After a long, cold, windy day at Texas Motor Speedway, the checkered flag finally dropped on the field of battered sub-$500 race cars… some of which were worth much less than their value when the green flag waved on Saturday morning. The Team BenzGay Mercedes-Benz 300E won the Garrapatas Peligrosas race at MSR Houston last [...]
A LeMons race can have up to 175 sub-$500 heaps clogging a track; how can you keep it from degenerating into ungovernable chaos on the very first lap? It’s easy: Fear. Fear of the 24 Hours of LeMons Supreme Court and the array of cruel and unusual punishments that await on-track miscreants in the Penalty [...]
This weekend’s race is the fourth annual Yee-Haw It’s Texas 24 Hours of LeMons, and the first to take place at College Station’s Texas World Speedway. All day Friday, the tech inspectors checked the entrants for safety violations, while the LeMons Supreme Court looked for violators of the LeMons $500 spending limit. We saw some [...]
Americans aren’t fat because of high-fructose corn syrup, stress related to overly competitive work environments, or a sixth sense for locating the world’s finest couches; we posit that the extra pounds are sympathy weight. Our poor cars are so heavy, and we love them so much, that we go ahead and finish that 24-ounce porterhouse [...]
Good evening everyone from the home of the Hanshin Tigers, fried octopus balls, and some of Japan's friendliest people - the city of Osaka.
I've just returned to the hotel after a long day of shooting at Osaka Messe and thought I'd go ahead and post up a few photos and some initial impressions from the show....(read more)
Still rather sharp looking, the current Mitsubishi Outlander will be seven years old this spring. That’s about average for an automotive life cycle, and it will come to a close when the company introduces the third-generation Outlander at the 2012 Geneva auto show. (Remember that the Outlander is not the same as the smaller Outlander [...]
Chevrolet is showing a Cruze wagon at the upcoming Geneva auto show. It will be the third Cruze variant, joining the sedan that we do get here and the hatchback we don’t. Its mission is to snag more customers for Chevrolet in wagon-friendly Europe. As is to be expected, the Cruze wagon wears longer bodywork [...]
BMW has announced that the entry-level iteration of the 2013 6-series Gran Coupe, the six-cylinder 640i, will start at $76,895. That means the Gran Coupe’s extra style relative to the 535i sedan—with which the 640i shares its turbocharged inline-six and a lot of DNA and componentry—will cost buyers an additional $23,000. That princely sum buys [...]
Opel is launching the ultimate Astra at the Geneva auto show, the Astra OPC. OPC stands for “Opel Performance Center.” U.K.-market models, which will be sold as Vauxhalls, will swap OPC with the VXR moniker. As we predicted earlier, the top Astra will be powered by a version of GM’s 2.0-liter direct-injection, turbocharged Ecotec engine; [...]
Koenigsegg expects to deliver its first Agera to the U.S. this June, more than two years after the 940-hp supercar was introduced, according to a company executive. Bags of Air and “Financial Hardship” The Swedish automaker is awaiting approval for a second exemption from federal regulations requiring smart airbags, the same exemption the National Highway [...]
This is the new Fiat 500L, which will have its world preview at the International Geneva Motor Show on 6 March 2012. 500L – the L stands for ‘Large’, hardly a revolutionary concept but it does make an already attractive car likely to be more widely appealing to other markets (such as it is, the [...]
GM is committed to recycling. Or is it heritage? Maybe both. We bring this up because the 2013 Acadia‘s new look might not be so, well, new. Take a gander at the picture below to see what we mean. Yes, that’s the same wraparound rear glass treatment on the now-defunct Saturn Outlook (Saturn’s version of the [...]
To help kick off the launch of its ever-so-lightly refreshed 370Z sports car, Nissan is launching a social-media campaign by which the public can help design a tricked-out Z. The automaker is imaginatively calling the crowd-sourced Z “Project 370Z,” and will show the final product at this year’s annual ZDayZ gathering. Project 370Z will be [...]
Ford dropped an automotive bomb when it introduced the 650-hp, 200-mph 2013 Mustang Shelby GT500 coupe late last year at the L.A. auto show. Seemingly overnight, the bar by which all muscle machines are measured was reset—tough luck, 580-hp Chevrolet Camaro ZL1—and no one outside of Ford has even driven the thing yet. The 2013 [...]
Kia unveiled the 2012 Optima SX Limited sedan today at the Chicago auto show; it’s a new, fully loaded trim that sits at the top of the mid-size Optima range. It’s true that family-sedan news hardly stokes the enthusiast fire, but the Limited is based on one of the nicest-driving mainstream four-doors on the market: [...]
