classic car

Everyone knows that General Motors got it all wrong when they killed off many of their brands. Many think that Saturn was right to die, but almost all other marques could've been saved if GM would've made better decisions. I have my own version of this plan, in which only one brand is killed off. I think that General Motors could have kept almost all of their brands, and these brands could've been profitable. Here's my plan for every brand in the General Motors Portfolio:

The time is here: you can now get The Car Blog merchandise at Cafe Press! You can get everything from shirts to mugs to underwear. Though it's a little creepy if you adorn your nether regions with our blog, the shirts are cool. Click on the link on the left of this page to go to the shop!

It's no secret that The Car Blog is constantly gaining more and more ground on the Internet, and we've decided to introduce annual awards this year. We've been going back and forth with ideas for Best DIY Project, Worst Performer of the Year, and this award, the Best New Automaker of the Year. We were going back and forth mainly between Devon, Artega, Zenovo, Fisker, and our winner, Tesla. We had many reasons to pick Tesla as our winner. First of all, Devon, Artega, and Zenovo haven't made any production cars yet and Devon is based off of Dodge Viper components. This left Fisker and Tesla. We chose Tesla because they have had major sales success and made many gains in technology. Though the Fisker may look better in your opinion, the Tesla has made more strides and good sales, meaning they have a constant flow of money. For these and many more reasons, Tesla is our award winner this year.

As I picked up the duPont Registry I bought while grocery shopping today, I thought the same Asanti ad for its latest ultra-exclusive wheel set, the Asanti Black Series, would appear. As I paged through, I saw the same ad, but something was different. There were three other sets of wheels at the bottom, which turned out to be their uber-ultra-mega-expensive Diamond Collection. The base wheel, made of cubic Zirconium, was priced at $250,000, a quarter of the price of the wheel we all know of, the famous $1,000,000 Diamond/Sapphire wheel set that was displayed at SEMA and comes with a free Bentley. But there was also another wheel on the page, which hasn't gotten any of the attention of its $1 Million brother. The Asanti AFS 103 Series, made of nearly six times as many Diamonds as its brother with 1,200 Rubies sprinkled in, is priced at a monstrous $2,000,000! This is the flagship wheel set of the top series of the most expensive brand of an ultra-lux wheel company. In other words, Lexani makes Asanti which makes the Diamond Series which makes the AFS 103. These wheels eclipse their half-price brother to become the most expensive wheels on Earth. According to many reports, the Diamond Series is dead, but this ad in the January issue of the duPont registry tells otherwise. I wonder if it comes with two free Bentleys...

  Ah, Iola Old Car Show and Swap Meet. The meeting point of every car-obsessed person in the Northern section of the Midwest. For a weekend, the tiny town of Iola, WI is lit up with gleaming chrome and trailers full of rusting vintage Cragars, wheels, bumpers, and any other automotive item you could need. A full-fledged car show, a giant swap meet, a car corral, and an auction all packed into one three-day-long event that attracts thousands of men carrying their reluctant wives and the occasional genuinely interested woman. There are Dodge Chargers, Kaisers, BMWs and Duesenburgs, and all of them are interesting to anyone who loves cars. Its almost impossible to resist coming each year. Of all these cars, you'd think that the most interesting would be some classic Ferrari of Duesenburg, but this July it wasn't so. This year, the car that stole the show wasn't a car featured in multiple magazines, not a historic Bonneville racer, but a 1998 Chevy Cavalier.

  Yep, you heard that right. Walking among the many drivers for sale in the Car Corral section, near the end of my day in Iola this July, I was pretty bored and feeling kind of down. We had just been by the auction section, where the economy had lead to only one out of 10 cars we saw go up on the block sold. All of the cars I was around were drivers, with the top price being around $50,000 for a '57 Corvette, and I was going to leave in about half an hour. I was heading back to the swap meet section when a crowd obscuring a car caught my eye. The crowd was larger than the one around the featured driver Auburn/Cord/Duesenburg collection, larger than the one around the custom '54 Kaiser Manhattan featured in Hot Rod Magazine, and larger than the one around the highest-mileage car in the world, a Volvo P1800 coupe. I rushed over to see what all the fuss was about. Was it a used Bugatti for sale? A Fiat 500 with an Enzo motor? As I got closer I saw the truth. It was a Cavalier, decked out in custom gear making it a rolling tribute to Chevrolet coupes. It had '54 Corvette headlights and grille, '57 Bel Air-style rear fenders, '63 Corvette split-window rear glass, Impala hints and more. It's powered by an unknown motor, hopefully a V-8, with a nice blower on it, and it was being offered for an amazing deal of $4,000! Thats 5 different cars with a total value of $301,692 for just $4,000. No, just kidding. I wouldn't buy it either, but it does make for a good conversation.

