We’ve never been falsely accused of a traffic violation, having earned every last second of our time before a judge, but when it does happen to us, we’ll certainly want to brush up on our physics. Dmitiri Krioukov, a physicist with the University of California, recently pleaded his way out of a fine for rolling through a stop sign using the power of mathematics. Krioukov worked up a four-page physics paper underscoring the differences between linear and angular motion to prove that he could have theoretically come to a complete stop and resumed traveling in the time it took another vehicle to pass between him and the citing officer.
The idea is that perception of speed can be altered depending on one’s viewpoint. Since the officer viewed Krioukov from the side and the physicist supposedly came to a complete stop very quickly before accelerating again just as fast, it appeared as if he never stopped at all. Or at least that was the notion. Whether or not the judge believed the professor didn’t matter so much as the fact that Krioukov managed to shed some doubt on the accusation. He was declared innocent and spared the $400 fine.
But the story doesn’t end there. The physicist left a flaw in his proof, and has invited everyone to see if they can figure it out. From our layman’s point of view, it appears Krioukov’s managed to fall from 22 mph to 0 and vault back up to 22 in the span of three seconds. Must be quite the machine. You can check out the full paper .
We’re not so sure how scientific its poll was, but an online dating service that calls itself the U.K.’s largest for married people says that men who cheat on their wives are twice as likely to drive a than any other brand of car.
According to NineMSN.com, Illicit Encounters points to the “intrinsic link between success and cheating” to explain the connection between Bimmers and adultery. Some 19 percent of the dating website’s members drive a BMW, including 11 percent of the women who responded to the survey, according to the report. Coming in second on the survey was , with a close third. While BMW may not be outwardly proud of this “victory,” we’re sure at least someone in Munich is glad to have bested its German rivals.
Speaking of which, scroll down to watch a classic Mercedes commercial about a “happily married” couple.
So is it time to start the dead pool? Automotive News seems to think so. While the newspaper doesn’t go as far as suggesting that Suzuki is not long for the American market, it has compiled a depressingly long list of signs that the company is on its last legs here.
Among the many signs that Suzuki is hurting, the most damning might be what’s happening with its dealer body. The report says the brand dropped 32 stores last year, roughly 12 percent, and that it is down to 246 total dealerships in the States. But of those, 150 sell five or fewer cars per month. That would explain why Suzuki only sold 26,618 cars last year, according to AN.
Other signs of distress include sluggish sales so far this year, not exhibiting at the most recent and auto shows, cutting off their deal for J.D. Power customer satisfaction data, and a lack of marketing leadership or initiative, according to the report.
While Suzuki’s product lineup is among the smallest and oldest in the industry, that seems to be the least of the brand’s troubles. Heck, even we kind of like the .
Remember JAC? It’s the Chinese company so dedicated to that it changed its logo to a blue oval in the grille. JAC is back with a new car for this month’s , this time showing off less consistent plagiarism and more pastiche with the Heyue SC coupe.
With a snout lifted from the Lotus Esprit or the other four concepts, mirrors that seem to be lifted from a and a Factory Five rear end with Ferrari Enzo taillights, the Heyue SC isn’t a bad looking car for being an agglomeration of reanimated parts. Inside is a dash cluster that looks cribbed from the parts bin along with an Opel steering wheel.
Power comes from a 2.4-liter four-cylinder with 162 horsepower and 160 pound-feet of torque, which should make for reasonable gumption unless the Heyue is made of lead. The price is 200,000 yuan ($31,807 U.S.), which places it in between its competitors in specs and price, the better looking, more powerful and less expensive , and the miniature clone known as the . Head over to China Car News to get a few more looks at it.
In the past, many of us have been guilty of approaching the crossover segment with the same zeal a toddler typically reserves for mashed peas. Equal parts revulsion, befuddlement and betrayal have danced across our faces as we’ve struggled to comprehend why anyone would willingly put their hard-earned money towards a vehicle saddled with inherently poorer driving dynamics and fuel economy. As lovers of curve-conquering wagons and hatchbacks everywhere, throwing a couple of extra inches of ride height into the recipe has rarely done us any favors. Not surprisingly, we find ourselves in familiar territory once again: far removed from even the outskirts of popular opinion.
Last year, sold a dizzying 218,373 crossovers, and despite fuel prices determined to bend us over and give us something to cry about, other automakers have fleshed out their lines with a wide array of high-riding vehicles. boasts a total of five crossovers and SUVs in its stable, and it isn’t alone. With vehicles like the , and , offers buyers a total of seven different models that fit into the segment. The news doesn’t bode well for those of us who prefer a vehicle with superior handling mixed with the ability to haul people and cargo.