There must be something about the Soul hatchback that compels Kia to use bizarre punctuation. Take, for example, the Soul’s + and ! (Plus and Exclaim in our language) trim levels, and the topless Soul’ster concept from three years ago. This Track’ster is the company’s second apostrophe-laden Soul-based concept: It’s a 250-hp, all-wheel-drive hatchback that [...]
For automakers, the prospect of freshening up a successful model can be daunting. Focus on only the minutiae, and your efforts may go unnoticed by the buying public; change too much, and you risk alienating your core customer base. Considering that 2011 was the most successful sales year for the Acadia since its 2007 debut, [...]
Ever value-conscious, Hyundai is looking to save money on badges for its latest five-door Elantra. Why else change the name from Elantra Touring to the revived Elantra GT moniker? The new hatchback makes its debut at the 2012 Chicago auto show alongside a two-door Elantra Keep Reading: 2013 Hyundai Elantra GT Hatchback – Official Photos [...]
The 2013 Hyundai Elantra coupe may not need much explanation; it’s basically an Elantra sedan with two fewer doors. On the other hand, it’s hard for us to say why Hyundai has decided to enter the shrinking segment of front-wheel-drive coupes—especially with the Veloster and more-powerful Genesis coupe already on dealer lots. Perhaps Hyundai’s sleek [...]
Car companies only get one chance to introduce their new cars. But between sketches, renderings, concepts, teasers, and leaks, they’re quickly learning how to exploit the internet for more opportunities to discuss cars prior to actually revealing them. Acura apparently realized too late that it had blown the opportunity to draw out the introduction of [...]
Previewed as a concept at this year’s Detroit auto show, Acura’s new ILX sedan wears production-ready sheetmetal as the curtain rises on the 2012 Chicago show. Consistent with Honda/Acura practice, the distinctions between the Detroit concept and the production car on display in Chicago’s McCormick Place are subtle indeed: a little character crease in the [...]
The last time our spy photographers caught a prototype of the next-generation Nissan Altima, black camouflage covered everything that wasn’t glass or rubber. Now that 2013 Altima test cars have ditched the Glad-bag look in favor of stick-on wraps, we know much more about the all-new sedan’s slippery design. Keep Reading: 2013 Nissan Altima Spy [...]
Buick is planning two big changes for the Regal lineup. The first is making the eAssist hybrid powertrain the standard setup for 2013; it mates a 182-hp, 2.4-liter four-cylinder that makes 172 lb-ft of torque with a 15-hp motor/generator and a trunk-mounted lithium-ion battery pack. (Previously, an unassisted 2.4-liter four-cylinder was the standard powertrain.) In [...]
As is often the case with aging starlets, sports cars reach a certain point in their careers when a mere mention of their name no longer lights up a room. Their success dependent on surviving the cruel and fickle selection process of the consumer public, they submit themselves to minor face lifts, stopgap procedures aimed [...]
When we reported last month on Hyundai’s precedent-setting “lifetime” warranty on the battery pack for the 2012 Sonata hybrid, official details had not been made available, and our post’s comments section quickly filled up with speculation regarding the specifics of the coverage. Hyundai recently set the record straight: “The Hyundai Lifetime Hybrid Battery Replacement Guarantee [...]
On Monday, we presented this week’s shifter and asked you to identify the make and model of the vehicle from whence it came. A few commenters posited guesses that the shifter belonged to a 1980s Volvo 440. Those guesses were close, but the stick is actually from the 1987 Volvo 480ES. Mark M. submitted the [...]
I had a fantastic time shooting the GTCC event at Tsukuba Circuit the other day, and based on your comments it seems you guys have been enjoying the coverage from this brilliant grassroots race meet. Regardless of what sort of you cars you like, I think everyone can appreciate both the passion and the fun-loving attitude that these weekend racers have.
With that said, here's the third and final part of my GTCC event coverage....(read more)
Although I've been to many hot rod events, this was my first time at the Grand National Roadster show. What impressed me the most was the variety of cars there, and how pristine they were given their age. Of course, all of them have had some sort...(read more)
BMW won’t say how many manual-transmission 3-series it sells in the United States for “competitive reasons.” It’s not as many as in Europe, where 3-series sedans are sold in great numbers with small gasoline and turbo-diesel engines paired with manuals, but enough are moved here to keep a six-speed manual on the order sheet as [...]
We’ve already driven the 2013 CX-5 (and liked it), covered its technical specs and fuel economy, and now Mazda has released complete pricing info for its all-new crossover: $21,490 to start. A fully loaded, all-wheel-drive model should just top $30,000. The CX-5 is the first vehicle from Mazda designed from the ground up to include the company’s efficiency-aiding Skyactiv technologies [...]
