The Jalopnik Morning Shift
• And the winner of the 2006 South African Car of the Year is...drum roll please....the Audi A3 Sportback 2.0T FSI manual! [iAfrica.com, Motoring]
• We love speed. We always love speed. We always love speed except when a fire engine or ambulance is in front of us. Did we mention we hate schmucks who love speed when a fire engine or ambulance is in front of them? [SFGate.com]
• 13-year-old Aussie leads police on car chase. How will we ever compete with the Aussies in hoonage when they start them this young? [Daily Telegraph]
• A few hundred hydrogen cars from BMW, a few hundred hydrogen cars from GM...a bit of infrastructure...and pretty soon we'll be talking about something more than just a PR stunt. [Reuters]
• AAA is reporting on gas prices. Are they higher or lower? Wait, wait, don't tell us! Let us guess...they're...higher? We're right! What do we win? Oh...higher prices. Bugger. [PRNewswire]
• Man, the auto companies totally have us by the...keys. Did you know that the new "smart keys" (or "S-M-R-T keys", as a certain someone we know would call them) cost $150 to replace? Sadly, yes, we do. [Center for Auto Safety, The Car Connection]
• The latest Pennsylvania Economic Development strategy? Driving tours of old barns. We tried, but we can't even make stuff up that's this good...and what makes it better is that there are around 16 other papers that picked this story up. [KRT Wire, Centre Daily Times, Kansas City Star]
• Although Ford's SVT team may have gone the way of the do-do bird, Chrysler's SRT team is going strong like King Kong. Of course, didn't he eventually fall down? Maybe that's not the best analogy. They'll be hosting a chat session tonight from 6pm to 8pm EST over on the Caliber Forums. [caliberforums.com]
• Today's "Jalopnik Cares" segment — Trucker drives 1,000 miles to retrieve lost dog; cries 'like a little girl'. [WDIV Detroit]