Fast Cars

The latest victim of Audi headlight theft is Dan G. of JP, who lost his A4 lights in his own driveway.

That's his Audi King Lear on the left. Sorry, Dan. I know it sucks.

Well, what Marcus Gronholm really wants is a win at the Propecia Rally of New Zealand April 8-10, but he would like to focus on getting a podium finish. Two crashes in the first two rallies and an admitted conservative run that assured him a second in Mexico has cost the double world champion many driver’s points. Gronholm is comfortable with the New Zealand course, but maybe not so assured about the 307’s new suspension adjustments.

After BAR Honda retired two healthy race cars and Ferarri one car during the Australian Grand Prix (so that the teams could run fresh engines during round 2 of the FIA World Championship @ Sepang), the FIA has announced a rule clarification to close this loophole.

Here is the latest Nascar.com coupon. Use coupon code: NASCAR1075 for $10 off orders of $100 or more. Expires 2-28-2005.

F1 Grand Prix for the PSP: Formula one racing on the PSP, and one of the 24 launch titles for the PSP a week later.

Sales of passenger cars also achieved all-time record breaking results with 136,130 units reported, an increase of 7 percent over 2003 sales of 126,820 units. The Lexus flagship LS 430 premium luxury sedan continues to be the segment leader with record sales of 32,272 units, up 34.6 percent over 2003. The ES 330 was the entry luxury sedan sales leader with 75,916 units sold, an increase of 15.1 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Sell-down of the GS mid-luxury sports sedans continued on schedule with 8,262 units sold. The all-new 2006 GS 300 and GS 430 arrive at Lexus dealerships late next month with an official on-sale date of March 1.

I'm ready to experience this...

The Richard Petty Driving Experience

for the longest time, I hated driving. In fact, I think the only time I liked to drive was when I was in Germany. It was a very odd sensation to want to drive places, but driving on the Autobahn and even in crazy European traffic was nice. I really looked forward to driving places and the driving experience was something very unique. I came back to the States and, again, I hated driving. Then I got the Mini...

Ever since I got this car, I've enjoyed driving again, even in the ridiculous DC traffic. I think the Germans really have something in their car-making philosophy. Driving the Mini is fun and an experience in itself. They really do take consideration of the entire driving experience when engineering their cars. At least that's what I am thinking. For those of you who don't know, the Mini is now built by BMW.

One of the important factors that insurance companies take into account is of course your vehicle. There are thousands of different cars on the road so companies divide them up into groups. Most companies will adopt the ABI (Association of British Insurers) group rating. This splits up vehicles into 20 different groups. Generally speaking the higher the group rating for your vehicle, the higher your premium will be. Some companies may also combine your driving experience with the vehicle group to get a better idea of how high the risk is. This is one of the reasons why young drivers should consider buying a lower group car if they want to lower their insurance cost.

This website: Progressive has videos of actual Crash Tests on various kinds of family cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, luxury cars, etc. by year.

Do not try this at home…

The one thing I hate about satellite radio antennas is how much they stick out like a sore thumb. Here you are with your brand new Terk XMicro2 or XM Roady Micro Antenna, and it looks like crap against your beautiful car. Enter Color Match Antenna.

Someone at Toyota’s Scion division has been watching too much Buck Rogers. The inside of the new T2B concept car unveiled at last week’s New York Auto Show is half slick, half sci-fi nightmare, featuring a multimedia dashboard that presents information in ticker tape format. It also provides access to movies and games that can be projected onto the rear glass, plus music downloads via the internet (EV-DO?).

In recent years, BMW's reputation has taken somewhat of a hit for the controversial "flame surfacing" being incorporated onto the exteriors of its newest sedans. So loud and persistent was the criticism that BMW used a more conservative styling for its upcoming 2006 3 series sedan, the previous generation already accounting for over 40% of the German automaker's sales. What we now have is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary design that personally I find appealing, though not as sexy as the outgoing model.

