Archive for December 2007

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Buying (7)

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Chevrolet HHR SS, Part 2

Why You Should Buy This Car: Very impressive performance, especially for the price. We love the 260 hp by 260 ft-lb Ecotec mill, as it's as lag free as the BMW twin-turbo I-6. Mated to a 3,280 car, that's enough power to make the HHR SS fast. Compare its 0-60 of 6.3 seconds with a manual GTI's 6.9 seconds. Even with the DSG, the Volkswagen turns in 6.7 seconds. Despite the wrong wheels doing the work, the HHR is quick and confident through corners. The chassis is composed and confidence inspirin
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Chevrolet HHR SS, Part 1

Chevrolet is pretty serious about their new HHR SS, so they schlepped out the biggest gun in their arsenal to introduce the fast wagon to us; Maximum Bob Lutz. While he did admit that SS is "an unfortunate badge" in Europe, Lutz's talk was your standard corporate hyperbole. Chevrolet has reinvented the wheel, put a man on the moon, cured cancer and figured out a way to slice bread better. Most of the other journalists were busy taking notes while I was deep in thought trying to figure out how ma
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Lexus LS600h L, Part 3

Why You Should Buy This Car: Even though you're rich, stealth-wealth is your thing: you're not just another schmuck in an S-class. Mercilessly powerful, unbelievable technology, cruise ship smooth ride, sublime comfort and modern good looks. The back seat is one of the best in the world. Five powered sunshades. The perverse pleasure you get from knowing that you're getting twice the gas mileage of competing vehicles. Lexus is only selling 2,000 of them in the States per year, which makes 'em rar
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Lexus LS600h L, Part 2

Exterior Design: ***1/2 First of all, the "Hybrid" badges on the doors are gauche, essentially meaningless and an utter afterthought. Talk about tacked on. And tacky. Lexus, the car costs over $100,000 — the kind of people that buy the LS600h L don't care what others think. Make that shouldn't care. Most likely, these folks will care the most. So I see the point. And the badgers are still awful. That said, at 0.3 inches longer than an Escalade (202.8 inches overall) this long-wheelbase baby cuts
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Audi R8, Part 3

Here comes the long-awaited Part 3 of the R8 review. Remember that cool Audi-branded USB flash drive that Audi gave me back in Part 2? I just took a look at the Expensively Produced Photos on it, and some of them are so pretty that I figured I should share them in gallery form. Now, on with our traditional Part 3 wrapup- to nobody's surprise, this car is not suitable for treehuggers! Why you should buy this car: You want to turn a large amount of money into a definitive statement on your sense
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Lexus LS600h L, Part 1

I picked up the Cyber Barge— aka my very own for a week Lexus LS600h L — in Gardena, CA near Redondo Beach. It was about 1:30 pm. I had to be home by 5:00 pm because I am the only person in my circle of friends with the NFL Network and you of course remember how big the Dallas/Green Bay game was. But that left me several hours to kill. Since I was in the neighborhood, I popped on over to the Hustler Casino to try my luck at a little $100-$300 No Limit Hold 'Em.. What else do you do with a $117,0
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Audi R8, Part 2: Welcome To The Racetrack!

Here it is, folks, the long-awaited sequel to Audi R8, Part 1! Some rumors have been making the rounds among our more conspiratorially-minded readers that the long delay was due to my imprisonment at an Audi-run rendition facility at an unnamed Eastern European location, on the orders of Audi brass enraged by my mentioning a '92 Honda Civic in the same breath as their übercar. Not true! The reality is less exciting (and more lame) than that: I just haven't had time to finish the damn thing. OK?
By Murilee Martin Read More

Entertainment (7)

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Top Gear's Pat Devereux Hearts The New 2008 Ford Bullitt

While I've yet to drive the new Bullitt Mustang, I've definitely heard good things about it from some very good people. Heck, even Phil Floraday over at the Road that is ever-Winding gives it a thumbs up. Chalk up one more thumbs-up from an auto writer as Top Gear magazine's Pat Devereux had this to say about the new McQueen re-make:
By Ray Wert Read More
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The G-Wiz Electric Car Crumples Like A Tin Can

After Top Gear took the G-Wiz to the heights of what you can do with a remote control last Sunday night, we wanted to remind folks why the British boys dislike the G-Wiz 'lectric so much. We feel like maybe it has something to do with the way the "Aww" G-Wiz crumples like a tin can when it hits anything at pretty much any speed. Like here, in what we're told is a 40 MPH offset head-on crash. The end result is nothing short of epicly bad. Hey, is the driver door supposed to flop open and forward
By Ray Wert Read More
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Top Gear Races Remote-Controlled G-Wiz Against Real RC Car

After May took the Jaguar XF out for a drive last night, the show took on a less-than-serious note as the boys spent some time giving out the annual Top Gear awards. In one segment, we had the opportunity to witness some sweet mod-action on the G-Wiz electric car. The boys took the G-Wiz from small and slow to fast and — well — furious. The Top Gear engineering team gave the G a few more volts in the battery department, some big racing tires for the rear and — umm — turned it into a remote con
By Ray Wert Read More
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Top Gear Tests Jaguar XF, Declares It Cat's Meow

Captain Slow took a turn or two 'round some rolling UK hills in Jaguar's new cat scratch fever, the S-Type replacing 2009 Jaguar XF. Top Gear gives it two strokes thumbs up — as you'd expect from the British motoring show. But the best part has to be when James May claims the XF shows Jaguar's finally got a big brass set again beneath all the fur. We're not entirely sure, but one thing we know for certain — and maybe it's the skillful video production — but for the first time, we're actually li
By Ray Wert Read More
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Hammond Vampire Jet-Car For Sale On EBay

We actually were wondering a few months back whatever happened to the infamous "Vampire" jet car Top Gear's Richard Hammond took to the obscenely crashtastic speed of 280+ mph and then did just that to it. Well, now we know. Apparently the Vampire's been stored in a warehouse about 40 miles north of London since the crash investigation was completed sometimes around this time last year. It seems where it goes next is totally up for grabs. It appears, according to an auction up on eBay UK at th
By Ray Wert Read More
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Commenter Of The Day: Limey Trailer Park Edition

For you North Americans not familiar with the British phenom of Chavs, you can think of 'em as rednecks crossed with gangstas, but with pinches of Russian mobsterism and soccer hooliganism sprinkled in for flava. Lots of Burberry, too. And pregnant 15-year-olds in half shirts that twaddle about with bottles of vodka. While smoking. We mention this because if you watch Top Gear — and we know you watch — you're probably thinking that most Britons are like Jezza and May. Always, constantly dreaming
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Video Of Lewis Hamilton Taking On The Top Gear Track

Well, we gave you the spoiler earlier for those interested in just knowing what happened, but now we've got the video of Lewis Hamilton's run 'round the Top Gear track. And oh look, there it is — the full video above of Hamilton's hot lap. Enjoy.
By Ray Wert Read More

News (277)

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Chevy Celebrates 50 Years Of The Impala (Minus 10 Years)

The first Impala appeared as a special edition 1958 Bel Air. In 1959, after the popularity of the original Impala, Chevy introduced it as a stand alone model with a 335 horsepower 5.7L V8. To celebrate 50 years as a range topper, Chevy is introducing a new 50th Anniversary Impala with a 211 horsepower 3.5L V6. Progress! This fully loaded Impala comes with the FE3 Sport Suspension, ABS, 18 inch alloy wheels and enough 50th Anniversary badges to fill an HHR. Full press release and a history of the
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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2008 Fiat 500

A tour of Germany wouldn't be complete without test-driving some of Europe's forbidden fruits, now would it? In our case we just couldn't pass on the opportunity to sample Fiat's new retro mobile, the reborn Cinquecento. The Bamberg Fiat dealer was more than willing to let us grab the keys for a trip around the block given that we'd provide a little free publicity. So if you're ever in Germany and hankering for a Fiat, maybe think of Matthias Steinfurth at AutoHaus Wittig GmbH & Co. Let it nev
By bwojdyla Read More
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Beautiful Hand-Built Air-Cooled V12 Makes 68 HP Per Liter

68 horsepower per liter! Air-cooled? You betcha. This hand-built V12 engine, the fruit of hobbyist Ralf Drendel's labor, clocks in at a mere 87 cc's of displacement and cranks out a whopping mere 6 horsepower. That's three times the pistons of the worlds smallest 4 cylinder and probably three times the headaches. The little terror was designed with RC planes in mind, but it's so thirsty its creator is having second thoughts. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find pictures of the beast,
By bwojdyla Read More
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The V8-Powered Snowblower Owns Frosty's Ass

What do you do when you have a 454 c.i. chevy big block V8 and a massive amount of winter precipitation? While there are those among us that would rather toss it in a LeCar, Kai Grundt decided a six-year journey to create the world's greatest V8-powered snowblower was the way to go. Remember: engine displacement = snow displacement. There's no price on this monster, though the company claims that it'll build one. Either way, it's fun to look at. Full details below the jump:
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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The Top 50 Lemons Of 24 Hours Of LeMons

The types of cars that really dominated at the Thunderhill 24 Hours of LeMons weren't quite the same as the ones we saw owning at the October race at Altamont. With the track's long straights and the new hardass, black-flag-o-riffic policy about aggressive driving (not to mention the outlawing of nerf bars), straight-line power and sturdy engine internals were far more important than the sticky grip and ability to take repeated impacts that proved so crucial at Altamont. We saw Detroit iron ma
By Murilee Martin Read More
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1983 Jeep DJ-5

In keeping with our newly-enacted DOTS Truck Monday tradition, we're going with this interesting little Jeep for the last day of 2007. This former mail carrier lives on the same block as the 1966 Lancia Fulvia, and it serves as very practical (except for drive-thru lanes, thanks to right-hand drive) daily driver.
By Murilee Martin Read More
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First Official Death Race Screen Shot Features An Intense-Looking Jason Statham

So Universal's creating a re-make of the classic schlock-camp 70's futuregasm Death Race 2000, starring the always-willing-to-Transport Jason Statham and now they've released the first official screen shot of the action star in his broke n' busted but rebuilt whip. We've included the official synopsis below the jump and while one of us already knows the answer to the following question but since his information's embargoed — we'll see if y'all can guess it. Anyone know what car Statham's "Franke
By Ray Wert Read More
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And The Winner Is... Red Meat And Poontang!!

Yep. A 1.6-liter bone stock 1999 Mazda Protege just won the Thunderhill running of the 24 Hours of LeMons. This friends, was an exciting race. With about 70 yards to go the #08 MR2 wound up on it's roof! We were hanging with the SE-R guys, helping them cheer on their driver as he made a desperate push to leap from 6th place to 5th. He must have come through the main straight at about 130 mph. Just cooking it. Beautiful racing all around, but the mega props go to Red Meat and Poontang, who told u
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Transformers Producers Steal 'Bee-Otch' Air Freshener Idea From Little Old Lady In Brooklyn?

We were pretty fascinated by the "Bee-Otch" air freshener back when we saw it hanging from Bumblebee's rear-view mirror in Transformers a few months back. We were so enthralled and amused we even tried to figure out how we too could own our very own li'l "Bee-Otch" air freshener. Well, it looks like there's now a bit of a legal tussle over the adorable little hang tag. Here's the story from the NY Post:
By Ray Wert Read More
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The People's Curse: Mazdasaurus Wrecks

The people have spoken, spoken in voodoo, and their collective voices cursed and then crushed the living shit out of the Mazdasaurus Wrecks. First of all, a tip of the NFC North Champ Green Bay Packers cap to the artist they got to work the excavator. Amazing. He actually yanked the engine out like it was a still beating heart. Second, we can't say we didn't warn you. Anyhow, enjoy the galleries, as they are essentially all that's left of the F1-sounding Mazdasaurus Wrecks.
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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The Penalty Box Is Filling Up

What, eh? Me, eh? You calling me a hoser? No, you're the hoser, for sure, eh? One of the reasons so many of the FWD cars are still alive and contending is an effort at Thunderhill to discourage kamikaze-style driving techniques. As a result, cars are getting busted! Remember the white Volvo 740 wagon that was terrorizing the track this morning? 4 hours in the box. And the driver had the cojones to act shocked. But as we all know, misery absolutely loves company.
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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It's Morning In Thunderhill

We is back. Murilee's laptop just ate his hard drive. But he's doing a lot better than some of the teams. I say some, as shockingly, most of the LeMons are back on the track continuing the mega-hoonage. From what we saw, Mazdasaurus Wrecks has pulled the governor from its F1-sounding engine and is gaining a quarter lap on the competition per lap. That thing is just straight up going for it. Interestingly, this morning's menace appears to be none other than the white and orange Volvo 740 wagon.
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Team DDT's 280Z Survives Day One... Barely

Since we're looking hard at the Datsun Z as a potential Team Jalopnik car for the May race at Altamont (though the Renault Fuego Turbo is the current favorite, followed closely by the Dodge Mirada), we've been following the progress of Team DDT's '79 280Z with great interest. They spent much of Day One among the top contenders... but some penalties and a nasty wreck toward the end of the session dropped them down to #22 by the time the dust settled. Things looked bad at first, but Team DDT is m
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Visual Explanation As To Why The #72 Datsun B210 Cannot Heroically Fight On

Yesterday you all got a gander at the wiped out B210. A commenter who goes by the suspicious handle of "Kelly" earlier asked:
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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The Most Menacing LeMon At Thunderhill: Mazdasaurus Wrecks

After day one wrapped up Murilee and I went team to team and took an informal, anonymous survey of which car they were most afraid of. A few cars, like the Rockford Pile and the Size Matters Fury got a vote here and a vote there. But it soon became a statistical impossibility for any car other than the Mazdasaurus to win. Does this mean that the mutant 626 will get tagged with the People's Curse award tomorrow and crushed? Check back and find out. Video after the jump, and you need to hear this
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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I-Markin' It With The Fiat Of Japan

Team Motoring J-Style has the only Isuzu at today's race... in fact, this may well be the only Isuzu ever to race at the 24 Hours of LeMons (anyone who knows of another, please let us know). We're giving these guys serious props, not just for their choice of car, but for the Save The Enzos T-shirt sported by this team member. Quote of the Day goes to the Alfa guy at the neighboring pit space, who referred to Isuzu as "the Fiat of Japan." Oh yes, and this is the same team who had the #3 finishin
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Laying LeMons Odds

The race doesn't start for two hours, but if you're like us, one of your many problems is impulsive gambling. Hey, any vice in a storm, right? So, we took a very informal poll of some Thunderhill LeMons teams, to find out what they think their odds of winning are. The results might surprise you. Or, they might not
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Must... Get... Car... Ready... Race... Tomorrow...

After showing up to the bustling metropolis of Willows, California, we got some Camarones de Diablo at the Mexican joint next to the motel, then headed over to Thunderhill Raceway to see what manner of crazy person hardcore competitor would be wrenching on their sub-$500 race cars on a 40-degree night. In the rain. We're going to have to give our first Spirit of LeMons award to Team Dirty Drifters, whose Corolla's 3TC developed a rod knock during a practice run earlier. They'd already driven 50
By Murilee Martin Read More
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PCH, Italian Stallion Edition: Ferrari Mondial Or Maserati Coupe?