  When we Americans think of Mercedes-Benz, a picture of an E-Class or an SLR Mclaren comes to mind almost invariably. Here in the gas-guzzling U.S. of A, Mercedes-Benz is a maker mid-size and large premium sedans, coupes, roadsters, and SUVs, but the picture is very different in Europe. Mercedes-Benz makes a total of four models that we don't have here in the US, and all of them are very different from the Benzes we know and love.

  Across the pond in the land where Diesel compacts rule the roads, Mercedes-Benz offers two sub-C Class compact cars, a compact coupe (an evolution of the demised C230 coupes that were offered in the US for a few years), and a minivan. There there is also the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and other commercial vans. Does the name sound familiar? If you consider the fact the MB was partnered with Chrysler, the truth comes all too clear if you didn't know already. Yep, our "American" Dodge and Freightliner Sprinters are really a re-badged Germans that avoided pesky taxes by being shipped in parts to the US and assembled here with the manufacturer of choice's badge slapped on the front. Ah, badge engineering.

  But enough about that, lets move on to the models that are sold as passenger cars, as the Sprinter is only a civilian car in a customized camper form. There are two compacts in the MB lineup that aren't here in the US, the A-class and B-class. The A-Class, a small premium hatch that comes in 3 and 5-door forms starting at a bad space-to-dollar rate of $21,453, is the epitome of a crowded-city luxury car. It has sold in huge numbers, almost 2 million since its launch in 1999, and if it was brought to the US it may become a toy for the obsessively rich to have when they're trying to look environmentally conscious. The problem, though, is that they packed the car so full of technical features for a car its small size that they met their price point way before they could focus on a full-luxury interior. The result is an interior that resembles the configuration of the Volkswagen Jetta with the leatherette package, with hard, but not low-quality plastics in some places and leather in others. The exterior, like some other Euro MB products, has not switched over to the new, more mean-looking grille yet, so it looks relatively out-or date from the front, even though a recent facelift made it more modern from the side. With power ranging from 140 to 193 HP, the A-Class is not something for speedy runs or people like Jay Leno and the Sultan of Brunei (though I wouldn't be surprised if he had one), but its more of a car for relatively well-off city-dwellers that can't stand cloth seats.

  The B-Class, introduced in 2005 and updated in 2008, is based on the A-Class architecture. It was originally intended to go on sale as the Base Benz in the US, but plans were scrapped for that and it is now sold virtually everywhere but the US, including Canada. The B-Class starts at $27,648, and like the A-Class it virtually dwarfs the price of everything else in its category. It's like a minivan shaped compact with regular doors, which MB calls a Multi-Activity vehicle, mimicking BMW's weird names such as Sport Activity Coupe for the X6. Interestingly, the higher-priced and larger B-Class has less power than its smaller brother, with rates ranging from 94 (!) to 190 Horsepower, which is at best 3 less than the A-Class' ratings. There's not much more to say about the B-Class because its essentially a more expensive A-Class with more space, more modern looks, and less power. The interior is slightly higher-rent with more leather and less plastic, and it has room for some cargo even with kids inside, which says a lot in Europe.

  Next up is a car you may know from a few years back, with the C230 coupe, a try by Mercedes-Benz at launching one of their cheaper models in the US. It started at around $25,000 in 2003, and they sold well for what they were, a cheap Mercedes-Benz. After that one venture, MB pulled the coupe out of the US and its now only sold overseas, where it is known as the CLC-Class. It now starts at $28,211 in current exchange rates, making it the cheapest and smallest MB coupe in Europe, as opposed to the $48,050 E-Class Coupe here in the States. There have only been minor changes since the C230 was taken out of the US with a minor refreshing including the new-style grille and wheel options, and the rear shape remains in its quirky half-hatchback form. The refreshing was to hide that its still based on the last-gen C-Class sedan, so the mechanical aspects of it aren't exactly thrilling and up-to-date. In fact, there is a new CLC-Class scheduled to be coming soon to replace the current coupe. The interior has leather as an option, but the overall quality is good. The horsepower ratings go from 120-268, a margin of 70 horsepower over the compacts.

