So what is all this talk about flex fuel being shoved down our the throats of our cars, and EVs driving up Xanax sales due to rampant range anxiety? Bloomberg brings us astounding news:
“Public charging stations for electric autos outnumber outlets for alternative motor fuels by almost two to one, even though there are hundreds of times more flex- fuel vehicles than plug-in cars on U.S. roads. “ (Read More…)
Two weeks ago, the TTAC Black Friday Special was all about Corvette crashes. Not just any Corvette crashes, however. We’re talking about the very special kind of Vette crash that happens when you’re just driving along and… something happens to make you jam that accelerator down and lose control.
What’s that something? Experienced Corvette-ologists know that common provocations to throttle-based havoc include:
From there it all goes downhill… but TTAC is here to help. When Corvettes attack, just click the jump to find out what to do.
“So what exactly do you suggest, that we sit around here and post absolutely nothing because we might not want to fuel the flame??? I for one find this very interesting and will continue to report on things that […]”
Saabsunited Chief Tim Rokka on December 10, 2011
“SaabsUnited will just as a few months ago when the politics surrounding Saab started to get out of hand, take a step back to observe rather than report on what is going on. We will continue to report on facts and about issues we find fun and beneficial for the Saab Community!”
Saabsunited Chief Tim Rokka on December 10, 2011, after wiping days of reporting and hundreds of comments from the blog, leaving space for reports on brake kits, Saabs at the Nobel ceremony, and lighting the candle in Paris.
The Daily Mail just woke up to a Japanese phenomenon: Blinged-out trucks. Some of these trucks have more neon than a pachinko-parlor. Did I say that they have no concept of a “light vehicle” overseas? I take that back. But watch out, there are new kids in town. TTAC investigates … (Read More…)
At the Tokyo Motor Show, the announcement that Toyota and BMW are in cahoots over batteries, diesel engines and possibly more was the talk of the show. Back in Bavaria, BMW displays a promiscuous bent. BMW will cooperate with GM, yes GM, on fuel cells. This at least if the German magazine Wirtschaftswoche is correctly informed.
Sources told Wirtschaftswoche that a cooperation between BMW and GM is as good as done. (Read More…)
(This is part of the “Drama McHourglass” story cycle and is a sequel to Nights Of Wine And Ponies. This is a work of, um, fiction. Any trademarks which appear in this story are used in a fictional context. Close cover before striking — JB)
Some time ago, I convinced Vodka McBigbra to watch one of my favorite movies — “The Mack”, starring Max Julien and Richard Pryor. As I watched “Goldie” drive his “hog” (another way to say “pimped-out Eldorado” down the streets, resplendent in fur coat, matching hat, and with his sword cane by his side, I said to V. McB, “I could totally be an awesome pimp.” Vodka, veteran of the Las Vegas stage and a woman who was fully aware of how modern pimps operate (Warning: the link WILL GET YOU FIRED FROM YOUR JOB) responded with a combination of anger and disdain.
“Pimps aren’t funny, dressed-up guys in Cadillacs,” she snarled. “They are terrible, terrible people. You could never be a pimp. You… well, you…”
“I get the point,” I responded, “I’m no pimp. But Pretty Tony is about to pull out his sword cane so I need to focus on the movie.” Little did I know that one day I would have a chance to test the truth of her assertion.
I used to love driving aimlessly around the South. The rural South offers enthusiasts an amazing array of beautiful winding one lane roads, and true to it’s reputation, you never know quite what you will find by the end of the day.
One time I found a bar that raised mongooses. I got to ‘feed the geese’ while watching what can loosely be called a marksmanship contest. Thankfully there were no flesh wounds. But I did quickly leave after the first ricochet.
The next week I decided to wander off to the most rural county in Georgia, Taylor County. A nice little hamlet of the old South where everyone walking in the town square was dressed up in army fatigues. It was hunting season and the only places open at 8:00 PM on a Saturday were the pizza shop and the liquor store. Just enough for a fun evening!
But then gas prices went swiftly to the nether regions… and soon… well…
Hyundai has a new and extremely successful spokesman. He is well-known, he can speak about cars with more authority than a football player. Best of all: He works pro bono. It is Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn. With a low-cost video, Winterkorn catapulted Hyundai’s image to formerly unknown heights.
The German magazine Wirtschaftswoche reports that the image of Hyundai took a leap a few days after Martin Winterkorn walked over to the Hyundai stand at the Frankfurt motor show and praised the non-rattling steering column. (Read More…)
Actually, we shouldn’t even mention Saab before the court in Vänersborg renders its verdict on Dec 16. The court will decide whether it follows the suggestion of the court appointed administrator Guy Lofalk to lift the creditors protection on Saab. But it’s a slow newsday, and Saab is always good for a story. No, we don’t mean the €3,322,993.13 allegedly transferred by Youngman. No, we are not referring to the latest round of hamfisted censorship at Saab’s enthusiast site. We are talking about a story that is making the rounds on websites that specialize on the activities of the Russian mob. They insist that Saab’s darling Antonov “has been involved in a number of financial scams before.” The mobster tracking site Rumafia says:
“A few years ago Antonov moved almost all Snoras’ liquid assets, $400-500 million worth, to foreign accounts. He disguised the fraud under a series of loans which the bank allocated to front companies with no real asset backing.”
Hmmm. No real asset backing? (Read More…)
On my raceboat, we had one of those big red things pictured above. It was supposed to switch everything off when things went awry. The NHTSA now proposes something similar for cars with keyless ignition. It is intended to stop the car immediately in a panic situation. Of course it won’t be as intuitive as the big red switch pictured above. After all, the solution comes from Washington, DC.
“U.S. auto-safety regulators proposed standardizing keyless ignitions to allow drivers to turn off cars faster and more easily in incidents of unintended acceleration following Toyota Motor Corp.’s record recalls. “
If course, this is not entirely true. (Read More…)
This is both an interesting and a strange article the The Nikkei [sub] has on GM. First, the interesting part. (Read More…)
There’s a nice comfortable cushion of years between the present and the 1970 and 1976 Motor Trend Cars of the Year, which gave our discussions about What Might Have Been a certain detachment. Today’s Car of the Year Revisionism discussion, however, takes as its subject a car that’s still with us in large numbers. (Read More…)
Mark V. writes:
I was wrong, I thought I could drive a 370z touring on a daily basis to work, a 75m round trip on the highway mostly, but I can’t. Its to loud and its becoming unpleasant to drive. I don’t want to get a beater for a 2nd car because spending almost 2 hours a day in it would be a major quality of life loss and probably not any more pleasant then my 370z.
I need a commuting yin to my 370’s sporty yang, but I don’t think I can afford the expensive of a 2nd car, technically 3rd if you count the wife’s car.
Many years ago, an old school Volkswagen exec said to me: “If I want to have visions, I simply drink a few bottles more.”
How things have changed. Nowadays, if you want to be a CEO, you must have a vision. Winterkorn’s vision is world domination by 2018. His colleague Karl-Friedrich Stracke also has a brand new vision. According to Germany’s Focus Magazin, Stracke said at a meeting for the upper management: (Read More…)
It’s the particularly unpleasant sort of weather that Vancouver does best: temperature hovering just above zero degrees socialist, wind whipping a smirr of fine rain up and around uselessly flapping umbrellas and directly into your unprotected earhole, an all-pervading dampness seeping up from the puddled sidewalk and penetrating to the very bone. “Beautiful BC” my […]
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