Benny Kirk
1,726 ARTICLES
This VW Bora Traded Its Meager Existence for a 960 Horsepower Turbo VR6
1 Nov 2022, 17:44 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Call it a Bora, a Jetta, or whatever pet name you like. The Volkswagen A4 platform was arguably the best VW's come up with in the last 20 years. Lightweight and fuel-efficient, there's nothing to indicate a stock Bora has any form of raci...
This 1975 Plymouth Duster is a Classic Muscle Car That Normal People Can Afford
1 Nov 2022, 16:45 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / If you ask most car enthusiasts, they'll tell you the first muscle car renaissance was well and truly over by 1975. They'll say the 1973 OPEC oil crisis promptly made everything get slower, fatter, and less powerful. Well, this 1975 Plymo...
Argo AI Set to Shut Down, Once Promising AV Tech Company Goes Up In Smoke
28 Oct 2022, 01:28 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It wouldn't be hyperbole to say Argo AI was a flagship tech company for the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A pioneer of Lidar and sensor-based autonomous vehicle technology that prided itself not on being the first AV company but rather the...
This 1962 Lincoln Continental Restomod Packs a General Motors Surprise Under the Hood
27 Oct 2022, 21:01 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / There's something about taking a Ford, Chrysler, or GM chassis and swapping it with an engine from a competitor's car that appeals to us in a very particular way. There's a certain blasphemy about it that feels so wrong yet paradoxic...
NASA's EMIT Studies 50 Methane "Super Emitters" From Space, Makes Lifted Trucks Look Green
26 Oct 2022, 20:46 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Internal combustion passenger cars get a bad reputation for a very good reason. Those platinum-packed, performance-choking catalytic converters exist for a purpose, of course. But too often, ICE is the focal point of the blame for an endlessly comp...
NASA's Lucy Probe Takes Eerie Picture of Earth From Far Beyond the Moon's Orbit
26 Oct 2022, 01:21 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / NASA's Lucy space probe is a machine destined to study the miscellaneous space rocks of the outer solar system. But that doesn't mean it can't get a little boost from its home planet. Three of them, as a matter of fact. But in the mi...
This 1969 Pontiac LeMans Safari Estate is a Station Wagon Fan's Holy Grail
25 Oct 2022, 20:30 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / What is it about station wagons, estate cars, or whatever you call it in your neck of the woods that appealed so much in the far-off past? Station wagons are a dying breed in 2022, but enthusiasts out there are willing to pay big money for a well-p...
This VW Golf MK 7 Packs a Turbo Audi Surprise Under the Hood, Is an All-Time Great Sleeper
25 Oct 2022, 15:56 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / If there was ever a critique to be levied at the Mk7 Volkswagen Golf R, it would never be an issue of a chronic lack of power. Around 300 horsepower from a two-liter turbocharged AE888 four-pot engine should be plenty for all walks of life. But not...
China's Next Generation Crewed Spacecraft Wants To Beat NASA's Orion to the Moon and Mars
25 Oct 2022, 04:46 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / As of October 2022, NASA and the European Space Agency lay claim to the only launch-ready, human-rated spacecraft capable of bringing a crew into orbit around the Moon and possibly even Mars. But don't think even for a second that they're...
Lavochkin La-15: The MiG 15's Long Forgotten Step Sibling Came Back to Life in War Thunder
24 Oct 2022, 21:38 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / When people think of early Cold War Soviet jet fighters, they think about MiGs and not much else. If modern Hollywood Korean and Vietnam War movies were taken as gospel, you'd assume MiG 15s, 17s, 19s, and 21s were the only fighters non-NATO-a...
Artemis Accords: An Alliance to Take the World, Not Just the U.S., to the Moon and Beyond
23 Oct 2022, 00:20 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / For far too long, there was a duopoly in place in the field of space exploration. If you weren't an American or a Soviet, your behind was staying on Earth indefinitely. But those days are long behind us. The cosmos is ripe for the taking for a...
Born To Fly: The Chinese Top Gun Maverick Copycat That Did a Vanishing Act
22 Oct 2022, 03:48 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Fighter jets are awesome. Movies about fighter jets starring Tom Cruise as he continues to stave off the effects of aging are even better. But in China, which only begrudgingly accepts western cinema into their country, edited heavily at that, anot...
Famous Futurist Author Claims Interstellar Space Probes Aren't As Impossible as They Sound
22 Oct 2022, 01:01 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / You might find it laughable even to consider the concept of an interstellar space probe as a legitimately viable scientific expedition. Considering it took the Voyager 1 probe 35 years just to reach a region more or less considered interstellar spa...
Space Shuttle vs Dream Chaser: Can This Pint Sized Space Plane Really Replace an Icon?
21 Oct 2022, 23:18 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The last American space plane to complete a mission in orbit touched down at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011. When the Space Shuttle orbiter Atlantis came to a wheel stop at the end of the 15,000-foot (4,572-meter) long runway, it marked...
NASA Orders Three More Lockheed Martin Orion Spacecraft, Artemis I Still Marooned on Earth
21 Oct 2022, 19:01 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / As of late October 2022, NASA's SLS rocket carrying the Artemis I Orion Spacecraft had its launch scrubbed no less than three times. But of all the flight hardware purported to be on the fritz with NASA's first Mission to carry human-rate...
NASA's James Webb Telescope Just Brought the Iconic Pillars of Creation into 4K
21 Oct 2022, 03:27 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It's too easy to get caught up in the mundane daily grind to the point that we forget about our place in the universe. But all it takes is one look at the stunning Pillars of Creation photograph originally taken by the Hubble Space Telescope t...
NASA's NEOWISE Telescope Takes 12 Year Time Lapse of the Whole Cosmos, Mind Blowing Result
21 Oct 2022, 00:28 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / What were you up to this time 13 years ago? Was it of any substantial importance? Or were you still young enough to be flunking math exams on a regular? Whatever the case, NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) ...
This 1976 Cadillac Coupe DeVille Was the Last Great Caddy for 30 Years
20 Oct 2022, 19:31 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / As Adam Ferrara, the ex-host of the American spinoff of Top Gear, once said, "The last great car America built in the 20th century was the 1976 Cadillac Coupe Deville". After that, everything turned to downsized, underpowered, cheap, plas...
Diesel MHEV Option Coming to the Mazda CX-60 in the UK, Skips U.S. Equivalents
20 Oct 2022, 16:04 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / When it comes to crossover SUVs, Mazda's global lineup has a model, vehicle size and options package to satisfy any buyer's desires. But in the United Kingdom, where people sometimes choose to put diesels under the hood of their cars, unl...
NASA Observed the Brightest Explosion in Recorded History, Details Inside
18 Oct 2022, 22:19 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The great celebrity theoretical physicist Michio Kaku once famously quipped that he turned down several offers from military-industrial companies who wanted him to come work on nuclear weapons programs. He says he snarkily replied that he wanted to...