The Mythbusters have finally tackled the long-unanswered question, “Why don’t cars have square wheels?”
What’s that? You’ve never wondered why? Neither have we, because it’s freaking obvious. But equally obvious is how awesome it would be to test out a square-wheeled vehicle anyway, which is exactly what the Mythbusters guys did, using an older pickup.
While the full episode is not available online, you can get the gist of the segment by watching the eight clips Discovery has posted, which we’ve conveniently organized for your viewing pleasure .
has announced it will offer wireless charging in its new . The charging bin will work with MP3 players and iPhone, Blackberry and Android mobile phones, provided those devices are fitted with a special case.
The Pentastar says that this $199.99 Mopar accessory is an “industry first,” but we’ll take the liberty of assigning an asterisk* to that claim, as wireless charging has been offered as a for some time now (even at new car dealers). This is just the first such offering from an official branch of an OEM. The wireless charging hardware isn’t a factory option, it’s actually a dealer-installed accessory, which means that buyers will have to pay for installation or do it themselves.
Either way, wireless charging is a very cool piece of technology, and Chrysler does deserve credit for being the first automaker to officially offer it throughout its dealers nationwide – asterisk or otherwise. to watch a Mopar video of the technology in action.
So a new front-drive will now set you back $40,185, but that’s really not the most interesting pricing news from . That would be the RX 350 F Sport, which debuts for the 2013 model year in July, carrying a base sticker of $47,875.
While all versions of the RX get the new spindle grille, the F Sport packs Lexus’ eight-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters and a performance-tuned suspension that employs Lexus Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management, akin to what’s available on the line. Cosmetic enhancements include a mesh grille and F Sport badges, aluminum pedals and black leather seats with contrasting white stitching. A unique set of 19-inch wheels completes the package, which we look forward to getting our hands on.
Lexus has also announced the base price of its hybrid RX, which will start at $46,805, and the hybrid GS. When the goes on sale in May, it will be priced from $59,845. Additionally, the 2012 will see the price bumped $200 across the board. Scroll down to read the full press release.
The Koenigsegg Agera R recently took to the Nürburgring for a little fun. Not surprisingly, there were a few cameras on hand to see the 1,100-horsepower titan whomp its way around the course, including one lens stationed at the exit to the pits. At the end of the track’s long straight, the vantage point allows viewers to see the vehicles on track at the peak of speed. For the Agera R, that means a flyby at somewhere around 250 mph. Now, we’ll be the first to say there’s no way of discerning just how fast the Koenigsegg is actually traveling when it comes by the pits. Sadly, “damn quick” isn’t an acceptable unit of speed.
Check out the video to see what we mean. The first half of the clip shows the supercar simply cruising around. If you want to see the real action, we suggest jumping ahead to around 1:30.
is poised to rapidly inflate its presence in China, and it believes the way forward is through an $11 billion spending plan. “We want to revive Volvo and give the brand its strength back,” says , Chairman of Geely Automobile Holdings. Speaking with German magazine , Shufu disclosed that Geely will put up $11 billion for a new engine factory, increased research and development and technology upgrades. However, Volvo’s Per-Ake Froberg tells that Volvo itself will be providing the funds through borrowing and other means.
No matter where the funding comes from, the investment is meant to aggressively drive the Volvo brand in the Chinese market, where the Swedish brand sold about 50,000 cars last year. Geely wants Volvo to account for 20 percent of the premium car market in just three years(!) with a target of 200,000 vehicles for 2014. It’s all part of an ambitious plan to double Volvo sales over the next ten years, and for its stewardship, Geely will get a new premium brand for China that uses Volvo tech and engineering. In addition, the two brands will be combining their purchasing power to get better deals from suppliers and small engine and electric vehicle development will also be shared between Volvo and Geely.
As the last Swedish brand standing, it’s heartening to see that Geely has designs on increasing Volvo’s sales. Here’s hoping the recently voracious appetite for cars in the Chinese market doesn’t shortchange American buyers looking for Nordic iron.
Canada’s likes to take a car, any car, and make it wilder. The they did looks intriguingly evil. The wheels they’ve created for the are amazing.
