Why you should buy this car: It s a Jeep. It s a well-built Jeep. It s a well-built Jeep that looks like a Cherokee Limited from the late-80 s. If you re a nostalgic outdoorsy-type who doesn t mind torturing that spare set of sprogs, you re good to snow.
Read MoreWhy you should buy this car: V-8 boeuf, solid handling, decent hauling capacity. If you're a family of four or less with at least one enthusiast driver in the mix, the Magnum should definitely be on your list of potential buys.
Read MoreExterior Design **** I'm givin' it a four, mainly because I like the Charger's angry-eyebrows front end more than the wide-eyed, vaguely phallic nose of the Magnum. And of course, the 300's the best of the bunch. That said, I really dig the choptop styling of all the LX cars, and the semi-fastback five-door look makes it a MILF-wagon for sure, yet it remains butch enough for the boys.
Read MoreExterior Design * Just what the world needs: a large, gas-guzzling SUV with all the aerodynamic efficiency of a flying brick. Why didn t I think of that?
Read MoreI just saw a guy at a stoplight in a Dodge Magnum with a bad billet grille and a set of overwrought dubs. He looked as if he may earn additional income by starring in bear porn flicks: shaved head, prematurely gray, bushy handlebar mustache, etc. I glanced down at the fender tag to check the model. Just as I'd figured. Six cylinders. For what the fool spent on bling, he could ve had a Hemi. And make no mistake, for all of the so-called sports-tourer's conveniences and avant-garde styling, you wa
Read MoreSo I was heading toward the new Commander when a-million-miles-from-MILF Mommy commandeers me. "Is that the new Jeep?" she asks, cutting off my escape route. Oh crap. She gazes at the Commander s ungainly form like a crutch-wielding supplicant encountering a vision of The Mother Mary polishing the cross at Fatima s Little Chapel of the Apparitions. I heard it s got a third row, she announces with alarming interest. As a professional car reviewer, I am committed to telling the truth, the ugly tru
Read MoreWhy you should buy this car: Because you collect Star Wars memorabilia. Either that or you appreciate all the traditional Civic virtues — practicality, frugality, reliability, comfort, value, invisibility, etc. — and want something relatively slow that handles like a go-kart.
Read MoreExterior Design * Judging from the concept sketches, Honda decided to transform its plain vanilla Civic into a sleek and sophisticated one-box. It works perfectly — on the coupe. Here, the SUV snout graft and xTreme window rake look as appropriate as a middle-aged WASP dancing to Kylie Minogue.
Read MoreLadies and gentlemen, Honda is proud to announce the birth of a new genre: the VGC or Video Game Car. The 06 Civic is the first mainstream motor to reflect, represent and personify the Playstation Generation s digitized automotive sensibilities. From its cartoon curves, to its undersized steering wheel, to the digital readouts just below the video screen — I mean windscreen, the Civic sedan boldly goes where only game designers have gone before. All the car needs to complete its transformation f
Read MoreWhy you should buy this car: Because you like the way it looks, love the way the leather feels and revel in the fact that your local Lexus dealer will kiss your ass with brand-appropriate comprehensiveness.
Read MoreExterior Design ***** Although there are pistonheads who worship the deeply dippy SC, the GS300 is Lexus s coolest ever (first cool?) car. Working within Japan s emerging "car as designer refrigerator" aesthetic, its sensual shape and hunkered stance project power and athleticism. The rear end is a disgrace: a less effective attempt to resolve dramatic tension than the Dynasty episode where aliens abduct Fallon.
Read MoreGet the hook. The Lexus GS300 is no more a $45k (and up) luxury car than I m an international man of mystery. Less, in fact. While I ve faced death by cafe and kuchen at VW s ill-fated Phaeton customer delivery center in Dresden, the GS300 is a luxury car that visited the German stand at EPCOT and decided it knows everything there is to know about European luxury cars. The end result is a tarted-up Toyota with ideas above its station, appealing to customers blinded by a rep forged by far better
Read MoreFriggin' Farago decided to make a case for voting the Porsche Boxster S Jalopnik's Car of the Year by tearing down my pick, the Ferrari F430. I could say he makes a good point, but since he doesn't know his ass from a sack of mangelwurzel, I'll just let him prattle on about his beloved Boxster. Later on, he'll get his. Then, when it comes time to vote, let your conscience be your guide. — ed.
