This is a work of fiction. All usual disclaimers apply — JB

He woke up in a perfectly anonymous aqua-tiled hospital room somewhere, a million years’ worth of hallucinogenic dreams after stepping on that IED back in Afghanistan. He couldn’t remember where he’d been before that. His friends, his childhood, even his name — all of that was locked somewhere he couldn’t reach. Instead, he had a Brooks-Brothers-clad, aggressively-tanned young man standing at his bedside, grinning at him as if they’d just shared a particularly private and risqué joke.

“We’re feeling better, I see!” the man offered. “Let me get the boss.”

And just like that, the hospital room was empty and he was alone. Not for long, though; his overly-cheerful companion was soon back with a distinguished older man in tow. With a shock, he realized that he recognized “the boss”. Tall, powerful-looking, military bearing, with a perfect mane of silver hair.

“It’s you! I’ve seen you on television! You’re—“ The big man reached down and placed a powerful, masculine, dreamy finger against his lips.

“Never mind who I am. Your name is now Michael Sloan. You lost your life in the service of your country. Or, you would have, anyway, if we hadn’t taken you to our secret clinic and rebuilt you from the ground up. We had a reason to. In Afghanistan, you were one of the best. Elite. The question I have for you is: Are you ready to give your life for your country again?”

“I… suppose so,” Michael replied, “but what are you doing here, if this is a military operation? Don’t you work for… General Motors?”

“What’s good for General Motors,” the big man replied, “is good for the country. We saved your life because we need a man who exists in the shadows. Sometimes, direct action might provide the only feasible solution. I’ve tried so-called secret weapons before, but they turned to be buffet-browsing shills for garbage product. You’ll erase that shame. But you won’t be working alone. We’ve created the perfect partner for you. Better than human. The very latest twenty-first technology. Are you ready to meet your partner? We call him… VOLT.”

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“Heritage” is a funny thing. Lamborghini wants to use it to sell you a shopping trolley. Chevrolet hopes you’ll see some of the spirit of the Sixties Impala in their current Azera-like.

What does Ford want?

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Remember Heather Peters, the attorney who is suing Honda? Well, if a recent article by Automotive.com’s Jacob Brown is any guide, her lawsuit might be the equivalent of Honda’s IMA hybrid system: unpopular, mostly ignored, and unable to operate without serious help from outside forces.

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“I’m dead,” Sebastian told his attorney. “Might as well be dead, anyway. I’ve lost everything. Fuck, it isn’t just the investments, or the business. I’ve lost the house. The house. Where my children sleep. You know I’m supposed to be picking up a Ferrari tomorrow? Guess I’d better learn to sleep in it. We can all sleep in it, together. A hilarious lesson. Something they can tell their kids. About the one time Dad lost everything because of some bullshit allegation brought on by some whore, and we all slept in the car together until, you know, Dad finally did the decent thing and put a BULLET IN HIS OWN FUCKING HEAD!!!!” Distantly, Sebastian realized he had been screaming for the greater part of what he, in retrospect, felt to have evolved, at some point, into a speech both dramatic and mostly factual.

“Nobody’s dead yet,” the voice on the other end replied. “The judge will rule on the testimony come Friday afternoon. If it’s thrown out, the rest will fall. You’ll be fine. Clean.”

“Sure, I know, but what,” Sebastian heard himself whining, as if to a recently appointed foster parent, “am I supposed to do until then? That’s three days from now!”

“You want my advice,” the attorney said, with a chuckle, because, after all, Sebastian paid him for advice, it was why he existed, of course the advice would be taken, “you’ll fly down to Florida and pick up that Ferrari. Distract yourself. I will call you from court on Friday. Go distract yourself.”

“It won’t help,” Sebastian replied, “I’m a dead man.” Nevertheless, nine hours, two flights, one taxi ride, and a series of scrawled signatures later, he found himself seated behind the wheel of his first, and probably last, Ferrari.

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Let me tell you this story about a killer I used to know.

I met him when I was fourteen years old. He worked with my father. I didn’t know anything about him. He was perhaps five foot eight at most. Quiet. Shy. He played folk guitar at a local cafe. At a company picnic, he expressed concern that the pond at the corporate retreat had too many fish. “There isn’t enough food for all of them to grow correctly,” he said, and he seemed sad about it.

A few years later, I was talking to my father about the book “Rogue Warrior” by former Navy SEAL Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko. Enthusing about it, actually. “If you really want to know what the SEALs did,” the old man said by way of interrupting my babbling, “you can talk to…” and he gave me the name of the shy, fish-sympathetic guitar player.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, he did multiple tours. Saw all sorts of action. He was the real deal.” My father was a veteran himself, and he didn’t hand out praise glibly, but… That couldn’t be. SEALs weren’t thin, quiet men who played the acoustic guitar and ended up doing paperwork in a brokerage business for the rest of their lives. Or were they?

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Spring is here, which means it’s time to get ready for another season of motorsports. The people at SoloMatters put this video together to capture some of the best moments from last weekend’s DC ProSolo. Long-time TTAC readers know I am not a world-class autocrosser, but that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally take a swing at it. You should, too. Unless your daily driver has nine inches of ground clearance or more, chances are it’s completely Solo-legal. Get out there!

The chances are good that, as a TTAC reader, you use a smartphone. Among the literate, educated people who make up our reader base, ownership of a touch-screen phone with more computing power than a stack of DEC PDP-11s is the rule, not the exception. Google claims that over 250 million devices are running Android. Apple sold as many as 44 million iPhones in the past quarter. To some degree, the entire globe runs on these devices. Most of us couldn’t do our jobs or manage our lives without them.