Their latest canvas is the , which became Project Pryzm. “The objective behind Project Pryzm was to create a car that would leave you speechless,” says SR Auto. Let’s just say they’re getting really close, but we still have a few things to say about it.
These guys apparently took inspiration from the and one of the pigs from , and we think they’ve come up with mixed results. We like the idea of a more aggressive iQ, we’re just not sure we’re fans of one with this much going on. Passengers are treated to an upgraded interior with leather seats and diamond-stitched suede inserts on the seat centers and door panels.
Check out our gallery for more images, then let us know what you think of this pint-sized mouth-breather.
There has been plenty of debate about whether bicyclists should be able to take up a lane typically reserved for motor vehicles. While that argument is far from settled, we can all agree that hit-and-run accidents between cars and bikes have got to stop.
At least one bus driver seems to agree with that statement, as evidenced by the action displayed in this video posted by the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania police department. The driver in question, a minor, faces multiple charges.
After seeing the bicyclist get hit, a quick-thinking bus driver can be seen blocking both traffic lanes, leaving the hit-and-run driver with nowhere to go. Well done. to watch the traffic camera footage.
It’s always interesting to see what the guys who make and sell speed parts will build to show off their wares. Heck, that’s the appeal of the show in a nutshell. So we’re intrigued by this new project from Ford Racing, despite its unfortunate color, “Gotta Have It Green,” a hue that doesn’t exist in the natural world. (Outside of 1980’s album covers, that is.)
As reported on , the project starts with everyone’s favorite V8, the Coyote five-liter, but adds a whole bunch of stuff from the Ford Racing Performance Parts catalog, including a 2.3-liter, intercooled, twin-screw Whipple supercharger. The car has a six-speed manual, of course, and there’s an 8.8-inch axle out back. It’s been lowered an inch, thanks to new FRPP springs paired with matching shocks. Stopping power comes courtesy of a 14-inch, four-piston Brembo setup and Laguna Seca brake duct kit. This project ‘Stang is also equipped with a Mustang GT Side Exhaust System, 19-by-9-inch wheels with massive 255/40/ZR19 Pirelli PZero tires, and the Laguna Seca Adjustable Front Splitter.
While we don’t see any performance specs for the car, we know .
You can check out all the images of the Ford Racing Mustang project car in our .
If you haven’t noticed, NBC’s The Office has really jumped the shark since Steve Carrell left the show at the end of last season. Or maybe the beginning of the end was Pam and Jim’s wedding during the sixth season. Regardless, the point is that the show is no longer very funny or edgy, nor does it ever make the audience uncomfortable in the way the brilliant original BBC version did. Rather, as the main characters in the American version of the show have become caricatures, The Office has grown predictable and formulaic.
And this is why can launch an ad campaign like its . Despite the brief, 30-second running times of the ads, the characters are instantly recognizable and the “plots” are easy to follow. Although the scenes set in a Chevy dealership play with the tropes created by the Emmy Award-winning series, they do so to little comic effect. Because comedy isn’t the point – these are ads, after all, full of ham-handed product information and designed to sell cars.
If anyone should understand that it’s , General Motors’ Chief Marketing Officer. Yet he told Automotive News at the New York Auto Show that GM has “talked about turning this into an actual show because we’ve got so much material.”
Well, that Chevy product line isn’t nearly the joke it once was, but if you say so…
Let’s just chalk this one up to Ewanick being a bit starstruck. “Under The Blue Arch” was created by Randall Einhorn, one of the directors of The Office, and it “stars” Wayne Wilderson, who appeared on the NBC show in 2006.
Cancer sucks. And pediatric cancer sucks the worst. Without hesitation, we would trade all the exotic cars in the world for a cure.
But you know what doesn’t suck? So it’s pretty cool that will auction off the first one to benefit the Austin Hatcher Foundation For Pediatric Cancer. The organization, based in Chattanooga, TN, is an official charity of the American Le Mans Series, which is presumably why it was picked. At the Viper reveal at New York, Chrysler also announced it would .