It's been a few days since our last Choose Your Eternity Poll (in which the overwhelming majority of voters opted for Hopped-Up Crown Victoria Hell), but the series returns today with a vengeance! We've been spending a lot of time in British Car Hell lately, but we mustn't forget England's perennial rival for the Hell Project Crown: Italy. And we're not talking Fiats or Lancias or even Bianchis this time around... nope, get ready to dive into the real inferno!
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Nissan Announces Yearly Price Increases, Trying To Scrape Another $80 For A Versa

It's this time of year, after the Christmas rush, when automakers try to quietly drop price increases into the news cycle without anyone noticing. Even better, do it on a Friday and it won't go into the news until Saturday when no one reads the news. But we're ever vigilant and have seen through the bull shit to let you know that Nissan will be raising prices from between $80 for a Versa/Sentra to $170 for a 350Z Roadster. But in 2008 coffee will cost $200 a cup and a shoe shine a cool $1,000 &m
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Unique Performance Owner Finally Speaks, More Details Emerge

There's a great article in The Dallas Morning News today regarding the ongoing saga of custom Mustang builder Unique Performance, which includes important details regarding the current state of the investigation and the first real comments from CEO Doug Hasty. There's a lot of blame to go around, and no one seems content to take any, but as a former Unique Performance spokesman told us:
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Al Navarro Does Detroit: Ford To Tears

Al Navarro is co-founder of Mint Advertising, an independent advertising agency in New Jersey. He also drives a Caterham Superlight R, so don't front. Over my career in advertising, I've had some great bosses and mentors. Many of whom have uttered truisms I still rattle off to co-workers and clients to this day. One of these phrases is "You can't bore people into doing something." Enter the above Ford spot from the Jalopnik Ad Watch tag. Want to know what I think? Hit the jump.
By Ray Wert Read More
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Barrett-Jackson To Auction First "Retailable" 2009 Corvette ZR1

Want to be the first to get your hands on a new 2009 Corvette ZR1? In 14 days, head on over to the Barrett-Jackson auction as we've just heard the first ZR1 will be going up for auction as part of their "Muscle Car Wars" marketing of a sale of the first 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8, a Shelby GT500 KR and now a 2009 Chevy Corvette ZR1. Don't they know we've already got the "Muscle Car Wars" thing trademarked? We'll take our royalties in either cash or any mix of the above acronym-obsessive vehicl
By Ray Wert Read More
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Rules Of The Road: Jalopnik Guide To Cell Phone Usage Laws

(The 10th amendment of the US Constitution created a patchwork quilt of state laws related to driving, which is why Jalopnik sorts through the red tape to bring you detailed guides to driving topics such as teenage driving, speed limits, open containers, dehorsing and lemon laws.) We we're tempted to just limit this guide to stating that, unless necessary, you shouldn't use your cell phone while driving (A CB Radio is much cooler anyways). But that would make some of us (ahem, Wert) serious hyp
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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More Fun With Ford Engineering Press Shots

Ford engineers and designers continue to revolutionize the process of creating automobiles and Ford's press photographers continue to make the weirdest choices for the press releases about said process. Last time we brought you a photo of tiny engineers working on a giant car and you brought us the funny. Today we've got photos of the 3D product visualization center in Dearborn that Ford uses to work on cars simultaneously on two continents. It would be great technology if only they didn't look
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Homemade Boattail Aerocivic Gets 50 Miles Per Stare

If we learned anything from An Inconvenient Truth, it was that environmentalism starts at home. It's in that spirit that we present the Aerocivic, a 1992 Civic CX with a super low coefficient of drag courtesy of extensive aeromodding. After about 250 hours of work and $400 in supplies, this boattailed Civic achieved a 90-day average of 67.5 MPG (US).
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Old Cars In Square America

The website Square America showcases an obsessive collector's- wait, we mean curator's- vast selection of found photographs from the first three-quarters of the 20th century (most of them in the old Brownie-style square format, hence the site's name), including some great car-themed stuff. Warning: this site is a hazard to workplace productivity [Square America, via BoingBoing]
By Murilee Martin Read More
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The Zero Hour

Strange vibrations on this early Friday morning in our city of angels. The assignment says I am to drive 400 miles kinda due north to an island called Alameda and pick up one Mrs. Murilee Martin. From there we will make our way to Willows, California (aim a dart at a map of the USA, turn 90 degrees to your left and toss — you just hit Willows) where we will rendezvous with a pack of wild, gear-grease stained hoons at a motel bar to discuss plans for the next day's 24 Hours of LeMons race. The ov
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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1972 Volkswagen Beetle

We've seen four of Alameda's air-cooled Beetles so far in this series (a '59, a '64, a '66, and a '69). With the 50s and 60s covered, I figured I should shoot a 70s model. With so many old Beetles still roaming the island, that's no problem at all- the only choice was between a standard Beetle and its Super Beetle sibling; I opted for the former.
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Detroit Auto Show: Mazda Furai, Revealed

So we were all teased with the Mazda Furai teaser photo a few weeks back — that's the concept car we'll be seeing from the brand all about the "Zoom-Zoom" in two weeks at the Detroit Auto Show. Now we can be teased with the full press shots thanks to Automobile letting the cat out of the bag a wee bit early (and thanks to Edmunds dropping the veil completely). So take a gander at the press shots below and hit the jump to again find out what we know about this concept car cum Courage C65 chas
By Ray Wert Read More
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Detroit Auto Show: Toyota Reveals New Honda Ridgeline, Calls It The A-BAT Concept Hybrid Truck

This is it — whatever "it" is. Actually "it" is Toyota's newest concept they'll be bringing to the Detroit Auto Show in two weeks, the A-BAT Concept Pickup Truck. And A-BAT is more than just a winged rat, it's actually, as we're told by our friends at PickupTruck.com, an acronym for "Advanced Breakthrough Aero Truck." That's a name that has us kinda scratching our heads. How did Toyota name a concept vehicle a "breakthrough" when it looks like the love child of some sort of menage-a-truck in
By Ray Wert Read More
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Commenter Of The Day: Out To Pasture Edition

I'll be handling the COTD for the rest of the week while Jonny and Murilee are out planning mischief I'm sure you're all going to love (Steve Gutenberg better get that restraining order renewed real quick). There was a lot of passion in today's discussion of manual versus automatic that rivals the Kitchen Debate for a passionate defense of a beloved system. Though there was much Nixonian reasoned oratory, it was the Khrushchevian fervor that caught our eye.
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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New York Times Takes Bill Vlasic For A Ride As New Detroit Chief

Looks like there'll be a new sheriff in town for the New York Times. The Old Grey Lady's gone and stolen Bill Vlasic, veteran of many a Detroit automotive battle, from the Detroit News to act as their new whipping boy Detroit bureau chief. If you'll remember, Vlasic penned the classic story of the famed "merger of equals" between Daimler and Chrysler dubbed "Taken for a Ride." We're told the NYT even likened it to "Barbarians at the Gate...a spellbinding tale, juicy gossip and all, of how busi
By Ray Wert Read More
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Ford's Tests Out Eco-Friendly Paint On U-Haul Vans

Proving that saving the environment isn't all about mating electric motors to gas engines, Ford has been working on reforming the painting process to find ways to lessen our impact on our world. If you don't believe that painting trucks creates an environmental hazard, check out the paint shop at your local transit authority's bus barn. According to Ford, the new system "combines an advanced chemical formulation of high-solids, solvent-borne paint with an innovative three-wet application process
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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New Lancia Phedra Minivan Provides Family Italian Style

While the Italians are known for making cars that match their passion for life, the cars they're most famous for aren't exactly known for being amenable to enjoying life's other greatest passion. While an F430 Spyder may edge una bella donna towards amore, the mechanics of making that happen in transit would baffle an F1 engineer. That's where the Lancia Phedra comes in. It's not as attractive as your average Pininfarina-designed roadster, but it's got swiveling seats, lots of room and a 170 hp
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Celebrate The New Year With A New Auris

Those crazy folks at Toyota sure now how to party. This new year they're going to be debuting a new top-o-the-line Auris SR180 (the Auris being the hatch version of the European Corolla Hatch, and a social disease common in the West Indies). This range topper comes with a 175 horsepower 2.2 liter diesel that scoots the little hatch to 62 mph in a respectable 8.1 seconds while still producing 45.6 MPG in combined cylce driving. Oh, and of course you can get it in the Pure White paint job, which t
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Rolls-Royce Phantom

For generations, Rolls-Royces were the automotive equivalent of a white wedding dress. Pretty, but who you trying to fool, honey? Yes, the badge said Rolls-Royce, but wink-wink, nudge, nudge, Elton John covered his in rhinestones, but come on — they weren't very good cars. Sure, we'd love to get our mits on a Phantom IV. Or better yet, a Camargue! But even then you're talking 189 hp from a 6.75-liter V8 coupled to a GM 3-speed autobox. Woo frigging hoo. And at least the Camargue was kinda nifty
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Emerson Fittipaldi To Drive Corvette Z06 E85 Concept Pace Car At 2008 Indy 500

The General's bargain brand will again be running Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the official pace car for the Indy 500. This year — the 92nd running of the race — there'll be two Corvettes serving as the official pace cars. Pace car numero uno is a customized Chevrolet Corvette Z06 concept that runs on E85 ethanol and will be driven during the race's pace lap by two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Emerson Fittipaldi. The second pace car will be the Corvette 30th Anniversary Pace Car featurin
By Ray Wert Read More
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Jack Baruth has a Cadillac Christmas over at Dubspeed Driven.
By Ray Wert Read More
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1974 Ford Maverick

Here's another type of car that used to be everywhere, but that seemed to suddenly disappear from the road at some point during the 1990s. I found this example parked just down the street from the red '61 Plymouth Valiant, and it's in decent shape and a 2-door to boot.
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Detroit Auto Show: Subaru Reveals Official Plans To Reveal 2009 Subaru Forester In Detroit

Despite it being a secret to all but no one, Subie's released some paper today revealing their not-so-secret plans to reveal the US version of the 2009 Subaru Forester at the Detroit Auto Show in just two weeks. Expect the all-new Subaru to look pretty much exactly like the 2009 JDM Subaru Forester, galleried up below. Well, except for the crazy blind-spot eliminating hood-mounted side-mirror. Including that in the US model would be crazy-talk. Full press release after the jump.
By Ray Wert Read More
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Commenter Of The Day: Just The Facts Edition

What we remember the most about the Dan Aykroyd/Tom Hanks spoof was the two of them running around in goat leggings and that P.A.G.A.N. (People Against Goodness And Normalcy) is kinda brilliant. Oh, and there was that weird rap song... "City of Crime" that MTV played constantly before they became the very worst channel in the history of television. And yeah, MTV is so bad now, that playing a 20-year old video showing Aykroyd and Hanks rapping would be a major improvement. And finally, how could
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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FCC Killed The Analog OnStar? Older OnStar Users SOL Next Week

Older OnStar systems that operate on the analog cellular network will no longer work as of January 1, or next week. Now why would OnStar ever want to send its most loyal, early-adopting users out to sea without a paddle? They wouldn't — but it's not like there are many other options, at least at this point.
By Travis Hudson Read More
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Country Squire Autocross Madness!

I ran across this hoontastic autocrossing '89 Ford LTD Country Squire wagon over on CrownVic.net the other day and, after LTDScott mentioned it yesterday, it seemed like a good time to share it with the wagon-loving readers of Jalopnik. Most of us don't think "Ford station wagon" when we think of handlin' machines, but that might change after viewing the video of the Family Truckster. It's just a shame all station wagons don't sound like this one! [CarDomain.com]
By Murilee Martin Read More
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The 2009 Mercedes SLK 55 AMG

We've already shown you the vanilla Mercedes SLK, and now we have photos of the facelifted AMG-tuned SLK 55. As we've already mentioned, the new SLK is fitted with the current model's 5.5-liter V8, which is good for 360 horsepower and will be mated to the 7G-TRONIC seven-speed auto transmission. With the exception of the exterior enhancements, the Mercedes engineers consider the AMG SLK 55 close to perfection. And why mess with perfection? Well, why mess with perfection until the next generation
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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JDM Godzillas Unlock Top Speed Only At The Track

We're very torn about this one. In Japan, the new 2009 Nissan GT-R's are limited to a top speed of 112 mph (180 km/h). Which, quite frankly, is depressing. Remember though— that's Japan only. American and European hoons are (supposedly) limited to 155 mph (250 km/h). Back in Japan, should you take your Godzilla to a track, the GPS doohickies tell the computer to remove the limiter. Makes sense, right? Limit the car to a moderate top speed on the road, and then unleash its full, city-smashing, Mo
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Detroit Auto Show: Exploding The 2009 Corvette ZR1's Brilliantly Beautiful LS9 Engine

Although you'll be able to see it for yourself if you're in town for the Detroit Auto Show next month (or watch the coverage live here on Jalopnik!), you still won't be able to see the new 2009 Chevy Corvette ZR1 the way we're showing it to you right now. If you'll remember, we were the first to show you the unofficial shots of the new 2009 Chevy Corvette ZR1's beautiful 620+ HP LS9 engine. Next we brought you the in-cockpit camera footage of the ZR1 taking a lap at Laguna. Then we had the o
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Legendary Project Car: 1937 BMW 328

Our German buddy, The Bouncer, was a garage rat growing up. We could clog the tubes with his stories of Deutschland hoonage in hypermodified BMWs and mythical Porsches. As a result of this, we've got the inside track on some of Bavaria's most respected garages and their automeisters. This particular fellow is Dieter W. His full name and location will remain anonymous for reasons that will become evident shortly. Dieter is a BMW guy. His garage services only the steel of the Bayerische Motoren
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Detroit Auto Show: Hummer H3R Concept, Opel Corsa OPC Join Maroon 5 On Stage At GM Style

Looks like the General's bringing the big guns out at their "GM Style" pre-Detroit Auto Show party. That's right, they'll be bringing the "racing inspired" Hummer H3R concept — that's the LS7 7.0-liter V8-powered concept first seen at the SEMA show in October — and the Opel Corsa OPC hot-hatch right up on stage at the show before the big show. Also, Maroon 5 will be joining the already announced Mary J. Blige in the non-auto portion of the show. But who really cares about that? Full press rele
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Big Dig Finally Dug?

Maybe it's just because we're from Detroit, Michigan, a land with two seasons — winter and construction — but we thought Boston's notorious "Big Dig" was already over. Seriously, we were just there in May and despite a few areas with some construction, we really thought the nation's most complex and costly highway project, was already done diggered. Apparently not. The AP is telling us when the clock runs out on 2007, Boston will officially mark the end of the $14.8 billion multi-decade "Big D
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All Eyes On Tupac Shakur's 1996 Hummer, Now For Sale On eBay

Apparently the '96 Hummer H1 owned at one time by rapper Tupac Shakur is now up for auction on eBay for the bargain basement price of just $200,000. No, seriously — two hundred large. And why wouldn't you want to spend 200 Grover Clevelands (or more!) on a used black Hummer that wasn't even the vehicle 2Pac was rollin' in? Well, how about because it's the same H1 raffled in a contest by BET in the "Picture Me Rollin': Win Tupac's Hummer Sweepstakes" back in 2003. We're also told the winner then
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1983 Volkswagen Rabbit LS

After all these months of DOTS, we've only seen two water-cooled VWs (a Rabbitamino and a Quantum). The island is buzzing with air-cooled Beetles (so many, in fact, that I could probably show nothing but Type 1s in this series for a solid month), but what happened to all those Rabbits? They used to be everywhere! And let's not even talk about Dashers and Sciroccos. So, I've been keeping a lookout for vintage water-cooled Wolfsburg machinery, and was rewarded with a few more Rabbitaminos and thi
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Jaguar Creates iPhone And iPod Touch-Only Broadband Magazine For New XF

The car brand all about the cat scratch fever has partnered with the 29HD Network to develop what they're the calling the "industry's first broadband multimedia magazine specifically for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users" to "experience the new Jaguar XF like never before." And by never before they mean on a tiny screen where you don't have to see the Dodge Intrepid-like looks of the 2009 Jaguar XF. Or maybe it'll be the all-James May channel. Although we must say we've worked with the folks a
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PCH, Personal Dilemma Edition: Love (And Fear) The One You're With

This series got its start- and continues to be so much fun for me- as a result of my own search for just the right personal Project Car Hell; I came close to buying the 20R-powered Austin Healey Sprite in the very first PCH, and I've been searching ever since. I considered and rejected the '65 Falcon wagon, and now it looks like my cousin might take on the '68 Torino GT himself. But then I realize that I have two machines with Super Sleeper Potential right under my nose: my daily-driver 1992 Ho
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VW Golf Country Makes Tiguan Look Like Sissymobile

Oh sweet Christkindle, we've found VW's best car ever and it's called the VW Golf Country. Just as we were being screwed at the gas pump filling up, the traffic cleared and this came into view across the street. You all should have been there to see the frantic scramble for the camera as we raced against the owners' intent to scramble with our new found love. Even though these picture make us feel like half private eye, half stalker, we can't help it; seeing this super rare, four wheel drive,
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1960 Cadillac Sixty-Two Hardtop Coupe

Since I couldn't find a DOTS car in Christmas-centric red and green, here's a solid red car to admire on our hard-earned day off from The Man's salt mines. We saw a somewhat rougher '60 Cadillac a while back, so I've been saving this car for a special occasion. Not only is it in excellent condition, it's the extra-slick two-door hardtop. Some folks like the convertible better, but I prefer the smoother lines of the hardtop; in fact, since 1960 is my favorite year for Cadillacs, the '60 2-door h
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Commenter Of The Day: The Old Ways Are Often The Best Ways Edition

As long as I'll live, and despite all my numerous other problems, I'll never be accused of being conservative. About anything. Save for a rainy day? I live in Los Angeles, what's the point? "But Mom, I'm telling you — Kucinich has a point." In fact, after driving Honda's FCX Clarity I am totally looking forward to embracing our new hydrogen overlords. What? A car guy in favor of letting the internal combustion engine go the way of the fuel that powers them? Yeah, that's me. However, I am but a h
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PCH, Faster Pussycat Edition: TR3, MGA, Or 356?