And there’s virtually no refuge in the suede-lined halls of our favorite luxury manufacturers, either. Brands from every corner of the globe are cashing in on the CUV/SUV craze with unabashed ferocity. So when the showed up in the driveway, we braced ourselves for a week of eating our vegetables, now fortified with doctor-recommended understeer and an extra helping of body roll. But this isn’t your typical CUV. With a 3.5-liter V6 pumping nearly 300 horsepower to the rear wheels and a lower-than-it-looks stance, this is a sport hatch masquerading in crossover clothing.
is known for hyper-exotic supercars, speed and big price tags. There is a reason, though, that we didn’t mention fuel efficiency. Hopped-up V8 and V12 engines don’t exactly conjure up images of tree-hugging, and, for the most part, we’re more than okay with that.
That could change, at least a little bit, with a patent that describes a hybrid powertrain that passes on flywheel technology in favor of a more mainstream effort. Car and Driver reports that the Italian supercar maker has filed patents for hybrid technology that would use a pair of electric motors and a battery pack.
The hybrid system would utilize one electric motor that assists the powertrain while the other runs auxiliary systems like air conditioning, infotainment and power steering. The patent also reportedly mentions that the technology would play nicely with a front-mounted 90-degree engine, making the a likely destination if this system ever sees the light of day.
There has been some speculation that Ferrari might opt for a production version of its racing-derived Kinetic Energy Recover System (KERS) that captures energy via a flywheel to provide short bursts of energy. KERS, which doesn’t utilize a battery pack, is already used in Formula One racing, and Ferrari introduced a in 2010 that included the fuel-saving tech.
Automotive News reports may make a decision on where the automaker plans to build a North American facility as soon as Wednesday of this week. The supervisory board is already scheduled to meet on April 18, and an unnamed source claims the new plant is on the agenda for discussion. Earlier reports indicated the manufacturer plans to , though Audi has been quick to denounce the notion, saying the board had yet to make a decision one way or the other. Publicly, Audi has made noise about locations in both Mexico and the United States.
Volkswagen investigated the possibility of building Audi vehicles alongside the in Chattanooga, Tennessee, though it’s now clear the luxury automaker is hungry for a plant of its own. Either way, the new plant will likely produce vehicles for sale in North America and export to other markets.
Some would say that the already looks like a car come to life when fitted with the factory installed 20- or 21-inch alloy wheels. But others – including the folks in this video, apparently – would say that those wheels simply aren’t large enough. Twenty-fours? Still too small. Twenty-sixes? You’re getting warmer.
No, the Camaro you see here is rolling on 32-inch wheels – in chrome, of course. We can’t even imagine how this hinders the Camaro’s drivability, but as for whether this modification is hot or not, we’ll leave that for you fine readers to discuss in the comments.
to see two videos starring the donked-out Camaro coupe, as well as a matching droptop model, as well.
The one point that Formula One racing’s detractors dwell on more than others is the monotony. How a gaggle of high-revving, state-of-the-art race cars speeding around circuits in some of the most exotic locales in the world could be considered monotonous, of course, would leave others scratching their heads, but that’s what the haters hate most. And not entirely without reason. After all, each championship season tends to be dominated by one driver or another.
2008 saw Lewis Hamilton of McLaren and Felipe Massa of battle it out for the title until the very last turn of the the very last lap of the very last race of the season, but for many years before and every year since it’s been utter domination: five years of Michael Schumacher, two of Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, Jenson Button in 2009 and two years of Sebastian Vettel that bring us up to the present.
The question on every race fan’s mind, then, is whether this year would again feature a single-team domination or whether we’d see another driver – or drivers – taking the lead. Heading out to Shanghai for this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, only two races had already been decided, and each was won by a different man driving for a different team, and neither had won from pole. Would this round prove any different? Keep reading to find out.
The Star Wars send-up may be most memorable for its flying Winnebago, but a hovercraft also features in the hilarious action. Like a lot of movie prop vehicles, the hovercraft that carted Dark Helmet around had no power source of its own (other than a Napoleonic in some scenes).
The found the hovercraft in the , and it turns out that after the movie, this prop became an honest-to-goodness working vehicle much like Lone Star became a prince at the end of the film. Originally built by famous customizer in just two weeks, the hovercraft now has a rear-mounted engine and can carry up to eight people in out-of-this-world style. Hit the link for the full story.
It’s been seven months since I crammed into a supercharged with the crew and fought tooth and nail for a in the Grand Touring class of the 2011 Targa Newfoundland. That amount of time has done nothing to dull my desire to head right back into the fray as soon as possible. While I was there, the FM team spent a good deal of time hanging out with our friends over at , and the crew just finished putting the final touches on its race documentary.