I like seeing the different cars over here, particularly the tiny tiny cars. Also, I've always been struck by the different offerings by Ford. Ford's Street Ka is eye-candy to anyone who enjoys sports cars. It's a small knockoff of Audi's TT convertible. I saw one parked across the street from this showroom, but it's top wasn't down.

Now, the former Puff Daddy is going into the auto parts business - and it's all about the wheels. Combs is joining forces with a Kansas City manufacturer to produce a new line of custom, precision-forged aluminum rims for sports trucks, luxury SUVs and high-end American- and German-made automobiles.

The 50-50 joint venture between Combs' Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment Group and Kansas City's Weld Wheel Industries Inc. was announced Thursday at the New York International Auto Show. SJC Wheels LLC will produce and sell "Sean John Wheels," named for the entertainer. They hit stores next month, retailing at between $700 and $3,000 each.

As the preparations continue apace and teams start arriving for the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, Bahrain International Circuit officials have confirmed that there has been a huge increase in demand for tickets as the race weekend approaches.

The recent increase in interest for race tickets has been heightened by the result of the races in Australia and Malaysia. “It’s a long time since Michael Schumacher and the Ferrari team haven’t figured in the opening races of the season,” said Circuit General manager Martin Whitaker.

Ted Christopher, of Plainville, Conn., was far from home Saturday at Caraway Speedway, yet returned to a very familiar location: victory lane. Christopher, a star driver on the northeastern-based NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, won the inaugural event for the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour, leading a trio of northeastern Modified drivers who also finished in the top 10. New Jersey’s Jamie Tomaino finished third while Bath, N.Y. driver Alex Hoag finished sixth.

Rookie Reed Sorenson raced to his first NASCAR Busch Series victory Saturday, beating Kenny Wallace by a whopping 14.417 seconds in the Pepsi 300 at Nashville Superspeedway.

"I didn't really know what to expect this weekend," Sorenson said. "I never had run on a concrete track before so I just tried to keep an open mind. We had a good car and I thought we could run the same lap, lap after lap, but I had no idea we'd be this dominant. Now we need to come back here in June and defend the title.

Scott Speed tested with the Red Bull Formula One team this week, posting the fastest times of all the drivers and increasing his chances of making his debut at the sport. The American finished faster than Williams' Nick Heidfeld and Antonio Pizzona, and Red Bull's Neel Jani in Thursday's testing. Only Red Bull and Williams chose to test in Barcelona this week. “The car is definitely the most powerful car I've ever driven,” Speed said. “This test all went smoothly with no dramas. My first impression was ‘wow!’ The braking power particularly impressed me.”

One new feature of the Solstice is that you won’t need a transmitter or cassette adapter to listen to your iPod through the sound system. Its radio includes an auxiliary input jack for an iPod or other audio source. The radio will also come standard in the Chevrolet HHR, Impala and Monte Carlo, the Saturn Vue and Ion, the Buick Lucerne and the Cadillac DTS. There’s an interesting discussion of it at Autoblog. Tell us what you think of the podcast and the radio.

Some news broke today about a reshuffling of our product plan, and I just want to clear one thing up before people get carried away.

Yes, we have canceled our plans to build rear-wheel-drive vehicles off the Zeta architecture. But that does not mean we've canceled plans to build rear-drive vehicles altogether.

We did not cancel the Zeta plans to save money, or to divert funds elsewhere that would've been used for product development.

Vintage racing is one of the fastest-growing forms of motorsports competition out there, thanks in part to its unique ability to present classic cars in motion on the race track, just as they might have been 20, 30 or more years ago.

There is one small difference, however: it's now some decades later, and these cars are, well, old. That changes the game a bit. If you're are going to head out and start mixing it up in a 30-year-old sports car, first you need to make sure that it's safe and up to modern safety standards.

For illustrative purposes, we'll be preparing our 1957 Triumph TR3 for vintage racing. While this car was raced in SCCA competition back in the '50s and '60s, nearly all of the safety equipment needs to be brought up to modern standards.

Their creation — a ceramic honeycomb that oxidizes auto emissions — has kept an estimated 3 billion tons of toxic pollutants out of the atmosphere over the last 30 years.