The Repo Man Edition PCH was fun, so we're returning to the movie-themed Choose Your Eternity concept once again. Today we're having a 3-way vote, but that's OK because we've seen one of the cars before and the idea of doing a PCH with the three machines driven by the homicidal go-go dancers from Russ Meyer drive-in classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! seems ideal for this quasi-holiday afternoon.
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Cheney Accused Of Conspiring Against California Emissions Law

According to the Guardian, Vice President Dick Cheney masterminded the EPA's recent decision to deny California the ability to impose tough new vehicle emissions limits. Governor Schwarzenegger has described the EPA's ruling as "legally indefensible."
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1969 Dodge A100 Van

DOTS Truck Monday has worn enough of a groove in our routine to become sort of a tradition, but so far we've just seen pickups. What about vans? It's been half a year since we saw our last DOTS van, so this nice specimen of a forward-control Dodge fully deserves its day of glory.
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Porsche Grandson Exploits Name To Hawk Knives

F.A. Porsche's presence at the Porsche family holiday dinner may be a little awkward now that he's leveraged his good name to sell a set of knives. F.A is the grandson of the auto manufacturer's founder and works as an industrial designer. These not-beautiful knives are his work. Kitchen utensil reviews aren't really my cup of tea, but what's with the handle on these things? All steel is just asking for the loss of a toe. And losing any appendages around the feet would be bad news bears around t
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First Trailer For New Knight Rider Airs, Features New Shelby-Fied KITT, Flashing Red Lights And Will Arnett

If anyone happened to have been watching NFL Football last night on NBC, they'd have seen a quick 15 seconds of promo reel that'll make their heart beat just a few seconds faster this morning. The rainbow-colored network dropped their first promo for the new Knight Rider TV movie. It was only a few seconds long, but as soon as we saw the Ford/Shelby GT500KR logo flashing red lights and the voice of Will Arnett they had us at hello. [Hat tip to Knight Rider Online!]
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If anyone's interested in a little bit of early morning Christmas Eve Official Car Pundit Drinking Game action, I'll be on CNBC's Squawk Box tomorrow morning at 7:50 AM talking GM price increases. So feel free to wake up early and mix up a bloody mary for some morning alcohol action before work.
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Doing Any Holiday Driving?

I need to bitch for a second. Last year, I spent Christmas and New Years in Barcelona and London with a pretty blond PhD student. This year I'll be in a cheap motel room in Willis Willows, CA — with frigging Murilee! How could I have fallen so far, so fast? Yeah, sure, we'll be covering the latest iteration of the 24 Hours of LeMons up at Thunderhill and pounding beers (Murilee did book us into the only hotel in town with a bar), but still! From octopus diced and served raw in front of you (with
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Project Car Hell: J. Edgar Limo Or 2002Tii?

We had another near-tie in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll, with the '80 Rolls beating the '59 Triumph by just a few percentage points. Today, we've decided to present you with two starkly different options, either of which would be pretty damn cool to have in your personal automotive stable... after the copious application of time, money, and heartbreak, of course.
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Traffic Jam Mystery Solved — Blame The Wave!

No, not the friendly hand wave, but the sporting event stadium wave. Mathematicians from the University of Exeter have solved the mystery of unaccountable traffic jams. You know, those traffic jams that involve no wrecked cars or other traffic-disrupting accidents, but are still capable of bringing traffic to a stand-still.
By Travis Hudson Read More
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AAA Predicts Slightly More Holiday Driving, Slightly Less Holiday Self Loathing

Every holiday the AAA, which is a quasi-governmental agency more powerful than the FRC but slightly less powerful that the pentaverate, puts out the results of a nationwide survey that tells them how many people will be hitting the roads. According to their survey, this year slightly less people (about 0.3%) will by flying for Christmas and slightly more (about 0.7%) will be taking their cars for a trip of more than 50 miles from home. Though gas prices are up this year, so are airline tickets,
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Holiday Gift Guide: Mario Kart Slot Cars

Though it doesn't quite have the realism or history of Gran Turismo 4, we've been addicted to the Mario Kart series for as long as we could chuck a red homing shell. We've spent countless hours unlocking tracks and cars on the digital version, which often leads to sore eyes. But what to do when you're taking a break? Why not play a slot car version of the same game? Wario v. Mario. It's a good way to keep your intricately detailed Le Mans replica track away from the kids. Chomp Chomps not includ
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Winter Guessing Game: Worcester Bonus Edition

One of our great readers, Jaime from Worcester, Mass, managed to brave the cold and snap some photos of cars submerged by merciless snow plows. One of them is particularly evil, though we plan to save that for when it starts to get to easy for all of you. This bonus edition entry is even more covered in snow than usual, but includes a nice giveway.
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Unique Performance Employees Ask For Owed Wages

Many people have read All The President's Men, which covers the investigation into the Watergate scandal that eventually forced President Nixon to resign. Less people have read Final Days, the sequel, which chronicles the final months of the administration and the eventual decision to step down. But those who have read that novel will undoubtedly see similarities between that tale of executive confusion and misdirection and what's been going on at Unique Performance, which until recently was cre
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Rules Of The Road: Jalopnik's Guide To Teenage Driving Rules

It was a while before we got what the term "hardship license" meant, as we considered being able to drive when you're under the age of 16 a miracle. Later we learned to get one you generally have to be a farmer or have disabled parents, live in poverty and have a job. This all underlines the point that when you don't have a driver's license, the rules regarding how to get one are increasingly important. And while most of us have the ability to drive legally, we're all still often at the mercy o
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56 Reasons Why You NEED To Know About The Superbumper

We get a lot of product pitches over here in the Jalopnik tips e-mail box. I guess y'all should be flattered all these PR-types all want to get their random crap productin front of your eyes. In fact, we get so many we don't even have time to read through most of them, leading to many getting nothing more than a cursory once-over before being relegated to the Trash bin. That was the fate for this here product — the "SUPERBUMPER" — an energy absorbing, receiver mounted ball mount — when we first
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The El Camino Chia Pet: A Situationist Critque Of The Chiamino

When we hear the worlds "El Camino" and "growing labs" our mind makes a stop at Cheech & Chong before arriving at an agricultural reconceptualization of urban spaces. But the folks at Farmlab saw this junky G-body and immediately visualized this bizarre yet wonderful art project. We consider ourselves amateur psychogeographers, so we're going to look at this through the prism of unitary urbanism.
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The 2009 Mercedes SLK, Now In High Resolution

Remember those photos of the 2009 Mercedes Benz SLK we showed you yesterday? They're real. Seriously. Touch them. We don't mind. And now we've got more of them. The European version is going to get a refined version of the supercharged four with a boost to 184 hp as well as a worked over V6 good for an additional 33 hp, boosting the 3.5-liter to 305 hp at 6,500 rpm. The SLK 55 AMG is relatively unchanged, sporting the same 5.5-liter V8 mill, but getting the revised aesthetics. Press release and
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1985 Saab 900

After we saw our fourth DOTS Volvo (a clean 1970 164) last week, there was some grumbling by Saab fans that I seem to think the only cars from Sweden are Volvos. In fact, the ugly truth is that there are very few old Saabs in Alameda; however, I went out with the camera the other day, determined to find at least one Saab older than 20 years on the island. Block after block I trudged, stumbling across all manner of cool old Detroit iron to shoot... but the only Saabs I could find were 1990s or n
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Auto Buff Book Gets Feelings Hurt, Not REALLY A Bunch Of Sleazy D-Bags

I got a call — a 29-minute phone call, actually — last night from Angus Mackenzie, Editor-in-Chief of Motor Trend. Apparently he was quite offended by our little site calling them a "sleazy bunch of d-bags" on the Corvette ZR1 post we ran on Thursday for being the first to break the embargoed news on the internet. After explaining to me that they didn't actually break the embargo because they received a copy of AutoWeek on their desk a few hours before the embargo broke, and since a printed ma
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Reinventing The Wheel Invention: Flat-Detecting Smart Tires

I was more than sure that tires capable of sensing low air-pressure and flats already existed—either digitally or by the tilted axis. Reuters seems to think otherwise and is reporting on a new "smart tire" being developed by researchers at Purdue University.
By Travis Hudson Read More
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Commenter Of The Day, Gravel In Your Guts Edition

Señor Loverman usually does this here COTD thing, but he had to go to Kiev to pistol-whip some discipline into the crew running his lucrative spam operation. So, while he's applying some persuasion to those ZAZ-driving hackers, I'm handling the COTD duties for the day. Sometimes we give the COTD award to a commenter who gets all erudite on us, throwing in references to great works of literature and so on. Other times, the commenter who fires off a short, witty one-liner gets the nod. Today's CO
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PCH, England's Dreaming Edition: Triumph Or Rolls-Royce?

After a Corvette-inspired hiatus, we're back to Project Car Hell once again! When we left off, the '56 Mercedes-Benz 190SL had a slim lead over the 4x4 Karmann Ghia in the German Ass Bondo Choose Your Eternity poll. Today, we're going to leave the Continent and cross the Channel to the true home of Hell Projects- the island nation that has produced some of the coolest- yet most maddening- machines ever to leak oil over tattered knuckle-flesh: Great Britain. Sure, we had a Bentley and a Lotus ju
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Audi Releases More Details Of Iron Man Product Placement Extravaganza

Compared to iRobot, Iron Man takes it easy on the R8 in the trailer, showing only maybe two seconds of it as the trailer begins. We're not sure if this is going to be a hit or not, but the Audi R8 seems a bit pedestrian for someone who is supposed to be a freaky genius billionaire. On the other hand, an Audi S5 seems about exactly appropriate for Virginia "Pepper" Pots, the secretary played by the lovely Gwyneth Paltrow. The film is going to be directed by Jon Favreau, so expect it to be "so mo
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The Island That Time Forgot: Hurst Mystery Shifter Display

I forgot to mention one of the most important reasons for having so many surviving old cars on the streets of Alameda: Lee Auto Supply. This old-school auto-parts store has been in the same brick building on Park Street since the 1920s, and now stands as one of the only remaining independent parts stores in northern California. If you go to Lee Auto and ask for, say, a timing-cover gasket for an unknown-origin Ford 289 engine that you bought for $50 from some guy and dropped into your F-100, yo
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Details Out For 2008 Lexus LX 570 &Ndash The Classy Way To Overcompensate

The 2008 Lexus LX 570 is even larger and meatier than the previous generation, matching the trend of its beefier Toyota truck brethren. The monster lexo-luxo-cruiser gets the new Toyota 5.7-liter V8 mated to a new six-speed transmission, which puts out the 383 horsepower you'll need to propel this through the Whole Foods parking lot. In addition to all of the luxury goodies you'd expect, there's an optional 19-speaker Mark Levinson sound system with optional music storage. In case you're not tal
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Belvedere Adrian Sets Sights On 24 Hours Of LeMons!

After screaming himself hoarse as a spectator at the last 24 Hours of LeMons race at Altamont (and preparing to hitch up the ol' Serro Scotty to meet me and the Loverman up at the Thunderhill LeMons race), Belvedere Adrian has obtained a wrecked '66 Belvedere and is in the process of readying it for some CRX-sideswipin' mayhem at one of next year's LeMons events.
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Jalopnik Holiday Gift Guide: Racing Stopwatch

That egg timer you got from Target may look sweet on the dash of your old Datsun 510 when you go solo-crossing with your buddies, but it's probably not the best way to measure your lap times and the lap times of your buddies. That's where a good stopwatch comes in handy. On the low-end, most stop watches will let you keep track of multiple lap times across a single or double display. On the high end is the MultiChron, which allows you to record up to 99 laps for four different racers. It's rugge
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Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 722 GT Bound For US

The track-only Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 722 GT is coming to America, Prince Akeem style. Distributed by RENNtech, the $1.2 million toys are going to be setup similar to the Ferrari FXX program, in that when you plop down all that money for a supercar you also get special track days with training for how to not kill yourself behind the wheel (and time in the SLR karts). The racer tips the scales at just over 3,000 pounds, which means that the 680 horsepower supercharged V8 will propel you and yo
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Which City Has The Worst Drivers?

We're digging Worst Week. When I was in high school, my friend's uncle got back from visiting the fam in Guatemala. Me being me, I asked how the roads and drivers were. "Just terrible. Horrible. Almost as bad as Boston." Off I went to college and I became convinced that the very worst drivers in the world all lived in Sonoma County. Whether half-drunk from constant wine tasting, stoned, or half-drunk and stoned, getting around safely was a nightmare. Imagine a place where 300,000 people all drov
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The Mazda Demio Chiara Edition

The Mazda Demio was named the RJC Japanese Car of the Year (not to be confused with the other Japanese Car of the Year) and to celebrate Mazda is releasing the Chiara Special Edition. For those that are unable to parlare Italiano, Chiara means bright. This special edition gets a special red paint sprinkled with gold flakes and an awesome interior, reminiscent of GTI's of yore. Available in FWD or e-4WD, it's yet another one of the little Japanese cars we wish they'd send over here sooner than la
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Ford Uses Child Labor To Design Cars

As established vehicle designers grow more and more famous, the salaries they charge sky rocket. In an effort to reduce these costs, Ford is taking the revolutionary step of outsourcing design for future vehicles to an organization known for imprisoning children and sapping their creativity. Speaking to the New York Times about the program he helped create, Moray Callum said, "The kids are at an age when they are very creative and not overburdened by engineering and business." Ford tasked the ki
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California Denied Bid For Stricter Emissions, Schwarzenegger Will Be Back

What do you get for the auto industry that just sucked up a new fuel economy bill? A book? Maybe some nice chocolates? If you're President Bush why not deny California's bid to impose stricter auto emissions, thereby discouraging other states from doing the same? As we mentioned in our guide to emissions laws, states have to apply for waivers if they want laws different from the federal statutes. Automakers are pleased as punch regarding the decision, while the Californian Gov and environmentali
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Goodbye, Ironhide: GM Reaches Agreement, Sells Medium-Duty Trucks To Navistar

The General's finally come to an agreement on selling their not-so-profitable medium duty truck business to Navistar, the owners of International Truck and Engine. That means the Navistar folks will now be responsible for making the GMC TopKick and the Chevrolet Kodiak, moving production from GM's plant in Flint, Mich., to a Navistar facility to be named at a later date. Well, as long as they're still going to be making replacement parts for Ironhide, what do we care? Because let's be clear he
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1974 Porsche 911

With the appearance of a Porsche 914 and 928 not long ago, the fact that we haven't seen a 911 since September becomes an issue. You see, this island has vintage 911s all over the place, and I need to break out some of the photos I've stockpiled. This '74 lives in the wealthy Gold Coast neighborhood, home of the mansion built by the 20 Mule Team Borax guy and, more importantly, the car with the best hood ornament ever.
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Audi To Reveal Production Car And Concept Car At Detroit Auto Show

Audi just revealed their gameplan for the Detroit Auto Show next month, and they're letting the world know they'll be seeing a "world first" and a "stunning concept car" from the Teutonic multi-ringed automaker. Our bet is we'll be seeing the Audi TT-S drop as the production car and our sources tell us we'll be seeing some form of an Audi R8 derivative as the concept. Let's call it an R8 V10 or an RS8 or — something. We guess we'll just have to wait and see. Full press conference after the jum
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Bad Boy Vettes On The Jakegasm Inside The 2009 Corvette ZR1

So in case you weren't around, yesterday's big product story was the Hennessey 650R Nissan GT-R 0-60 time new 2009 Corvette ZR1. And although we're pretty excited we'll be seeing it live at next month's Detroit Auto Show, there were some folks even more excited than us — like the 'Vette-madmen at BadBoyVettes. You see, in case you didn't notice, "Jake" the Corvette racing skull, made its way into the engine bay of the new uber-Vette and let's just say those Corvette-loving boys are having a -g
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2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1: Revealed, Officially!

