It has been my honor and privilege to have been the Mercury News’ auto editor since Drive first published on Friday, June 7, 1991. That’s a lot of test drives. A lot of cars driven in a lot of places … Alaska, Canada, Hawaii, probably half the other U.S. states, but mainly here in Northern California. Great roads, great weather, new cars — that’s a nice combination.

My favorite car? I still don’t have a good pat answer. I liked the old Mazda RX-7 a lot. I drove it on Willow Springs race track and it made me feel like a great driver. But it was the much-anticipated new stuff — VW New Beetle, Mini Cooper, 350Z, PT Cruiser, the Viper — that was most memorable. That and the handful of concept cars (most recently the Dodge Challenger and Ford Interceptor) and experimental cars stand out.

In all these years of test-driving, only one car — a mid-’90s Porsche — left me stranded, and that’s when a gas line broke. Otherwise they’ve all started. Cars, even the cheapest ones, have become exceedingly reliable. Not perfect, certainly, but pretty good.

I never crashed one (knock on simulated wood), although a drunk driver once plowed into a Ford Focus I was driving. (Luckily my family was fine, and he was arrested.) And I’ve only gotten 2 tickets in 16 years. Again, a nice combination of common sense and fate.

That’s 845 issues of Drive, including today’s last one. (That doesn’t count a year or so of a Saturday publication, OverDrive, and a few Sunday Drive special sections over the years.)

Sixteen years means that I’ve seen SUVs rise and fall, gas prices rise and rise some more, the return of the convertible, the birth of the crossover and, now, a sense that we’re about to move beyond the internal-combustion gasoline engine and move toward electric transportation, be it pure EV, gas-electric hybrids, diesel-electric hybrids or some other fuel source.

I’ve talked to hundreds of auto executives, designers, marketers and engineers over the years. I’ve covered dozens of cars shows and attended hundreds of local car events. Thanks for telling me about your car (or motorcycle) and how much it means to you.

I’ve printed a vanity license plate every week in Drive, and I’d like to thank regular contributors such as Susan Lister and Brian Berg for submitting hundreds of plates. In all, thousands of folks have sent them in, and we’ve all laughed or scratched our heads trying to figure them out. So thanks.

Brad Bergholdt, an auto-tech teacher at Evergreen CC here in San Jose, has written his Under the Hood column for much of Drive’s existence. Thanks to Brad for helping folks out, both here and around the country as many other newspapers picked up his column.  Happy fishing, my friend.

I’d like to thank the dozen or so journalists who have been my direct editor as I produced Drive each week since 1991 . You made the section better. I’d also like to thank the many auto writers who have helped me over the years — you showed me how to do this job, you’ve prompted me to ask better questions, you didn’t kill me when we drove together (and, yes, I didn’t kill you either).

Mostly though, I want to thank the thousands of you who have read Drive over the years. Some of you are casual readers; others are car enthusiasts who wouldn’t miss an issue. I’ve talked to so many of you — via letter, phone call, e-mail or in person as various shows and events I’ve attended. I’ve appreciate your compliments and complaints, your interest in what I had to say and your passion for cars.

As I wrote on June 7, 1991: “Cars are much more than transportation. People remember special songs, first kisses and first cars. Cars can symbolize who you are or show off an alter ego. It should be a fun trip.”

It was.

Buckle up. Adjust your mirrors. Keep the shiny side up.

(Photo of me with a Mercedes-Benz CLK63 AMG Black Series courtesy of my friend Ed Barrett.)  

I must admit that today’s news that Jim Press, the top U.S. executive within the still-very-Japanese-centric Toyota, is going to Chrysler is shocking.

Why? First off, Press is a Toyota lifer. I’ve probably interviewed him a dozen times, sat next to him at press dinners, driven with him, and no U.S. Toyota executive seemed more in tune with Japan than Press. He oversaw the company during a period of tremendous growth, and his reward was joining the board in Japan. No American had been given that status before.

