“I have something to tell you, but you cannot, I repeat, must not do anything about it.”
“Is it something I want to hear?”
“Yes, it is. But you have to swear.”
“Okay. I swear. Now tell me.”
“Maro is getting a divorce.” Oh. Maro. I remember you, swinging your legs, your perfect profile and staggeringly voluptuous figure backlit by the sun, and I remember you seated next to me, so long ago, in that little gold Nissan truck. Do you remember me?
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It’s a few million square feet. More than sixty football fields. And even on this holiday weekend, it’s not silent. In one corner, a group of men congregate around a folded-up seating assembly. Elsewhere, a tractor-trailer backs up to a dock and a green light flashes on as sensors click and an unattended door rolls up. Electric carts and small tractors whiz by me during my long walk through the darkened, cavernous interior spaces. A persistent, high-pitched whine emits from a timeclock. A poster details the instrument panel changes in a 2011 model.
In a society which has largely forgotten the divine and chosen to worship commerce, production, and marketing, this is a cathedral; still, I’m walking quickly without a genuflection to the rows of engine-transmission assemblies suspended above me, because I need to rush home and observe the same rituals. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine closet.
No, this isn’t a LeMons car. Nor is it some hillbilly answer to the age-old question, “What good is an old German luxury sedan?” Rather, it’s a Kamerawagen, designed for filming of some sort. Presumably it was converted back when the six-cylinder, five-speed E32 “Siebener” on which it is based was new.
More pictures and a link after the jump; thanks to Mirko for the heads-up.
It seems like only yesterday… New Ferraris were in such demand that it was possible to make six-figure money in some markets merely by taking delivery of a new F430 or F599 and selling it later that day. Meanwhile, that unspeakably crass reanimated Italian psuedo-luxury watch brand, Panerai, had waiting lists chock-full of suckers waiting to pay five, ten, or fifteen grand for a watch with the same amount of technology and craftsmanship as an $899 ORIS.
Three or so years ago, Ferrari ditched staid old Girard-Perregaux for sexy new Panerai. The not-so-special editions flowed like sweet nouveau glacial milk and the “punters” lined up in droves. This was the marriage of true brands, to which no man may admit an unprofitable impediment.
As of today, the party’s officially over. Welcome… to the bargain bin.
“”By partnering with Volkswagen on the Fender Premium Audio System, we are creating a unique partnership with a truly innovative company allowing us to deliver a product that is as unique, expressive and dynamic as the customers who use it,” said Mark Van Vleet, Senior Vice President, Business Affairs for Fender.
Well, that may be… but do Volkswagen and Fender really want to be associated with each other? I can think of one solid reason why the two brands should have mucho distancia, hombre…
Ever wonder what they call Canadian geese in Canada? Me too. I asked a Canadian, but she didn’t speak much English, she was facing away from me during the dance, and I couldn’t hear her over the DJ anyway.
This is the new “Grand C-Max” by Ford. In Europe, the C-Max is a “tall wagon” five-seater that competes with both the “Golf Plus” and the 1987 Honda “Wagovan”. VW sued on that. Said it was too close to the Vanagon. Anyway, there’s a bit of a fetish in Europe for hatchbacks that are just like regular hatchbacks only taller. I have no idea why. They aren’t any more useful. Think of it as our mini-SUV fetish. It’s just that stupid.
Back to this Grand C-Max, which is a small seven-seat minivan. Here in Sarah Palin’s America, there’s no regular C-Max, so the Grand C-Max is now the C-Max. You can have a turbocharged engine with it and a panoramic roof. Remember when you were trying to impress someone else on your favorite web forum and you said that, and I quote, “the only thing keeping me from buying a new car is the COMPLETE LACK of European turbo minivans?” Oops!
I knew Mercedes GL. Mercedes GL was almost a friend of mine. And you, Dodge Durango, are no Mercedes GL. Thank God.