UPDATE:Read the official Jalopnik 2009 Corvette ZR1 test drive! This is it. The speculation, rumors and half-truths can now be set aside — this is the 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, officially revealed for all the world to see. Powered by a supercharged LS9 6.2L small-block engine, the ZR1 hasn't even received an official horsepower number from the engineers toiling away at the General. All Harlan Charles, project manager for the Corvette team was able to tell us last week was the new high-pow
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Detroit Auto Show: 2009 Toyota Venza Crossover Sedan To Bow In Detroit

Toyota announced today that they will be debuting a new crossover sedan at the Detroit Auto Show. We guess they're hoping to expand their narrow offerings and fill that huge hole between the RAV-4, Matrix and Highlander. The new vehicle will be "a unique blend of sedan and sport utility vehicle." Unique? The new Toyota will offer seating for five, a car-like ride and will have some sort of functional utility (err... AWD?). The 2009 Toyota Venza will be built in the Georgetown, Kentucky plant, wh
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Bonus: Commenter Of Yesterday: We Love You Guys Edition

Murilee and I spend way too much time talking about you people. As you know, I get to ultimately pick the COTD, but often Ms. Martin helps out. Anyhow, she and I were going through yesterday's Worst. Driver. Ever. QOTD and just marveling at the quality of the writing you all put on display. As Murilee put it, "When you read that post and all the comments you get like a whole magazine's worth of quality writing, for free!" Totally agreed. Murilee also rightly points out that if today's winning Bo
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Daredevil To Recreate Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon Jump, In A Limo

Just weeks after Evel Knievel's death, one of the daredevil's biggest fans has declared his intention to recreate Evel's most famous jump, in a limousine. "Mad" Mike Hughes, who declares himself "The Most Famous Limousine Driver in the World," already holds the Guinness World Record for the longest jump in a limo. Hughes has enlisted the help of an expert team of rocket engineers and has started work on the Skylimo, which he hopes will clear Snake River Canyon, a distance in excess of 1/4 mile.
By Wes Siler Read More
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Jalopnik Holiday Gift Guide: A CB Radio

While you probably wouldn't want in your new Bentley, nothing classes up an old rig for a long road trip more than a CB Radio. You can relive your Smokey & The Bandit fantasies by calling out a 'Bear in the Air' just outside Bull City, or letting others know that there's an Evil Kenevil 'shooting you in the back' along the expressway. So if that car fan in your life is driving a 70's era vintage wagon or a Subaru Brat, a CB Radio might be a nice edition. We recommend the Cobra 19 DX IV for first
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Arden Range Rover AR7: More Rover Less Ranger

The lads and ladies at Arden have taken expertise gained from years of tuning Jaguars and Land Rovers and put it to work on the latest Range Rover. The result is the Range Rover AR7, an SUV more at home on track than off road. Under the hood, the 4.4-liter supercharged V8 gets increased to 4.5 liters, good for 480 hp and 480 lb-ft of torque. This power increase results in a top speed of around 150 mph with a 0-62 mph time of 6.5 seconds. Though the press release says "elegance, discreet sportine
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Tucker 48

Since birth, I've been trained to root for the underdog. Blame my socialist/communist liberal Jewish Montreal roots if you must, but there is something just so much better about the little guy beating the big guy. George Washington defeating the full might of the British Empire. Joe Namath beating Johnny Unitas. Rocky. Rudy, etc. In terms of the Fantasy Garage, we've already inducted the car that I consider to be the greatest underdog of them all, the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, which by the way
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The Real Speed Racer: Modified Fiat X/19

Many, many moons ago my band practiced next to a garage filled with speed freaks. Three dudes, who shall remain nameless, sat inside all day, every day, chain smoking, blowing lines and building stuff. One day I showed up for practice and my formerly 600 watt bass amp now pumped out 6,000 watts. Sure, it sounded like a lawnmower attacking a raccoon, but that wasn't necessarily bad for my band's sound. They also made a remote control ashtray out of zip-line toys and last I heard they were working
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Winter Guessing Game: Rolling On Twenty-Twos At Least Fifteens Edition

The winner of this challenge will likely be the one that can correctly identify the wheels in this photo (though the greenhouse is somewhat characteristic). They sure look familiar to me, but do they match that sliver of taillight in the photo? It's up to you Jalopnik commenters to solve the mystery.
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Nissan Developing Anti-Drunk Driving Car, Nick Nolte Rejoices

Nissan has partnered with Japan's University of Occupational and Environmental Health School of Health Sciences (that has to look awesome on a jersey) to study the influence of alcohol in the body in order to better understand how to create pre-emptive drunk driving technologies. The end result of this car will be a drunk driving project car that will help researchers analyze how boozed up drivers operate automobiles. We could think of a few test drivers for this project. Full press release belo
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Toyota Looks To The Noggin, Video Games For Future Automotive Technologies

In two completely unrelated, yet similar plans, Toyota has hired some of the top brainiacs in the world. You would expect these brainiacs to dive deep into the mind of Toyota's best to figure out why the hell anyone would want a violin-playing robot. Instead, they'll be involved in two diametrically opposite but slightly tangentially related projects. In the first, Toyota and neuroscientists will research neurotechnology-based safety systems and the other project will team Toyota up with Ryuta K
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1970 Buick Skylark

One thing you don't see too often in Alameda is cars with horrible rust. Another rare sight is a big old Detroit bomb being used as a serious bicycle transporter. Today we're going to look at a car that offers both! This '70 Skylark lives just down the street from the '69 Ambassador wagon and around the corner from the '76 Skyhawk, and it is one mean-looking Buick.
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The 2009 Corvette ZR1 Is Coming! So Sayeth Hennessey, Reveals 678 HP Venom 650R

Somehow we think maybe the 2009 Corvette ZR1 pre-Detroit Auto Show embargo will be lifting sometime very soon. It's the only explanation we can come up with for why Nissan felt compelled to have an embargo on the 2009 GTR's Z06-beating Edmunds Inside Line 0-60 test lift late last night. OK, maybe that was just a freak scheduling thing — but then, like a bolt out of the blue devil, we received a press release just past midnight from Hennessey Performance Engineering calling out the Lutzian devi
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Leaping Lizards! Edmunds Inside Line Claims 3.3 Second 0-60 With 2009 Nissan GT-R

We'll just leave the snark to a minimum on Godzilla here. Instead, we'll give you the straight scoop from the Line on the Inside at Edmunds on their recent 0-60 time test with a borrowed JDM-Spec 2009 Nissan GT-R across the Pacific in Japan:
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Random Blogger Explains Why PT Cruisers Should Be Purged From World

While we're not quite so disinclined towards the little faux-retro econoboxes ourselves, a writer over at BrooWaha makes a fairly convincing case for the theory that the "PT Cruiser has murdered taste and massacred better judgement, all the while asphyxiating our culture's collective memory." Strong words for a car with such an uncertain future.
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Commenter Of The Day: I Hate The Internet Edition

I already told y'all that I'm mentally about two steps from a typewriter. In spirit anyway. But the harsh reality is that I spend way too much time on the internet. I don't even know how to go to stores anymore and Amazon.com has given me some sort of frequent buyer status. Plane tickets, movie tickets, paying for parking tickets — all done online. I would guess that I spend... Jesus, I don't want to admit this... 5 hours a day emailing and IM'ing with friends and colleagues. At least. And you k
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PCH, German Ass-Bondo Edition: 1956 190SL Or 4x4 Karmann Ghia?

We had a few complaints that yesterday's Choose Your Eternity challenge wasn't quite hellish enough (although we're pretty sure the buyers of those two Japanese AWD turbomobiles are going to be shaking their fists at cruel Fate pretty soon). But we aim to please, so now we're coming back with a pair of positively punitive projects for your perusal. Thanks (and a Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt) to Mink66 for the tip!
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Manufacturers Give Thumbs Up To Sirius, XM Merger Everyone Forgot About

It's been 10 months, so what the hell is going on with that Sirius and XM satellite radio merger? Eh, it's a bunch of bureaucratic BS, but the Department of Justice should be giving approval by the end of the year with the final ballbuster, the FCC, hopefully giving the go ahead in February. Apparently investors people are even starting to get antsy. GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Kia all publicly gave support for the merger citing the price, competition and availability benefits. Chrysler
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XR-3 Diesel-Electric Hybrid Kit Car Now A Reality, Build Your Own!

A year and a half after kit designer Robert Q. Riley originally dreamed up his XR-3 three-wheeled, two-seater, plug-in hybrid kit car, it is now a reality. Sorry, 3D modelers, your job is now done; the first XR-3 hybrid has been built and plans for this greenmobile are now available for purchase.
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Hey Peugeot, Shatner Wants His Holodeck Back

It's not that easy, Peugeot. You can't just take the Captain's Holodeck, rename it the Holobench and not expect everyone to see right through you. Holobench is just one part of the Peugeot-Citroen virtual reality system designed to assist in all aspects of manufacturing and vehicular design for the French automaker.
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Heathrow To Get World's First Personal Rapid Transport System

London's Heathrow Airport is set to install the world's first Personal Rapid Transport system. The PRT is a fleet of 18 driverless pods for business passengers flying out of Terminal Five, with installation scheduled to be complete in less than two years. Traveling at up to 25mph, the pods will ferry passengers rapidly between their cars and terminal check-in. The airport claims there will never be more than an 18 second wait, no delays due to congestion and no need to consort with the rest of
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RFID Embedded Bicycles, Traffic Lights Saddens Scumbag Lawyers

The Danish City of Grenå is doing something about all of the bicycle accidents occurring at busy intersections. The city will be installing See-Mi. See-Mi consists of 300 RFID sensors that will be installed into residents' bicycles and special RFID-sensing traffic lights at seven busy intersections. These traffic lights will know when a cyclist is approaching and activate a light warning the drivers at the intersection.
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Who Is The Worst Driver You've Ever Met?

My list of candidates for today's QOTD is long and distinguished. But really, if I stop and honsetly think about it, there can only be one. Her name is Jen and I went to college with her and she drove a blue Chevy Sprint, the turbo if memory serves. And I only drove with her once. My roommate and I woke up on the floor after some party. I think maybe he was seeing her, but who knows? Anyhow, neither of us had a car and Jen was going to take us home. At the time, I lived amongst farms, so the
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Aussie Builders Back With New Nagari

One of the lesser-known Australian brands is Bolwell, which got its start in the 1960's building kit cars and later moved on to build a small number of production models called the Nagari (full history from the Bolwell Car Club). Powered by various Holden and Ford engines, the vehicles tended to take the prevailing design trends of the day and reproduce them &mdash with mixed results. It's been almost 30 years since their last full model, but they plan to return with a new Nagari powered by a su
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Detroit Auto Show: Nissan Reveals "Revolutionary" Forum Minivan Concept

Nissan's long strip tease over the new Forum concept is finally over — we now can show you the official pictures and details of what we'll be seeing live and in person at the Detroit Auto Show next month. We had a chance to touch the new Forum in Vegas at an embargoed event one evening and we can tell you, it's — umm — a minivan. Yeah, let's be honest, it's hard to get excited about a concept minivan. And although we applaud Nissan for wanting to design a concept vehicle that's unique and diff
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Vauxhall Astra VXR Nürburgring Edition, Now With More Nürburgernress

All of those would-be Saturn Astra tuners could do worse than aping the Astra VXR Nürburgring Edition, which is the speedier trim level of the Vauxhall version of GM's global small car platform. Mechanically similar to the VXR, the hot hatch is good for 240 hp, enough to propel it to 60 mph in 6.2 seconds and an electronically limited top seed of 155 mph. Differentiating it from the standard VXR is the super white paint, carbon fibre effect mirrors, 18-inch alloys and checkered flag body graphic
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150 Old Cars Down On Alameda's Street

When I started the Down On The Street series, I'd shot a handful of cars and figured I'd be able to do a few dozen more before running out. Sure, I knew the island city of Alameda, California, had plenty of old cars parked on the street, but with a population of just 70,000 on a mere ten square miles of land, how many could there be? Well, it turns out the answer is: Plenty!
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1965 Chevrolet Impala

Given how ubiquitous this generation of Impala used to be, you'd think they'd be easier to find on the street these days; in fact, the 1965 full-sized Chevrolet still holds the all-time American sales record for a single car model. But they're hard to find, and thus it's been months since our last DOTS Impala. Unlike that one, however, this Impala is in very nice shape (as was the '65 Super Sport we saw even more months back).
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Commenter Of The Day: Werner Herzog Edition

One of our most favorite non-Peter Brock or Dan Gurney heroes is Bavarian filmmaker extraordinaire Werner Herzog. You might remember him from such German new wave classics as Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo or the totally under-appreciated Cobra Verde. Hell, you might even like some of his non-Klaus Kinski work like Heart of Glass, Stroszek and my favorite Little Dieter Needs to Fly. One of the (many) great Herzogian axioms is his distinction between fact and truth. For instance, in Litt
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PCH, Japanese AWD Turbo Edition: Celica All-Trac Or Galant VR-4?

It turns out that nearly 60% of readers surveyed prefer a '58 Bel Air to a yellow Corvette when they're contemplating a Tom Waits-themed eternity in Project Car Hell. And, now that Romeo is done bleeding, let's take a look at today's Choose Your Eternity candidates. We have a tough time finding Japanese cars that are both sufficiently cool and hellish enough for this series, but today we've managed to find a couple cars from Nippon that get the job done. They're turbocharged, they're all-wheel-
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U.S. News & World Report Names Best Cars For 2010, Only Two American Cars On The List

The folks at U.S. News & World Report have named their top cars for 2008 and the old U.S. of A. did not far so well. In 11 categories there were only two pickups for Detroit automakers: Chevy Silverado 1500 (Best Full Size Pickup) and Tahoe (Best Large SUV). Honda picked up five awards, BMW picked up two and Mazda tied with two cars. There's nothing quite shocking with the picks, as few are going to be surprised to see the Honda Accord Best Midsize Car or the Fit make Best Economy Car. Full list
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Ford Improves Design Process By Hiring Elves?

Ford shocked the auto industry today, announcing that they would be hiring elves to redesign new products for the company. The elven economy has been suffering due to mechanization at the North Pole, which has put many elves out of work. Actually, none of that is true (as far as we know, Mark Fields might be hiding horrible secrets). Ford designers have been using computer imaging technology to digitally create vehicles, cutting back on the time it takes to create new designs... yada yada yada.
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Student On Cell Phone While Car Burns To Ground, Saved By Plow Driver, Nearly Out Of Minutes

We've lost count of the times we've been driving around only to get stuck behind someone jabbering on their cell phone when they should be focusing on the road. But this is a first. While driving to a final exam, Khushboo Jani's 1996 Honda broke down and she was forced to guide it over the shoulder. Like most of us, one of the first things she did was to call for help. And while many of us might have gotten out to check on the car (though on the Eisenhower Expressway that's a dangerous propositi
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MINI Crossover To Be Named Monte Crossman

In an interview with Auto Motor und Sport, MINI CEO Kay Segler let it slip that the new MINI crossover/SUV will be called the Crossman, and not the Mini Monte as we'd all kind of hoped it would be. Crossman just sounds like a cross-dressing super hero... or maybe a super hero with David Cross' humor and good looks. That could work.
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H&R Tunes The Lincoln MKZ

The springy tuners at H&R have turned their attention to the 2007 Lincoln MKZ, giving the AWD euro-luxo fighter even more of that euro-luxo look with a monochromatic black custom grille and 3D Carbon front spoiler. The more athletic stance comes courtesy of an H&R suspension, which lowers the car 2.5 inches. The MKZ keeps going all four seasons on four silver polished O.Z. Botticelli wheels with Pirelli P Zeros (at least in warm climates) and starts stopping with the help of Brembo calipers. The
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The Rinspeed sQuba Dives Into Our Hearts

There's something about Lotuses that make designers want to submerge them in water, which is fine by us. While we've heard of no Lotus/Bond deals, the Rinspeed sQuba concept makes a fine heir to the swimming Louts Esprit that submerged in The Spy Who Loved Me. While these are obviously computer animations, a real version is going to debut at the Geneva Auto Show, though we're curious if it'll still have the carbon nano tubes that allow the driver and passenger to drive straight into the water wi
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Ekstrom Bests Schumacher, Wins Race Of Champions

Super Swede DTM racer Mattias Ekström defeated the apparently fallible Michael Schumacher in the finals at the Race of Champions, which took place at the new Wembley Stadium in England this weekend. It was a furious battle, with each picking up a win in the first two events. But Ekström, who won last year, built up a lead in the final heat that forced Schumacher to push his car to the limits and spin out before crossing the finish line. For those who aren't aware, the ROC pits racers from differ
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UPS To Infuriate NASCAR, Eliminate Left Turns

What's worse that a big, brown and ugly truck clogging up the streets everyday? Probably a big, brown and ugly truck constantly moving through traffic and clogging up the street. There are 95,000 UPS trucks out everyday and soon they will be drastically reducing the amount of left turns, focusing the delivery routes on making mostly right turns (I wonder if the same rule will apply for Dale Jarrett's UPS-sponsored car — that could get real messy). Eliminating the left turns will reportedly save
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1971 Ford F-100 Pickup

Continuing the quasi-tradition of Truck Mondays here at DOTS, today we're going to take a break from The General's trucks and check out a 36-year-old Ford that's still getting the job done. Our last Ford pickup looks like it doesn't do much hauling, but this '71 F-100 clearly earns its keep for some plumber or electrician.
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Ford Europe Confirms High-Performance 2009 Focus RS

Along the same vein earlier of cars we're just not getting here in the United States, Ford of Europe just confirmed they plan to bring a new high-performance model of the Ford Focus to market in 2009, a Ford Focus RS. To go along with that announcement, FoMoEurope has apparently hired the same advertising team in charge of the reveals of the new Subaru WRX STI and the new Porsche Cayenne. But the car itself will be based on the new Focus ST and as we've already seen some pretty good spy photos
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Toyota, Others To Expand Fuel Gauges That Secretly Judge You, Your Driving

Manufacturers have been adding gauges that calculate fuel economy on the fly for some time now, especially thanks to this whole green fad 'merica has going on. It's even inspired a video game-like sport called "Hypermiling." We're told Toyota wants to get a little bit more in on the fun by possibly expanding its selection of vehicles beyond the Prius that include gauges that monitor gas efficiency and usage. There is good reason to include gauges like this. Despite usually being pretty self-cons
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2009 Mercedes GLK Gets Naked On "Sex And The City" Movie Set

Our spy photographers caught a completely naked 2009 Mercedes GLK on the set of the new Sex and the City movie. The new Mercedes CUV sans camo is looking better than we expect co-star Sarah Jessica Parker probably does sans her own caked on camouflage-like makeup. Luckily our spy mistress Brenda Priddy tells us shows us with the above picture this particular shot featured the sultry cougar Kim Cattrall at the wheel in this shot taken not in the siren's normal hunting grounds of Manhattan, bu
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Chevrolet Loc8tor Seeks To Help Solve Parking Lot Shuffle Syndrome

Finding your car in a garage or large parking lot can be a giant pain in the ass. Sometimes we feel like the best option sometimes is just to leave the car and hitch a ride home until the parking lot clears out. LOC8TOR, a company manufacturing household location hardware for keys, gadgets and more, wants to help you save your thumb for more important purposes, like shifting the new BMW X6. They've gone and doubled up with Chevrolet for a bigger and better version of it location-detecting device
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2009 BMX X6 Officially Revealed, Shows Off Bootylicious Rear End

Yes friends, here it is. Officially. Not just video, and no longer merely just a concept. For serious. Now that the embargo's dropped thanks to the Brits at AutoCar, we're now comfortable showing you all the pictoral details on BMW's newest cross-coupe with the bangin' big butt of a back-end — in both petrol and diesel versions. That's right, it's the 2009 BMW X6, now revealed for all the world to see in all of it's officialness. We'll have more for you shortly, but for the time being feast yo
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PCH, Tom Waits Edition: '58 Bel Air Or Yellow Corvette?