Read MoreChrysler has commissioned advertising bechwhemoth BBDO to create an online game singing the praises of its Town & Country minivan. Obviously aimed at the mom set, the game allows players to set up pieces to create a route and then travel it in a...wait for it...waaaaaaaaait forrrrrrr it...Chrysler Town & Country! We're not quite sure the target demo has time to fart around on auto websites playing games while shopping for minivans, but being of the single, childless, under-30-for-five-more-days-
Read MoreAs history has taught us, mobility is often a double-edged sword. In India, quite a few indigenous truck stops, or "dhabas," offer free food to long-haul truckers, provided they pop for a quick stress-reliever with a prostitute, kinda like free drinks while one gambles in Vegas. Unfortunately, many, if not most of the drivers are uneducated about the dangers of HIV, and many of the (often very young) prostitutes at dhabas don't have the leverage to insist on condom use, if they've even been educ
Read MoreSo earlier, we lovingly took our Tinseltown-trashin' brother Defamer to task for calling Tobey Maguire's 7-series a "Beemer." We also admitted that we had no reason why BMW's bikes are called "Beemers" while its cars are known as Bimmers. The etymology of the bike thing is pretty easy post WWII, BMW was primarily known as a motorcycle manufacturer, and one of the marque's main opponents on the track was BSA, whose bikes were colloquially known as "Beesers" (or, as we see it in American cycle rag
Read MoreHere on planet Jalopnik, gravity doesn t suck quite as much as it does elsewhere. When we decided to choose a Car of the Year, we knew our award could never share the pseudo-objective gravitas of our distinguished colleagues attaboys. (Or, as Farago put it, fuck that shit.) So, after a particularly perspicacious puddle of consciousness conference call, we established a format which reflects our unifying passion for all things automotive, while maintaining our complete disdain for journalistic pr
Read MorePrior to moving to LA over the weekend, it stood as the city where we'd received the most parking/traffic tickets that we'd never lived in or near. And of course, our first night in our new place, we managed to get two parking tickets. Back in 1995, we and our erstwhile friend Jeff trekked down from the East Bay to catch All at the Whisky on a school night. We parked up a side street from the club. When we returned, Jeff's truck was gone, having fallen victim to a blocked no parking sign and the
Read MoreMan-oh-man...now that we're in California, we've gots to do some edumacatin' here to our brilliant-but-automotively-challenged brother Defamer. He's sorta like the inverse of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Or something. We've totally forgotten the plot of that movie, except that it had something to do with Lambos coming off a ship. And DH was autistic and Tom Cruise was slimy. That's about it. Well, we can fake it. It's LA, right?
Read MorePorsche tuning house TechArt introduced a tuning package for the 2006 Porsche Cayman — the first such package we've seen (so far) — at the Essen motor show this past weekend. For now, the Cayman setup only includes a body kit, one-piece wheels and a sport exhaust. Suspension and engine kits are in the works, and will be available until next year. It's like the preview of an action movie, only without that huge release-date graphic that fades in at the end after it gets all quiet.
Read MoreOur buddy Chris stopped by the Arizona International Auto Show in Phoenix over the weekend. It was 145 degrees in the shade, the peyote was flowing, the Armadillos were trying not to give anyone leprosy, and the locals were shooting at polecats from the portholes of their Gulfstream trailers. Next year, we're going too, if only so we don't have to make up an entire opening scenario based on Jim Jarmusch movies.
