Fast Cars

IT IS an old chestnut—a car that drives itself—but General Motors, the world’s largest car manufacturer, has become the latest company to claim to be building one. The car uses updated technology combined with several existing innovations and, according to the manufacturer, could be in production by 2008. But, while the technology takes some of the boring bits out of driving, it falls far short of an automatic taxi service and, anyway, various legal, technical and social barriers to its introduction remain.

Porsche company is reportedly setting up showrooms in Pakistan after anticipating a market here. It is ironic that in a country where people are struggling to make ends meet, the elite is keen on buying the most expensive sports cars.

Peugeot Company plans to officially present totally new 407 Coupe in the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show, which will be held this September. Four seats, relatively big boot, road performance of a true sports car – a formula chosen by Peugeot engineers for this modern coupe.

Moose Boats is tweaking the concept of the sport utility vehicle by labeling its supercharged, rugged M2 vessel a sport utility boat, or SUB.

So I just got a new car recently. I decided on a moderately priced car. Would it be a sports car like past cars I've owned for the past 2 decades:

so with gas prices inching closer to $3/gallon, it’s no surprise that suv owners are trading in their hummers for something that doesn’t cost them $75 to fill up every week. sales for suvs are stagnant, even with automakers trying their hardest to move them off the lot, and presidential pardons for wasting gas. apparently people have been gladly paying the premium up front for gas savings that they aren’t likely to see within the car’s 8-year warranty.

A Brazilian maid has won a legal battle with her wealthy bosses to keep the Mercedes car she won in a raffle. Rogenas da Silva won the luxury car in a draw after buying groceries at a supermarket in Rio de Janeiro. But her employers, Adelino and Sandra Bulhosa, who already have four cars and are neighbours of Ronaldo, sued her for a share of the prize. They argued that they were entitled to a share because Mrs da Silva had been shopping for them, as well as for herself, in the supermarket.

monday i get my 2005 cadillac cts-v i can’t fucking wait. it’s pretty much cadillac’s answer to german performance sports sedans. 400 horsepower, 6 speed manual, it can’t be beat. i love it. the best part is it’s equipped with an ls6 chevrolet engine the same engines found in the high end z06 corvette’s. i will post pictures once it arrives as it is coming from maryland.

but then I was thinking. What if my neighbors read this thing?!?!? What if the police officer who lives across the street comes on here and reads about us street racing on the weekends.

I’m going racing this weekend. Yep… Sai is going to be a bad girl and go street racing. I’m getting my license suspended sometime next week, so what else do I have to loose? Frankly, I don’t care anymore. So far, there are 3 other people going. We’re all planning to race each other. It’ll be fun.

Nice little article from the Portland Tribune about OMRRA. Bunch of my friends race in OMRRA, so the link is just a tad obligatory.

I would not be surprised to learn that oil producing countries have reduced production as a means for achieving greater profit; it’s the cost of doing business in a world that maintains a high demand for petroleum products. On the other hand, while people generally, and Americans in particular are complaining about the cost of gasoline at the pump, there has been no significant decline in the sale of gas guzzling automobiles, which include not only the SUVs, but also the high dollar luxury cars. Still, according to the information (above) provided by the Department of Energy, Americans are paying a fraction of the price for gasoline than people living in Western Europe. But if the price for a barrel of sweet oil is relatively constant, at say $65.00, why does gas cost significantly more in Europe than it does in the United States?

“I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq War more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle,” said Robb Willer, a sociology doctoral candidate at Cornell. Willer is presenting his findings Aug. 15 at the American Sociological Association’s 100th annual meeting in Philadelphia.

A couple of our nation's finest, one who has a great blog here, were generous enough to leave their first-hand knowledge in response to this story, to comment on car chases and some of the limitations the police have in apprehending fleeing fleas. Thank you, gentlemen, for your service and your thoughts.

Feel free to poke through the Chicago Street Racing set on flickr or locally in my gallery.

Every summer the Puget Sound BMW E30 owners and enthusiasts are gathering together on a picnic organized by BMW CCA Puget Sound. Last year I was in market for an E30 and I went to take a look at some of the cars. The event was a success, over 100 cars showed up and that was the point where I was 100% sure that I want one. I saw all types of E30s: 325, 318, M3, race cars, rally cars, strange cars and even an M1. I posted some pictures on my site. Read more about this event here and here.

Sacha Baron Cohen, better known to HBO viewers as Ali G, will be playing a French Formula One driver in a new NASCAR comedy that will also star Will Ferrell. The as-yet untitled picture will feature Ferrell as a fan favorite race car driver, while Cohen will be playing a Frenchman who comes to the U.S. to dominate NASCAR and beat Ferrell. The movie is currently scheduled for release in the summer of 2006.

My family background is really mixed - Jewish, Filipino, and white trash. Not going to name names but some of the symptoms of white trashness that are found in my family are a love of NASCAR; talking about mechanical equipment; guns, guns, guns (even my Mormon aunt goes to the firing range); and a wary eye cast on minorities. We complete our "white trash" evening by playing "Who exactly is this baby's daddy?"

François Cevert, 1973 (Died sliced in half on a F1 GP in 73)

today, with finger sized MP3 players, GSM handsets, sub compact laptops, and other electronic devices, battery technology has made tremendous strides. the electric car should be on it’s third generation, but we are at an empty table with empty promises of hydrogen cars or fuel cell cars. the current president has called for intelligent design in the schools on par with evolutionary biology, and some pie in the sky fuel cell/hydrogen car technology. for eight years clinton and gore had the advanced car initiative, but then the current president canceled the program.

Well they are quite organized up here and have much better turnouts than in El Paso (which was a given anyways). The course was about 20 seconds shorter, but the lot was in better condition. Lots of S2000s out there and lots of others cars too (about 30-50 in the morning alone).

We are also thinking about getting an old Volvo station wagon to use for things like camping (since we go so much- and by so much I mean we still haven't been), garage saling, dog transporting, and general hauling. I was discussing this with Becca on Friday night and she was like "why don't you just get a SUV or something?". My response was "because I drive a jag"(not be read in a snotty tone)- I'm not ready to give that up just yet...

I think it's been awhile since I had a scary driving experience. This isn't the fact that I didn't trust my driver as a passenger, in fact is the road that is scary. Basically, we were driving to Leighton Hall to pick up one of Kit's friend, we drove up a junction, the motorway part was nothing, or I should say its a piece of cake, since we used to drove from Lancaster to Oxford in midnight and vice versa. However, I think the scary bit was the small narrow road, especially where its actually going steeply uphill and the road sign was national speed limit. The roads are just very narrow, very dark without any street lights, a lot of uphill and downhill, sudden emerging junctions, cows walking in front of you and not planning to move away at all etc. I guess there are countless of these scary moments that I cannot recall all of them.

This one will have the buick badge on it, although it does look sort of like a Mercury or Chrysler oncept at first glance. We saw this over at GM Inside News, which lead us to do some more searching. Check out this page with some more cool photos.