Here we are at Project Car Hell #100, and it even comes on a Friday! Yesterday we saw the Katrina-soaked '63 Bentley edge out a hairsbreadth victory over the not-so-complete '52 Benz, and today we're going to shift gears in the theme department and pick two cars referenced by Jalopnik-Approved™ musician Tom Waits. This idea comes courtesy of my brother-in-law, the owner of the deathless Toyota truck we saw a while back, so I guess I'll need to give him a PCH Tipster T-shirt in spite of the fact
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Commenter Of The Day: More Pointless Anecdotes About My Childhood Edition

Most of you have probably heard the story before, but when I was just able to walk, I painted a nice fat white racing stripe on my Dad's Datsun 280Z. With a roller and house paint. I can only imagine the pain my father felt, as he loved that car. So much in fact, that whenever — and I mean whenever — we would pass Universal City Nissan he would point up to the top left hand corner of the lot that faced the 101 and say, "That's where my Z was, right there." being young and dumb, my sister and I w
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Knight Rider GT500KR's May Not Actually Be KR's

UPDATE: The great "tip" we got apparently can be found directly in the press release handed out by Ford yesterday. Ford has been quite clear these aren't real KR Mustangs. Here's the Ford release. — Ed. All is not well in the land of Knight Rider as we hear the K.I.T.T. models that everyone was shown might not be actual KR's because most of the cast can't drive a stick. It's possible that two are stock automatic GTs converted to look like KR's and one is maybe an actual KR with an auto box swapp
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Rules Of The Road: Jalopnik's Guide To Speed Limits

With the first street legal Koenigsegg CCX arriving in the U.S. this week, we thought there couldn't be a better time to review the current status of speed limit laws. Sammy Hagar may not have been able to drive 55, but the CCX can go approximately three times faster than the highest legal speed limit in the U.S.
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No One Wants To Buy Gary Coleman's Saturn Sky

The story of child star Gary Coleman took another sad turn last month as the former star of Diff'rent Strokes was unable to unload his 2007 Saturn Sky Convertible. In fact, there wasn't even a single bidder or another offer. Even more depressing, he only asked for $25,000, which isn't an outrageous price for the car given the condition (here's a similar Saturn Sky with no child star connection at the same price). The car even came with a Gary Coleman autograph. Vehicle description below the jump
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Is The Mazda Atenza Mazdaspeed Concept The Next Mazdaspeed6?

Though there have been rumors that Mazda would not be adding extra Zoom Zoom to its Atenza/Mazda6 sedan, we now have these pictures of what's being called the "Mazda Atenza Mazdaspeed Concept," which is set for a debut at the 2008 Tokyo Auto Salon. Compared to the stock Mazda 6/Atenza, the body kit is sporty but not over dramatic with new skirts, a lower ride height and revised front/rear bumpers.
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100 Days In Project Car Hell!

Hard to believe, but the Choose Your Eternity choice we'll get later this afternoon will be the 100th installment of the series. Is the scar tissue on your knuckles aching yet? In honor of this momentous occasion, I've put together a list with links to the first 99 Project Car Hell posts, in the order in which they were written. So download the Project Car Hell Song, put on your Project Car Hell Tipster T-Shirt, and dive into the flames of past nightmares!
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Nissan Develops Navigation-Enabled Cruise Control

In an effort to keep families alive on long road trips, Nissan has combined two cruise control technologies: radar and navigation. Radar-based cruise control that senses the distance between cars isn't a new idea, but it's a good one. The interesting technology is the navigation-enabled system that senses when a curve is coming up and adjusts the speed accordingly, so that you're not doing 80 mph straight off a mountain. The system is going to first be available on the Nissan Fuga (Infiniti M45)
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McLaren To FIA: "Our Bad"

Just as we finished, or so we thought, with all the FIA spying madness, it all comes back up again. The McLaren team has finally made a full apology for stealing data from Ferrari (and then, maybe, letting derivative data sneak into the hands of Renault). In a letter to the FIA, Martin Whitmarsh, the head of the team, wrote "We apologize unreservedly if our prior ignorance of some of these facts has misled World Motor Sports Council and we can only assure you all that this was never our intentio
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Chrysler's Detroit Auto Show Floor Presenter: Hotter Than Chrysler's New Vehicle Reveals?

Although we're excited to see the new 2009 Dodge Ram 1500 at the Detroit Auto Show next month, there's not much more to show from the show from "The New Chrysler." I mean, it's hard to get all excited about Vines-free press reveals of three enviro-friendly concepts. Well, you can color us excited again. Meet Rosemary Vivian-Sturr who according to Chrysler's Firehouse, the automaker's media-only password-protected blog, she'll be on display one of the "floor presenters" in Detroit next month. B
By Ray Wert Read More
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1987 Honda Civic 4WD Wagon

Back when we had our What's the Cutoff Year For Japanese DOTS Cars poll, the image I used as an example was this '87 Honda Civic 4WD wagon. I'd meant to DOTS-ize this car soon afterward, but I kept getting distracted by cars and trucks that seemed so much more, well, interesting. But 3rd-gen four-wheel-drive Civics are rare and weird- hardly anyone bought them new, they turned into red powder in the rusty parts of the world, and California's stringent emissions tests have doomed many 80s Civics
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Danger! Moose Eats Car?

We're not exactly sure what this sign really means — does it mean we should watch out for some kind of super moose that can destroy cars just by breathing on them? Maybe there's an undead moose with a hole in his head from some moose-hunter that's sniffing around demolished cars sitting on the side of the road looking for fresh brains? Whatever it may be, we're really confused. [via Culture Garage]
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2008 Chevy HHR SS First Drive Preview: World's 2nd Fastest Breadvan, Priced At $22,995

I woke up this morning in Arizona and spent the day happily hooning the go fast Nurburgring-tuned version of Chevrolet's HHR on freeways, twisty mountain two-laners and the Bondurant Road Course. How does the car drive? How's the Launch Mode? How do 260 horses and 260 ft-lb of torque feel through the front wheels? How much does it cost? Why did Bob Lutz call me a "pinhead?" We'll answer a few questions — and show you the Chevy press release — after the jump.
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Have you joined the Jalopnik "Fan page" yet? If not, you really should. We swear it won't be like the "I'm Obsessed with Jalopnik" group. Well — not entirely. We actually plan on doing something with it. [Jalopnik Facebook Fan Page]
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PCH, Old School Euro-Luxe Edition: Bentley Or Mercedes-Benz?

It's official: a single Lotus has what it takes to beat a trio of Italian minicars, according to yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll. And when you're done with your Éclat project (well, you'll never be done, but let's pretend), odds are you'll have the urge to put together a smooth-riding vintage European luxury machine to park alongside it. And have we got just the cars for you!
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Brenda Priddy Auctions Off Rare Badge For Charity

Everyone's favorite spy photographer, Brenda Priddy (just kidding Hans, we love ya, too) is doing a bit of charity work, perhaps as punishment for bringing us the Hunks of SEMA gallery. All you have to do to help charity is bid on this extremely rare badge from the Dodge Journey, which was originally named the Dodge CREW. It's a badge from a car that never existed! Just be the highest bidder, send the check to charity and Priddy & Co. will do the rest. Oh yeah, tell her you're a Jalopnik reader
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Detroit Auto Show: Land Rover LRX Concept

Now that Land Rover has deemed Jalopnik an embargo-break free media outlet, we've been treated with the ability to treat all of our readers to some high-resolution photos of the new Land Rover LRX concept five days ahead of the official embargo. As many of you know already, this is the new baby Land Rover set to debut at the Detroit Auto Show next month. It's a bit more muscular than your average Freelander and features enough interior lighting to light the Singapore GP. In addition to the 20-in
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Caparo T1 Adopts F1 Style Crumple Zone

Now this is our kind of safety package, not an overly enthusiastic traction controls system or side-curtain airbag in site. The Caparo T1 relies instead on a Formula 1 style carbon fiber an aluminum honeycomb tub surrounded by a crumple zone made from the same material. Carbon is again employed in the nose, which models itself on the crushable items found on the front of F1 cars. Retardation is supplied by AP racing 14-inch disks all round, with 6 piston calipers at the front, 4 at the rear, cap
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Dodge Attempts To Reunite Tuner With Fiancee, Disaster Sure To Follow

Dodge has announced the winner of the "Are You Tuned Out" contest, which invited the boyfriends and girlfriends of gearheads to write a short essay explaining why their significant other was completely ignoring them. The winner was Zach Madrid of Colorado Springs, who was so tuned-out that he was unable to have a "civilized conversation" with his fiancee if there was a car on television. As the winner of the competition, Madrid gets a brand new Caliber SRT4, which is sure to drive a wedge deeper
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What Was Your Worst Drive?

Talking with some Chevy boys this evening who had to haul a trailer from Detroit to San Diego earlier this month but got caught up in the frozen craziness going on in the plains states. They mentioned something about 10 miles in 3 hours and an inch of ice on the road. And when you're hauling a trailer, you can't exactly make that time up. So we got to thinking, what was our worst?
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Brabus Gives The Mercedes GL A Wide Stance

Not known for subtlety, the boys and girls at Brabus have taken the standard GL-Class Mercedes Benz, which was already a decently mean looking ride, and have touched it up in a way that reminds us why the French built the Maginot Line. The first thing you notice is the giganto-style aesthetic, which includes wider finder flares, a new front apron with angry air inlets and three-piece, 23-in wheels. In GL 500 form, the modified beast gets 456 hp with 454 lb-ft of torque, good enough for a 0-62 mp
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Hummer H2 SUT Getting Bigger?

The fast shutters over at KGP photography captured what looks like a Hummer HT SUT (In reality, a Hummer H2T — according to Winding Road) that's been stretched out on the rack. The fake army paint job doesn't fool them though, as they think that this is a new H2 making use of the stretched GMT-900 platform — the same used for the Suburban as opposed to the current H2, which is built on the same platform used by the Chevy Tahoe. This would give it real, truck-like powers as opposed to the curre
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Details Of Singapore Grand Prix, F1's First Night Race Emerge

They may not be getting new Formula One engines anytime soon, but F1 fans will get to enjoy the first-ever F1 night race in 2008. The Singapore Grand Prix is set to start at 8:00 pm local time, making it the darkest F1 race in history. Italian lighting firm Valerio Maioli S.p.a. will use a state-of-the-art system to create optimal visibility while at the same time reducing glare. Full details below:
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Chevy Lumina SS Named Best Sports Saloon In Middle East, Yes We Said Lumina

Words you don't expect to hear: "Chevy Lumina" and "Sports Saloon of the Year." But there's an explanation for how that particular namesake managed to pick up the prestigious Middle Eastern Award. The Middle Eastern version of the Chevy Lumina is exactly nothing like the American Chevy Lumina, but rather is the twin of Australia's Holden Commodore VE and the upcoming Pontiac G8 and is therefore a wicked RWD saloon propelled by the Vette's 6.0-liter V8. Buy hey, I bet they don't have a FlexFuel v
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1979 Mercedes-Benz 300SD

87% of you said you wanted to see some Malaise Era Mercedes-Benzes in this series (the '72 280SEL we saw a couple weeks back is technically pre-Malaise), and now that time has come! Here's a car that laughs at mere 300,000-mile odometer readings: Get to 500,000 miles on the clock and then we'll talk, I imagine this car saying to today's Japanese claimants to the car-longevity throne.
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Commenter Of The Day: Nose On My Face Edition

Once, in calculus class (yes, I took calculus... but it was high school, and I was drunk and remember nothing) our teacher was writing the answer to a proof on the board. He said something to the effect of, "And that's the answer because it is obvious. Wait... no, it's not obvious. Er, no, it is obvious." He went on like this for some time before he eventually wandered out of the room still muttering, "Obvious. Not obvious. No, obvious," to himself. We all just sat there, thinking about the girl
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Project Car Hell: Lotus Eclat Or 3 Bianchis?

After a pair of close ones, we finally had a decisive victory in our last Choose Your Eternity poll, with the Taurus SHO using its Yamaha power to roar to victory over the SRT-Faux by a 70/30 margin. We're not surprised by that, but we don't have the foggiest idea who should be considered the favorite in today's matchup. Either choice would be serious fun with all the bugs worked out... but such big, crawly bugs!
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Mercedes-Benz System Warns Driver: "Dieter, You Are Sleepy... And Sorrowful"

As part of a partnership with Red Bull—not really—Mercedes-Benz is developing a system that can determine whether a driver is restless or sleepy. We've seen a lot of similar systems in the past for drunk driving, but rarely hear about companies taking precautions against restless drivers, which can be just as dangerous as drunk drivers.
By Travis Hudson Read More
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First Video Of Knight Rider's KITT Revealed Live!

We here at Jalopnik aren't content to bring you just warmed-over press photos and spy photos. No, we also want to give you warmed-over video from the press reveal! Yup, we're continuing our role as the first to break news on the Knight Rider-Ford story with this video of the KITT from the new Knight Rider — revealed live today in sunny SoCal. He's a Mustang GT500KR and wait, there's not one, not two, nope, there's three of them. What? Seriously. Here's the scoop from Ford and NBC:
By Ray Wert Read More
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Lorinser Tunes The C-Class Estate, Finds Stock C-Class Too Pitchy

Those crazy Swabians at Lorinser are at it again! After taking the Mercedes SL up to 11, they've turned their tuning fork on the C-Class T Model (wagon/estate). It's just the vehicle for when you need to get the kids to school, like, yesterday. In addition to the obvious bodywork (air inlets are not standard on most wagons) and Lorinser RS8 19-inch wheels, the grocery getter also gets engine upgrades for both the diesel and gas versions. At the top end, the C 350 gets a power bump to 305 hp comp
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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It's Official! Knight Rider's KITT Is A Shelby GT500KR Mustang

UPDATE: Official press photos added in the gallery below and the shot above. Supposedly we'll have Cylon-like red lights in a video coming shortly. Also press release now below the jump. UPDATE 2: Now we have video here! The Knight Rider Mustang story we first broke last month, and then brought you the first pictures of a week later, is now officially official, KITT from the new Knight Rider series is a Shelby Mustang GT500KR. Goodbye, F-Body. Hello, Ford body. We've got a reporter live at a p
By Ray Wert Read More
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Here With Fanfare, Your Final Tribute To Evel Knievel

Though the kitchy and hilarious "Jump of Legends" didn't make your cut in the vote for Jalopnik's final Evel Knievel tribute, the handsome and impressively constructed "Creation of Evel" did, with a commanding 37.4% of the vote. This tasteful work was contributed by reader Thomas Reynolds, who hails from the beating heart of hoon central, Australia. We asked Thomas to say a few words about his inspiration, process, and what Evel meant to him. His take on Evel, and stories of years gone by afte
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Well, unless you're in last place and about to get lapped. Just sayin'... [via Flickr]
By Ray Wert Read More
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Yours For Only 55 Grand: 1957 Fletcher Aviator

When reader Thunder sent in the tip about this car, we all went "Damn!" But then we noticed the asking price and there was just this... silence. It's a reproduction of a 50s/60s Bonneville F-100 wink tank racer, with blown small-block and even license plates. Is it worth the price? Make the jump, take the poll, and let us know! [CarsOnline-Ads.com]
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Teenage Hoon Slapped With $104,000 Insurance Premium