  The last car that Europe gets we may not want at all. You see, this is basically a giant, boxy, Japanese-style minivan. Called the Viano, this van scraps the (insert letter here)-Class naming system, and for good reason. This is a completely different Mercedes-Benz than we know. I mean, how do the words "Mercedes-Benz" and "minivan" go in the same sentence? Yet again, it worked in Wisconsin for Buick, why shouldn't it work in Europe for Mercedes-Benz? Any Minivan that starts at $36,514 has to be luxurious and up to date, right? Well, according to Whatcar.com, it's very flexible for different types of families, with two wheelbase and three body length options, but "It's an expensive option, whose van roots show through in some areas. The engines are noisy and it's not easy to use the car’s full versatility, as the seats are heavy if you want to remove them." The horsepower ratings, though you'd hardly look at that in a minivan, range from 116 to 258, and of course the material quality is superb, but it's not anywhere near the most versatile and smart option in a minivan.

  I spotted the Porsche Carrera S on a trip to Chicago a year ago.

  This Viper RT/10 was a one-time shower at the Howard, WI A&W Cruisin' Nights.

  If you're not familiar with my story about this car, go to http://bit.ly/grantur

  This Ford coupe, like the Viper, was another local find.

  On a trip to Madison, WI, I couldn't identify this truck at first.

  When the Chevy Volt concept appeared on the 2007 NAIAS show floor, it drew much interest, though not as much as the Camaro concept, which manifested itself as the production Camaro this year. It was also a footnote compared to such cars that never happened such as the Ford Interceptor and Chrysler Nassau. But now, with electric technology being embraced by millions of people who don't care about driving experience and our government, many are taking a look at the Volt that they didn't before.

  What they see isn't what they glanced at on the Detroit show floor, to say the least. Almost every aspect of styling, many suppliers, and some technology has changed since the introduction of the concept, and now the Volt just looks like a wide Malibu instead of a muscular, if odd, sedan. Perhaps this is a good thing. The old styling was very controversial, with inoperable windows that kept extending down past the body line and rear-end styling that seems to remind me faintly of the Toyota IQ. Not to mention the fact that many of the features wouldn't have been street-legal. But Chevy wouldn't have got our attention with a boring sedan as a concept, right? So they gave us something that the Chevy Camaro may have been in sedan form if it wouldn't have gone the Mustang retro route.

  Now, looking back, that front end looks too sparse in comparison to the Hulking new designs seen on GMC, Lincoln, and Cadillac cars and is a bit out of date. The new car, though much more boring, seems more modern.  When the production-bodied Chevy Volt was revealed it wasn't exactly a party day by anyone's standards. But I think the styling of the new car has merit. It looks cleaner, less quirky, more practical, and altogether more modern. Safety standards come into effect here, mandating larger headlights, eliminating the inoperable windows, which wouldn't have worked anyways from a stylistic or practical standpoint, and making some structural changes. Some other changes include Suppliers for many components, some of which haven't even been secured by this point. Currently GM is expecting more demand than supply, and hopefully they won't destroy them like they did to the EV-1, which took its name from the more stylistically daring 1985 Saab Concept, which used solar panels to power cooling and heating fans.

  There are many different things the Selby Cobra did for America. It was competitive in world races at a time when the Ford GT40 was shunned as being too British, winning major events in a landslide. Many have tried to repeat the success of such a homegrown machine, but so far none have succeeded. Unless you count the numerous continuations, kit cars, modern interpretations, and freelance designs that have popped up over the years, which brings me to the subject of this article.

  The first thing that you think of after thinking of the original Cobra is most likely the numerous kit cars out there. From the name brands that offer accurately enough styled kits with (often Chevy) V-8 underpinnings, to the companies that make sub-par recreations based off of Civics and Fieros, they all have one thing in common. No wait make that two things. They all try to recreate the original Cobra and try to come up with names that won't get Carrol Shelby on their heels with lawsuits. From Factory Five Racing to Superformance to Street Beasts, these kits are everywhere. I think that one writer, who I can't recall at the moment has it right, saying that if we were wiped out and beings discovered the remains one day, it would seem like Cobras were the most-bought car on Earth, and the ones with the Shelby ID numbers would just be thought of as another brand that sold them. One thing I object to in these kits is the common use of Chevy 350 V-8s. I mean, if you want an automobile that drives like a Cobra, looks like a Cobra, and doesn't make you look like an idiot when you're hood is opened up, you better put an authentic Ford 260, 289, or 427 in it. I know that you could fill up the entire internet with comments to the contrary and moans about Ford part supply, but that's just my viewpoint.