So the first 2013 SRT will cross the stage at Barrett-Jackson Orange County, which goes down June 22-24. It’ll be interesting to see what it brings in, considering the first 2013 427 convertible’s .
And if you aren’t deep-pocketed enough to get in on the Viper hunt, helping out the Hatcher Foundation doesn’t require bidding – you can .
“Our mission for the gen-five Viper was to build the best Viper yet.”
Those words pretty much sum up the seven videos we’ve embedded after the break. Of course, a whole heck of a lot of engineering went into realizing that mission, and the team from is justifiably proud of what they have been able to accomplish.
From the evocative curves of the body to the subtle changes to the 8.4-liter V10 that were necessary to net 640 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque, turned the cameras on its own staff to show just how the 2013 SRT Viper went from the drawing board to an actual vehicle.
Wanna watch? Of course you do. for the video extravaganza.
The stole the this week with its 640-horsepower 8.4-liter V10 and the promise of even better tire-melting performance. It’s the crown jewel in Chrysler’s Street and Racing Technology brand headed by Ralph Gilles, President and CEO of SRT, Senior Vice President of Chrysler Design and the man most credited with resurrecting this beast.
Discontinued in 2010, the Viper was always a brutal and unforgiving car. It was the baseball bat of supercars.
Autoblog got a chance to sit down with Gilles and ask him five questions. Always the gentleman, Gilles answered six.
Gilles and his team walked a narrow line refining the Viper to the point of Italian Boss Sergio Marchionne’s acceptance, but still remaining true to the car.
Before, the Viper was brutal, it’s transmission tunnel heated up so much, the sparse cockpit turned into a crock pot. It did not even offer stability control, now required by law, meaning one wrong move, one slip of the clutch and the Viper would be wrapped around a light pole faster than an airbag deployment.
Even getting out of the Viper, with its side-mounted exhaust pipes, could be a challenge, giving the car one last chance to leave its mark, literally, on your calf.
Autoblog got a chance to sit down with Gilles and ask him five questions. Always the gentleman, Gilles answered six.
AB: The new design is pure Viper, but it seems to have some influence from those Italian super cars. What’s the percentage of the Viper that’s American, percentage that’s Italian?
Gilles: Maybe five percent Italian. The seats, the seats are the same supplier as Ferrari. It’s all American. Done inside, done outside, it’s all all American.
There have been a number of iconic racing liveries over the course of history – JPS and Gulf spring immediately to mind – and every historic racing fan has his or her favorite. But few are as downright awesome as Martini. The Italian vermouth label has sponsored everything from Lancias to , but many of its very awesomest have been . Like this bitchin’ 917/LH.
This long-tail version (Langheck in German) of the all-conquering 917 racer was fielded twice at Le Mans: once by Porsche Salzburg in 1970, and once by Martini Racing (which gave it its enduring paintjob) in 1971. It qualified first and second at those respective runnings, but proved fragile over the course of the 24-hour race and failed to finish both times.
The overall results don’t mean that this isn’t a devastatingly beautiful example of motor racing history, or that it’s anything less than priceless. Better check it out in our gallery of images from the show floor before it’s secreted back off to Porsche Museum in Stuttgart.
Anyone with an Xbox 360 and Forza Motorsport 4 will be able to get their hands on a virtual version of the all-new . As revealed at its debut, the hotly anticipated American supercar is headed to the game as part of an exclusive Viper Pack.
Turn 10, the studio behind the game’s development, has revealed that the Viper Pack will be available this summer, and in addition to a drivable version of the Viper, will also include a Viper Autovista experience that lets players inspect the car very closely using their controllers or the hands-free Kinect system. Pricing for the pack has not yet been mentioned, and though not confirmed, we hope the that debuted alongside the production car will also be digitized for the game and included in the pack.
to watch the official 50-second teaser video of the 2013 SRT Viper in Forza Motorsport 4.
Last week we brought you Inside Line’s list of the 10 cars most likely to be . The came out on top among the ladies. But what’s most likely to be owned by a guy? Minivans? Fuel-efficient hatchbacks? Hybrids?
No.
At the top of is the very masculine, testosterone-oozing . It should be no surprise that 95.3% of 458 owners are men. We sure would like to meet the other 4.7%.