Being a teenager in Canada isn't all it's cracked up to be. Described as having "a tendency to speed" by his doting mother, 19 -year old Jason Towers has racked up no less than 10 speeding tickets since he got his license in May 2005. Towers claims most of those tickets were given for only going a few kilometers over the per-hour limit. Which definitely explains his two license suspensions in that time. If you're starting to get the impression that Towers might be a dangerous driver, you'd be wr
By Wes Siler Read More
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Continental MK II

I ran across an article today on MSNBC.com that proclaims the new Cadillac CTS is "The Cadillac of luxury sedans." And you thought Jalopnik was the fount from which all automotive irony sprung. It's true though, and I know you've heard it before, but in the 1950s a Cadillac was the el numero uno in the world. For it was a time when Mercedes was still trying to shake its image of Nazi tank builder, BMWs were slightly more fuddy than duddy and most Japanese cars had three wheels, if not less. Sure
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Detroit Auto Show: Honda Concept Pilot Drawing Revealed For Detroit

Honda released a sketch today of the next-generation Jeep Honda Pilot, which will make an appearance at the Detroit Auto Show in January. Look familiar? The thick pillars, grille angle, headlight shape and beefy fenders all are hallmarks of Jeep products, especially the Grand Cherokee and Patriot. Is it just us, or are we living in a world where Hondas are starting to look like Jeeps and Jeeps are starting to look like Hondas? The Pilot has been a popular choice for those wanting third-row seati
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Chrysler Partnering With Purdue On Hybrid... Trees

Back in the 1960's love was free, pregnant women smoked and drank, and Chrysler dumped pollutants into ponds near a transmission plant in Kokomo. As this had a negative effect on the area, Chrysler started cleaning the site in the 1980's and has teamed with Purdue University to harness the power of hybrid poplar trees to suck the pollution out of the ground. Also, the trees can help improve the process of turning harvested plants into primary votes bio-ethanol. Press release on all that poplars
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1960 Studebaker Lark VIII

It's doesn't come as a shock to find that Studebakers haven't made much of a showing in this series (so far we've had just an Avanti), given that the Studes were never all that common even back in the day. But hey, at least the Studebaker Pines are still standing tall, and so is this quasi-rat-rodded '60 Lark VIII!
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Aston Martin Unveils New 600 HP V12 Vantage RS Concept

The newly independent automaker by the name of Aston Martin just revealed their new concept car, the V12 Vantage RS. The concept is based on the V8 Vantage coupe — but the engine's based on Aston's big 600bhp 6-liter racing V12. Aston claims the new performance concept achieves peak power output at 6250 rpm and peak torque of 509 lb-ft at 5000 rpm. And with the severe weight-cutting Aston's done to this concept, they're claiming the V12 Vantage RS concept is the fastest accelerating road car e
By Ray Wert Read More
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Ford Goes Glassy-Eyed With New Mustang Roof

If there's one thing Mustang fans go for it's straight-line power "more natural light." Must be, as Ford's now added — as one of a barrage of random press releases yesterday — a new "glass roof option" to the Mustang lineup. They're reasoning for doing it? The 2008 Chevy Corvette did it! Production of large sunroofs in North America has increased nearly 200% since 2003. Plus, it's not so expensive any more — so they can do it as an option for only $1,995. But we kid the Dearborn, MI-based auto
By Ray Wert Read More
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Mazda To Reveal Furai Concept, 2009 Mazda RX-8 At Detroit Auto Show

Mazda's just revealed the above shot of the Mazda Furai concept vehicle along with the release below the jump detailing the Japanese-by-way-of-Dearborn automaker's game plan for the 2008 Detroit Auto Show next month. Want to know what the Furai is? Well, if the track background behind the cockpit doesn't give you some indication, here's a paragraph lifted directly from the press release:
By Ray Wert Read More
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Exclusive: Nissan Suspending All North American Racing Operations For 2008

Nissan and Nissan Motorsports (NISMO) will not be sponsoring or officially participating in any motorsports activities in North American on the verge of bringing over the GT-R, the most ferocious sports car from Nissan ever for North America. Earlier in the day we reported on a rumor that Nissan was getting out of American motorsports and we now have confirmation from Nissan. According to Scott Vazin, Director of Product Communications for Nissan Motor Company, though they're getting out for [
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Ford And NHRA Create Black Blue Boxes For Nitro Cars

There's an old Chris Rock joke that goes "How come every time an airplane crashes, all they can ever find is the black box. Why don't they just make the whole plane out of the black box?" That's all a setup for this story about Ford and NHRA teaming up to provide Blue Box sensors for all dragsters in the Top Fuel and Funny Car classes. They've already been tested in the past by the likes of John Force Racing, who knows how to knock the crap out of a car. Besides good times for the engineers, the
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PCH, Front-Drive Detroit Muscle Edition: Turbo Neon Or Taurus SHO?

Whoa, we've had two photo finishes in a row now- first Friday's Repo Man Edition and then yesterday's Lancia Thema versus Baldwin Motion Vette Choose Your Eternity polls have really been too close to declare a winner. And tough choices are what Hell is all about, right? Well, that plus a car that would be really, really fun if you could only get the damn thing working. With that in mind, we're going all patriotic with today's tough choices- some folks think that Detroit never could get the fron
By Murilee Martin Read More
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2009 Chevrolet Camaro Fleet Caught In Australia

So, we finally decided we wanted to look at those shots of the 2009 Chevrolet Camaro testing in Australia we showed you earlier from Edmunds InsideLine at a little higher resolution than what the Inside-Liners are able to offer. So we contacted the good folks who work with "Handy" Hans & Christa Lehmann to determine the pricing of their shots and decided it was well worth it to buy a couple for our loyal readers. What we've determined is that the photographer didn't just catch a single Camar
By Ray Wert Read More
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Homemade Optimus Prime Costume Also Deserves Props

It may not quite be the Citroen transformer, but these kids still deserve props for creating a Optimus Prime costume worthy of recognition. It appears to be around 10 feet tall, which is inching closer to a scale model of the real (and by real, I mean not-real) Optimus Prime [Blasphemy! — Ed.] Click the video above for a very anti-climactic video of Optimus Prime getting dressed and ready for work in the morning (and by work we mean killing Decepticon assholes). And y'all thought it would b
By Travis Hudson Read More
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Viva America! American Driver Wins Porsche Cup

Johannes van Overbeek from Flying Lizard Motorsports becomes the fifth American to win the Porsche Cup, which is given to the most successful private Porsche racer in the world. Based in San Francisco, Overbeek is currently racing in the ALMS GT2 Class with the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR above and won races in Lime Rock, Mid Ohio and the Ten-Hour Petitt Le Mans at Road America Atlanta. It was also announced that American Porsche Factory Driver Patrick Long has been named to a full time spot on the Pens
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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The Importance Of Underhood Styling: Audi RS-4 Or Lexus IS-F?

I have a fair number of friends who work in design-related fields- architecture, industrial design, graphic design, that sort of thing. Each seems to feel real physical pain when some controllable element of their surroundings does not glow with an aura of quality design. Furniture, clothing, appliances, and so on- you're not going to see El Cheapo crap unless it's an ironic statement of some kind. Such a person will always have a Macintosh computer, and the car in the driveway will likely be G
By Murilee Martin Read More
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2009 Chevrolet Camaro

UPDATE: We bought the durn pictures ourselves and as you can see, it wasn't just a new 2009 Chevy Camaro caught — it was a fleet of them! It seems that spy photos nabbed a pair of Chevy Camaro prototypes testing around Melbourne, Australia. They were, no surprise, accompanied by a pair of Ford Mustangs. From what we can see of the heavily disguised Camaro, it certainly seems to borrow heavily from the Camaro and Camaro prototypes we've already seen. The Camaro is slated for production early
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Aston Martins To Feature Bang & Olufsen Stereos

Already found in the black plastic and brushed aluminum interiors of most high-end Audis, Bang & Olufsen have announced their stereos will soon grace the wood and crystal environs of Aston Martin. Personally, we think listening to anything other than the glorious V12 soundtrack in a Vanquish is a crime against nature, but we suppose there's a certain class of customer for whom this will appeal. Namely, those who buy an Aston for its image rather than sheer visceral pleasure. The full press relea
By Wes Siler Read More
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BMW 320D Touring Turns Fox Into Hamburger (Not Safe For Weak Stomach)

Imagine cruising in your brand new, 2007 BMW 320D Touring at 230 kph (~143 mph) along the pristine asphalt of the Autobahn, listening to the finest in German techno. All of a sudden from the roadside, a flash of fur streaks across the road and you feel a mild thump, accompanied by a spray of rouge across the bottom of the passenger side windscreen. All of the warning lights explode across your instrument panel. If you are the fellow who drives this particular BMW, you don't have to imagine any
By bwojdyla Read More
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Daryl Hannah's Biodiesel El Camino For Sale, Our Heads Explode

While someone named Daryl selling an El Camino isn't usually news, it is when it's Daryl Hannah's matte black Biodiesel El Camino. World colliding man. Worlds colliding. The Chi-town native, actress and environmentalist will gladly sell you this factory diesel bio-conversion, along with the "fueling station" (read: storage drum and filter) and a guide to finding biodiesel in your area. WANT! It goes on sale later this month, but no price yet. Oh, and she's also selling a biod "ranch biobeast" f
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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The Genaddi Lamborghini Murcielago Roaster Is The Tops

The cheeseheads at Genaddi Design Group, who were responsible for the wicked FORD GTX1, have turned their customized sights on Lamborghini's Murcielago Roadster. As most owners of the open supercar are susceptible to the whims of the weather, Genaddi has developed a six-piece carbon-fiber hardtop that is watertight and easily adjusts into open, closed, targa or t-top configurations. At $26,000, it's not the cheapest upgrade, but is a value if you consider the extra time you'll get to spend with
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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1970 Volvo 164, Plus Bonus 200-Series Poll

It's hard to believe that, nearly 150 cars into this series, we've only seen three Volvos up to this point (the '66 Amazon, the '68 P1800, and the '69 144S). This area is Volvo Central, what with Berkeley only a few miles away and all, but for some reason we don't have many pre-200-series Göteborg machines on the island. However, we have tons of early 200-series Volvos... which I've sort of ignored, since the 200 series remained essentially unchanged well into the 90s. But maybe I'm being too p
By Murilee Martin Read More
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See all the fun content below? You make a lot of that happen. So please, remember to tip your editors with news tips to our lovely little tips line e-mail address.
By Ray Wert Read More
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Commenter(s) Of The Day: David Lynch Directs Kurt Russell Edition

In college, whenever anything disgusted my roomamte, he would shout "Kill me now, Reggie!" Well... truthfully he would shout, "Fuck me now, Reggie!" (from Lynch's Wild at Heart) but over time it evolved. He usually only unloaded it when watching television, along with his other trademark phrase, "The worms in my stool have a show on the WB." I think you know where I'm going with this. And I think it high time you jumped.
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Lexus Owners To Get Reserved Parking At Sixers And Flyers Games, Become Slightly More Haughty

As if people who drive any of the fine automobiles from Lexus didn't feel privileged enough already (the Lexus LS600h L made Jonny feel like a king), they're apparently going to get reserved parking at the Wachovia Complex/Comcast-Spectator Arena in Philadelphia. That means those going to Sixers or Flyers games can park in special Lexus-designated spots on two lots surrounding the complex. Those of you in the Caddys and Saabs can just park in the regular spots like the worthless pieces of trash
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Project Car Hell: Lancia Thema Or Baldwin Motion Corvette?

Looks like the voting is still neck-and-neck on the Plate-O-Shrimp Edition Choose Your Eternity poll, so those of you who feel strongly about J. Frank Parnell's Malibu or Bud's Impala better go and cast some votes. Today we're going to ditch the common-theme-between-entrants idea and go with a couple of compelling-yet-markedly-different choices. Thanks- and a Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt- to ZZMarcus for the tip!
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Chevy Volt Production Image Breaks

A lot of people were excited about the Volt concept and were a bit shocked to learn that the design we saw was not the design we'd get. What we have here, in a press release about wind tunnel testing, is the first teaser image of GM's new electric car. The company plans to reduce the drag as much as possible on the Volt so as to increase the electric range. The nose in the drawing is not quite as dramatic as the Volt concept, but is definitely derivative of the current GM stable. Larger image an
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Hummer Reveals HX Concept Sketches For Detroit Auto Show

Hummer's just revealed some concept sketches of their new off-road concept car set to be officially unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show next month. The concept was designed by three fresh kids straight from the mean streets of Detroit Detroit's College for Creative Studies. See what the fresh young pups have going on below the jump and in the gallery below.
By Ray Wert Read More
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Coming Soon: Free Cars

With the lifetime costs of running a vehicle exceeding their purchase price, it makes sense that a company aiming to sell personal transportation would be willing to give away the means to charge you lots of money. Think cell phones, the fancy phone is free; you pay to use it by the minute. While this business model wouldn't make sense for gasoline powered cars - there's too many established outlets already selling gas, insurance, repairs etc - it could work for a whole new system of transportat
By Wes Siler Read More
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All Tomorrow's Parties: GM Announces Details Of GM Style Event

For those who don't remember from last year's coverage, one of the biggest parties at the Detroit Auto Show is the GM Style event, which is an orgy of celeb product placement. Last year it was John Legend and Jennifer Hudson coupled with the Camaro Concept and an Escalade, and this year it looks like it'll be Mary J. Blige and the Chevy Beat, maybe, which is fine by us. We've got pictures from last year below, as well as the press release. I hope we get to meet Christian Slater. That guy was gr
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Jason Vines Resigns From Chrysler

Jason Vines, Chrysler's Vice President of Communications, a.k.a. Chysler's Press Guru, a.k.a. the man tasked with yelling back at Maximum Lutz, has stepped down today, according to the company. What this all means isn't immediately certain, as we haven't seen the press release from another manufacturer stating that they've just hired Jason Vines. But we're happy to reuse this picture from our coverage of the Dodge-Peta fiasco Vines was tasked to handle. Look for conspiracy theories later in the
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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1953 GMC Pickup

It's becoming sort of a Monday DOTS tradition to look at one of Alameda's many old trucks, so we'll continue the string with another vintage offering from The General. Since everyone liked the battle-scarred '65 GMC, we'll dial the time machine back an additional decade and look at its older brother. This is another one of those vehicles that thwarts my attempts to determine its exact model year (trucks and old German cars are the toughest); I've narrowed it down to the 1951-1953 range, but we'
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Ford, MySpace And The Internet In General Reach For New Low

And grab it. We've long admired Slut Machine's love of trash reality TV. She approaches the clips with the perfect mixture of open minded curiosity and seriousness, yet still remains a completely cynical voyeur. Which is just one of the many reasons we're very different than Slut Machine. The above clip fills our heart with sadness, makes us reexamine our trust and belief in capitalism (as well as mankind in general) and turns us pro Al Queda. Before you pass judgment, please take into account
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Ferrari SUV On The Far Horizon?

Don't go getting you're panties in a bunch just yet, but rumors have been flying around the net lately about a new SUV concept being worked up to join the rest of the Italians in the Ferrari stable. The name given to this blasphemy against the name of Ferrari at this point is FS 599 Fuoristrada. Yes, the 599 denotes the engine stolen from the 599 GTB Fiorano already in the lineup. Things are so sketchy at this point that all the artists' renderings floating about that are complete flights of fan
By bwojdyla Read More
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Is This The End? F1 Bans Engine Development For 10 Years

FIA has just announced a 10-year ban on engine development in Formula One. Teams will have to submit an engine to FIA by March 31, 2008, which they will then have to use through 2017. Speaking about the decision, FIA President Max Mosley said, "There is no need to develop an F1 engine any further. The engine runs at 19,000 rpm, which is far faster than any comparable engine. It sounds good, it's reliable and amazingly the six partially frozen engines of the current manufacturers are really evenl
By Wes Siler Read More
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Dodge Challenger SRT8 Buyers Lining Up, Paying $20K Over Sticker

Buyers are getting desperate to ensure one of the five thousand 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8's initially rumored to be available for purchase will end up nestled snugly in their garage. We've already told you about the pricing details on the SRT8 Challenger, and the impressive presale orders of Dodge's new muscle car, but now CNN is reporting buyers are bidding up to twenty grand on top of sticker for one of the reborn legends. The Mopar madness is reaching a fevered pitch folks.
By bwojdyla Read More
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Woody Allen On Parking In New York

You know, for a man who has claimed repeatedly that he can't survive outside of New York City, Woody has a whole lot of memorable car moments in his movies. Who could forget him, Annie Hall and Max cruising out to Coney Island in Annie's droptop Bug? Or, from the same film, when Christopher Walken gives them a ride to the airport in the 911? Or when he shreds his driver's license in front of the cop after he repeatedly smashes up his rented Caddy? From Sleeper when the Bug starts up: "It's a 20
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Commenter Of The Day: LOL Edition

Even though I'm technically a "blogger," I'm really sort of an internet curmudgeon. Abbreviations like "ty," "brb" and especially the dreaded "LOL" make me cringe. And violent (and for you online poker players "nh" and "gg" get the boot in the crotch, too). I also detest smiley faces with all my heart. While I'm slowly adjusting to the term "blog," the contrivance "Blogosphere" makes me throw up a little bit. In your mouth. I finally broke down and started using instant messenger this year only
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Project Car Hell, Repo Man Edition: J. Frank Or Bud?

