India, July 4 -- Three months after both the US and Europe went into more or less of a lockdown, the world isn't nearly the same. I chose to leave New York at the end of February and hunkered down at my place in Bavaria, which turned out to be a good decision. The pandemic has struck Germany badly, but with far less force than the US. And Bavaria is where I keep my cars and a vast archive of automotive literature that stretches back into the 1970s.
This archive came in handy to generate stories when nothing else was happening. Usually, and actually too often, automotive reporting is event-driven instead of taking a long-term, analytical point of view. But such events were entirely absent for almost two months.
Every major car show has bee...