He once told me that he preferred Japanese food to American fare, and for some reason I found that a startling statement. After all, his mission, in many ways, besides the obvious mantra of selling more cars and trucks, was to make Toyota seem more and more like a U.S. company.

Now he’s going to the new Chrysler company. He’ll head its sales and marketing efforts. Besides another indication that Chrysler and its new management led by Bob Nardelli intends to be a serious player on the world’s auto stage, it shows that it’s willing to pay big bucks to make it happen.

You have to figure that Press was going to retire from Toyota in the next 10 years, maybe sooner, and get a big package. So, to go to Chrysler, where he’s likely had to commit to 3 to 5 years of work, well, it probably took a pretty penny to make that happen.

Not sure how Press will fit in with the remaining Chrysler brass, but you have to figure that the new bosses hope his magic touch with sales (as well as Toyota’s reputation for producing top quality vehicles) will rub off.

So, it’s good for Chrysler, but what about Toyota? Press was immediate replaced with a Japanese executive I have never met. Still, I had forgotten that he had been moved away from the pushing-iron folks in Torrance to the corporate offices in NYC, so don’t expect many changes on the dealership level, or in Toyota’s product/advertising/marketing efforts.

What makes a vehicle ideal? According to AutoPacific, a Tustin-based researcher, it’s a vehicle that its owner wouldn’t change. It’s when expectations meets reality, says George Peterson, AutoPacific’s president, in announcing the 2007 Ideal Vehicle Awards.

Awards were given in 25 categories, and the top 10 luxury and mainstream brands were listed. You can read all the results at www.autopacific.com.

Here are some highlights:

* Top 5 premium/luxury brands: Lincoln, Buick, Porsche, Infiniti, Jaguar.

* Top 5 mainstream brands: Mercury, Hyundai, Ford, VW, Nissan.

* Ideal premium luxury car: Mercedes-Benz S-Class

* Ideal aspirational luxury car: Infiniti G35

* Ideal mid-size car: Saturn Aura

* Ideal sports car: Porsche Boxster

* Ideal mid-size SUV: Ford Explorer

* Ideal premium mid-size crossover SUV: Ford Edge

* Ideal minivan: Hyundai Entourage  

(Photo of the 2007 Ford Explorer courtesy of Ford Motor Co.)

It sounds ludicrous, which means it’s probably possible.

The Internet is full of rumors today that the head of VW met with Steve Jobs recently to talk about Apple and VW making the iCar.

Here’s a German car blogger on it.  

Here’s something similar from the MacDailyNews.

Does this seem inevitable? iTunes. iPhone. iCar. iYiYi.

Think of the marketing potential: The People’s Car Meets The People’s Music Player/Video Player/Telephone Player.

Come to think of it, isn’t the New Beetle shaped something like a Mac, all done up with clean lines and bright colors?

I sent a note to the head of VW PR. He confirmed the meeting, but not the car.

Some fun facts, courtesy of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the DC lobbying arm of automakers such as Ford, GM and Toyota.

* More than 13 million new cars and trucks were registered in 2006. (Automotive News puts U.S. sales last year at more than 16 million, but I’m guessing the Auto Alliance don’t account for fleets.)

* Three states — California, Texas and Florida — had more than 1 million registrations each. At nearly 1.7 million, the Golden State topped Texas and Florida by more than half million units.

* Six states — Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wyoming — and the District of Columbia had fewer than 50,000 new-vehicle registrations in 2006.

* Trucks were more popular than cars in 44 of the 50 states. Car sales topped truck sales (including pickups, SUVs and minivans) in 6 states: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and New York. (And in DC, too.)

* A four-page brochure on these findings is available on the Auto Alliance Web site. It includes a 2-page map showing where autos are made in the U.S. Page 2 shows the entire Western U.S. with only one auto factory, NUMMI in Fremont. Page 3 shows a couple dozen plants in the East, Midwest and South. While Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana still have most of the auto plants, the expansion South now includes 14 plants, from Norfolk, VA, to San Antonio, TX. 

