On business in Vegas last week I came across a smokin deal on an ’06 M Roadster and in a moment of spontaneity I signed the dotted line. I was then confronted with a 1200 mile drive in an unfamiliar car. Since I arrived in Vegas by plane, I was without my usual road trip conglomeration of hose clamps, duct tape, and other essential tools. With the return airline ticket canceled, armed with a Diet Pepsi and a $50 Radio Shack radar detector, I set off to the Midwest. The S54 engine chewed up 1200 miles of asphalt and returned 25.6mpg. Not bad for over 100hp per normally aspirated liter. Would I have tried that in the 23 year old BMW M636CSI I bought last fall from FL? Nope. That car arrived on a truck. What an incredible bonding experience to bring your new car home on a long trip. Now it was my intent to bring this car back to a less saturated market and sell it for a small profit. But now I’ve kinda got a thing for her. Have you had a memorable new car bonding experience?

It’s do or die time. Although TTAC’s site traffic continues it slow, organic growth—knocking on 1 mil uniques per month—the web-wide advertising downturn has taken its toll. Revenues have fallen by two-thirds. TTAC’s owners have looked at the books and read us the riot act. Either we replace the lost ad bucks with subscription income or that’s it: lights out. Our goal: 5000 subs at $12 per year ($1 per month) by June 1. I know: been here, didn’t do that. Before NameMedia bought TTAC, I asked our then-nascent Best and Brightest about going sub. The overwhelming response: fuhgeddaboutit [paraphrasing]. Surfers are not going to pay for something they can get for free (and don’t tell me you’re special). So what’s changed? Choice. We don’t have any. To keep the site alive, we have to make this work. How?

Read More >

Protmind writes:

I’ve got a question for the best and the brightest-child car seats in two seater cars. I drive a ’06 S2000 and I’m expecting my first child. I’ve read my owner’s manual which foretells doom and gloom for children who ride along. However having ridden in my father’s 190SL extensively (sometime with only meager lap belts holding me), some of these hyper safety warnings ring a little false. If I take the necessary steps to make sure an airbag will not deploy when a child is with me, is the front seat just as safe as the back seat? Or is there another reason children should be in the back seat only? If you post this, in the interests of protecting my mortified wife, please only use my screen nic.

The auto industry spends millions each year studying what motivates people to buy a car. Much less studied, perhaps not even studied at all is what motivates people to get rid of a car. After all, people don’t just fall in love. They also fall out of it. We have a list of likely suspects: new car fever, the warranty running out, problems, maybe even the suspicion of future problems. So, what motivated you when you got rid of a car? A few critical bits of info: model, model year, month/year sold, odometer when sold (or junked). Extra credit: month/year purchased, odometer when purchased. Lessees need not respond: you’re boring—the lease simply ran out. I’ll go first. I traded my 1996 Ford Contour SE V6 (purchased October 1997 with 23k miles) when the engine lost some compression in three cylinders thanks to an engineering defect. Replacing the engine would have cost more than the resulting increase in the car’s value. That was in November 2003, with 69,000 miles. We sold my wife’s 1998 Olds Intrigue (purchased in January 1999 with 14k miles) in July 2004 with odometer in the high 70s because she was bored with it, and we thought it might start having problems at some point—though it had had none for the previous 2-3 years.

Personally, I crossed the Rude-i-con a long time ago. After some soul searching, I’ve made peace with the fact that telling the truth about cars means poking our collective nose into those dusty hidden corners that are NOT on the official tour. But it’s clear that some of the more recent members of our commentariat are not willing grasp the rake that mucks. They’ve expressed their displeasure at our editorial tone. As usual, I’ve deleted comments that flame the site, or threaten to yank the thread towards introspection, rather than the subject at hand. Also as always, I’ve given them my full attention and consideration. Given the increasing number of “you’re a bunch of nasty negative fucks” remarks, I’m opening this thread for debate re: TTAC’s tone. Yes, yes, we all know there’s plenty of poisonous grist for our editorial mill. Even so, should we ease up? Are we fair but mentally unbalanced? This week, TTAC may crest 1m unique views per month (the autoblogosphere’s SAAR) for the first time in its history. But we can always do better. As Mayor Koch used to say, “How am I doin’?”

In this Streetfire video, Bob Hartwig of Cinema Vehicle Services invites Fireball Tim to examine a “plethora” of Fast and Furious 4 movie cars. Nice word, plethora. Not as catchy as “meme,” but way better than “farrago.” Still, we live in a world where you can happen upon a murder of crows. So there’s got to be a better collective noun for the vehicles used in a movie based on a trend who’s time has come and gone—a long time ago. I put it to you, our highly literate readers: What’s the best name for the collection featured here? And remember, “It’s always hard to make things 100 percent perfect unless you can buy them off the showroom at the same time.” Words to live by. [Preview for Mad Max—I mean F&F4 here.]