“People don’t realize how bad it was when millions of cars were spewing out deadly fumes,” said retired engineer Rodney Bagley. “Many of the cities were almost unbreathable” in the 1960s.

The soda can-sized device developed by Bagley, Irwin Lachman and Ronald Lewis at Corning Inc. in 1972 and 1973 made air pollution control practical for the first time. Its paper-thin walls were coated with precious-metal catalysts that turned lung-choking gases streaming through automotive exhausts systems into water vapor, nitrogen and carbon dioxide.

President Bush awarded each of the men a National Medal of Technology during a ceremony Monday at the White House.

I think we can say that the Oprah Winfrey Pontiac G6 Giveaway worked for Oprah but not Pontiac. There is alot of hubbub over a Detroit Free Press article today that says G6 sales are 30% below expectations and they are using a lot of incentives to move them now. It must have made the wire services because I heard the story on the radio this morning. The giveaway was PR that GM hoped with turn into word of mouth marketing. It got people talking about how Oprah gave away cars (Jim Carrey joked about it when he was on the show). It really didn't get anyone talking about the car. As a matter of fact, an audience member tried selling theirs on craigslist.

Teaming up with Donald Trump, General Motors Corp. vice-chairman Bob Lutz made a lightning fast introduction of the 440-hp Cadillac XLR-V. "It's one of the highest performing premium sports cars in the world and the fastest Cadillac ever," said Lutz, prior to a light-hearted exchange with New York's charismatic billionaire real estate developer.

Whether they're concept cars or production models, the new autos making their debut this week underscore a trend toward the merging of autos and computers. Carmakers have long placed electronics under the hood, where they monitor emission controls or help operate safety features such as air bags. Recently, however, more electronics have worked their way to the cars' surface--in this case the dashboard--as carmakers turn to technology to differentiate new models, gain fuel savings and offer new types of entertainment systems.

Features such as Apple Computer's iPod music player connectors and satellite radio receivers, both of which introduce ways to listen to music, are becoming popular in new models as manufacturers compete for customers.

At the same time, hybrids use numerous laptop PC-like batteries, and cars such as BMW's 3-Series offer graphical interfaces to control many of their functions.

A close-up look inside Toyota's upcoming Lexus RX400h gasoline-electric hybrid SUV.

Nationwide, the cost of auto insurance is expected to rise by just 1.5 percent in 2005, the smallest increase in five years, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

The average cost for auto insurance nationwide for 2005 is estimated at $870, an increase of $13 per vehicle from last year, reports the I.I.I. The projected increase represents a continued slowdown from 2004, when auto insurance costs rose by just 2.8 percent, said Robert Hartwig, senior vice president and chief economist of the I.I.I.

“The price of auto insurance is increasing by little more than one-half the rate of inflation,” Hartwig said. “Many people who, for example, drive safe cars, have excellent safety records and good credit-based insurance scores may see their rates go down.”

Hartwig cited the declining number of auto accidents, safer cars, new auto theft technology and fraud-fighting efforts as key factors behind the trend.

Every time we come up with something we think is *so* cool, our trusty tipsters trump us. Today’s tip: the Vortex hand-crank blender, which some believe is a better product than the Lehman’s one we featured yesterday. We’ll leave that up to you to decide, but here are the Vortex’s vitals: compact add lightweight (it’s base stores in the pitcher for convenience), made of Lexan, two-speed gear system works as an ice crusher or a food processor, and an ergonomic hand-crank. Hee haw. Thanks for the tip Brian B! At $69.95, it’s cheaper, too.

The Sports Car DVD Player. Five inch colour screen, remote, built in amp and speakers, MP3 capable. Man, there’s some seriously weird people out there! »249.99.

A really cool DVD player that will look absolutely fantastic in any desk or bedroom situation. Pop out the front bumper & insert the DVD. Pop up the boot to reveal the screen, press play & watch crystal clear DVD films.It so cool it’’s almost frozen!