Read MoreThe main Danes in the Mercedes-tuning universe, Kleemann, will show off their new, 595hp ML 500 tuner at the Essen show next week. The package, which they say makes their ML 50K S8 "utterly desirable," gains Kleemann's juiced version of the Mercedes 5.0-liter V8 — used in its CLS and E-Class tuners — which includes a custom supercharger, new hi-po cams, reprogrammed ECU and stainless steel exhaust headers. All that kit gets the ML from zero to 62mph in 5.3 seconds, and on to a top speed of 167mp
Read MoreWhile GM hasn't been heavily pushing their E85 cars on the coasts, they are supplying 12 of the ethanol-powered Impalas to the UN's convention on climate change in Montreal later this month. The corn-bits-burnin' Chevys will be available to the public in 2006, and according to GM Director of Environmental Activities Bryan Swift, the angry Imps boast the lowest greenhouse-gas emissions of any car in North America. Other than that, it's all pretty much the standard boilerplate about the hydrogen f
Read MoreThis Web site and others have savaged the Subaru B9 Tribeca for its hideous snout, ugly ass, cramped interior, hateful ergonomics, anemic engine, pathetic gearbox and piss-poor mileage. Needless to say, Rich Ceppos and his fellow AutoWeek scribes don t share our editorial freedom. The magazine s lucrative relationship with their auto making sponsors demands that all punches must be pulled, all dissing dissipated. So when AutoWeek s Autofile set its sites on the horrific B9, it was inevitable tha
Read MoreContinuing with our late-running "Smashing into Stuff" theme, we found this video of a crash test, of sorts, involving a speeding smart ForTwo, a roadway barrier and several video cameras. (Are we giving away too much away by running this photo?) Our UK friends may be able to tell us where this clip originated, since we don't have the foggiest.
Read MoreOne of our readers in San Francisco — a confirmed early adopter whose current car is a Passat W8 —has been waiting patiently for the arrival of the Audi A3 3.2 he has on order. Over the weekend, as he reports, the dealership just received the first two specimens, which he got a chance to flog one of them mercilessly test-drive one. The car doesn't have all the toys he ordered, but he's willing to wait for his confirmed delivery in December. Thanks, Matt. (Full account after the jump.)
Read MoreDieter's adoring North American dealers put together quite a soiree for the departing Chrysler Division chief as he heads off to his homeland to take the reins of the whole freakin' enchilada, including direct stewardship of its ailing Mercedes brand. Equipping everyone's favorite David Cross doppelg nger (could it be Dieter, sans 'stache that our media-obsessed brother and sister over at Gawker have been spotting around NYC, pretending he's the Arrested Development actor to pick up chicks?) wit
Read MoreNew York City in the 1970s was like Death Valley for disabled cars. Breaking down on the West Side Highway, for example, not only meant a long walk to the nearest (working) phone, but also a virtual death sentence for the car. Back then, car-stripping shock troops roamed the city in Dodge Tradesman vans, carrying all the accouterments needed to gut a Ford LTD to the frame in less than five minutes. Grand theft auto carried a stiffer sentence than getting caught with a truckload of stolen parts,
Read MoreCall it performance art or a really slow-progressing media event, but BMW's building an original 1973 2002tii from the ground up — behind a glass wall at a temporary BMW Museum facility in Munich. Supported by BMW's in-house historians, BMW Mobile Tradition, which maintains a vast inventory of vintage parts, two Bimmer artisans are working in full view of the adoring public (well, we'd be adoring) to complete the all-original 2002 to be auctioned for charity in 2006.
Read MorePssst. Hey! You! Wanna get in on Grand American Rolex Series racing? Yeah! You! I got these GTO.Rs over here. Yeah, they're fast. Plenty fast for you, Buckwheat. What? Oh, how much? For you? Only two-hundred-seventy-five thou. It's a steal. Of course, you're gonna need the spares package, but that's only another hundred grand. You've got another hundred grand in your sock drawer, by the look of ya. The specs? Oh, they're after the jump.
