engine that'll happily accept as much horsepower as someone cares to squeeze out of it. But even by most measures, Scott Bir...
Crusty 1955 Chevy Panel Wagon Sports the Beating Heart of a Big Block Muscle Car
11 Dec 2023, 22:39 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / If we had a dollar for every classic GM Advanced Design light/medium-duty truck we've seen roll across the internet, we might have enough coin on hand to buy a really nice restomod example. You know, the kind that's got an LS V8 under the...
Sleeper LT1-Swapped '74 Chevy C10 is Pong On Top, Xbox Series S Under the Hood
11 Dec 2023, 17:21 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Usually, when we see restomod classic Chevy C10s out in the wild, they're long removed from the true-to-form work trucks that they used to be. By the time we see these restomods, it's common to find barely a single part shared in commonal...
Calvin Nelson's Restomod Ford Fairmont Sports a Twin-Turbo Surprise, It's Not a Coyote
9 Dec 2023, 17:33 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The last time we caught up with the eccentric and talented young restomodder Calvin Nelson, he'd just finished shoving an LS-based GM Vortec V8 under the hood of a 1962 Studebaker Lark that could run nine-second quarter mile times. That was ne...
Chris Farley's Immortal Soul Lives On Through This '76 Dodge B-Series Matt Foley Tribute
7 Dec 2023, 17:27 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It's said that the world-renowned TV funnyman Bob Odenkirk worked directly with fellow gut-buster comedian the late-great Chris Farley to write the Saturday Night Live sketch character Matt Foley. Through Farley's endless charisma and pen...
Raptor V6-Swapped Mercedes 190E is Berliner Weisse on Top, Coors Light Underneath
7 Dec 2023, 01:29 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It's hard to get more European than a numbers-matching Mercedes 190E in showroom condition, doubly so if it has a Cosworth engine. To take some wrenches and intentionally alter such a perfect sports sedan is nothing short of sacrilegious for p...
Polaris Asserts Dominance Over Performance 3-Wheelers With Updated 2024 Slingshot
6 Dec 2023, 19:21 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / There's hardly ever been a machine quite like the Polaris Slingshot in the history of the motorcar. With the possible exception of the Morgan 3-wheeler, the Slingshot is bar-none the most iconic performance-oriented triple-wheel vehicle of the...
360,000-Mile '95 Crown Victoria Refuses to Meet the Crusher, We're All For It
6 Dec 2023, 18:09 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / A little while ago, Donut Media released a video series wherein they bought a $500 Honda Civic with more miles on the clock than a spaceship practically, ripped out all its internals, and spent tens of thousands putting top-of-the-line performance ...
Totally Desperate for Four Wheels? This $1,500 1989 Ford Tempo GL Beats Walking
2 Dec 2023, 21:53 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / We get it, buddy. Times are tough, bills are high, and you can't seem to afford even a decent beater with the way used car prices fluctuate these days. But how desperate are you to get to work every day without riding a disease-filled city bus...
This LT5-Swapped '57 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz Makes CTS-Vs and Camaro ZL1s Jealous
2 Dec 2023, 18:14 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / If there's one thing older Americans scream to the youth more than anything else, it's that we just don't build cars like we used to. Never mind what this 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz would do to your body in even a moderate head-...
Polaris Ranger XP Kinetic Lands Spot on PopSci's 2023 Top 50 Greatest Innovations
2 Dec 2023, 05:04 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / As we here at autoevolution can personally attest, the all-electric Polaris Ranger XP Kinetic was nothing short of game-changing for the side-by-side sector. With more standard features than some older passenger cars and an off-road capability that...
This ’95 F-350 460 V8 and Five-Speed Combo Hits Harder Than 4 a.m. Taco Bell
1 Dec 2023, 22:17 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / We get a lot of old-timers in the automotive space bemoaning how pickup trucks used to be different breeds moons ago. If you're on the younger side, it might be easy to pass off that kind of rhetoric as another "okay, boomer" moment....
Hartley Engines' Tuned 1GZ-FE V12 Will Melt Your Face Off at 10,000 RPM, Jets 720 HP
1 Dec 2023, 05:56 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The Toyota 1GZ-FE is a V12 built for a particularly Japanese flavor of ultra-luxurious four-wheeled land barges called the Century. Skilled engineers and craftspeople spent thousands of hours and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to make ...
Myasishchev M-55: A Retired High-Altitude Soviet Spy Plane That Might Make a Comeback
1 Dec 2023, 03:58 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The Lockheed U-2 is a spy plane so exemplary at its job that the US Air Force is still hesitant to get rid of it, even almost 70 years after its first flight. The Dragon Lady, as people often call it, leaves a legacy unlike any other in the history...