The cars are always beautiful, exquisite, elegant, almost otherworldly. But let’s be honest here, the winning owner often is more famous than the winning car — at least to me.
By that I mean I recognize the sheer brilliance of a winning Mercedes, Duesenberg, Rolls and such. But I often haven’t heard of the specific car before.

I mention this because that certainly wasn’t the case on Sunday. A 1935 Duesenberg SJ Special was crowned as best of show of the 57th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. This car is the so-called Mormon Meteor, according to one Web site the 4th most famous car ever built.

The car is now owned by Harry Yeaggy of Cincinnati, Ohio. (And, yes, I’d never heard of him.) But I have heard of Ab Jenkins. Once mayor of Salt Lake City, Jenkins took his supercharged Duesie and averaged 135.58 mph hour in a 24-hour race in 1935.

Yeaggy bought the car in 2004 at the post-Pebble Gooding & Co. auction for $4.45 million. Here’s betting that Sunday’s crown only enhances the value of the speedster.

You can find two good stories on the Mormon Meteor.

One can be found at http://historytogo.utah.gov. It’s a 1993 Salt Lake Tribune story on David Abbott “Ab” Jenkins, Utah’s Son of Speed who put the Bonnevile Salt Flats on the map.

Another story, by Dick Mittman on http://www.indy500.com, tells of the Mormon Meteor’s value, and memories of Ab’s son, Marv Jenkins.

Next year’s event is scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008. If you put a $5 bill in a jar once a week starting today, you can afford a ticket.

OK, I’m only including this note to see if it boosts my blog hits today.

Here’s a story from today’s Philly Inquirer on the cast of “High School Musical 2.”

It describes Zac Efron as “dreamy,” says he’ll soon star in a remake of “Footloose,” and notes that he drives a 2002 Oldsmobile Alero. That, my friends, is keeping it real.

Here’s the story. And thanks to the folks at Kelley Blue Book, which linked to this link because the story said the car’s Blue Book value is about $6,300, which seems way, way too high to me.

Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley electric-car startup, has replaced Martin Eberhard, its chief executive officer, with Michael Marks. Marks, the former CEO of Flextronics, was an early investor in Tesla.

The San Carlos company will deliver its first car, a two-seat, zero-emissions roadster, later this year. It has taken more than 500 deposits for the $98,000 car and says it will produce a larger, cheaper electric car later in the decade.

Tesla will post the news, as a message from its chairman, Elon Musk, on its Web site Monday morning.

Eberhard is a co-founder of Tesla, and has been its CEO since 2003. He’ll continue as the company’s president of technology “and focus on the success of the Roadster program as well as the advancement of our core technologies,” Musk’s message says.

The statement gives no reason for the demotion of Eberhard. “Martin and the board have been planning for CEO succession since early this year, and will continue the search for a permanent CEO to lead Tesla Motors,” according to the statement.

Besides leading the company, Eberhard has been the public face of Tesla, testifying in Washington and Sacramento and appearing with the roadster at high profile events such as the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the Los Angeles Auto Show in 2006.

Expect the usual array of classics to litter the Monterey Peninsula next week as The Quail, Concorso Italiano, Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and myriad auctions fill the calendar starting Thursday, Aug. 16.

But some new cars appear, too, from concepts and others on the lawn in front of the Lodge at Pebble Beach to the show fields themselves.

The C16 Speedster features a 700-horsepower, 6.2-liter engine that rockets the car from 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds, the Old Lyme, Conn., company says.

The open cockpit with tall wind deflectors set the tone for the hand-tooled German leather interior.

On sale this fall for a paltry $300,000, Speedster No. 1 will be delivered to its owner in Pebble Beach. For those with less fun money, Callaway continues to individual C16 components for 2005-2007 Corvettes.

(Photo, which is really the only reason I posted this item, courtesy of Callaway Cars.)

Gov. Schwarzenegger signed SB 234 today, which gives troops stationed in California protection from cars that go bad.

Rosemary Shahan, of Consumers for Automotive Reliability and Safety (CARS), says it doesn’t represent a “huge expansion” of California’s already well-regarded Lemon Law, but it is the first improvement to it in 7 years.

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