  The second type of modern Cobra I'd like to discuss in this post are the ones that are made to be modern supercar version the car, such as the Iconic GTR, the AC MK VI, or the car shown above, the Gardner Douglas G350. All of these but the Iconic have LS-series Corvette motors, where the Iconic GTR has a clean-sheet motor designed by the company itself. GM Performance Parts probably wouldn't exist but for numerous kit cars and homegrown supercars. These cars are costly to develop, and many a company has gone down in flames with not one of their cars sold. AC itself, the nameplate for the Cobra depending on who you ask and the basic provider for the car Carrol needed to get it all started in the first place, is struggling to get by and its recent history is even more dramatic than the history of Vector, with many tales of fleeing from countries and several court cases tied to one event. Iconic has more hope of succeeding, backed up by the fact that they've got money behind them and a car that was developed completely in-house.

  There are also many artists' dreams out there. From furniture to auto proposals, there's always some dreamer out there rendering the next Cobra. Here's one of my favorites done by Vaughan Ling, a college student who's done lots of rendering work, and in a weird coincidence, has a Datsun 240Z like mine, dash cracks, missing stereo and all. His idea is different than many, going about things the way the retro Mustang does. You can see his other work on his blog, http://vaughanling.blogspot.com/, but the subject of this is his 2009 Cobra Concept. He doesn't want to make a complete copy, but he wants to copy the essence of the car without mimicking it (I'm talking about you, Dodge Challenger!) or copying it outright. His idea is more extreme than Iconic, more extreme than Gardner Douglas, making the Cobra look modern.

  We can be sure that there will always be fake Cobras, new Cobras, continuation Cobras, modern interpretations of Cobras, etc., but I still hold firm to my belief that nothing beats the sheer driving feeling of the originals, The AC Shelby Cobra 260, 289, and 427 that dominated their day.

  You've seen them prowling the streets, wincing at how fast their rubber will shed and how much ride quality, or lack thereof, it has. Old Monte Carlos, Caprices, Crown Vic's, Chevelles and more, all wearing at least 20-inch rims, with many sporting 23-inchers and some wearing up to 35s.  This trend is always both coming into style and going out of style at the same time in different places, and currently its a growing trend in the upper Midwest. These cars, as you probably know, are called Donks, with huge wheels and custom paint being the main features of the cars.

  People, mainly people in their teens and twenties, see Donks as a trend for them to get instant recognition in cars that would otherwise be seen as crap. For as little as a few thousand dollars, they can have an interesting wheel and paint combo and be recognized as a car god among college students for having a Caprice.

  Donks are frowned upon by the major section of customizer community, and the main reason for this is that the cars may look distinctive, but their performance isn't usually modified except for the occasional custom exhaust system. They are also notorious for having a harsh ride quality due to the low-pro rubber and are not the main choice for more traditional hot rodders.

  I've now had my VW Jetta for a year, and I've decided to do a four-seasons type review of it. Overall, its been a very good small sedan. It's responsive, frugal, high-quality, quiet, and has a soft ride for its class. It seems to be a competitior for more expensive cars than it.

  First, I'll go straight for performance. I ordered my Jetta with the 2.5-liter five-cylinder, which isn't as fast as the corporate 2.0 turbo four that's common in VW and Audi products, but still puts on a good turn of speed for a small sedan. The car has 170 horsepower and 177 lb-ft, which may not sound good but is substantially better than the 150 of the year before, not to mention the 140 of the tacky Ford Focus. Acceleration hovers at about 8.5 seconds, but the car feels much faster. At any speed the motor sounds like its from a much higher-class segment, and there are no clunking noises nor any signs of any build quality problems in the mechanical components. Steering feel needs very little, and is great for both around-town driving and highway trips. The 2.0 has about 30 more horsepower, but honestly I don't think the car needs it.

  The inerior contiues to impress me as time keeps running on. The only problem we had with the Jetta's interior quality was because it was used as a test-drive car for a couple hundred miles before we bought it. At some point some test driver's curious child forced the collapsing cupholder mechanism out of the center armrest, but we got that replaced with no problems except for the inefficiency of our dealer, which took two months to finally say that they could replace it. Other than that early malady, the interior build quality is faultless. The car was not, as you may think, built better than others because it was test car, it was just that the dealer picked some random car in every trim level to use as a test car. The inerior is black leatherette, which has been good for two main reasons. A, guests who inquire about the car find out you didn't kill cows  to get your Jetta, and B, it holds up much better than the real thing. All electronics are easy to navigate, theres a button for each of the four main stereo functions (CD, AM, FM, Sirius), and there are knobs right in front of you, clearly labeled, for controlling the tone. There are hard plastics, but unlike in the competition they are textured with a luxurious feel and extend back to structural components instead of leaving hollow spaces behind them. It means that in a crash there will be more mass hurtling toward your side, but at least it won't dent itself every time you touch it.

