Trucks

Most restaurant owners shudder when a food truck pulls up outside. Not Mike Israyelyan. He invited one inside the Hollywood restaurant he calls Calle Tacos. Israyelyan and partners Robert Vinokur and Dorian and Javier Villaseñor spent $20,000 to have the side of a 22-foot-long food truck measured and an exact copy fabricated out of stainless steel. Then they equipped it with lights and tires, covered it with a colorful vinyl logo wrap and hauled it on a flatbed to Hollywood Boulevard.

The prepared food vendors at local farmers markets cater to a world of tastes and ethnicities, from Filipino balut to halal shawarma , but until recently none served observant Jews who follow kosher dietary laws. It fell to a secular Jew, Michele Grant, fresh off the success of her Grilled Cheese Truck, to fill that niche, offering a flavorful, healthy twist on traditional kosher cooking, strictly supervised by the Rabbinical Council of California . "The idea is to encourage the Orthodox community to come to farmers markets," says Grant, 46. "When they buy produce, they can have a little nosh at the same time.

Diesel fans got a nice Valentine's Day gift from Ram, as the company announced Thursday that it would be making the Ram 1500 pickup available with a diesel engine. "Truck owners have been emphatically asking for it, and Ram will be the only manufacturer to offer a diesel powertrain in the half-ton segment with the 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel," Fred Diaz, chief executive of Ram Truck Brand, said in a statement. The 3.0-liter V-6 will be paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Chrysler Group is recalling more than 370,000 trucks and SUVs to fix a problem with the vehicles' rear axle. The recall affects 2009 Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen SUVs, 2009-11 Dodge Dakota trucks and 2009-12 Ram 1500 trucks. Of the vehicles recalled, 278,222 are in the U.S. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said a pinion nut on the vehicles' rear axle can come loose because of a lack of adhesion. Should the nut come loose, the axle could lock up, possibly causing the driver to lose control and crash.

One list has four sports cars and six trucks. The other list has nine small vehicles and one sedan. You don't need to be a "Jeopardy!" contestant to figure out which list is for men and which list is for women. Edmunds.com found this out when it compiled top-10 lists of the vehicles in the Los Angeles area with the highest percentages of male and female ownership. Using new-vehicle registrations for 2012, the website was able to determine which cars and trucks were most likely to be owned by men and women.

The trucks are generally where they are supposed to be. That might have been the main message in an American Trucking Assn. report released Tuesday that referred to four separate studies of accidents involving truckers and regular motorists. In one such study of more than 8,300 fatal accidents performed by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, the drivers of cars and other light vehicles were assigned blame in 81% of the accidents. Cars "were the encroaching vehicle in 89% of head-on crashes, 88% of opposite-direction sideswipes, 80% of rear-end crashes, and 72% of same-direction sideswipes," the report said.

A pickup truck crashed into sausage-and-beer hall Wurstküche in Venice about 9 p.m. Sunday after a police chase along Venice and Lincoln boulevards, according to the LAPD. The police told KNBC   that the truck hit a cyclist before crashing, and that the driver, identified by officers as a parolee, had been arrested. The cyclist was hospitalized with a broken leg , according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Two customers at Wurstküche were also injured, according to the KNBC report.

Darrell Wallace Jr. will become only the fourth black driver to race full time in one of NASCAR's three national series after Joe Gibbs Racing on Saturday said the 19-year-old will drive in NASCAR's truck series this year. "I can't wait to get on the track at Daytona [International Speedway]," site of the first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race Feb. 22, Wallace said in a statement. Wallace is a developmental driver under contract with Gibbs and will race the No. 54 Toyota truck prepared by the team of Kyle Busch Motorsports.

The massive dragnet for a fugitive ex-cop continued Friday, with more than 100 officers conducting a fruitless search in the snowy, forested mountains around Big Bear Lake for an armed gunman who police say is on a vengeful rampage. As the falling snow piled up, authorities pledged to continue the manhunt until they find Christopher Jordan Dorner, the 33-year-old former Los Angeles police officer suspected of killing three people, or stumble on definitive evidence that he is no longer in the area.

The Frysmith truck, known for its hearty fries that you attack with a fork, is slated to launch four pop-ups that will operate for one week each Feb. 18 through March 17. During that time, the truck will expand its regular fry menu with some items inspired by Los Angeles' diverse culinary character.  So what does a truck called Frysmith name four pop-up versions of itself? Soupsmith, Wichsmith, Wingsmith and Quesadillasmith, of course. The truck did a Soupsmith pop-up for one week last year and is turning the success of that venture into three more "smiths.