Those of you who are not stupid well-connected enough to have a bunch of autojournos in your Twitter and Facebook friend lists are missing out on all the, er, coverage coming from the “Midwestern NAMBLA pump n’ dump for morbidly obese auto journalists” track event going on today. Let me give you the precis. It turns out all these cars are ZOMG AEWSUM and track records are falling left and right as America’s finest drivers deliver Vic Elfordian levels of all-weather punishment upon them. No word on whether the Midwestern journo who cracked up a MINI at Autobahn and followed it up by driving off the first corner at MAMA’s event a few years back has caused his usual mayhem.
Expect this event to provide many tales of “pushing it to the limit” in the soul-crushing months to come. In the meantime, however, we’ve found an activity which is well-suited to the banzai buffet beasts out there: manned crash testing.
To their credit, the nice people at Cars.com aren’t trying to hide the fact that they wrecked their Volt. And it is their Volt; the blog has put its money where its mouth is and stumped up its own cash to buy the vehicle instead of asking for a long-term freeloader, I mean, tester.
Still, it would be nice to know how the crash happened. Whenever your humble author blows a motor, crashes on the first lap, puts a rod through the block, or is slapped with a six-thousand-dollar fine for helping another driver catch a ride on the LifeFlight, I try to provide a brief account of the incident, even if said account is self-serving in the vicious extreme. I guess I did forget to mention the time I bought a $15,800 Mugen Grand-Am engine in practice. Have to get around to that some time, if anybody wants to hear about it.
For the record, this relatively minor-looking mishap cost Cars.com over ten grand in damage for the front end, plus repairs to the rear bumper caused by a cop pushing the car off the road. That typically happens on Chicago freeways, leading to speculation that this was a case of the distracted rear-ender. If somebody is willing to tell us, we will tell you. In the meantime, cross your fingers for the hapless journosaurs out on track today. They are literally hours away from free alcohol!
Based on a test drive of one this weekend, I’d say there was a curve in the road. An F-150 handles better than the Volt does. It doesn’t matter as most drivers will never take a turn at over 5 MPH in them anyway.
Really? I can find plenty to not love about the Volt, but bad handling isn’t one of them.
EN and I agree on something. I have never heard anything about a bad handling Volt. If your F150 is a Lightning, I could see what you are saying. If not, I think you are wrong.
I’ve not driven a Volt but understand it is based on the same platform as the Cruze I have, which handles quite well. Thought the low center mounted battery pack improved the cg.
Love the crumpled plate.
They don’t insure the cars they buy?
Maybe they have basic insurance, or it doesn’t cover when they screw up.
Please tell me that the NAMBLA acronym is a misprint. Otherwise, I think that the “pump n’ dump” may not be referring to a track event. If that really is their acronym, they may want to consider changing it, though it is pretty funny commingling auto journalists and pedophiles.
What have you got against the National Association of Marlon Brando Look-Alikes?
Nothing at all, as long as they stay away from the butter.
HarveyBirdman,
That made me LITERALLY LOL. Nice.
Hey, Jack and Ray Wert actually found something they agree on: they both hate fat people!
Harveybirdman: Jack is being tongue-in-cheeky. And, actually, Jalopnik used the abbreviation NAMBLA to describe this group in an article they ran one year ago today. Seems an Aston Martin got wrecked when a freak thunderstorm blew in and near-hurricane force winds toppled a tree on it at last year’s spring rally in Elkhart Lake, Wis.
The group is MAMA, Midwest Automotive Media Association. I had to skip the spring rally this year but have attended in the past. I never wrecked a car, though.
Ah, glad to hear it’s an intentional dig (though it would be funnier if that were the group’s misconceived acronym).
I see Illinois tags on the Volt and I live in IL. Would like more information on how to find these jokers getting crazy… can I get some Autobahn invites? I promise I’ll bring my own car :-)
The MAMA spring rally is at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis. today and tomorrow until noon. You have to be a member and had until last week to RSVP.
Dang. Where is my (fake) press card, and 2 days off work!?
“Mugen Grand-Am” is relevant to my interests.
Love the title of this post.
Aside from perhaps Joe Weisenfelder, Cars.com produces some of the most useless and banal car reviews I have ever read outside of the weekly auto section in the local newspaper. I am astonished these people receive a paycheck for what they do.