  Styling is attractive, if not particularly sporty, but if you ad the high-class small spoiler and subtle body kit it starts to look like it could compete with the GLI high-performance version. 
Even though its been in use since 2005 and is set to be replaced soon, the styling is thouroughly modern, unlike some cars (Fusion and Sebring). There are a variety of wheels available from stock, ranging from economy 16" base steelies up to Vision V 18" by 8" rollers, which are $2,300.

  Over all, the Jetta is class-leading in quality, mid-class in performance, and has very good styling.

  When the new Bugatti Galibier sedan concept was revealed a few days ago, many people got the origin of its name wrong. They said that it was named after a mountain pass on the Tour De France. Essentially they were right, but what the car really takes its name from is the Bugatti Type 57C Galibier Saloon, basically the four-door version of the renowned Type 57 coupes. This car, though, was named after the pass.

  The similarities of these two cars is obvious. Both were ultra-luxury sedans based on production coupes. Both were less well-received than their coupe counterparts because of styling cues that were completely recognizable up front but were confounding in the rear. They both represented what the maker wanted to be the fastest, most luxurious sedans on the market during their time period. The original Galibier moved away from the sweeping fastback style of the coupes with a bulbous trunk. This style was badly received by the media and masses; many said it was tacky and ugly. The new Galibier isn't with the times, as it seems to be trying to correct the mistakes of the Thirties with the Porsche Panamera-esque rear fastback, which ends up having the same reaction as the conventional-style trunk of the 57C Galibier from the media and masses.  The new Galibier has the signature Type 57 line through the center of the car, which splits the rear window in two, though the old car doesn't, in its effort to keep visual difference from the coupes yet again. The Galibier concept also takes steps away from the Veyron; the lack of giant side scoops is obvious, as well as the rear setup.

  The general idea and reaction to these two Bugattis may be similar, but if you look at the statistics you can see that they are very different cars underneath. The new Galibier is bound to get around 1,000 horsepower from its modified W16, whereas the Type 57C Galibier had 160 from a straight eight. The new Galibier has four big turbos, while the old had one supercharger. The body is also very different. Not having to deal with modern technology like traction control and ABS meant that the Type 57C Galibier Saloon made use of common materials of the time for its body, but the new Galibier concept's body must be made of carbon fiber to keep the weight to under 4,500 pounds.

  All in all, the namesake and general idea for these two cars is the same, as well as the fact that their styling was ridiculed at the time, but they are very different in execution.

I finally gave into trend and created a Facebook page for the blog where you can view photo albums, suggest blog post topics and more. Its http://bit.ly/fanblog

  Today I went to the second annual Big 3 Performance car show, which is just a regular thing for me. But when I got there, I knew that I was in for something better than I expected. The posters for the show had shown renderings of the upcoming Jim Wangers Edition GTO, of which only fifty will be built. The Wangers GTO is scheduled for a debut at the next SEMA show, but sitting in the middle of the parking lot under a cover was the unmistakable lines of a muscle car. Could it be?

  I ended up waiting for over four hours at the car show waiting for the reveal, during which I met Jim Wangers, who is touted as the Godfather of the GTO as well as being the inspiration and nameplate for the new car, and visited the guys at Shelby Parts and Restoration across the street. Somebody there remarked that creating a GTO as a tribute to Wangers was like "Creating a Mustang as a tribute to one of Shelby's secretaries", as Jim has been mostly a PR person, traveling the country with the "GeeTO Tiger". Even so, a good car is a good car. At about 11:00 I got impatient and asked one of the Big 3 Performance employees when the big reveal was, and it turned out they were waiting for their camera man to arrive. They said it should be five or ten minutes.

  An hour later the announcement finally came. "Thanks for coming to the Second Annual Big 3 Performance Car Show. We are now going to give you a sneak peek at the new Jim Wangers Edition GTO, so will everyone please make their way to the covered car in the middle of the lot." Everyone rushed over to the car, and some employees went through the whole speech session about how the car was a community effort and what a joy it was to work with Jim. Finally, the covers were pulled off the car to much fanfare, and Jim Wangers was invited to start his car. He then proceeded to rev the wee out of this expensive prototype, and was only stopped from doing a burnout and driving it out by sheer luck. The motor sounded fantastic, different from anything I've ever heard, muscular yet refined, modern yet harkening back to the days of old. I took a video of the unveil, but it doesn't even begin to do justice to the sound of the motor. You can see the video at http://bit.ly/Wangers.

