(b.) a television series in which smooth-skinned actors in their middle twenties attempt to portray teens navigating the tumultuous rapids of modern adolescence by the application of close-part harmony; immensely popular when it debuted, but trailed off in the second season when it began getting a little preachy and then there was that part where Rachel was all like, “Finn, I need to let you fly free,” and…
(b.) Some TV show which I have never seen.
(c.) The best car in the current Volkswagen Model range.
Whaddya mean it’s pronounced “Gee-El-Eye”? (Read More…)
In yesterday’s Name That Car Clock challenge, we went all the way back to 1965 and admired a beautiful, though admittedly nonfunctional, Oldsmobile timepiece. Today, we’re going with something from my collection of junkyard-harvested clocks that’s a bit newer. Quick, what’s the year/make/model of the car that yielded this clock to my junkyard toolkit? (Read More…)
This is the Chevrolet Cruze Manual Diesel Wagon. This is what all of us North Americans should be driving. Everyone in Europe drives a manual, diesel wagon, and if we brought them to North America, everyone would drive them. Because they’re more efficient than a hybrid, and more practical than a wasteful, ugly, boring CUV. Just one problem; if everyone drove them,wagon lovers would no longer be able to lord their supposed superiority over the masses – maybe they’d start buying Honda CR-V’s, since they can only define their worth via consumption of consumer goods.
The Mitsubishi Outlander, a vehicle nobody cared about, is now sort of interesting, thanks to the addition of a Plug-in Hybrid system that is also compatible with the vehicle’s 4WD system.
North America missed on the ermm…unique…Fiat Multipla, sold in Europe in the late 1990’s, but Fiat dealers, clamoring for another product, will get the Multipla’s spiritual successor, the 500L.
A chat between Jack Baruth and Derek Kreindler discussing the Bentley EXP9 SUV. Because we love it so much!
Jack: The moment I saw this rude beast slouching towards Geneva to be born, I instantly stopped regretting not buying the Arnage Red Label I almost picked up in 2005. Yeah,that was going to be awfully hood rich of me, but this thing makes the dodgy finance of a used dinosaur look classier than Princess Grace.
In January 1980, Jimmy Carter was in his last year as President, the Soviets had just invaded Afghanistan, and this Camaro was born. A few months later, in April 1980, Robert Mugabe became the leader of Zimbabwe and Alan Kay walked into his local GM dealer to buy this car off the showroom floor.
There were two things that remained constant from early 1980 – Mugabe still runs Zimbabwe and Alan still runs his 1980 Camaro. (Read More…)
Of all the new debuts at the Geneva Auto Show, this would probably be what I’d like to own the most; the Volvo V40 T5. With a 256 horsepower turbocharged 5-cylinder engine making 295 lb-ft , I’d have plenty of performance on tap, and the knowledge that Volvo’s safety features would keep me unharmed when I inevitably did something stupid.
While carmakers in France and Italy complain about overcapacities in a declining European market, makers of German premium cars are reporting sales records. After astounding growth at Mercedes, BMW now announces its best ever February. (Read More…)
The Chinese auto press now routinely whacks the innovation by replication that is still prevalent in the Chinese car industry. An egregious case: Zoyte copied the Suzuki Alto nearly 1:1 for the Zoyte Z100, which is expected to debut at the Beijing Auto Show in April. Nevertheless, an unrepentant Zoyte was caught by Carnewschina testing the new Z100 side-by-side with the Alto (top. The cars are not being tested on ice. It is an attempt to obscure the location where the pictures were taken.) (Read More…)
Here’s a car that you still see frequently in Colorado, both on the street and in the junkyard. You see Tercel 4WD wagons on the street here because they’re cheap, sensible winter cars and they tend to keep grinding out the hundreds of thousands of miles in their Tercelian slow-motion fashion… and you see them in the junkyard because they’re not worth enough to fix when something major finally fails. (Read More…)
I hope you are well. I have several questions regarding my 2011 Forester (5 speed):
a) I drive 8 to 10K annually and change the 5w-20 every 6 months. Is this sufficient?
b) Subaru keeps sending me extended warranty offers. This tells me that I likely don’t need it. What do you think? My favorite moment when purchasing the Forester: The F & I rep mentioning “If people want to drive around without the extended warranty, it is not my problem.” (Read More…)
Two days ago, Volkswagen announced “ambitious new sustainability targets.” The Wolfsburg company promised “30 percent reduction in CO2 emissions during the period from 2006 to 2015,” and “emissions below the 120 gram CO2/km mark for first time in 2015.” Plants of the group are to become “25 percent more environmentally compatible by 2018.”
TTAC ignored the announcement. I know VW quite intimately, and they make these announcements on a regular basis. A lot of the above had already been announced in 2011.
It hasn’t been much of a secret that Opel is working on a small car, called the Junior, to take on BMW’s Mini, or Fiat’s 500. As a matter of fact, Opel had been working on the Junior since 1982. Way back when, the interior of the Junior had been designed by a new arrival in Rüsselsheim, a freshly graduated Chris Bangle. People who expected to see a Junior in Geneva were disappointed. Instead,”General Motors will launch its new small car, the Junior, at the Paris show next autumn,” just-auto was told in Geneva.
The bigger news: The Junior “will be strictly for Europe and unable to challenge the global success of the Mini, or take on the Fiat 500 in America, engineering head Rita Forst admitted” to just-auto.
In 
Here’s a car that you still see frequently in Colorado, both on the street and in the junkyard. You see Tercel 4WD wagons on the street here because they’re cheap, sensible winter cars and they tend to keep grinding out the hundreds of thousands of miles in their Tercelian slow-motion fashion… and you see them in the junkyard because they’re not worth enough to fix when something major finally fails. 
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