The wire wheel didn’t throw you guys one bit; well, some of you. starman got it right (the exact year didn’t apply in this case), beating hank with the same guess by a bit.
Lets try that again, a fender with a crease in it. But this time without a wheel to help or distract.
No, not sexploitation. If she was sitting on the fender of a green ’69 Galaxie, I would have moved right along. But Angela Dorian, aka Victoria Vetri won no less than a pink AMX for besting the tough competition in 1968. And I would never have remembered known, were it not for the fact that she was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after her boy friend was shot at close range in her apartment. And look at those …wheel covers; I could have sworn all AMXs came with styled steel wheels. There’s so much still to learn. Isn’t the internet wonderful?
Notice anything missing?
Out with the old, in with the new. Chrysler’s interior makeovers continue, now with the Journey. The engine compartment wasn’t neglected either: a new 283 hp Pentastar V6 is part of the remodeling. The exterior: not so much so. In case you forgot what the old interior looked like: Read More >
Too many Cubside Classics shot, not enough time to write about them extensively. So we’ll call it CC Jr.: heavy on the pics, light on the text.
The great import boom of the fifties involved everything from Europe; from Abarth to Zagato. And the Big Three got in on the act too, selling their European subsidiaries’ wares. The Opel Rekord sold particularly well, and they used to be easy to find, in California, anyway. And English Fords were mainly the smaller Anglia and the later Cortinas. But here’s a rare bird, a Consul, looking very much like a scaled down ’55 Ford. Read More >
New Volvo (and former VWoA) CEO Stefan Jacoby is (once again) targeting his former employer’s best selling Golf with an upcoming entry-level Volvo due in 2012. Autocar.uk reports that Jacoby has initiated a major reshuffling of Volvo’s future product line and brand positioning, which will now be (once again) based on the theme “functionality and Scandinavian elegance” and further away from sportiness. It appears this direction will also de-emphasize large CUVs, since developing a replacement for the elderly XC90 will give way (for now, at least) to the priority of a compact hatchback, which Volvo has not built since the (non-US) 1990 340 (above).
The upcoming Golf-competitor will presumably be based on the current C30, and not a new platform. But it will debut a new “face” for Volvo. Once again.
This vehicle was worth over $80,000 back in the good old days of Bush the Elder. Now? Not so much. The Bimmer pictured here has no check engine light.. The transmission shifts perfectly. It has 104k original miles with no accident history, and a raft of parts have recently been put into this vehicle by the prior owner. Someone loved this car and sold their first born in the process to keep it up. Read More >
It’s a bit hard to sell millions of units with a luxury brand. But with the help of a country that has more than 1.3b people, and where an A6 (long!) is a sign of “here comes a party hotshot, get out of the way,” Audi can perform the rare fusion of volume and luxury. Read More >
From the New York Times to TTAC, the news is racing around the globe that China put an “embargo” on dirt. Well, it’s rare dirt, also known as Rare Earth. Why should we care about that? As the New York Times lectured us a month ago, the stuff is vital to “rangefinders on the Army’s tanks, sonar systems aboard Navy vessels and the control vanes on the Air Force’s smart bombs.” Whoa, we are a car site! Ok, rare earths “are also used in small steering control motors in conventional gasoline-powered cars as well as in motors that help propel hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius,” says the New York Times, bringing us back on topic. And what is the fuss about? Read More >
I’m no attorney, but I’ve read articles posted anonymously on the Internet by people who claim to be attorneys, and therefore I feel confident that my extensive research regarding the statute of limitations for insurance fraud in certain Midwestern states is correct. It’s time to tell a story of minitrucks and maxipayments, of bumbling crime and hilariously apt punishment…
When someone tells you “you’ll save a lot of money,” always ask: “How much will it cost me?” New technology that saves you a lot of money usually comes with a nasty habit: It costs a lot upfront. With a car, you are faced with the dilemma whether to pay Big Car now or Big Oil later. I never forget when I was a young copywriter and I had the task of launching the first diesel powered Golf. I extolled its prudence at the pump and its longevity. Whereupon a grizzled old guy at the advertising department of Volkswagen said: “That thing is expensive. You need to drive 80,000 km to get your money back. By that time, the engine will fall out of the car.” (VW had some corrosion issues back when.) That introspection was triggered by two events: Ed is in Michigan, he has a date with the Volt. His mission: Find out when you will get your money back. Then there’s Mazda, which did something utterly boring, but likewise highly exciting. Read More >
Are they or aren’t they? Yesterday, the story broke that China might be placing a hold on exports of rare earths to the United States. This comes after rumors of the hold on exports to Japan reportedly entering its fourth week. This could put a halt to Prius assembly once Toyota exhausts its stores of rare earths; you can’t make batteries without the stuff.
The official word is that China will continue to supply the United States and will, in fact, raise exports, but only Herr Bertel Schmitt probably knows for sure. In the meantime, have no concern for the Chevy Volt; although the battery packs are assembled in the United States, the heavy lifting’s done in Korea.
A few days ago I wrote about Ralph Nader asking Toyota to break down their somewhat suspect figure of “$1,000,000 every hour” on safety. Well, quite surprisingly, Toyota answered back. Read More >
Danny writes:
Ok, this may be somewhat of an abstract question, and it doesn’t really pertain to me in any particular manner, but hear me out anyway, because this sounds like one of those perfect cases of somebody (The Agonist) getting duped by a mechanic. In this case it’s the band The Agonist who travel in their “Blue Hornet” which appears to be a Chevy 1500 van. They say in the video that they dumped a bunch of money into it before they went on tour, but somewhere in California the rear differential went bad and it needed to be replaced. They go on to say in the video that they tried to get a second hand rear diff, but they were told it was illegal, so they made their way towards the border to find one closer to Mexico, where apparently these kinds of “laws” aren’t enforced. One of the band members also notes that the “rear differential decided to break again” which tells me this light of a van might not be up to the task of pulling all this gear. Maybe they should step up to a 2500, or better yet a tour bus.
Video here:
Do you know of any laws that would prohibit the installation of a second hand differential? If so, could you shed some light on why it might be illegal, or did this band simply get duped? Read More >
Is it a concession to the reality that the Volt isn’t actually an all-electric vehicle all the time? The Volt’s advertising campaign is about to break, and that’s the chosen tag line. How about “More Hybrid Than Electric”? Others?
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