Read MoreVolvo is acknowledging that a vital engine part on around 356,000 of its cars has a far shorter lifespan than it had projected. Now, the Ford division is extending warranty coverage (to 200,000 miles or 10 years) and reimbursing customers who've already had their faulty, stall-inducing ETM throttles replaced, under an agreement with California regulators. Don't call it a recall; the company isn't warning customers to have it replaced, considering a dashboard light will come on if the part fails.
Read MoreThe General has decided to revive the moribund market for its substandard sheet metal with yet another national incentive / discount campaign. Out goes GM s Total Value Promise (something about the sticker price reflecting the actual price), less than halfway through its promised run. In comes the Toe Tag Sale — I mean, Red Tag Sale. The man who promised to stay the course is, of course, the same man who must now sell the new, new plan. And check this: Monster Mark LeNeve is blogging!
Read MoreAston Martin DB9s with automatic transmission are subject to recall due to possible malfunction of the cars' parking interlock system. Wot? That's the thing that engages when a car is in park that prevents it from wandering off into someone's clean laundry. A scant 67 vehicles are affected, but we'd imagine all it would take to ruin someone's day is a $175,000 sports car in their pantry.
Read MoreFrom the looks of the redesigned Toyota Camry — at least according to a set of blurry shots spreading virus-like across the 'Net — 2007 may be the year Toyota wakes its midsize sedan from the design snooze it's been in for much of its history. A side shot reveals a (sadly) too-common deference to the BMW 7-Series, as well as an open curtain on Toyo's new "Vibrant Clarity" design language of contrasting hard lines and soft surfaces. A front shot shows off a new headlamp attitude, first seen this
Read MoreClaude Lelouch's gearhead-porn masterpiece of the late '70s was released on DVD a while back, finally giving us a chance to see it, and the nine-minute short has now hit the internets. Rumors abound surrounding the film, which Lalouch has been tight-lipped about ever since the film's release. The general consensus is that the car involved is a Ferrari, but even that's been called into question. Meanwhile, some noble savage took the time to plot out Lelouch's route across Gay Paree via Google map
Read MoreWere Land Rovers flukey vehicles in the past? Sure, the original Land Rover was one of the more important vehicles in history, especially for Marlon Perkins types. And the Range Rover was the signature vehicle of the landed gentry on country holiday. But with the new RR and the LR3 developed under the guidance of BMW and Ford, Land Rover has begun to move away from its cultish roots and into the mainstream. What it lacked was a viable entry-level lux-ute, and it looks like the new Freelander wil
Read MoreThe Chevrolet Impala embodies everything that s wrong with GM. It s not a bad car; it s just not a great one. The Impala struggles vainly to make a marque in a class filled with deeply-entrenched, top-notch competition. Road & Track s First Drive review of the new Chevrolet Impala embodies everything that s wrong with buff books. It s not an obsequious review; it s just not an honest one. Road & Track struggles vainly to maintain fading street cred in a new media world filled with editorially li
Read MoreWe knew we kept Leftlane News at hand for a reason. They're reporting that contrary to popular belief, the G-Class will not be superseded by the more soft-roady GL-Class, but will live on in all its slab-sided Land-Rover baitin', Bronco-bustin' glory. While the GL will be produced by DCX in Sindelfingen, the Gel ndewagen will continue to be built by Magna Steyr in sterreich. No doubt the bling contingent and the world's well-heeled adventurers as well as the more tough-minded soccer moms of Beve
Read MoreWhen Top Gear spent something like three shows bashing, drowning and torching a Toyota pickup (then threw it off a building), we weren't surprised when, after the abuse ended, it still ran. We've got a '93 ToyPup in the Jalopnik fleet, parked in the woods somewhere in upstate New York, that fires up like a schoolkid in June every time we turn the key — that is, when we bother to visit the poor dear. But recently in Alaska, a 1984 Toyota pickup was fished out of the Kenai River after four months