The first episode shows off the sweet SRT-tweaked the MotoMan guys got to play with. With plenty of suspension adjustments, a full cage and a bare-bones interior, the big white beast was as far from the NC Miata we campaigned as you could get. Watch the clip for an introduction to a few of the other competitors, including SRT CEO Ralph Gilles, as well as an interview with driver Brandon Fitch and myself. Keep an eye out for more episodes, too.
German aftermarket tuner Loder1899 tells us Horus was an Egyptian god, and says he was usually depicted as a falcon or a man with a falcon’s head. While we’re not seeing much that’s bird-like in this customized , a new front fascia with integrated fender flares and a similar treatment for the other end means the Evoque no longer looks like the baby of the clan. The vehicle in the photos is also fitted with optional gigantic 11×23-inch wheels shod with 315/35R23 Michelins and a lowered suspension. Without them, the conversion runs €3,032 – or about $4,000, including German taxes. Awful or awesome? Let us know what you think in the comments.
The just made its debut at the , and stuck there on its vaguely-Hofmeister-esque C-Pillar is a new version of the classic Impala mascot. The gracefully leaping African antelope is a little smoother and more rounded, but still the well-established icon it’s been since its 1958 introduction. It may seem a small detail, but changing a long-established bit of iconography is tricky. Designers must carefully balance any tweaking against recognizeability and consumer goodwill.
“We kept the stylized interpretation of the animal, and made the impala more muscular. We also added defined edges, to give the impala a sleek form and make it look like it was running fast” says Joan Kallio, lead creative designer for Chevrolet global badging, and the latest version of this chrome animal glyph is surely smoothed and stylized compared to the squiggly 1958 original. If the car is as successfully refined as its logo, the new Impala will do fine. Check out the press release after the jump.
Vietnamese traffic lieutenant Nguyen Manh Phan pulled over a bus driver in Hanoi for driving on the wrong side of the road. Instead of cooperating, the driver refused to show his papers and decided instead to flee the scene.
The officer, though, wasn’t keen on seeing driver Phung Hong Phuong get away so easily, so he positioned himself in front of the bus. When the bus began moving, the officer grabbed hold of the windshield wipers and hung on for dear life.
The bus driver did eventually pull over about a kilometer down the road after more officers and civilians pursued, but not before the incident was caught on tape.
Now, having personally visited the country in the last year, believe me when I tell you that traffic laws almost completely go unenforced and everyone drives on the wrong side of the road in Vietnam. In other words, this person must really have been driving dangerously to be singled out. What’s more, he had been released from prison in 2010 for his part in a fatal traffic accident.
The video, along with a news report on the incident, can be seen by .
Vietnamese traffic lieutenant Nguyen Manh Phan pulled over a bus driver in Hanoi for driving on the wrong side of the road. Instead of cooperating, the driver refused to show his papers and decided instead to flee the scene.
The officer, though, wasn’t keen on seeing driver Phung Hong Phuong get away so easily, so he positioned himself in front of the bus. When the bus began moving, the officer grabbed hold of the windshield wipers and hung on for dear life.
The bus driver did eventually pull over about a kilometer down the road after more officers and civilians pursued, but not before the incident was caught on tape.
Now, having personally visited the country in the last year, believe me when I tell you that traffic laws almost completely go unenforced and everyone drives on the wrong side of the road in Vietnam. In other words, this person must really have been driving dangerously to be singled out. What’s more, he had been released from prison in 2010 for his part in a fatal traffic accident.
The video, along with a news report on the incident, can be seen by .
Remember ? Back in the pre-bankruptcy days of late 2008, when the Big Three CEO’s were traveling to Washington to plead their case for funds, Ford’s Alan Mulally, General Motors’ then-CEO Rick Wagoner, and Chrysler’s former chief Bob Nardelli were publicly chastised for flying in corporate jets to the tune of $20,000 per round trip.
Two years earlier, president Mark Fields became a target of outrage when a Detroit-area TV station discovered that to ship Fields between Dearborn and his home in Florida.
Now this: The New York Times is reporting that Ford spent spent $178,571 on personal air travel for Mulally last year. While Ford no longer has a fleet of corporate jets, according to the report, it pays a charter service to transport Mulally and his kin. And that’s not all. Since this benefit is classified as “security measures,” Mulally gets off the hook for paying taxes on it, as he doesn’t have to report the benefit as income, according to the Times. , according to other reports.