  If you've looked for a car on Craigslist, you've probably seen them. Cars that are crazy, pointless, or undeniably exotic being advertised. On a website that has seen everything from a $50 beater Cadillac Cimarron to a Bugatti Veyron, you're pretty likely to find some interesting cars. I've searched through car blog archives, forums, and many other sites to find some of the wackiest ,which I will list here.

  To start off , we'll go straight to the well-known one. On December 12th, 2008, the staff of Specialty Automobiles in San Fransisco, CA listed a 2006 Bugatti Veyron on Craigslist for $1.3 Million, which shattered all previous known records of car pricing on Craigslist. The car had 874 miles on it at the time, and was blue with silver fenders and a "Bardo" interior.

  The second car on this list is one that is actually currently for sale in Silicon Valley by RoadSport USA, a car dealership for the ridiculously affluent. It is a 1958 Lister-Jaguar racer that is being sold for $1.1 Million on the San Fransisco Bay Craigslist. There are rumors of it being a works car along with other race history. This is the car you see above.

  The last car on my list isn't ridiculously priced, but it's just odd. Earlier this year, somebody posted a supposedly haunted car. The ad goes on to say that the person doesn't want to work on the car because he's afraid it'll turn on and run over him. I bet it's all fake, but it'll keep you wondering. Here's the ad:

Haunted 1992 Honda Accord Ex JDM RHD – $6500 (Los Angeles)

IM SELLING THIS 1992 HONDA ACCORD EX! 4DR RHD! I SPEND ALOT OF MONEY INTO THIS CAR BUT WILLING TO SELL IT CHEAP CAUSE IT GIVE ME THE CREEPS! BAD! I THINK OR BELIEVE IT’S HAUNTED. THIS CAR IS SALVAGE TITLE! NOT CLEAN IT’S WAS BEEN IN A BAD ACCIDENT IN JAPAN I BELEIVE THE CAR WAS CUT IN HALF IN A ILLEGAL STREET RACE. I WAS ABOUT TO POST AT THE JUNKYARD WHEN I FOUND OUT CRAIGSLIST BUT IF YOU WANT MORE INFORMATION JUST ASK ME!
* * * WARING *** THE WEIRD / REALLY BAD: I brought this car in Japan 7 years ago and imported into United States and start working on it as a project car. The car was in a major accident over in Japan which makes it totaled! but had body fix. Seems to be possessed by a demon or some sort of entity!: makes low mumbling backwards-like indistinguishable talking sounds through the speakers which aren’t even hooked up to anything. There is no stereo in it so it can’t be anything to do with that. When you get into the car it makes you have odd feeling like you wanna leave fast to get out the car and also there’s cold spot inside the rear seat makes you uneasy. It makes no sense at all but it has almost killed me many of times while I was driving to work and school. Mirrors adjust themselves to all different sorts of positions while I’m driving, and I never actually notice them moving so I’m guessing the person die inside the car still exist. Trunk opens on its own at during summer season feel like the car has it own mind to it. Hood flies up while it’s park the driveway at night , it always somehow comes undone. I recorded my car at midnight on a camrecorder… on my driveway the shocking footage is seen you see the car will move on its own while the motor is not on plus I also see red eyes in the driver seat and a black figure at side of the car, the scary thing about this car it will start on its own while sitting out in the driveway without any key being in the ignition. It’s a horrible car to rely on. I just can’t bear to look out the window and see it sitting out there anymore It give me the creeps! i’ve try blessing the car many times but nothing happen I think this person die in the car wants to be left alone with his car. ***

$6,500 dollars and takes it off my hands! or not I’ll let it go 3,400. Please take this car out of my life.
May God Bless You & Have Mercy On Your Soul! This car is really haunted!

THINGS I DONE TO MY CAR SPENDING OVER 7 G’s
MANUAL 5 SPEED
HAS A H23 ENGINE
JDM WINDOW VISORS
JDM ONE PIECE HEADLIGHT BLACKHOUSE
JDM FOGS
JDM LIP ” VERY RARE!”
JDM INTERSECTION LIGHT
JDM FLUSHMOUNT “VERY RARE!”
JDM SIDEMARKERS
R33 GRILL
QUICKRELEASE STEERING WHEEL G-SQUARE
EDM-WASHERS
JDM REAR FOGS
LED LIGHT INTERIOR
HID LIGHT SYSTEM

THE BAD:
DOESN’T START IN THE MORNING! NEEDS TO BE WARM UP USING YOUR RPMS UP TO 4,000 CAR MAY STALL.
IT LEAKING SOME FLUID! BOTTOM OF THE CAR IM SCARE IF I CHECK IT USING A JACK THE CAR MIGHT TURN ITSELF ON AND RUN OVER ME!
MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS BRING SOMEBODY WITH CHU IN CASE!
NEEDS NEW SHOCKS BLOWED SHOCKS ALL 4

OTHER THAN THAT THE CAR NEED SOME TLC CAUSE IT WAS LEFT OUTSIDE DRIVEWAY LIKE 2 YEARS.