American drivers want more power. Asian drivers want more power. Even European drivers want more power. There comes a point, however, where you just can't put any more power through the drive train of a front wheel drive vehicle. Get too much over 200 horses, and torque steer becomes a serious problem. For automakers looking to sell more, and more powerful, cars with big power plants and fat profit margins (like the drool-worthy RWD Chrysler 300C), they have to switch back to Rear Wheel Drive platforms.

All that power comes at a price, too. Not just in developing fancier engines, but also in keeping emissions down and fuel economy up. And, oh yeah – beefier frames to handle all the high-powered stress. In short, if an automaker wants to increase, or even maintain, its profits and market share, it has to be in the game right now.

As already mentioned, Chrysler is already playing, and playing well. Ford, except for the new Mustang (ten years late, if you ask me), seems to have given up the fight. The Ford Five Hundred is a fine car, but bland and underpowered. Chevy is trying, really trying, with a slew of sporty SS models – but not one of them compares to sportier near-lux models from their Japanese competitors. In fact, the Japanese are so far ahead, they now have their sites set on dethroning BMW's venerable 3-series.

Fact is, if you want a performance sedan, you aren't looking at Ford at all, and the pickings aren't terribly much better at GM.

I don't know what the solution is to GM's problems, but I do know that delaying new RWD models is not the answer.

Jinba Ittai, a Japanese phrase that translates to "the rider and horse as one," has been the focus of the MX-5 Miata concept since its inception, and is the purest essence of Mazda's Zoom-Zoom spirit. Oneness is the cornerstone of the Jinba Ittai driving experience and occurs when the boundaries between driver and vehicle melt away and create one single being. Essentially, Jinba Ittai is a celebration of the simple delights of driving a lightweight, nimble, open-air roadster, and anyone who has driven a Miata knows the feeling.

Aki Tsukioka, writing for JCNN, reported that Toyota Motor announced on March 22 the nationwide launch of two new hybrid sports utility vehicles (SUVs), the Harrier Hybrid and the Kluger Hybrid. Both models are equipped with Toyota Hybrid System II (THS II), a high-power system newly developed around the concept of Hybrid Synergy Drive that represents the fusion of ecology and power.

The German motoring organisation, ADAC, the largest in Europe, will teach advanced handling skills using British MG sports cars, ahead of some mighty German competition. It will use a fleet of 100 MG ZR hot hatch cars at its 60 training centres around the country. Drivers will learn the safe way to handle a high performance car, on ADAC’s purpose-built handling areas, which simulate difficult driving conditions such as heavy rain, ice and snow.

Channel five is to become the first TV download shop by giving viewers the opportunity to download DVD-quality clips of popular car show Fifth Gear. You won’t be able to downlad whole episodes, but petrolheads will be able to download snippets of things like the BMW 1 series and the race between the Lamborghini Gallardo and the Ducati 999 for »1.50 each. It will also provide program features such as reviews of 12 cars and 'shoot-outs', which involve races between two similar vehicles.

By purchasing a used car you can save a lot of money. You could buy a model that you may not be able to afford brand new. However, buying a used car is still a bit of a gamble as there is no guarantee that the car has not been in an accident, has real mileage, and was properly maintained. There may be some hidden problems like a worn out automatic transmission, or engine problems that may not have been obvious when you test-drove the car. Here are some essential facts you should consider before buying a second-hand car so you won't regret your decision after your purchase.

Mio Technology Ltd., a leading worldwide vender of GPS Pocket PC’s, today introduced the Mio136 GPS navigation system to North America as part of a worldwide launch. The new device is a straightforward, easy-to-use GPS navigation system combined with an extensive street atlas of the North American continent and Hawaii in a sleek silver palm-sized chassis. Incurring no setup fees or monthly charges and reasonably priced, the Mio136 is a perfect aftermarket option for automobile owners without today’s expensive built-in GPS systems, yet is ideal for those who are on-the-go or on foot as well.

A lot of surprises were in store for the Formula-1 fans as the first two races of the new season saw Ferrari failing to continue their dominating form of last couple of years. Critics may claim this is due to the fact that the Italian Sports Car manufacturer has yet not launched their 2005 model car until now. The point remains that there is a new force emerging in the Formula-1, which might upstage Michael Schumacher and Ferrari for the first time in many years.