Cars+of+Fast+%26+Furious

Planned obsolescence, or the constant replacement of existing models has been a mainstay of the US auto biz since GM started eating Henry Ford’s austere, one-size-fits-all lunch nearly 100 years ago. As automotive technology rapidly matured, new model year refreshes offered new gizmos, tweaked styling, along with more performance, space and status. Before long, the eternal quest for newer, hotter newness led to a near constant turnover in model names, styling and branding. Every three to five years now, we expect new headlights and maybe a fender vent at the minimum, signifying that the driver is far more in touch with the times than someone stuck in the instantly-dated predecessor version.

Read More >

[NB: the TTAC spam filter tends to trap long lists. All comments will be released ASAP.]

’74 Ford Pinto Station Wagon – Hand me down from one of my two older brothers, with over 60k on the clock. When it was later revealed that Pintos exploded upon rear impact, my immediate thought was “And…?” Anyone who drove one knew the car was a POS. Slow, gnarly to shift, horrible handling, non-functional HVAC, etc. My father, A Ford man at the time, bought the car for the same reason everyone else did: they were cheap.

Ford Pinto Station Wagon – Yup, same again. When “mine” died from heat exhaustion, Dad simply did the hand me down thing again. No. 1 son got a VW Golf, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. A lifelong insanity was revealed as I shod the Pinto with Pirelli P3s in an attempt to get it to handle. Oh, and put a Nagamichi cassette player in the glove box. Peter Frampton lives!

Mercedes 230E – Dad bought a 300 SEL 6.3 on European delivery and went mad for the brand (a madness that evaporated with breakdowns and bills). The 230 was another hand me down, this time from Mom. Solid. I mean stolid. Anything was better than the Pinto. Much better. Again with the tires. Killed the car when I was showing-off the Merc’s cornering prowess to friends- understeered straight into a curb, snapped the front axle like a toothpick.

Read More >

George Carlin famously opined, “Everyone who drives slower than you do is an idiot; everyone who drives faster than you do is a maniac.” I took a fair amount of stick from the B&B the other day for admitting I’ve exceeded the speed limit in the past. The squeaky wheels here at TTAC seem to consider 123 mph not acceptable; which makes me wonder what some of those people would have said if they’d ridden up I-75 with me a few years ago when I decided to “max out” my 911.

Some of you feel that any speeding is unacceptable, but I’d suspect you are in the minority, even at TTAC. The average driver does speed. [ED: gasp!] So, B&B, the question becomes: where do you draw the line? At ten over? Fifteen? Double the limit? 300 kph? Sure, conditions vary, so let’s stipulate a set of familiar conditions: a Florida freeway, five lanes, wide, good weather, visibility to the horizon, clumps of traffic with long gaps between. What’s safe? What’s acceptable for the “average driver”? What are you willing to do in that situation?

I’ll open with my personal opinion: in a car I own, by myself or with consenting passengers, with the V1, Lidatek and various other devices in play, I’m willing to floor it until we reach the limit stamped on the sidewalls. You?

This is a concept for now, but glass roof aside it’s the near-production look of a new Kia mini MPV in the continental style. And now I’m curious what it would take for this Kia to sell, say 50k units per year in the US. I’m talking MSRP, gas prices, Kia’s new stop-start system (euro only, 15 percent better efficiency), suicide doors, whatever. Keep in mind, Honda sold nearly 80k Fits last year. Kia 2008 sales are here for comparison.

Puh-lease. The idea that American motorists yearn for small, stylish, Italian cars is nuts. OK, maybe YOU do. But YOU are not the average American motorist. And this is not 1951. Or 1961. The U.S. market is saturated with strong brands selling first-class automobiles that cater to Joe Public’s every vehicular need, from stylish, miserly city runabouts to gas-guzzling, SUV cum blingmobiles. It’s worth noting that the market for new cars really, really sucks. What are the odds that consumers swimming backwards underwater will want to take a flyer on a completely untested brand selling a brand spanking new product? Did I say untested? See, now that’s funny. Fiat in the US? OK, sure, branding these [smoke a] joint ventures as Chryslers or Dodges will sort that little legacy issue right out. See that? Did it again! C’mon. You’re the Best and Brightest. Surely you know that this Fiat thing is a non-starter, from the non-start to the non-finish. Finnish! Didn’t Porsche build Boxster in Finland? I reckon a Finnish brand would have a better chance in the Land of the Free than Fiat. You?

So, Best and Brightest, what’s the best car an enthusiast can buy—NEW—for under $30k? All in (discounts count). I’m asking because I just hooked-up (in the non-sexual sense) with a new[ish] website called Bestcovery.com. They’ve offering major linkage in exchange for Automotive “best” lists. So I wrote a “Best Porsche” list slamming the Cayenne to see if they were made of the write stuff. Yup. So, after that, I offered your services. Here’s my evil plan: I ask you, The Best and Brightest, to name the best fill-in-the-blank. At some point, I put up a poll of your most convincing nominations (chosen by me). You vote for the best whatever, I write it up and submit it to Bestcovery. What’s in for you? C’mon you love this stuff. And I’m looking into providing contributors with goods and services to test. So, let’s get stuck in, again, shall we? If you had 30Gs to spend on a new car, and you wanted to enjoy driving that car, what would it be? [NB: TTAC has no personal or commercial interest in any of the products or services presented for your consideration. And, yes, I deleted all the comments to the previous versions of this post.]