Read MoreIt's like Steve Jobs's garage all over again, only swap "garage" for billions of dollars in research facilities. BMW's X5 SUV will be the first guinea pig to get the new FlexRay high-bandwidth data network — a system being developed by a consortium of automakers and their electronics suppliers. The FlexRay consortium launched in 2000, led by BMW and DaimlerChrysler, Motorola and Philips Semiconductors (subsequent members include GM, Volkswagen and Bosch) as an effort to create a set of standards
Read MoreFor the roughly 4.78329 readers out there who don't know that BMW's roundel logo is supposed to represent a spinning propeller, well, now you know. And as we learned from watching too many G.I. Joe cartoons, knowing is half the battle. Now what type of powerplant motivated prop planes during Bayrische Motoren Werke's aviatory heyday? (Is "aviatory" even a word? What the hell, why not?) If you answered "reciprocating internal combustion engines," pat yourself on the back and move ahead three spac
Read MoreWe love Iowahawk's blog, but because we're suckaz, we don't check it as much as we should. Then our boy State 29 comes along and's all "Yo, Jalopnakov, you gots to czech the flizz-eye rustbucket dat crazy loc'd out gangsta Iowahawk's all up in on his Flicka page, bish!" So we do. And much like Iowahawk himself, we proclaim the Coupe of Justice righteous. We also proclaim ourselves sadly, pathetically and horrendously white. Quite possibly even whiter than the H-Dog.
Read MoreCity Tow, the company that handled San Francisco's towing contract until 2003, has seettled for 5.7 million dollars in a fraud case, without admission of wrongdoing. Frankly, we find SF's towing policy rather ridiculous, as we were charged out the wazoo to have our vehicle towed about three miles and stored for an hour or two after it was stolen in San Francisco a year ago. With all the revenue the city's generating from preying on the victims of crimes, one would think they could do something a
Read MoreThere was a time when dropping a phrase like "Pumpe-Duese" into conversation could extract a lethal combination of excitement and disbelief from the most tight-as-drum-heads VW PR people at German auto shows. The joy of hearing a company phrase — meaning, literally "pump nozzle," referring to its diesel fuel management system — uttered by an American journalist reacted violently with the suspicion of being condescended to. The results were a catastrophic meltdown of composure as predictable as a
Read MoreCadillac has at last revealed the royal card in its hand of redesigned GMT-900 SUVs — the Cadillac Escalade. Here in the high-margin upper reaches of the market is where GM hopes the new models' refinement will pay off. The Escalade is easily the most appealing of the new trucks, sporting a post-bling understatement that's striking, considering the last-generation Circus-Circus wagon had as much sophistication as the all-you-can-eat buffet at Trump Taj Mahal. The standard 6.2-liter aluminum V8 o
Read MoreThe German Car Blog points us in the direction of this insanely tuned Lambo Diablo. Never among our favorites, a factory Diablo is just a few clicks north of tasteful; the choice of mobster types who tend to slam them into other cars for no reason. This 1999 model, however hides its ills behind a tweaked-out V12 that could power the USS Duluth. That's 1170 hp and 931 ft-lbs. of trouble, locked and loaded.
Read MoreWe intended to check out the Yahoo! Custom Autos/NOPI heads-up race in front of the venerable Frontier on the Las Vegas Strip the second-to-last night of the SEMA Show. We really did. We sauntered over from the Stardust, met a group of friends over outside Gilley's, attended the poolside outdoor pre-party, consumed a fair amount of industrial-strength Folgers-esque brew and and waited for the 3am kickoff of the drags. Alas, one by one, our friends buggered off for sleep.
Read MoreAs far as the automotive press is concerned, Jay Leno is the gift that keeps on giving. The Tonight Show host is endlessly, relentlessly generous with both his time and his [large] jaw-dropping collection of exotic, vintage and mutant motors. To say Leno s pithy munificence has been endlessly exploited by doting car hacks would be like wondering if pre-pubescent Persian carpet makers would benefit from union representation. A quick search of Motor Trend s Web site reveals more than a dozen Leno-
Read MoreEver wonder which of the following race-prepped vehicles are faster in the quarter-mile, a bike, an F1 car or a speedboat? Why bother wondering when you've got a pack of up-for-anything Brits and a little something we like to call Google Video.