Spearheading this new generation of drivers is the Renault’s 23-year-old prodigy Fernando Alonso. Alonso became the youngest-ever driver to grab pole position and then finishing the race in third for his first-ever podium way back in the year 2001. And since then he has been leading the Renault’s efforts on the Formula-1 circuit.

Rising U.S. gasoline prices are hurting sales of large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks, according to some industry analysts, a trend that could stall a major engine of profits for Detroit’s automakers.

The gas-thirsty, full-sized SUV segment lost 1.2 percentage points of U.S. market share over the last two months and large pickups were down about 2 percentage points, according to Edmunds.com, which tracks the industry. Fuel-efficient compact cars, on the other hand, gained 2.2 percentage points of market share in the same period.

Aviva Insurance has announced that it is launching “pay as you go” car insurance in Canada. These types of programs, which have been launched elsewhere, are based on the notion that data collected by a “black box” installed in the car can, if the driver qualifies, entitle the driver to considerable discounts. Tyler Hamilton reported on the program in The Toronto Star today - details on the Aviva program are in his story, details on others are here, here and here, and discussions of car manufacturer “black box” data collection are here, here, here and here.

When people talk about race cars, or high-performance sports cars, the topic of turbochargers almost always comes up. Turbochargers use some very cool technology to make an engine more powerful, but the concept is really quite simple. Find out how turbos increase the speed.

The Subaru global brand philosophy expressed as "Think. Feel. Drive." encompasses the company's commitment to the customer experience and the way only Subaru designs and builds cars creating a category of one. "Think" focuses on differentiating the brand from the perspective of what drivers and passengers need in technology, style, value and service. "Feel" is about sensitivity to the ride and the environment. It is about the emotional connection that begins with engineers and designers and extends from car to driver. "Drive" is a focus on both the Subaru driving experience and the dedication to quality inside and out. Together, these words encompass the Subaru experience and commitment so many Subaru owners have come to appreciate.

Since the 1994 victory, much has changed at Dauer as attention focused from street legal racecar to civilized roadcar. To create each one of these cars, Dauer takes an original Porsche-made 956/962 and strips the car. A completely new carbon fiber/kevlar body is then made along with a very tight leather interior . When finished, the owner receives a car which has a race history at the top level of motorsport and is also ready to drive on local streets.

A major development has been the introduction of several electro-hydraulic systems into the car. While equipped with pneumatic doors and rear engine cover, one of the most important changes is a hydraulic suspension to raise and lower the car. This was manditory as the 962, in standard trim, is far too low to meet the ride height necessitated by German law.

“The Nissan Sport Concept, like the AZEAL and Actic before it, is first and foremost a showcase of future thinking, yet it is also a car that would be right at home in Nissan showrooms in the not-too-distant future,” said Collins. “Nissan has a strong global lineup of compact enthusiast vehicles, including the March, Cube, Tiida, Note and Sentra SE-R, and, in the Nissan 350Z, one of the world’s most desirable sports cars. The new Nissan Sport Concept fuses the best of both worlds.”

Peyman said weather forecasts for snow to continue Saturday morning will have plowing continuing today. The weekend work will result in the department employees being paid overtime wages and increasing the department's snowplowing costs this winter.

Heavy snowfall discourages people from traveling, but not as many as it used to, Peyman noted.

"People don't want to stay at home, even when roads are bad," he said. "People have four-wheel-drive vehicles and sports utility vehicles and they think they can get anywhere."

Carl Edwards drove to his first NASCAR Busch Series victory Saturday, holding off several Nextel Cup stars in the Aaron's 312 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Edwards, who spent most of 2004 in the Craftsman Truck series, moved up to Roush Racing's Nextel Cup team late in the season. He had five top-five finishes in 13 races.

Tony Stewart finished second and Jimmie Johnson third as Nextel Cup regulars claimed the top nine positions. Michel Jourdain Jr. was 10th, making him the top finisher among drivers who compete exclusively in the Busch Series.