For the first time in Project Car Hell history, yesterday saw a Porsche lose a challenge against a non-Porsche! For today, I was going to reach into the PCH Mailbag and pull out one of the excellent tips y'all have been sending in, but then it happened: I was walking down Howard Street in San Francisco earlier today and I was thinking about how my Civic is due for a new timing belt, and how I should probably do the job this weekend, and then I started this internal mental debate about timing ch
By Murilee Martin Read More
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Hummer H3 Black Edition: Always Bet On Black

In an effort to create buzz about Hummer in Europe, the folks at GM decided to black out an H3 and fit it with an abundance of goodies standard and call it the H3 Black Edition. Based on the H3 Adventure trim, this Clio-crusher offers the aesthetics to live up to its name with matte black grille, steps, roof crossbars fuel door, door handles, mirrors and black powder-coated wheels. Buyers will also get a Kenwood nav system and other expensive goodies for just €1.250 over the price of an Adventur
By Matt Hardigree Read More
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Tafel Racing To Switch To Ferrari, Dumps Porsche

Fans of the American LeMans Series are going to be seeing a lot more Ferrari next year as Tafel Racing ditches Porsche for a pair of Ferrari F430 GT's (as seen above). According to team owner Jim Tafel, they were not pleased that they "spent the majority of the 2007 season in the rear-view mirror of the Ferrari teams." Of course, switching cars isn't a guarantee for victory, but with the manufacturers title, nine class wins and 11 pole positions out of 12 races &mdash it's not a bad strategy. Pr
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2010 BMW X1

Although we shouldn't expect to see the BMW X1 mini-SUV stateside anytime before 2011, it looks like the folks at Bayerische Motoren Werke are working hard to make a 2010 reveal for Europe a reality. Based on the new 1 Series, but taller and stockier, the new mini SAV from BMW size-wise is supposed to be comparable to Toyota's RAV4 - and will actually be sharing components (and possibly some cladding) with Mini's new off-roader ( yes, the same one we talked about yesterday ). The X1 will suppo
By Ray Wert Read More
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Jalopnik's Guide To Lemon Laws

With automakers producing hundreds of thousands of vehicles every month, there is the possibility that at least a few of them have serious problems. And with used cars there are so many things that could be wrong we couldn't possibly list them all (we'll list one: squirrels in the engine). There was a time when warranties were written to protect against this kind of thing. Then some smart lawyers got involved and there was a time when warranties were written to make it all but impossible to use
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2008 Toyota Sequoia Price Increases To $34,150

If you're waiting for the 2008 Sequoia because you feel the old model lacks the bulkiness you require in a suburban cruiser, you're going to have to pay $34,150 just to get in, a $990 premium over the previous model. The big addition to the Sequoia (other than the beefy body) is the 5.7-liter V8, which puts out an extra 105 hp compared to the current iForce V8. You'll have to move up to the SR5 model to get the new engine, which starts at $35,275 for the 4x2 model and $38,500 for the 4x4. The Li
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Soap Box Racer From Hell

Er, make that Holland, which is actually quite a nice place. Two days ago you finks absolutely trashed Marjin van der Poll's Can-Am inspired design project, the CM426 Merlin. So let's call this Marjin's revenge. Anyone caught not liking this soap box racer will be outed as the 12-year-old that they are. Also, from now the official language of Jalopnik is Swedish. All commenters under the age of 16 are now 16. All commenters must change their underwear every half hour. All underwear is to be worn
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1969 Dodge Dart GT Convertible, With Bonus DOTS Of The Week Poll

I've been guilty of Chrysler A-Body neglect once again, despite having quite the backlog of Dart and Valiant photos in my DOTS collection. This isn't because they weren't great cars for their time- cheap, reliable transportation, and pretty quick when equipped with V8 power- but, because I see so many of them in Alameda, I tend to forget that they're quite rare once you leave the island. Today we're going to look at an A-Body you don't see every day, even in Alameda: a Dart GT convertible. Afte
By Murilee Martin Read More
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2010 Ford Mustang

UPDATE: Check out the 2010 Ford Mustang — it's been officially unveiled! The camera shutters of Brenda Priddy's cadre of spy photographers just snapped themselves some hot pony car action — the 2010 Ford Mustang. The new-look Mustang for the new model year will be sporting what appears to be an all-new front and rear fascia in addition to a major upgrade to the interior. We're wondering exactly how much of the Giugiaro concept from last year's LA Auto Show will be making it into the new 'stang.
By Ray Wert Read More
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Commenter Of The Day: Sam Kinison Edition

Growing up, I always heard older folks talking about where they were when Kennedy was killed. I'm sure you heard the same. I was in Squaw Valley on a family ski trip (yeah, you can do that in April up in the Sierras) when the news came over the radio that Sam Kinison had died. I was devastated. Crushed really. And I didn't even get half his jokes at the time. Like this one, "The problem with cocaine is that one of three things happen; you die, you go to jail or you run out of cocaine." What abou
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PCH, Turbo Madness Edition: 944 Or 300ZX?

We're not exactly shocked to see the Lagonda administering a pounding to the Alfa Romeo Giuletta in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll; after all, the Aston Martin's CRT dashboard alone is simultaneously cool enough to move you to tears of joy and flaky enough to make your brain feel like it has angry birds fighting inside. Today we're going to ease back on the price of admission to Hell, with a couple of sub-$4000 cars that (if running) would give their owners excellent performance-per-doll
By Murilee Martin Read More
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A Magic Means Of Transportation: 1978 Dodge Magnum XE

The venerable Chrysler B-Body platform still had some life left in it by the Late Malaise Era, and that meant that the descendant of the Super Bee and Charger was going to roll with T-tops A Cord-type grille, sophisticated instrumentation, and electronic wizardry. Oh yes, and a 140-horse 318, though you could also opt for the 360 or 400 engines. This ad rates about a 6 on the Disco-O-Meter (with the Black Gold 280ZX scoring a perfect 10).
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The Ford Flex Becomes The Graff-Flex Party

Ford invited us down to the notorious Les Deux in Hollywood to sample booze and check out what they, BPM magazine and a graffiti artist named Slick had done to a Ford Flex. For those of you not in the know, if you ever see Britney/Lindsey/Paris getting out of $250,000 car without panties, there is a 99% chance they are headed into Les Deux. In this reporters opinion, it's everything rotten about Los Angeles shoved under one cocaine and vodka stained roof. However, I knew that once we got in, For
By Jonny Lieberman Read More
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Video Of The Corvette ZR1 Hot Lap Around Laguna Seca...From Inside The ZR1!

A few weeks back we broke the news the new up-powered model of the 'vette we've been talking about at length for the past year now — the 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 — would be taking a hot lap or two around the track at Laguna Seca. We knew we'd get some pictures of the hot lap — even posting a contest on it — and we hoped for some video. What we didn't know was that the passenger of the ZR1 would be holding a camcorder. So, thanks to our friends at Corvette Quarterly, here's the exclusive vi
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Hoon Of The Day: Suzuki Sidekick Hang Time

This one has all the makings of a total disaster, the kind involving emergency-room personnel tweezing shards of metal from scorched flesh while burly interns pin the screaming patient down and somber policemen interview his not-very-sober friends. Happily, though, this Sidekick jump goes off without killing or maiming anyone at all! We don't want to spoil it, but let's just say this hoon gives the jumping Mahindra Jeep scene a run for its money. Thanks to LTDScott for the tip! Warning: NSFW d
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Jesus Car Confuses, Intrigues

We can almost hear the howls from Pastafarians already about religious slant on this site, or something about the truth of his noodly appendages (RAmen), but to be honest, we don't think the string of holy postings lately is anything but coincidence. At first glance, this Saturn wagon looks like the ultimate Christophile's art ride, but on closer inspection, it's just confusing. It's almost like the creator stuck everything they could find onto the car, regardless of message. The result is a c
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The 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 Photos We've Already Shown You, Now In High Resolution

Although we already broke the detail photos of the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 to you first two days ago, it now seems "The New Chrsyler" has deemed it safe to get in the act. Dodge has gone and revealed the same shots today — only this time in high resolution. So check the photos out below in their full glory — and note again the crossbar-delete option they've added since the concept car design. We'll of course be there live to see the official unveiling at the Chicago Auto Show in just two mo
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OMG!! Digg Creates "Autos" Category! Huzzah! Huzzah!

OK, so in case you haven't noticed the little yellow boxes with numbers in them on some of our posts, they're buttons for a website called Digg. If you don't know what Digg is, we're afraid you're like, totally behind the eight ball when it comes to social media sharing sites on the interwebs and you immediately need to turn around and head back to 2004 and go play with your Fark or something. But if you're like us, you're in the know on this whole Digg thing, and you know it's a great way t
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Mini Sports Activity Vehicle To Be Built By Austrian Magna Steyr

BMW's just revealed that they've contracted the building of what's alternately been called the MINI Monte or MINI Sports Activity Vehicle (SAV) to the Austrian auto manufacturing company Magna Steyr. If you think Magna Steyr and BMW sound like familiar cohorts, it's because they are. Magna was in charge of production of the BMW X3. So now we get to see if they're able to build something a wee bit smaller. Full press release after the jump. But, if you want to see the latest purported spy photo
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1987 BMW L6

It was bad enough to go a month without a Chrysler A-Body in this series, but two months with no BMWs? That's how long it's been! I've got several 2002s photographed (and I've been stalking a 1502 that roams the island), but all the recent K.I.T.T. talk around these parts has me feeling mighty Eighties. That means we need to don our Members Only jackets, put on our Vuarnet shades, apply some ointment to our suppurating herpes sores (wait, is herpes more of a 70s thing? OK, make that chlamydia!)
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Toyota Unveils Personal-Transport, Violin-Playing Robots To Help Take Over The World

Toyota unveiled today two new robots, a "Mobility Robot" and a "Violin-playing Robot" — the newest additions to its team of Toyota "Partner Robots" being developed to support people's everyday life. The mobility robot, designed around the i-Real concept shown in Tokyo earlier this year (see the Toyota folks giving us a demo of the i-Real chair-concept-thing in Tokyo here) is a robot for the "aged." The 'bot's supposedly capable of autonomous movement over uneven ground and around obstacles a
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VW, Apple "iCar" Talks On Hold?

According to German news site Presseportal, talks between the German automaker for the people and the computer cum consumer electronics giant are on hold for a potential "iCar." Full blurb from the press site below the jump. Oh, and did we mention it's entirely in German? Anyone want to translate for us? All we can figure out is it's like "blah, blah, blah, Martin Winterkorn, blah, blah, blah, Sprockets, blah, blah, blah..." Yeah — we totally weren't allowed to didn't take German in High Sch
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Commenter Of The Day: Devil Edition

If you're familiar with Belgian beer, you're familiar with the Trappist breweries. There are 171 Trappist monasteries in the world, but only seven of them produce beer (6 are in Belgium and the seventh (Koningshoeven) in clutch-less Holland). If you approach beer casually you are probably familiar with the most famous Trappist beer, Chimay. And if you are a liver-damaged geek like me, you know all about Brouwerij Westvleteren and their yellow capped 12. As Belgium has over 1,300 breweries, you k
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Project Car Hell: Lagonda Or Giulietta?

The small-block-powered Jaguar XJC whumped the small-block-powered '76 Corvette in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll, and we figure it must have been the slick custom body mods on the Jag that tipped the balance- after all, the Vette just had a taillight transplant and a weird fiberglass hood, while the Jag had scoops and vents on every available surface. Today we're returning to the concept of unmolested original cars, this time with a pair of high-zoot European machines.
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Mopar Madness: 6,000 Presales Of 2008 Challenger SRT8

Dodge just issued a release exclaiming how excited they are over all of the excitement for the Dodge Challenger SRT8 (yes, the same Challenger we just revealed the first detail shots of earlier today, and first to show you a commercial on last week) — an excitement instigated by their release of pricing for said muscle car earlier this week. In fact they've already had a whole 6,000 folks drop a deposit down since Monday, with 4,300 slapping their piggy bank on the table on the first day alone
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Ford Wins "Clean Vehicle Award" For Hybrids

While we may have had a little poke at yesterday for their environmental leadership, the experts at the International Energy Agency Implementing Agreement on Hybrid & Electric Vehicles have given Ford their propers for achieving sales of more than 50,000 hybrid models worldwide. They also received awards for best practices in promotions and a "personal Award" for their dedication to increased efficiency in Hybrid powertrains. So there. Press release below the jump:
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CM426 Merlin

Man, we got the best readers around. You are looking at reader Marjin van der Poll's entry into a niche vehicle design project sponsored by Vredestein tires. Some of you may remember that Maybach Exelero was also a design contest winner sponsored by a tire company. In this case, Marjin designed the CM426 Merlin to look like a Can-Am racer, which means that he is our kind of designer. So much so in fact, that we're just going to let him take it from here:
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Border Patrol Exhibits Poor Understanding Of Border And Patrol

What you see above is an International MXT. It is a vehicle that the United States Border Patrol, no doubt through grants from the Department of Homeland Security, has deemed a reasonable vehicle to patrol the highest traffic border crossing between the United States and Canada, the Detroit-Windsor crossing. There are, shall we say, a couple of things wrong here. First, this particular unit was caught outside of Mexican Fiesta in Dearborn during the lunch hour feeding frenzy. To help visualize t
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Project 1964 Lincoln Continental: Trunk Lid Ballet

This is just going to be a set of pictures with the trunk lid on. There are no pictures of the trunk-lid-putting-on process. There are no pictures of the process because it involved a Friday night, a case of Bud, me stubbing my toe on the trunk lid as it leaned against the wall, and me deciding to man up and put it on myself. The previous sissy version of the plan had been to ask a buddy for help, perhaps use rope or pulleys or something to ease it into place. With the insult of the stubbed to
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Maserati Bora

With last weeks whopping, landslide inclusion of the McLaren F1 (96.8% yes) we asked ourselves, "How many more hot-shit performance monsters do we really need in this here Fantasy Garage?" Along with the F1, we've got the king of the world Veyron and the over-performing Ford GT. We've even (somehow) still got the RUF RT12. With that in mind we've decided to slow things down (a bit) and ask you to contemplate a true heart string plucker, the amazing Maserati Bora. And actually for its time, the B
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Bipper Beep Beep Concept Van Bows At Bologna

Mini-minivan madness month continues as Spin brings us shots from the live reveal of the Bipper Beep Beep Concept from Bologna. Whereas Citroën wanted to remind buyers ofNemo, Peugeot decided to capitalize on your love for Le Mans. Particularly, the car's edgy design is meant to mimic the Le Mans Series champion 908 HDi. While the Beep Beep concept van doesn't put out quite as much in the way of torque, it does get 62.7 mpg. That's pretty close. Press release below the jump:
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What To Drive In '75: Manta Or Capri?

In our last What To Drive In '75 episode, we saw the 1975 Ford Maverick Grabber beat the 1975 Oleg Cassini AMC Matador in the poll. Today we're going for an all-import matchup, though it's a classic GM-versus-Ford contest as well. The Opel Manta and Ford Capri were bitter sales rivals across the Atlantic, and both had sufficient sales in North America that they were not unfamiliar on our shores. So imagine it's 1975 and you need to buy a shiny new fuel-efficient-yet-sporty machine to drive a lo
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The Mazda Verisa Gets More Stylish

We thought we'd take a second to remind you that not all the minicars you want are Europe-only. Some of them are Japan-only. Call us crazy, but we like the Verisa more than the current gen Mazda 2/Demio it's based on. This is the "Stylish V" version, which comes with distinctive seats, a special dress up package that includes revised bumpers and 15-inch alloy wheels. The Stylish V comes in both FWD and E-4WD with a 1.5 Liter DOHC fourbanger. And if Radiant Ebony Mica isn't your style, you can al
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New Popemobile A Drop-Top Geländewagen

It's a da freakin Popemobile! In addition to his M and S-Class, Mercedes has put together another ride for the Pope. This "Fair Weather Popemobile" is a new G 500 with the top shaved off and a specialty roll/hold bar for the Holy Father. We know it's hot, just try and stay off it, for your own safety. We're not joking on this one (we'd never joke about the pope), the car is painted in a special "Vaticanmystic White" finish. Let the pilgrims walk on their knees, this pontiff only rolls in style.
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Another Low Volkswagen Transporter

OK, this VW Transporter isn't quite as low as this insane machine, nor is it quite as old. However, it makes up for those shortcomings by having such a great Survivor Patina, and by parking on one of the busiest streets in town. It's hard to tell how many donor vehicles contributed body parts for this bus, but it's got to be at least four. And, once again, I'm unable to provide an exact year for an older German vehicle; I'm pretty sure it's from the 1963-1967 period, but- as always- clarificati
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2009 Mercedes M-Class

First offered in '97 as a '98 model, the Mercedes M-Class SUV marked the automaker's first step into a shift from being a quaint regional luxe automaker into trying to play with the big boys on a global level. Step two was the "merger of equals" with Chrysler. Step three, which we all know to be profit, never so much happened. But, although the Teutonic knights may not have the same delusions of grandeur they once had, they're still pushing the M-Class — and here's the first shots of what the
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Commenter Of The Day: Soichiro Honda Edition

A funny thing happened at the LA Auto Show. I ran into a bunch of folks from various OEMs that had spent the last few months in Washington DC lobbying against higher CAFE standards. The lone exception was Honda. Yeah, they had people bribing lobbying Congress, but the Honda folks were asking for higher CAFE standards. And sure, Honda is poised to benefit big time from a 35 mpg corporate average. Even including Acura they have no rear-wheel drive vehicles (though a new NSX would change that... Up
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Project Car Hell, Malaise Custom Edition: Corvette Or Jaguar XJC?