Read MoreOkay, so this one's a little incongruous. Don Pardo, fill us in, yo? Unique Performance, known for building the Shelby Continuation Series Mustangs, has teamed up with Chip Foose to build a run of '69 Camaros. Wal-Mart membership-warehouse spawn Sam's Club has procured the right to sell one of these Foosified F-Bodies, for the low, low price of $198,000. But that's not all, you also get a flight to lovely Dallas, Texas, where you'll ferried by limousine to a luxury hotel. You'll be greeted by no
Read MoreSo there's this girl we've kinda got a thing for and she's involved in the auto industry. She also happens to be damn hot. Now and then during the SEMA show, we'd give her a call and say, "Hey, so what car did you work on, anyway?" She wouldn't tell us. Finally, today we called her up and said, "Look, it's the last day of the show. Which car is it?" "Well, you've been through the Ford display, guess!" "I know you didn't work on the GT, and most of the other cars don't seem like your style. Was i
Read MoreLeftlane News is reporting that the new, four-door Jeep Wrangler will be less a lil' jeep and more a sporty Gladiator. In addition to being longer and wider than the current model, it also gains sport a novel roof configuration, including removable t-tops at the front, with a fixed roof in the rear. On the inside, more luxurious appointments are planned, and the range of engines will include a 5.7-liter Hemi. With the Wrangler going upmarket, is there room for a new, entry-level CJ? We're just a
Read MoreHaving watched Car & Driver fumble the Bugatti-shaped literary football, it s time to check out UK weekly Autocar s take on the big Kahuna. To go flat out in the fastest car ever, the august publication threw the keys to their Editor-at-Large, Steve Sutcliffe. As Autocar s top lead foot, Sutcliffe has driven every supercar extent: Pagani, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Maserati and all those commercially doomed, massively powerful misbegotten motors produced in English, French, German, Dutch, Sw
Read MoreTo some, putting one over on the corporate powers that be is as glorious a pastime as could be imagined, to others it's a felonious pursuit reserved for miscreants. Of course, even those in the second group would pause before defending car rental agencies. For everyone who feel they've been billed unfairly, gotten a piece of crap car they didn't ask for (or no car at all) or dealt with desk agents who don't represent the sunny dispositions of their TV counterparts, this tip is for you.
Read MoreSo we stopped into the rental agency at LAX yesterday and asked what we might hope to score for our drive to San Diego. The woman behind the counter said, "Oh, an Aveo or a Cavalier." "Hmm. How much more is an HHR? I saw you've got a couple of those out there." "10 bucks." "I'll take it." "Orange okay?" "Perfect! It is, after all, Halloween." What could be better than going to check out Rocket From the Crypt's final set of updated-for-now supercharged soul-punk than a pumpkin-esque manifestation
Read MoreWhen Car and Driver received an invitation to run the world s fastest production passenger car up to V-Max, it s no surprise that Editor-in-Chief Csaba Csere grabbed the keys. Needless to say, the assignment held its dangers— and I m not talking about the prospect of Csere ending his life in a twisted heap of mangled Volkswagen parts. (As John Lennon said when he heard of Elvis death atop the porcelain throne, it would have been an excellent career move.) I m referring to the possibility that Cs
Read MoreWhen Hot Rod magazine named Volvo's T6 concept the 2004 Hot Rod of the Year, this past January, purists gasped. It was like The Hives being named Rock Band of the Year — an honor we would have gladly signed on to, but that would have sent White Stripes devotees into a torch-wielding frenzy. Now, the concept, created by former Volvo conceptualist Leif Tufvesson, will appear at Volvo's SEMA display, strutting its Prowleresque new-rod sensibilities like Jack White rocking a Jimmy Page riff. Still,
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