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Offbeat News
I Feel Gassy
Gas-Mileage Savings Calculator Shows True Cost Of Trading Your Guzzler For A Sipper
As much as it may hurt to have to fill up your car every month (or week), the price of gas still isn't high enough to make trading in for a hybrid a reasonable solution for most, a reality punctuated by the Gas-Mileage Savings Calculator from Edmunds. The calculator takes the value of a trade-in compared to the cost of a more-efficient vehicle and, based on driving distances and the cost of gas, determines how long it would take to break even. For example, we took a 2006 Explorer XLT V8 and compared it to a new Jetta SportWagen TDI at $4.25 a gallon and 1,200 miles a month. At that rate it would take four years to make up the difference. The price of gas would have to rise to a ridiculous $16.50 a gallon to break even within a year — and we don't expect those prices until 2010 or so. Press release below the jump. More »
Down on the Street
With just one Malaise Nova up until now in this series, it's time to set our thermostats at 66 in winter/78 in summer, lower our expectations of future prosperity, and travel back to the Bicentennial Era... when presidents got impeached, wars got lost, and the base V8 in a new Chevy Nova was a 155-horse 350. Actually, the Nova of this era wasn't a bad car; it was cheap and every component was made by the lowest possible bidder, but it was honestly cheap.
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1975 Chevrolet Nova Custom
With just one Malaise Nova up until now in this series, it's time to set our thermostats at 66 in winter/78 in summer, lower our expectations of future prosperity, and travel back to the Bicentennial Era... when presidents got impeached, wars got lost, and the base V8 in a new Chevy Nova was a 155-horse 350. Actually, the Nova of this era wasn't a bad car; it was cheap and every component was made by the lowest possible bidder, but it was honestly cheap.More »
Commenter Of The Day
Commenter Of The Day: Tricky Rhetoric Edition
There are numerous rhetorical devices politicians use to obscure or avoid the truth. One of them is the old "vacuous truth," wherein the true statement has no meaning. For instance, a candidate for sheriff in Texas once accused the incumbent sheriff of being derelict in his duties for not arresting a single communist, despite the fact that there were no communists to arrest. Another tactic is the assertion of a fact that has to be true because you're presenting two ideas with the same meaning, known as a "tautology." George H. W. Bush once famously remarked "It's no exaggeration to say the undecideds could go one way or the other." In Ray Ray's post about the 2010 Ford Mustang SVO, a few people complained that people don't buy muscle cars for fuel economy. To the haters, DCulberson had this to say: More »
In Brief
BBB Says MyGallons.com "Omitted Fact" In Advertising, Has No Contract To Process Transactions
FROM CONSUMERIST.COM: The BBB says its concerned about gasoline-hedging company MyGallons.com and its ability to live up to the advertising claims on its website. More »
Over The Back Fence
The Chevy Beat Goes On...Into US Showrooms?
Seems GM could be redoubling its efforts with small cars in the face of shifting consumer demand, and actually putting the Chevy Beat into the US market. Even though the Beat won in a popularity contest over its other two conceptual siblings, the Groove and the Trax — which we thought meant a green light for production, no formal product plan was put in place for the US. With shuttered plants and the need to reconnect with customers, we think the beat is exactly what the doctor ordered.[Bloomberg]
2009 Dodge Challenger Super Stock
Dodge Challenger Super Stock Teases Us In Video Form
Chrysler has released a teaser of sorts for the tasty Dodge Challenger Super Stock package, to be offered up through Mopar for straight line racing fanatics. Judging by the sounds this thing is making, it's going to be a gnarly beast on the track. We were hoping the meth-like addiction to Mopar's muscle car was fading. Must be all that Amerigasm action causing it to flare up again. More »
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4:55 PM on Thu Jul 3 2008