The chances are not good that, as a TTAC reader, you own one of the two hundred and two 426 Hemi Super Stock “A990” Dodge Corornets and Plymouth Belvederes built. 93 TorqueFlite Dodges, 8 four-speed stick Dodges, 85 TorqueFlite Belvederes, 16 four-speeds. They were up to five hundred pounds lighter than their non-A990 brethren and were known to turn quarter-mile times in the high ten-second range with trap speeds between one-twenty-five and one-thirty. Modern supercars like the GT-R and Ferrari 458 can’t hang with a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere. Think about that.

Now think about the fact that, without those ’65 Mopars, your smartphone wouldn’t work quite the same way it does today.

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“Light and shade” the man said, that man being the man, Jimmy Page. From a race that barely qualifies as a race, we go to racing at its two-fisted best… or worst.

The video above, taken from the Traqmate and rollcage camera of SCCA racer Kent Carter, will reward your attention. It demonstrates a lot of what is wonderful about small-bore amateur racing in just two minutes. There’s a bunch of actual on-the-limit driving, in cars for which the drivers are personally responsible. There’s passing, re-passing, skill, and anger. Finally, there’s a bleak reminder that you can get hurt doing this stuff.

Click the jump for comments from the driver.

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It was nestled in quite unassuming fashion between a Columbus Zoo flier and something from The Folio Society. I came this close to throwing it away… but as you will see, ladies and gentlemen, that would have been a grave mistake, because the information that little postcard brought me quite turned my day around.

It would appear that I have won my lawsuit against AutoWeek, and it didn’t even take an amazingly disappointing reunion of two-thirds of the Geto Boys’ adult-height members to obtain justice for my suffering. I now have the complete and unvarnished satisfaction that comes with mashing the heel of my Crockett & Jones Weymouth against the pasty, quadruple-chinned visage of AutoWeek‘s Inheritor-In-Chief, “I Was Too Fat As A Kid To Play Double” Dutch Mandel. The only question left: what to do with all this cheddar I’m about to clock.

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While a sad variety of forever-alone, anorak-clad, middle-aged Brits huddled in their so-called “council flats” to watch Nico Rosberg finally fail to fail to win a race, the attention of the world’s beautiful people was squarely centered on the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race. This gala event pits people who (very, very loosely) fit the definition of “pros” and “celebrities” racing stock Scion TCs around a street course. Usually there is a huge crash, caused by some starlet’s implants getting too close to the steering wheel, and then a ragged collection of survivors shuffle-steers their way to a finish only slightly more strung-out than some of the “celebrities” are when they have to wake up before noon.

This year, the question on everybody’s lips was: Do you have any coke? It is also possible, however, that someone was interested in how the stars of “Top Gear USA” and “The Car Show” would do in an actual race. This notion — that people who are being paid to talk about cars on television should have some experience driving them at speed — is so ridiculous that it takes a moment to sink in. It’s also possible that someone was wondering: “In a race between a professional drifter and actor William Fichtner, who would win?”

We have the answers to both these questions, both after the jump and in the headline you’ve already read.

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Your humble author wasn’t charmed by the 2009 Aveo I rented a few years ago, but apparently my opinion was not universal. The Aveo was known as the Daewoo Kalos in its home country of South Korea. “Kalos” sounds too close to “Kodos” for my liking, but apparently the Koreans just animate “The Simpsons”. They don’t watch it. The Kalos/Aveo, known internally at Daewoo as the T200 has been globally replaced by the T300, a vehicle which the tame US media has more or less agreed to describe as a “world car built right here in America” and refer to as the “Chevrolet Sonic”.

Most of us thought we’d never see the Aveo on the news again, save perhaps for random appearances on “16 & Pregnant” and/or “America’s Most Wanted”. We were wrong.

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So here’s what’s going to happen… They’ll drive it as hard as they dare, swinging it through corners and stamping on the gas, chucking it into hairpins and willfully trying to unsettle the rear, and all the while traction will be total. And you know what, not one of those drivers will say anything about it, because they’ll be too scared to be the limp-wristed bloke that can’t even drift what they’ve been told is the most driftable car in decades

So says Ben Barry in a recent Car editorial. He’s driven the car, we haven’t, so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’s correct. Well, so what? What if all that additional dealer profit won’t even get Joe Sixpack (sixpack of Sapporo, of course) sideways? What if the new Toyota can’t deliver the tofu?

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I come to not to bury the W-body Impala, but to praise it.

With the NYIAS introduction of its replacement, we can now legitimately call Chevrolet’s pocket battleship of a full-sizer the “old model”, although if we are speaking truthfully, it virtually qualified as the “old Impala” when it was introduced thirteen years ago. At the time, it seemed like more woeful evidence of General Motors’ ineptitude, a quick mash-up of a Lumina with powerplants so ancient there are probably cave paintings somewhere in Altamira documenting an early TSB campaign for them, complete with pictograms of how to use a wooly mammoth to power an engine hoist.

A funny thing happened along the way, though: the Impala started to find things. First it found a place. Next, it found character. Finally, and not everyone will agree, it found redemption.

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The outrageous indifference, mixed with distate enthusiasm shown by TTACers for our Chicago Auto Show Video led us to think that it would be a good idea to do one for the New York Auto Show. Unfortunately, Vodka McBigbra’s dental emergency forced me to bounce out of the show halfway through. The video crew was left with an absolute mishmash of first-take cynicism and random Asians wandering through the shots. (Read More…)

This is the third thousand-ish-mile rental review I’ve done in the past few months (I drove an Elantra to Nashville in December and a Jetta to Kalamazoo, Michigan in March) and I’m starting to have a real fondness for the format. There’s a squeaky-clean pleasure in evaluating a vehicle away from the reality-distortion field of […]