While Ford refused comment, the article calls out the company for using this “common corporate tax trick” that it says robs the federal government of tax revenue from CEO’s like Mulally, meaning that taxpayers are essentially subsidizing his perks.
While the report concerns various corporate executives, it singles out Mulally, suggesting that any potential danger to Ford’s CEO has to be less than that posed to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who flies commercial airlines. The Times also says that former Apple CEO Steve Jobs “received no security services from Apple last year before he died.”
2013 is scheduled to be the final year of production for the sixth-generation , otherwise known as the C6. Having replaced the fifth-generation C5 Corvette in late 2005 as a 2006 model, that will mark a seven-year run on the market, which is impressively long in anyone’s book, but fairly typical in Corvette history.
Keeping the C6 fresh all those years had as much to do with special models like the and as it has with constantly tweaking smaller things like the options, accessories and colors that have been offered.
For its final model year, the 2013 C6 will reportedly get a last new color called Night Race Blue. The Corvette is already offered in two blue hues: one called Supersonic Blue Metallic (an option that costs an extra $300 on the standard Vette) and a lighter blue introduced for the 2012 model year called Carlisle Blue Metallic. The latter to celebrate the Corvettes at Carlisle event in Pennsylvania that claims to attract more privately owned Vettes in one place at one time than anywhere else in the world.
CorvetteBlogger also reports that will be deleting Competition Gray wheels from the options sheet and replacing them with the Black Painted Aluminum wheels you see above.
The Associated Press reports General Motors has pulled all 11 IndyCar engines from testing after racer James Hinchcliffe blew one during testing at Sonoma. GM evidently was concerned enough about the 10 other engines having similar problems that it decided to swap them all and face the resulting sanctions.
Under IndyCar’s current rules, Hinchcliffe, driver of the GoDaddy.com will be penalized for the failure despite the fact that it had nothing to do with the driver. IndyCar prohibits engine changes until the units have reached a minimum of 1,200 miles, a figure that is set to jump to 1,850 miles after this weekend. IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard, meanwhile, maintains that the rule is meant to reduce costs for teams. He also pointed out that both and have received similar penalties this season. But that hasn’t stopped some from grumbling about the rules.
Until this point, Chevrolet has done exceedingly well this season, nabbing the first two poles and taking a victory at the season-opening race. The company currently holds the lead in the manufacturer’s title with 18 points – six points ahead of Honda.
Hinchcliffe, meanwhile, says he’s excited about the challenge that the engine swap presents. He, along with a smattering of other racers, will now start at the back of the pack, and Indycar’s rulemakers have themselves a new controversy to contend with.
Occasionally, we get the impression Jeremy Clarkson is simply screwing with the rest of the world. Either that, or he has no bodily control over over the way his lips, tongue and vocal chords move.
In the past, the “Top Gear” presenter has been notoriously belligerent toward any form of transportation that doesn’t involve the burning of hydrocarbons, bicycles included. After famously railing that bikes and cars have entered into an undeclared war in London, Clarkson has come out in support of Copenhagen’s bicycle culture, calling it “fan-bleeding-tastic.” If that’s not strange enough, he claims he would live in the city in a heartbeat.
Confused? According to Clarkson, the difference is that, while bikes are forced to co-exist with cars in London, Copenhagen cyclists simply have to contend with one another. As a result, there’s no weird high-visibility clothing required and significantly less hostility toward your fellow man.
Makes sense to us, though we have a hard time envisioning Clarkson on a bike. The last time the personality took to something with less than four wheels, .
You have to love the global auto industry. will be introducing a Chinese-built version of the American , a car that’s based on the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, at the on April 23. Dubbed “Viaggio,” production of the new sedan will launch in July, with sales commencing in China by the end of the year.
While Fiat isn’t saying whether the model will be exported from China, the Viaggio will be powered by Fiat’s 1.4-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder. Two versions will be available, one making 120 hp and the other 150, with either a five-speed manual or a dual-clutch automatic gearbox. From the teaser images Fiat released, we can see that the car basically looks like a Dart with different front and rear fascias, which give it a somewhat less sporty look. As is Fiat’s way, some tasteful application of chrome makes the Viaggio seem like a more upscale product than the budget-oriented Dodge.
The Italian-American-Chinese mutt will be produced under Fiat’s partnership with Chinese automaker Guangzhou Automobile Group. GAC also has joint ventures with , , Isuzu, and (and formerly with Peugeot), giving us cause to wonder whether GAC employs more factory workers or lawyers.
Scroll down to read the full release and be sure to check out our .
2013 is scheduled to be the final year of production for the sixth-generation , otherwise known as the C6. Having replaced the fifth-generation C5 