So there's my list. Tell me about any updates and any worthwhile cars I missed.

  Diesel has always had a bad rap. Though everyone knows it got you better MPG, diesels were loud and belched dirty, black smoke forth into the atmosphere. Diesel engines were reserved for large trucks for the most part, and it was seen as antisocial during the oil crisis to have giant, smoke-belching truck. Not to mention that diesels generally made your car much slower, limiting performance by large amounts and were hard to start. It wasn't until the late Seventies that diesels were used in everyday cars such as the VW Golf in America, though even these were slow-selling. Diesel is in for a turn-around ,though, because in the past few years diesel technology has made rapid strides from dirty and slow to fast, clean, and overall, green.

  As Volkswagen Group's recent ad campaign for Audi proclaims, diesel is no longer a "dirty" word. The fuel that we usually associate with Sulfur and Nitrogen smoke have gotten much better. New technology has completely transformed the diesel tech in the last few years, creating cars that are fast, clean, reliable, and fuel-sipping. For example, the Volkswagen Jetta TDI gets almost 50 MPG, has all the comforts of a regular Jetta, is quiet and composed, and is just as fast accelerating. There seems to be almost no downside to a diesel besides its reputation from the past, which is why they have transformed Europe and started in the US.

  So what is "Clean Diesel"? This fuel is actually achieved by producing Ultra-Low-Sulfur Diesel, or ULSD, which cuts the amount of sulfur in the diesel by 98 to 99% compared to the Diesels that all of these used-to-be facts are related to. This also benefits performance, as sulfur clogs the emissions and engine systems, limiting performance and frugality. This means that, with today's ULSD technology, diesel is actually more frugal than hybrid tech, with better performance. So you can have a car with Prius-like MPG and GTI-like responses.

  The eternal cry of 98% of car fans in the past few days has not been the usual "More horsepower!", but "Just bring us the Accord Wagon!". The new America-bound Honda Crosstour has been teased for the past month or so with boring videos with what looked like a slightly larger and higher Accord wagon as the star. These teases focused mainly on the Euro-Accord grille and the very back, with no teases of the odd body lines and scaling problems that have now been seen in the official photos. Now, with the new photos, it's reminding me of "Edsel Day", when people thought they were getting a new, good-looking car with advanced tech when in reality they got an oddly-shaped thing that reminds one of the Pontiac Aztec. This is why there has been an overflow of negative comments on the Crosstour's Facebook Page, as well as new anti-Crosstour groups such as my friends, http://bit.ly/uglycar.

  Something I've noticed, also, is that car enthusiasts are the main group heading the Crosstour hate, because they know what a good-looking car is and what the Crosstour should be, an Accord Wagon. Many regular people have a neutral opinion of the Crosstour, and they have every right to that opinion. But there won't be many hardcore car enthusiasts buying a Crosstour as a people-mover when there are other options from companies anywhere from Chevy to BMW.

  Ever heard of the Ventura? Liar. You're probably thinking of the Puma, the more common (and admittedly better-looking) Brazilian VW-Based kit car from the malaise era. In this country, where almost every Brazilian kit car is referred to as a Puma, it's almost impossible to find somebody who can identify a Ventura, and even less the extremely rare convertible version, not one of which is known to have made it to the US.

  So what exactly is the Ventura? It was a very similar design to the well-known Puma kit car in that it was a chassis based on VW 4-cylinder power cloaked in a sporty 2-door fastback body that was sold in coupe and convertible forms. Some key differences between the Ventura and Puma are styling, which can be explained by the eras in which each of these cars was launched. The Puma was launched in 1964, with styling reminiscent of Alfa Romeo convertibles that would come a few years later, as well as the Ferrari Dino and other cars. But the Ventura was launched in 1978, fourteen years later, and the auto industry was much different by then. The Venturas were influenced by the Porsche 924 and a "looking towards the eighties" interpretation of the Ferrari 308, and were much more hard-edged and bland. Underneath the differences are slight. Both cars were powered by 4-cylinder VW motors, but the Ventura had the pancake-type engine out of the Type III, unlike the Puma, which used different VW power as well as some early DKW and later Chevy-powered kits.