What’s that, chum? You’re finding your Lynx Eventer to be a little, shall we say, common? Your friend the Sultan of Brunei has six Ferrari 456GT Sportwagons, courtesy of Pininfarina, and you require a competing conveyance that is both brutally subtle and subtly brutal? Well, then, you’ll need to find one of the two fellows who took delivery of an Aston Sportsman in 1996 and pry it out of his clutches.
If a recent auction result is any guide, however, you’d better have about seven hundred Krugerrands to make the deal…
The WSJ has come up with a list of the top fifty Gawker passwords. The most common is “1n5i9t7t2f8a6g5m7y5c1t4t2a2o9tc$%”, which is part of the Fibonacci prime sequence interlaced with the first letter of each word of the phrase “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country”, ending with two non-letters to slow down brute-force attacks.
Oh, who am I kidding! The most popular password was 123456! Other popular choices: password! qwerty! superman! iloveyou!
Luckily they haven’t figured out my Jalopnik password yet; I know of one fellow who will be personally offended when it’s retrieved.
I’ve worked a few places where cars are tested on various types of dynos, and without exception, the cars are always “four-corner tied” to prevent both front-to-back and side-to-side motion. Do you want to know why? Watch the video.
This is the first year in nearly a decade that I haven’t owned an all-wheel-drive vehicle. I’ve been putting Blizzaks or Dunlop Winter Sports on them and enjoying the arrogant self-satisfaction that comes with always being the fastest traffic on bad roads.
When I had my Rovers, my brother and I would go out during the “Level 3 Emergencies” and pull people out of ditches. Sometimes we would do ten cars in three or four hours, using my off-road recovery equipment to unstick everybody from sweet coeds in Jettas to Somali immigrant families packed into corded-tire Isuzu Troopers.
With the arrival of my almighty Town Car, however, the prospect of rescuing others has faded, replaced by a determination to simply not require any rescue myself. The solution was simple, but I learned something surprising about cops and tires along the way.
Two months ago, American road-racing fans watched the heartbreaking finale of the Pennzoil-sponsored Risi Competizione attempt to win both the final race of the ALMS season and the series championship. Half a lap from victory, the Ferrari F430 simply ran out of gas, handing the race to the Corvettes and the season to the Rahal-Letterman BMWs.
This finale was also a beginning for a colleague of mine. Michelle Naranjo, a female journalist whom I met at a Ford press event earlier this year, flew to the event with her daughter, Henrietta. For “Henri”, this was a chance to work with the biggest names in racing photography; for Michelle, this was a moment to reflect on childhood, life, and all the other things normally covered in “Lifetime” movies. I’ve included a gallery of Henri’s photography below, and I’ll let Michelle pick up the story:
The 2010 JD Power owner loyalty ratings are out. The no-surprises? Honda, Toyota, Lexus, of course. The happy surprise? Ford is now tied with Honda for the loyalty crown, and the Hyundai/Kia axis now sits firmly in the top half.
On the other hand, if you’re a Saab dealer, Jaguar salesman, or if your daddy was unlucky enough to take the Nissan/Infiniti axis instead of the ToyLexus one…
Are you a Camry owner who just isn’t sure whether it’s worth surfing that Korean wave? Are you waiting for Kia to deliver that complete Toyota experience? Good news: the new Optima is such a solid competitor to the Big T, it even has its own accelerator-pedal issue!
Every year, Ward’s names their “10 Best Engines” in a press release dripping with hyperbole and breathless praise. I’m often a bit mystified by their choices — the fragile, sludgy 1.8T VW? The 3.8L Nissan VR, which according to a race-engine-building friend of mine occasionally shows up with the shims on backwards, and which bore-walks under boost? The Cadillac Northstar V8??? — but the nice people at Ward’s have somehow figured out a way to make a buck creating the list and we shouldn’t begrudge them that.
Click the jump for the Ten Best Engines — and a special TTAC Bonus, the Three Worst Sentences Of The Press Release.
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