Happy new year!

I hope all of you will have a happy year 2012!

Here is a preview to what will be the first post of the new year:

[Special] One year "Abandoned cars"

Today, this blog celebrates its first birthday.
I want to thank all the readers, who viewed this site almost 18000 times in total.

Now, let's look back at the five most popular posts of the past 365 days.

With far more views than all the other posts, the very first one takes the "victory".
This Ford Escort Mk2 abandoned in Great Britain opened the blog.
One year later, here is another example standing in the same country:

(Photo by iron_mighty07)

Unlike the Datsun 411 posted almost one year ago, the one below is far beyond restoration:

(Photo by edsel)

The third-most-clicked post is this Porsche Cayman
As it's probably impossible to find another abandoned Porsche Cayman, the next picture will have to represent the fourth place as well, which is taken by another Porsche, this time accompanied by a Rolls-Royce. Containing quite a lot of Porsches, I think it will do this job just fine (I highly recommend to click on the picture to view it in a higher resolution).

(Photo by reverendtheef)

The Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia on fifth place is one of the few stories told in this blog which have a happy ending.
In this photo, another VW is still waiting for being rescued:

(Photo by Rolfen)

So now, I am looking forward to another year of hopefully interesting pictures and stories. Let's see which posts will be in the Top 5 next year...

AMC Pacer

(Photo by ic21985)

Unlike the Citroën DS in the previous post, which undoubtedly is a beautiful car, the AMC Pacer may be argued about.
Many things were special about this car.
As an answer to a growing demand for compact cars, AMC created the "first wide small car" (original advertisment slogan) in 1975. Despite only being 4,32 metres long, the Pacer was 1,98 metres wide, which lead to unusual proportions. The very high amount of glass (37% of the exterior) further contributed to the extraordinary appearance, as well as the passenger's door being 10 centimeters longer than the door on the driver's side.
Another speciality had originally been planned for the Pacer, but the intended use of a Wankel rotary engine foundered on emission regulations in the USA. Therefore, the only "strange" engine available was a 5.0l V8 introduced in 1978.
Unlike this oversized engine, the versions with six cylinders sold quite well, although they also consumed quite a lot of fuel for the size of the car. This was largely due to AMC attaching importance to safety features causing a high weight.
Today, the AMC Pacer is increasingly popular as a collectors' car. A well preserved example can be seen right below the one in an extremely sorry condition here:

(Photo by 731132)


(Photo by pontfire)