Next up for KIA? The FORTE; their “bread and butter car”. For the KIA SOUL we stayed at the Mandarin in Miami. The vibe was ultra-cool. For the KIA FORTE intro we are staying at Hyatt at Olive 8, the first LEED- certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) hotel in the city of Seattle, [...]

Day Two: We get our 2009 MINIs to drive. Yikes! First thing is a lesson on how to drive backwards around a roundabout. Mind you, I’m driving on the left side of the road and driving a manual with the gears on the left. All I can say is yikes, it’s rather daunting! However, our [...]

Same day… Yes, we were still on the move and I hadn’t slept yet! Next stop; Camden Town. A brief history: Camden Town stands on the land which was once the manor of Cantelowes. Sir Charles Pratt (later 1st Earl of Camden) inherited the manor in marriage. In 1791 he granted leases for 1400 houses [...]

Backing up to last week. My first chance to blog about it! Day One: Wednesday, May 20 Didn’t sleep except for a brief nod on the way over from NYC to Heathrow, London. Never mind. We were picked up by a chauffeur from the May Fair Hotel. Brilliant! The May Fair, first opened by King [...]

I’m on my way to London , Birmingham and Silverstone for MINI’s 5oth anniversary. We will be touring London,visiting Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon, going to the Electric Cinema in Birmingham and going to MINI UNITED in Silverstone. If possible, I will blog from there but sounds like a mile a minute trip…

Last time I checked in I was on my way to Northern Italy to drive the 2009 Porsche 911 Targa. I went there. I did it. It was amazing. Truly, how could it not be??? The 2009 Porsche 911 Targa was everything I expected… from the way it looked—lean, lush and sexy to the way [...]

On my way to Verona, Italy to drive the 2009 Porsche Targa. What can I say? RV’s one week and sports cars the next. And it’s all good. We are driving the roads of Northern Italy and staying at the Grand Hotel Fasano in Gardone Riviera, Italy. The venue is a converted hunting lodge built in [...]

I’m always writing about sports cars, convertibles, hip looking vans and the like, so I thought it was time for something different. Last week I took a four- day RV trip through the Canadian Rockies with my good friend, Adeline. We drove from Calgary through Banff to Lake Louise and stayed in campgrounds along the [...]

An interesting tidbit….( no pun intended!) smart USA and Meyers Parking in New York City have partnered up for a parking discount through December 31, 2008. Meyers Parking, the parking garage for Madison Square Garden, is offering a 50% parking discount to smart fortwo owners at any of their six facilities in New York City. [...]

When a well-heeled rapper asked Rolls-Royce to fashion him an all-chrome Phantom- Coupé, the company respectfully explained that they couldn’t fill his request. Why? Because the chrome couldn’t be finished and polished to the company’s exacting specifications. With all-chrome it was possible that imperfections could stick to the surface in the process of applying the [...]