  The original Ventura design was produced until 1984, when a minor facelift was in order that gave it the aforementioned styling cues and a bland convertible model reminiscent of a more angled Dodge 400 was added to the range. The coupe you see in the photo is a 1984 model. There were now four versions of the car, with two engine and body configuration options. You could either get an 84-horse 1.8 motor or a 1.6, which was eliminated after 1986. Ventura decided due to slowing sales that the car was in for another chenge in 1988, though this one was much more radical. More than just a styling change, the new Ventura II was powered by a 2-liter motor and had major adjustments. Although it was supposed to be an altogether better car, the company stopped making it that same year due to floundering sales, only continuing with low-volume small-truck production, another category it had its hands in. Be wary, though and don't be too quick to tell me production of the Ventura continued after I said. Since many of the VW components used in the cars dated from the sixties and the cars were often titled a few years after they were built due to the owners taking their time with their own personal modifications to the car, the model year was hard to determine by any DMV office. Usually when you find Ventura cars, the model year will have been determined by whatever year they were titled. I've found Venturas that have been titled as 1992 model years or even later.

  I'm excited because I get the satisfaction of reporting this before Autoblog or Jalopnik, which I both sent tips to. I was getting stuff ata local gas station when a guy who obviously has a sense of humor pulls up in a 2001 Buick Century Custom. The catch? It had hybrid badges all over it! Each front fender had a GM Hybrid badge on it, which reminded me of a Rolls-Royce with hybrid badges I saw on Autoblog a few weeks ago. The car even went a step farther, with little 2-mode badges on it on a logo on the back of the car. I immediately snapped some photos and sent in some tips to a few major automotive blogs. But I still get the satisfaction of being the first to report on this, this thing.

  So you're visiting your cousin Bob who lives in Neenah on Saturday, September 12th? Make sure you come to the biggest event in Green Bay for car fans, an event held on the property of a well-known custom car shop, Big 3 Performance, and Shelby Parts and Restoration, which if you haven't seen on this blog before is a world-renowned Shelby Mustang restoration shop. This car show will showcase everything from a Lamborghinis to Barracudas, with a Dyno available for use and drag racing down the stretch of public road, which is a Wisconsin road so you don't have to worry about bits falling off. Big Three Performance, known for their custom 650hp Mustang, will be the main host of this event, with many judging categories for imports, restored classics and domestic customs. This show will be located at 2215 O'Conor Road in Green Bay, and if you're nearby on the 12th, be there. You can find more info on this show at  http://www.big3performance.com and you can click on the "Annual Auto Show" link in the middle of the page.

The world's cheapest car, the Tato Nano, is vouching on launching in the US after some redesign to meet standards, and I was surfing their website today when I ran into a fun configutator which includes decals and Y-spoke wheels reminiscent of ones used on Shelby Cobras. Another thing worthy of mentioning is that there are regular colors and then "luxury colors", which change the trim level automatically by selecting them. So if you like the yellow that we've seen the Nano in most but don't like the giant black-plastic piece on front and want it to be body-color, you can't do that because you can't have the luxury level with a base color. anyways, the configurator is at http://tatanano.inservices.tatamotors.com/tatamotors/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=182&Itemid=203, but if you don't want to copy and paste that mouthful you can just click on this post's title and it'll bring you to the configurator. It'll distract you sufficiently from work.

With Obama pushing 35 MPG by 2016 for cars, many enthusiasts are worried about their next-gen supercars being limited to only 100 MPH to meet the standards. Of course, there is merit in that thought, as we all know from the late seventies. But I know that there are ways to meet and beat these standards while keeping our cars muscular and quick, ways that weren't even a forming idea in an engineer's head during the malaise era. Here are some ideas to get us through the CAFE standards fast: I mean seriously fast, not to mention in style.

A few days ago I was driving down the road when a red convertible coming from the other direction caught my eye. From far away I thought "Hey, a Datsun 260Z converted to a droptop!", then as it got closer "Austin-Healy 3000? Jaguar E-type?" And then, as the car was only 30 feet away I saw that it was, in fact, a 1965 Ferrari 275 GTS! This was the highlight of my day, as in northeast Wisconsin a genuine expensive car driving around is a thing you see every half a year unless you're lucky and know where Shelby Parts and Restoration is.

Inspired by the recent Concours d'Lemons in conjunction with the real Monterey Concours, I've created this special Lemon Edition Youtube video reel for your enjoyment (and/or disgust).

If you're a Mercedes-Benz fan or an obsessed car person like me, you've probably heard of Brabus, a famed tuning house for Mercedes-Benz products Anywhere from the SLR Mclaren to the Smart Car. But something you may not have known until now is that Brabus also has a new customization for none other than the Lotus-based, electric Tesla Roadster.