Ahem. Anyway, in second place is the , then the , the and then, at No. 5, the . So far, we’ve pretty much recited every male motorhead’s ultimate wish list. Seriously, what self-respecting man doesn’t put himself to sleep every night running through the gears of any of those cars?
At No. 6, is the perennial , then the at No. 7 with 87.9% male ownership. No. 8 is the obligatory closely followed by the at No. 9. Rounding out the list at No. 10 is the consummate mid-life crisis with 86.9% male ownership.
So where does that leave the Ford F-650? Are there really that many women buying that monster?
After we saw of a long-wheelbase for China, we knew it one was coming. Now has confirmed that the car will indeed bow at Auto China 2012, otherwise known as the , which kicks off on April 23.
The LWB 3 Series has an 4.3-inch wheelbase stretch and will be offered with three powertrains. The smallest is the 184-horsepower, turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder that’s not available in North America. The 240-hp, 2.8-liter sold here in the 328i will also be available, as will the 300-hp, turbo 3.0-liter six-cylinder. The LWB 3 Series models will carry the “Li” suffix like we’ve seen on the , so the three models will be designated 320Li, 328Li and 335Li.
Click to see the press release, and be sure to check out our .
If there’s any place a SUV can feel at home, surely it’s Manhattan. Only fitting, then, that the updated has debuted at the .
The revised luxury crossover has been treated to a mild facelift, but as with so many things, it’s what’s inside that counts with the new . The cabin has been updated with a series of cosmetic and functional changes (new steering wheel, new shifter, etc.), but the bigger news is its fresh electronics. Cadillac has imbued the angular high-rider with its new CUE infotainment and connectivity system, complete with an eight-inch capacitive touchscreen. Other additions include the Safety Alert Seat system and active safety features like automatic front- and rear braking, adaptive cruise control, and so on.
In short, it looks to be a better SRX than the one it succeeds, and you can check it out in our gallery of live shots above and the stock shots from the manufacturer below.
Our sister site visits the University of Michigan in their latest episode to check out a bipedal robot named MABEL. While other similar robots like ASIMO (built by ), and the Partner Robots (from ) have wowed crowds with their ability to walk upright, MABEL advances the technology with a complex system of springs in its knees so that its gait more resembles actual human locomotion. This enables MABEL to actually run like a human, with both “feet” leaving the ground for part of each stride.
MABEL actually set a world record for fastest two-legged machine last summer, hitting a peak pace of 6.8 miles per hour. (By comparison, ASIMO tops out at 3.7 mph.) More importantly, MABEL is able to walk and run over more than just flat terrain, as it can dynamically balance similar to a human. University of Michigan researchers say this technology may be able to help the disabled regain the ability to walk some day, or be deployed for future vehicles that don’t use wheels.
The is new for the 2013 model year, so it makes sense that would jump start the vehicle’s launch with a new ad campaign. Honda’s luxury arm went with the “Gulliver’s Travels” theme, which of course demonstrates that the refreshed crossover is big and luxurious, yet not too big. Get it? Gulliver is a giant and yet the RDX is big enough for him… moving on.
to watch the pair of 30-second spots. In the first ad, the little people give Gulliver an RDX, and in the second spot they wash it. As you can imagine, it takes a lot of Lilliputians to wash a mid-size luxury CUV.
You’d expect someone with a nickname like “hotshoe” or “leadfoot” to be behind the wheel of a . “Slowhand” less so, but that’s the nickname of one Eric Clapton, who in addition to being one of the most highly acclaimed rock and blues guitarists of all time also happens to be a huge nut for the Prancing Horse marque. In fact, Clapton is understood to have a couple of years back, where he presumably got the reddest of red carpet treatments while placing an order for a custom Ferrari.
That unique one-off, called the SP12 EPC has been dropping on and off of our radar, with some a couple of weeks ago and some hasty of the custom creation leaving a dealership in the UK a few days thereafter. But if those didn’t provide clear enough a picture for you, a batch of alleged patent renderings have now surfaced showing every line of the car’s bespoke shape. Check it out in the gallery for a closer look.
