Car storage appears on its face to be passive — the car is not being driven, therefore nothing is happening to it, therefore nothing requires preparation or attention. This reasoning produces cars that emerge from storage with flat-spotted tires, discharged and sulfated batteries, gummed fuel systems, seized brake calipers, deteriorated rubber components, and pest damage to wiring and interior. The cars that emerge from extended storage in the same mechanical condition as when they went in are the cars whose owners understood that storage is an active process.

The cultural weight that a single film appearance in 1964 deposited on the Aston Martin DB5 has complicated its assessment as an automobile. The DB5 is a beautiful, capable, mechanically sophisticated grand tourer that would command serious collector attention based on its own merits. It is also the car that Sean Connery drove in Goldfinger, and that association has inflated its market value, attracted buyers who are purchasing cinematic mythology rather than automotive excellence, and made it difficult to discuss the car as an object rather than as an icon.

A car’s paint is under continuous assault from UV radiation, airborne contamination, bird droppings, road tar, tree sap, and the abrasion of washing that removes the compounds deposited by all of the above. The factory clear coat that protects the color layer is measured in microns and does not regenerate once it is removed. The paint protection decisions an owner makes in the first year of a car’s life determine the condition of the paint for the remainder of its ownership, and potentially through subsequent ownerships for cars that retain value over time.

Tires are the only point of contact between a vehicle and the road. Every input — braking, steering, acceleration — is transmitted through four contact patches, each approximately the size of a human hand. The condition of those patches determines the vehicle’s actual capability regardless of what the chassis, the brakes, or the electronics are capable of achieving. A car with excellent brakes and worn tires will stop in a longer distance than a car with mediocre brakes and excellent tires. Physics does not allow the alternative.

Wheel alignment — the orientation of the tires relative to each other and to the road surface — affects tire wear, fuel economy, handling stability, and steering feel simultaneously. A car with incorrect alignment is a car that is consuming tires unevenly, potentially using more fuel than necessary, and handling in ways that differ from its design intention without giving the driver an obvious indication that something is wrong. The deterioration is gradual enough that many drivers adapt to it without noticing until a tire is worn through on one edge or the car pulls strongly enough to require constant steering correction.

The Mustang Dark Horse represents Ford’s attempt to produce a track-focused Mustang that is analytically justifiable rather than simply powerful in the way that American performance cars have traditionally satisfied their performance requirements. The 500-horsepower 5.0-liter Coyote V8 is carried over from the Mach 1 with specific modifications — a new flat-plane crankshaft that allows the engine to rev faster and produce a different sound character — and surrounded by chassis, suspension, and aerodynamic development that is serious enough to require explanation rather than simply impressive horsepower figures.

Transmission fluid is the most commonly deferred fluid service on the average car, and the consequences of indefinitely deferred service are among the most expensive mechanical repairs an owner will face. An automatic transmission rebuild or replacement costs $3,000 to $6,000 on a mainstream car and significantly more on European or luxury vehicles. A transmission fluid service costs $100 to $250. The return on the maintenance investment, expressed in avoided repair costs, is among the highest available in automotive ownership.

Three engineers at Lamborghini — Gian Paolo Dallara, Paolo Stanzani, and Bob Wallace — built the Miura’s chassis on their own time, without official company authorization, because they believed that a mid-engine sports car was the right direction and that the best way to convince Ferruccio Lamborghini was to show him one rather than explain it to him. They were correct. Lamborghini approved the project. Bertone’s Marcello Gandini, 26 years old, styled the body. The result was unveiled at the 1966 Geneva Show as a rolling chassis and sold as a complete car the following year.

The Land Rover Defender V8 answers a question that nobody strictly needed to ask: what happens when you put a supercharged 5.0-liter V8 producing 518 horsepower into a car that can also ford rivers, climb gradients that defeat other off-road vehicles, and carry a family of five across terrain that requires disconnecting the front anti-roll bar and deploying a low-range transfer case? The answer is that it works, and it works in a way that is not obviously coherent but is undeniably entertaining.

The cooling system is among the most neglected maintenance areas on the typical family car, which is why coolant-related failures account for a disproportionate share of roadside breakdowns and a significant portion of preventable engine damage. The system is invisible in operation — the coolant temperature gauge sits at normal, the heater works, and there is no obvious sign that the coolant circulating through the engine has degraded to the point where it is no longer doing its job adequately.