Damian Kulash Jr. sits in one of the editing suites of a media-production house in downtown San Francisco, watching clips on a computer screen of a silver Chevy Sonic doing hand-brake turns in a dust cloud. The car is festooned with what looks like forks, hockey sticks, TV antennas, railroad horns, shark spears, and a [...]
It’s easy to confuse weird with bad. The Mitsubishi i is weird. It looks like a computer mouse. It has windshield wipers that resemble Ultraman’s arms in attack mode. It is powered by a 66-hp electric motor mounted under the rear seats. It carries onboard the energy equivalent of less than half a gallon of [...]
At 7.6 seconds, the 2012 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon is 3.9 seconds quicker to 60 mph than the SUV it replaces, thanks to its new 285-hp, 3.6-liter V-6 and five-speed automatic. To put that in perspective: You could run a BMW M3 sedan to 60 mph and then, very immediately thereafter, run the new ute [...]
1,000+ miles in 4 days, in fancy dress and bangers worth less than £350! Sucata Rallies are bargain-basement-banger rally tours, where participants drive to some of Europe’s most incredible destinations, over 4 days, in bangers costing no more than £350. And in fancy dress! The rally raises money for international education charity Gemin-i, helping to [...]
Volkswagen’s latest Beetle dropped a few things relative to the New Beetle it replaces, including the word “New,” the height of its roof, and the cutesy demeanor. Now the Beetle line regains something lost a few years back: a fuel-efficient TDI diesel iteration. The 2013 Beetle TDI will debut at the 2012 Chicago auto show. [...]
When the first-generation Mazda Miata debuted way back in 1989, the reveal took place at the Chicago auto show. The city therefore remains special to the brand, and the intervening years have seen a long line of special-edition Miatas zip through McCormick Place. Keep Reading: 2012 Mazda MX-5 Miata Special Edition – Official Photos and [...]
Please do not confuse this with news. It is merely something that happened, about which we’ll make the following comments: Jeep says these custom Grand Cherokee SRT8s were identically prepared. If true, this could be the first time Alonso and Massa were given identical cars. Ferrari Rosso Corsa paint, a matte-black roof, and a red [...]
Fiat’s new 500L five-door MPV will—if you believe the company—go on sale in the U.S. in 2013, several months after debuting at the upcoming Geneva auto show. Fiat had already confirmed that such a model was coming, but now it has released photos. U.S. sales of the 500 hatch and convertible have been disappointing, so [...]
If you’re like us, you’ve bored holes through pictures of the new 3-series sedan trying to discern the styling changes versus the outgoing model. Yes, there are some. A new face features headlights that puddle in toward the chrome-wrapped kidneys and a broad, blunt-faced front bumper that creates a sort of grimacing overbite into the [...]
New information has been scarce regarding Infiniti’s range-extended electric sports car for this March’s Geneva auto show. But now we’ve got a name: EMERG-E. We’ll likely have to wait another month or so to see the entire car—only a few teaser photos like the one above have been released—but we do know it will feature [...]
Curse the hordes of European cyclists no more! A biker in such a group recorded a seemingly production-ready Mercedes-Benz A-class while on a ride in southern Spain. (Watch the whole video on YouTube.) The premium hatch, which debuts at the Geneva show this March, is visible for only a few moments. But it confirms that [...]
Update 2/11: We’ve again captured the SLS Black, this time wearing more production-ready bodywork. Check out the new photos in the gallery. Keep Reading: 2014 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series Spy Photos – Future Cars
: skip to main skip to sidebar Tuesday , January 31, 2012 EMCO NOEL DOWLER SET TO RETURN IN 2012 January 31, 2012. Sherwood Park , Alberta’s Noel Dowler , driver of the 5 EMCO Dodge and EMCO Corporation have reached a multiyear partnership agreement that will see Dowler competing in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series in 2012 and . beyond Following a successful rookie season in 2011 Dowler looks forward to taking the next step in his career this coming season as he competes in the entire NCATS season in a DJK Racing prepared . car With the progress the 5 EMCO Dodge team and Noel Dowler made during their rookie season there is plenty of reason to be excited about the . future I‘m really pleased to have this partnership with EMCO” said . Dowler We came together last year and planned on competing
Author: Tony Lewin Paperback: 540 pages Publisher: Merrell Publishers Ltd (14 Oct 2011) Price: £24.95 (RRP) Recommended? Yes The A-Z Of 21st Century Cars is being sold as “The most comprehensive guide available to the international automobile industry of the first decade of the twenty-first century“. Whilst this is quite a specific remit, the fact [...]