Does the above car look familiar? It should; we tested it earlier this year. I noted the IS-F’s desire to step sideways in wet conditions when the eight-speed autobox clunked through the gears, but honestly I thought it was more annoyance than danger.
Turns out I was wrong. Yesterday, a journalist put a halt to the fun of the “International Motor Press Assocation” Monticello track-and-buffet-day when he crashed on his very first lap. When my spies at IMPA (as you might suspect, I’m not a member, the same way I’m not a member of the Midwestern association) told me about the crash, I was surprised. Not because some hammerhead drove off on his first lap to the track — that’s virtually mandatory at these events — but because there’s almost nothing to hit at Monticello. That track has been engineered in a cost-no-object fashion to prevent even the biggest idiots from stuffing their cars into a wall.
Oh well. Make something idiot-proof, and IMPA, MAMA, or (especially) TAWA will engineer a bigger idiot. Apparently the rest of the event was conducted with a maximum speed of sixty miles per hour. A maximum speed. Of sixty miles per hour. On a racetrack that I drove in wet conditions and saw speeds of 140+, while I had a helicopter flying overhead. Why bother to have journalists on the track under those conditions? Which leads to a better, broader question: Why are journalists on a racetrack at all?
Freshly minted college graduates usually aren’t the best credit risk – especially in today’s unpermissive environment when it comes to jobs. BMW thinks otherwise and declared that a good student needs a bimmer for graduation. On credit. Real credit. No more phony college credits. This is the real thing! (Read More…)
Cash on the hood is on the rise again, says Edmunds, which keeps track of the Total Costs of Incentives (TCI.) Incentives definitely had been coming down from their January and February highs to reach a low in May (there were cars missing from Japan …), but now, manufacturer largesse is getting greater again. (Read More…)
How many people would rather have a Volkswagen than a Mercedes? The first-generation Volkswagen Touareg, introduced as a 2004 model, was the product of two unusual events. First, CEO Ferdinand Piech took the brand upmarket (and then some) to challenge Mercedes-Benz—so what if that was Audi’s job. Second, Mercedes, which previously had all but ignored […]
“We just got cited Steve.” My wife had called me and sounded as confused as could be.
“What?”
“Something about Code 2009… I can’t read this… hold on…”
“Honey? What the hell does that mean?”
It turns out that I had been cited for a truly heinous and despicable act. Parking my own car on my own driveway. Some misguided jackass (we’ll just call her Jacqueline) had decided to inform me that my car, the Barnacle Bitch, was now a flagrant violator of the county’s brand new law.
My grandfather was a big rally- and ice-racing fanatic during the 1950s and 1960s, running everything from a Renault Dauphine to a Corvair in every Minnesota race he could find. Eventually, he picked up a Corvette, which he loved almost as much as his Saab 93, and the trophies started to pile up. On my trip to the Midwest last month, I managed to talk him into letting me have this one for my office. (Read More…)
BMW released the fifth generation of its high-performance M5 sedan. It is also the world premiere of a new high-revving 4.4-litre V8 engine with M TwinPower Turbo package.(“Twin Scroll Twin Turbo technology, cross-bank exhaust manifold, High Precision Direct Petrol Injection and VALVETRONIC fully variable valve control; 412 kW/560 hp at 6,000 – 7,000 rpm, maximum torque: 680 Newton metres (502 lb-ft) from 1,500 rpm; maximum speed: 7,200 rpm; wet sump lubrication optimised for high lateral loads, lag-free power delivery, typical M car thrust.”) Yumsville. Loads of pictures after the jump … (Read More…)
A bloated management, run-away costs, declining market share, imploding volume, a sell-off of assets and investments, headquartered in Detroit – what is it? No, it’s none of the Detroit automakers. It is their former nemesis and current co-owner, the United Auto Workers.
“Two years after the wrenching restructuring of the U.S. auto industry and the bankruptcies that remade General Motors and Chrysler, the UAW is facing its own financial reckoning. America’s richest union has been living beyond its means and running down its savings, an analysis of its financial records shows. Unless King and other officials succeed with a turnaround plan still taking shape, the next financial crisis in Detroit may not be at one of the automakers but at the UAW itself.”
This is the beginning of a special report written by the best in the reporting business, by Deepa Seetharaman and her boss, Kevin Krolicki, Chief of the Detroit Bureau of Reuters, with the help of their team of combat reporters from the Detroit front-lines. (Read More…)
Hey Sajeev. Looking for your wisdom, or perhaps that of the B&B. I’ve got a 2005 Hyundai Elantra with about 50k miles. Back around 40k, we had new tires put on it at Sears. Now I want to rotate the tires (yes, I know, I should have done this a while ago), but when I got to the very last wheel, I ran into a roadblock. The rear right wheel is fused to the hub! It seems to be rusted on. Poking around a few forums online, I got a couple of ideas:
Motorists issued a traffic ticket in Massachusetts will have to pay money to the state whether or not they committed the alleged crime. According to a state supreme court ruling handed down yesterday, fees are to be imposed even on those found completely innocent. The high court saw no injustice in collecting $70 from Ralph C. Sullivan after he successfully fought a $100 ticket for failure to stay within a marked lane.
After I hauled all my stuff 2,500 miles in the Impala and settled in Georgia, it was time for me to go job-hunting. After a few boring office-temp jobs, I spotted an ad that got my attention: Copywriter needed to write catalogs for large auto-parts company. Must know classic American cars. Within minutes of showing up for my interview at Year One, I had my first full-time writing job… and a nickname inspired by my car: Mad Max. (Read More…)
The board of GM has a week-long meeting in Shanghai. Someone just happened to be in the same place at the same time, and quite possibly unearthed the secret all of India is dying to hear: Under what brand will the Wuling cars be introduced once they hit India? Apparently, not Wuling. (Read More…)
Give any long-haul truck driver enough beer to loosen his tongue, and he will tell you something you don’t really want to know: that tractor-trailer drivers are both fully aware of their ability to murder their fellow motorists with impunity and occasionally desirous of doing so. This simple fact — that in a collision between car and truck, the truck always wins — is the basic premise behind Steven Spielberg’s 1971 film, Duel. Originally produced as a made-for-television “Movie Of The Week”, Duel could easily have been forgettable garbage, a simple thriller, or a plodding drama.
Instead, with just one minor change from what was already a conventional formula, Spielberg created a truly great movie. The change? It’s simple: we never meet the truck driver. (More) spoilers ahead…
Conventional wisdom and Senator Stabenow have it that the wily Chinese are after precious Americans secrets of how to make new energy cars. Never mind that Ford and GM loudly deny that they have any current plans to build or sell electric vehicles in China. That appears at least half true in the case of GM. GM doesn’t have plans. Its plans are made in China. GM completely outsourced the development of electric vehicles – along with other future technologies – to China. (Read More…)
My grandfather was a big rally- and ice-racing fanatic during the 1950s and 1960s, running everything from a Renault Dauphine to a Corvair in every Minnesota race he could find. Eventually, he picked up a Corvette, which he loved almost as much as his Saab 93, and the trophies started to pile up. On 
After I 
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