In my fawning review of the Kia Rio 5-door, I noted that the six-speed manual transmission was only available with the base model. When the B&B complained, I commented that
Kia’s about to try to prove me wrong.
Find Reviews by Make:
Posts By: Jack Baruth
What’s so unreasonable about using smartphones to arrange a taxi ride? Uber, an application which allows prospective riders to arrange rides with “black car” sedans or conventional taxis using their iPhones, arrived in New York this week — but the city bureaucrats have already fired a warning shot across Uber’s bow.
It’s not often publicly remarked upon, but the emphasis on biofuel capacity in the United States has a bit of an international political component to it. American farms exported well over 100,000 metric tons of corn and oilseed in 2010. Some major portion of that production was sent to oil-rich areas which are short on food. The E85 boondoggle can be viewed as a simple declaration to those nations: we can burn your food in our cars, but you can’t eat your oil.
America’s pretty good at producing another item besides food, however, and if early research is any indication, it could be used to run a significant portion of the nation’s car and truck fleet.
TTAC has some great Mustang coverage coming your way in about a week, including multiple tests of two different Shelby GT500 models ranging from a 168-mph blast down the back straight of Virginia International Raceway to a pedestrian-frightening growl through the streets of downtown Toronto. We’re busy writing apology notes to Ford for the state of the tires on the VIR car — are those cords? — so in the meantime we’ll distract you with this question: What’s faster around a racetrack: a “drift car” or a “race car”? In this video, NASA regional director Chris Cobetto and awesome drift dude Vaughn Gittin, Jr. try to create some suspense out of a foregone conclusion. There’s a more exciting video — for road racers, anyway — after the jump.
The winners of Nissan’s GT Academy have been chosen. To nobody’s surprise in particular, their group photograph is completely unsuitable for this site. Turns out that the Internet is a little short on hot girls or street-wise African-American dudes who are totes into racing imaginary cars online. Oh well. Now, the shortlist of digital Sennas is off to try their hand at driving some real cars.
Your humble author was charmed by the facelifted Kia Soul when I drove it last year. It’s a solid product, but its runaway popularity in the segment is at least partially due to a group of hamsters who rapped along to an old Black Sheep song.
After confronting robots with an LMFAO tune, the hamsters took a sabbatical — but they are back.
Lost in all the hysteria which surrounds the VW Type 1 and its descendants is the fact that Dr. Porsche chose a rear-engined car at least partly for reasons of traction and mobility. The roads of post-Great War Europe weren’t all butter-smooth Autobahnen, you see.
Porsche’s marketing machine would have you believe that you need to buy a Cayenne to drive over a speedbump, but as you can see in this video, a 1983 911SC with some chunky tires can do the business. Check it out… but turn down the volume on your computer, the soundtrack is by “DISTURBD” or “STAIND” or some other group of no-talent djent-whackers.
The folks over at Allpar are concerned about Dart sales. The initial batch of Darts were released as “Rally” models with manual transmissions for about $23,000 — and apparently, one of the Allpar reader’s dealers has an ADP sticker on top of that! The Darts don’t seem to be selling. Not for $23,000, and not with a manual transmission.
Now the Wall Street Journal is chiming in.
According to what one of my son’s classmates’ mothers told me recently, texting and driving claims up to 3.2 million lives every years in the United States. Now, there’s talk of an app that could stop the highways from becoming rivers of blood.
“I am satisfied that you were the leader of the group.
“You have an appalling record. This was an atrocious piece of dangerous driving.
“You drove through suburban streets of Wolverhampton at speeds which meant the police car could not keep up.
“You were driving on the wrong side of the road.
“You then got on the motorway and there was a moment in that pursuit that your intention was to outrun the police helicopter.”
The already fragile egos of HPDE drivers are about to take another hit. Shelley, the autonomous Audi TT-S developed by Stanford, has tried her first lapping day, and the results were promising.
I wouldn’t normally put up two YouTube vids in a day, much less in a week, but this one is blowing up like the proverbial crack in the Eighties. So… how would you have avoided this incident? And can you count all the different things the driver is doing wrong?
This is a great video, and it showcases just how quickly things happen in a racing Porsche… including bad things.
Your humble author hates the Lamborghini Urus with the fury of a thousand indignant suns. I am also completely over the whole self-congratulatory Pebble Beach/Monterey Historics business which is currently occupying the attention of the entire West Coast buffet-browsing crew.
Out of consideration of the fact that some of you might not feel the same way, however, heeeeere’s Urus!
“President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors. That’s good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again.” Sounds like our august founder, Robert Farago, sounding off about American Leyland the New GM. Nope, it’s Forbes this time, and they come to bury the General, not to praise him.
Recent Comments