With the cheapskates showing a slight preference for the free Musclecar Era Impala over the free Malaise Nova in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll, you might think that we don't have a place for Malaise in our Hell Garages. Far from it, we're coming right back with a pair of machines from the middle of the 1970s- and not just any machines! What we've found is a pair of prestigious cars that have been treated to some tasteful customizing touches, applied by the hands of artists who appreciat
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Meet The Fastest Diesel Powered Drag Pickup

The engineers at Banks Power believe that diesel is the key to "guilt free performance" and have decided to back up their words with timeslips. This S-10 bodied drag truck posted a quarter mile run of 8.21 seconds at 165 mph, which they claim makes it the fastest and quickest diesel-powered pickup in the world (and also the first to run in an NHRA event). Power comes via a heavily modified 6.6-liter Duramax V8 with twin turbos, NOS and a host of other mods worth 1,000 horsepower, at least. The f
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Dan Neil Likes But Not In Love With The Mercedes-Benz GL320 CDI

Full disclosure: I often find myself recommending the MB GL450 to my wealthier friends who ask about big SUVs. That overgrown puppy is one hell of a truck, even if you get to watch your average fuel economy decrease while idling (no really, it's true). Elegant, burly, hella capable and epically comfortable, the GL450's only flaws are embarrassingly terrible gas mileage (14 mpg around town going with the wind) and lofty price tag ($70,000 with the chimes and the catcalls). Realizing this, Big Dad
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Hoon Of The Day: Who Will Survive The Indian Well Of Death?

Carnivals in India are a lot like carnivals in the United States. You've got your kids throwing up on rides, your delicious and fatty snack food and your WELL OF DEATH! Though the death count in this particular footage is low, you can just make out the discarded carcasses of those brave hatchbacking hoons that weren't so lucky in the center of the well. We're going to keep running Indian car vids until it stops being funny, which is probably never. Don't try this in your home well, kids! (h/t
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Austin Princess: Hydrogas And Hitchhikers!

After seeing James May torturing himself with that British Leyland stalwart, the Austin Princess, on a recent Top Gear episode, we realized there's far more to the Malaise Era than 140-horse big blocks and tape-striped Brougham Edition Detroit land yachts. Thanks to British Leyland's inimitable devotion to engineering and build quality, the Princess set a new standard for, uh, luxury? Here we see how a Princess jaunt to the Continent with one's driver can lead to reversal of class roles and the
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Holiday Gift Guide: Hydrogen Power Kit For Your R/C Car

We're hoping to appeal to both the weekend R/C racers and the alternafuel fans on the site with this choice. Horizon Fuel Cell technologies offers a hydrogen fuel cell power supply for your R/C car that incorporates on board hydrogen fuel canisters! Even better, the kit is designed to fit in the battery compartment of the venerable Tamiya TT-01 chassis. This means we can live the dream of owning a hydrogen-powered Ford Escort Cosworth Rally Car. The kit promises top speed near 20 mph, quick acc
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Lorinser Takes Mercedes SL Up To 11, Top Speed Up To 201 MPH

The speed freaks may not be impressed by 201 mph, but we're more than floored at the prospect of nearly 4,000 pounds of luxo-roadster breaking the 200 mph mark. The suave Swabians at Lorinser managed this feat with a Mercedes SL by taking an SL65 Biturbo AMG mill and tweaking the electronic and fuel management systems to achieve 660 hp. Named for the high-speed test track, the Nardo3 also comes complete with a not-so-subtle body kit boasting wider fenders and intakes wide enough to swallow an Av
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Do Cars Need More Color?

Jaguars should be British Racing Green. Ferraris red. Subarus Subaru Rally Blue. Lamborghinis ought to be painted neon orange or invisible brown. Mercedes-Benz? Silver. BMW, silver. Audi, silver. Hyundai, silver. Lexus, silver. Nissan, silver, etc. Point is, there ain't as much color in the car world as there might be. This observation let reader UDMan to write:
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Ford Delivers Plug-In Hybrid To SoCal Electric Company

Ford has gone through on its promise to lead on technology that other automakers have already developed, delivering the first of 20 Plug-In Escapes to Southern California Edison. The Plug-In Escape achieves 120 mpg when the lithium-ion batteries are full charged (for the first 30 miles at least). The little hybrid gets the Ford advanced technology livery, which sort of flies in the face of the "I didn't feel the need to talk about hybrids" theme in their commercials. All things considered, this
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Loder1899 Tweaks The Aston Martin Vantage Volante And Ford Mondeo

The Bavarian accessorizers at Loder1899 are showing off a little at this year's Essen Motors Show, bringing both an upgraded Mondeo and Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante. The Vantage gets the company's new 20-in "hyper-alloy" wheel, lowering-kit, and a new exhaust system good for a boost to 425 hp. The Mondeo gets mostly exterior upgrades, including a less-than-flattering carbon fiber hood, though a new engine management system and sport exhaust system is good for a 50 hp bump to 270 hp. Press rel
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DOTS, Denver Edition: International Harvester Travelall

After seeing how much everyone liked yesterday's DOTS Scout, I remembered that I had some IH photos sent in by a reader (those of you who send me your local DOTS photos: I have 'em and I haven't forgotten you, really) and decided to break them out for a Down On The Street Bonus Edition. Our source for all things Denver, Kitt, saw this Travelall on the street in her neighborhood and had camera at the ready. I'm pretty sure this is a '69 or '70 model, and it looks to be in great shape.
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1961 Ford Thunderbird

I've shot a few of Alameda's street-parked 60s Thunderbirds, but for some reason haven't yet posted any of them for this series. But today the Thunderbird drought ends, with this '61 that's a real survivor. Yes, that's the word for this beautifully wretched Ford, which is owned by the same guy who owns the equally wretched 1970 Chevy Impala we saw a while back. This Thunderbird has been a fixture on one of Alameda's main east-west thoroughfares for as long as I can remember; at its current rate
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Art Arfons, Three-Time Land Speed Record Holder, Dead At Age 81

Art Arfons, the three-time land speed record holder from 1964-1965 with his "Green Monster" series of jet-cars, passed away yesterday at the age of 81. In addition, Arfons was also known for trying to make drag racing as safe as possible with the development of two important safety devices that have since been made mandatory for drag racers: the overhead roll cage and the parachute. Here's more from his obit in the Akron Beacon Journal:
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Commenter Of The Day: Childhood Nostalgia Edition

My Mom had an early 60s Ford Falcon. When my folks moved from St. Louis to California (before I existed) they realized the all black car needed an air-conditioner. They took the car to the Ford dealer to have one installed. The result was that my folks stopped buying Ford products. Forever. That made us into a GM family, and that meant a long line of B-Bodies! I'm not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain the old man actually pulled off the trifecta of at one point having an Olds, Buick and of cours
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Project Car Hell, Free Chevy Edition: Nova Or Impala?

Last week, we saw the William Faulkner Stutz beat the Vince Neil Pantera in our Fat Bankroll Edition PCH poll (though the margin of victory was slimmer than any hope of finding Stutz parts). That got us to thinking- when you spend a lot of money up front for a Hell Project, that probably means you have some more money to throw at the thing. Hell, you might even have enough to pay someone else to go through hell on the project. That's why we're going cheap today. In fact, we're going better than
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Mystery Ferrari Mule Spotted In Maranello

OK, we're flummoxed. We've no idea what the heck this Ferrari is that was spotted outside of the R&D center of the prancing horse in Maranello. We're guessing it's a powertrain mule — but of what kind and what purpose, we've not got the foggiest idea. We're wondering if y'all — or perhaps the nice people at FerrariChat might be willing to hazard a guess as to the identity of the mystery mule. Full spy report from our magical tipster Kevin Welker (who knows a thing or two about the sound of an
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Chrysler Sales Down 2% Or Up -2% Depending On Perspective

Overall, Chrysler moved 161,088 new vehicles in November, down approximately 2.0% compared to 2006. Home prices, fuel prices, squirrel attacks, blah blah blah. The good news is that Chrysler brand car sales are up 9%, Sebring Convertible sales are up 946% (mayhaps a bit misleading) and Dodge sales up 6%. The bad news is that overall Chrysler Brand vehicles are down 13% thanks to a decrease in sales of the PT Cruiser (-50%), Aspen (-36%) and Pacifica (-35%). Jeep lost 2% due to decreases at both
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Toyota Sales Up Overall, Lexus Down Despite Giant Red Bows

This is what we get for putting too much faith in fancy wrapping paper. Toyota Motor Company was able to move 197,189 vehicles in November, up 0.3% from the previous year (break out the champagne). Despite disruptions in the housing market and increased fuel costs, Toyota moved approximately 6.2% more passenger cars. This includes a 109.0% increase in Prius sales. Lexus was down 7.0% for the month, with less people buying Lexus SUVs and large sedans. Gas prices didn't slow down sales of the Tund
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Honda Sales Up 4.7% For November, No One Wants An Acura For Hanukkah

American Honda Motor Company reported record November sales of 111,431 Honda and Acuras, up 4.7% over the previous year. With the exception of the Accord Hybrid and S2000, all Honda models posted increases, including a 25.2% increase for the new Accord and a 106.0% increase for the Fit. On the other hand, Acura sold only 12,910 vehicles, down 24.9% from the previous November. This isn't surprising given newer models from Infiniti and increased competition from Cadillac. Also, there aren't enough
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Cube-Ism: Automobile Meets Art

Turns out Mr. Jeff Winterberg, despite the "murky details," was right about the Nissan Cubes at Pratt. Nissan is having design students hack on the interiors and then present the results at the NY Auto Show in April. But, what he had no way of knowing about was that the Brooks Institute film school in Santa Barbara, CA also has two of the rolling boxes. Why? To "intemperate and communicate the essence of the vehicle," of course. When we were in school we were only asked to intemperate and commun
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GM Reports An 11% Decrease In Sales For November

It was a rough November for GM, with the company reporting total sales of 263,654 vehicles, representing a drop of 11% from November 2006. Though this can be partially blamed on a planned reduction in rental fleet sales, the big news is that the General is have a rough time selling trucks, with a 14.9% year-over-year decrease in light trucks/SUV's and a 15.5% in trucks. Hummer stumbled as well, with a 30.5% year-over-year decrease. In the silver lining department, the new CTS has seen a 15% incr
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Ford Sales Up For First Time In 12 Months, Mission Accomplished!

It's taken 12 months of steady declines (strategic withdrawals) before Mark Fields could claim a victory in sales, by selling 182,951 cars in November. That's a whopping 0.4% increase over November 2006. Most surprisingly, the refreshed and SYNC-ed Ford Focus realized growth of 18% compared with last year. Sales of crossovers were up 119% compared with last year, thanks to the support of the Edge and MKX. How much of this is SYNC actually propelling sales or just a reflection of how poor things
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Jalopnik Holiday Gift Guide: Actron Pocketscan Code Reader

If you drive older cars you're going to find yourself in a situation where you are nowhere near home and a check engine light suddenly appears. What does it mean? Is it just a bad spark plug? Is your engine going to explode? That's where the Pocketscan OBD II Pocket Scan Code Reader comes in handy. For around $90.00, you can carry the power of being able to securely diagnose your ride before an out-of-town mechanic tells you that you need a whole new transmission. Of course, you're going to need
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2008 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup

Whenever we'd mention it was 4:20 pm or give someone $4.20 in change our high school friends would giggle like crazy. We never understood it until now. Apparently, our friends were prescient enough to guess that the 2008 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup racer was going to get 20 more horsepower out of its 3.6-liter boxer six, thus achieving 420 hp. All of this newfound power sits in a package that weighs only 2,533 pounds in race trim, significantly lighter than the production version. The GT3 Cup racer also
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U.S. Navy Steps On "Bugs," Takes Down "Monsters," Crushes "Our Country" To Win New Detroit Ad Award

[MCD is a legend in the Detroit auto advertising community who'll be contributing every once in a while as the mood strikes by providing an inside-the-8-mile take on the ad business. — Ed.] DETROIT- This past Wednesday night, the 'merican automotive capital of the world held the first annual "D Show" — a celebration of the best of the city's advertising. A little background: The show was a replacement for the long-running booze-fueled CADDY show and the best of show category was long-dominated
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G'Day CTS! Cadillac Coming To Australia In 2008 *UPDATE* AUSSIE V12 In The Works

Given recent gains that Cadillac has been making in quality and perception, GM has decided to start expanding into new markets, including selling the CTS in Australia around the fourth quarter of 2008. Much to the disappointment of the Aussies, the new CTS will be sporting the 3.6-liter direct injection V6. While the capable engine puts out 304 hp and 273 lb.-ft of torque, this is the land of RWD V8s and GM's Holden brand currently squeezes the 6.0-liter V8 into their luxury offerings. Maybe we
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Project 1964 Lincoln Continental: A Tale Of Two Bondos

Using bondo is something nobody likes to have to do. The stuff is an admittance in your failure of metalsmithing mastery. Still, Bondo is no wussy taskmaster on it's own. It requires a steady hand and a sense of surface space, gradient approximation, and speed - or more appropriately, the sense of balance between speed and perfection. Maybe most critical is the ability to gauge available possibilities with the stuff, and what requires more drastic measures. The roof came to me dented, the result
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Ford S-Max Spotted On The Mean Steets Of Detroit

After being berated for the crappy quality of my pictures here, and here, and many other times, I've decided to upgrade to a Lumix FZ18 from the three year old Exilim that had horrible fading, limited dynamic range, and no optical zoom. The ironic part is that though this new piece of kit takes gorgeous pictures, the first you'll be seeing from it are full 18x zoom at speed looking through a mirror. So, in a word, crap. Nonetheless, look what we found running up and down Detroit's Woodward cor
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Fastest Lamborghini Ever, Edo Competition Sets Record In Murcielago

Take one carefully tuned Lamborghini Murcielago LP 640, an eight-mile oval, and a bunch of speed freaks propelled by destiny (and not a few shots of espresso) and you get the highest official speed for a Lamborghini, Ever. This fast lambo was able to propel itself to 214.8 mph with only the addition of high performance catalytic converters, new high flow air filters and a tweaked ECU, good for 663 horsepower. Next time around they plan to bump the Murcielago to 700 horsepower to achieve a top se
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1980 International Harvester Scout II

You know what the problem is with this country? You can no longer buy road vehicles made by a manufacturer of farm equipment, that's what's wrong! Maybe it's time for Ford to bring back the Fordson tractor, though that wouldn't be the same. I was reminded of the sad lack of vehicles with combine harvesters in their lineage when I ran across this 1980 IH Scout, and since our last few DOTS trucks were a GMC, a Ford, and a Dodge, today seemed like a good time to go with a non-Big Three American tr
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Essen Motor Show: The Delta DUNE Project

The Deutschland 4x4 tuners at delta4x4 have taken on the Jeep Grand Cherokee for the Essen Motor Show, building out the big Jeep mainstay into the Delta DUNE Project, a 499 horsepower desert racer. With a 0-60 time of less than five seconds, Delta's taken the SRT8 to a whole new level. On the exterior, the DUNE has been lifted by just under four inches, but given a wedge shape with the new front spoiler lowering the clearance by about two inches, and it's riding on custom 23 inch Elements IV w
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Remembering Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr

Yesterday, we lost a giant of American history. It's hard to overstate how massive Evel Knievel was in the media sphere of the late 1960s and early 1970s without some premium-grade hyperbole. Imagine the most identifiable figure of the past few years — Oprah, say, or that geek Star Wars kid from YouTube — and raise them by a Rachel Ray or a Sting. That'll get you in the ballpark with a guy who literally broke every bone in his body — on television — in the name of daredevil motorcycling. Evel
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