Post by Kasey Kagawa

I want to clear something up right now on this whole crossover/CUV trend that’s infesting the automotive industry at the moment. There are two types of crossovers. One kind are those car-chassis based SUVs that we can’t call SUVs anymore because if you do that, Greenpeace pickets outside your factories and your sanctimonious asshole neighbors will put a pickaxe through your windshield; the others are minivans on stilts that we can’t call “minivans on stilts” because that’s not a very sexy marketing term, while calling it a “crossover” makes it sound like you could use it to cross the Darien Gap when in reality they would have trouble crossing the street in a heavy rainstorm. Most crossovers are of the first type, like the Ford Edge, Mazda CX-9 and the new Saturn Vue. These are usually cars that were slated to be called SUVs until it was revealed that SUVs are directly responsible for global warming, violent crime in the inner cities, the war in Iraq, and the national debt. The second type were largely developed in response to this new information, and are, as previously stated, basically minivans on stilts. Prime examples of this are the Mercedes-Benz R-class and the Chrysler Pacifica. Gun to my head, I vastly prefer the first type over the second because even if you couldn’t go rock-crawling in them, they’re usually not completely hopeless on a rough dirt road.

In a particularly depressing development for both companies, Dodge and BMW have both made news recently regarding future crossover vehicles. Dodge, showing a lemming-like lack of original thought at a time when they need to be at their most creative, debuted the Journey, a minivan on stilts meant to replace the Dodge Caravan, which was also a minivan, but since it lacked a three-inch lift, didn’t fit in with Dodge’s new “tall cars” image. BMW, long known as an innovator and creator of great cars, has decided to throw that reputation to the wind and build not one but three crossovers. Two of them, the F3 and the F5, based on the 3-series and 5-series chassis and named after the Fujita-Pearson scale of tornado damage, are more of the minivan on stilts type, while the X6, which is close to release, is of the car-based SUV type. The spy photos of the X6 prove that it is unspeakably ugly, and the odds are good that the F3 and the F5 will also be able to give small children nightmares at 50 yards. Worst of all, they will both help contribute to the slow slide into blandness and mediocrity that has been creeping up on BMW in the last few years. Maybe both BMW and Dodge will come to their senses soon and realize that both companies need to stop trying to be the same as everyone else, Dodge for survival reasons and BMW because that’s just what they’re supposed to do, and stop trying to fill a useless segment just because their market research people tell them to. More likely than not though, the number of crossovers will steadily increase until you can walk from Los Angeles to San Diego on a immense carpet of them, at least until the environmentalists decide that they kill the planet too and they change the name to something else.

Press release for the Dodge Journey below the jump.

Preview: 2008 BMW F5 [Motor Authority]

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Post by Kasey Kagawa

Our posting schedule, Video of the Week excepted, could charitably be described as sporadic, and realistically described as absolutely pathetic and a shame to the online automotive journalism community. However, sometimes there comes a bit of news that’s so frickin’ awesome that we must shake off our protective cocoon of Cheetos bags, Mountain Dew cans, Sam Adams bottles and Xbox 360 controller cables, arise from the Naugahide beanbags where we passed out last night and do some Goddamn journalism. This is one of those times. Prepare yourselves.

Audi has announced that the RS6 will have 571 horsepower, and that’s 70 more imaginary ponies than the BMW M5, its direct rival. However, this is not nearly awesome enough to justify this post and would only rate a brief awakening and maybe a upset groan and rolling over, if not for the fact that industry rumor says instead of a paltry 571 HP, the RS6’s twin-turbo V10 will have more than 600 HP. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, a Audi sedan could have almost as much horsepower as a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. I’m sure this would be terribly exciting news if you were reading this a day or so in the past, but as it stands, it’s just really cool, and something worth commemorating in our own little part of the Intertubes. We’re going back to sleep now.

Shhhh! Audi RS6 may produce more than 600 HP [Autoblog]

Post by Kasey Kagawa

For a company with the design firepower of Ian Callum behind them, the man did the main design work on the Aston Martin DB9, which is one of the most stunningly beautiful shapes ever created by man, his first big premier for Jaguar was met with some mixed reviews. The new XK has mostly been hailed as a styling success, but some people out there think that it’s a overly complicated mess with the face of a surprised trout or a fourth-gen Ford Taurus. The new XF is their second try at this styling philosophy, and I can’t imagine that this one will be as well received. The Jaguar XF will replace the aging and even more fish-faced S-Type, which was inspired by Blinky from The Simpsons. It seems to be that they could only afford to pay Mr. Callum to do the parts of the car in front of and behind the passenger compartment, as the middle of the exterior is basically a carbon copy of the S-Type with the upper crease removed to make the car look lower. The roof line has been lowered slightly and the windshield was raked back a little more, and that’s the extent of the styling changes for the passenger compartment. The rest of the car is a well done adaptation of the XK design ideas onto the somewhat portly S-Type shape, and from certain angles, it even looks sporty. This is a definite improvement over the S-Type, which James May famously said only looked good from underneath. The front and side profiles are attractive, and Jaguar’s new design philosophy makes the transplant from the XK to the XF intact.

The real question is whether or not the philosophy itself is all that good. The best analogy that I can draw is to BMW’s much-maligned “flame surfacing” style. The BMW Z4 was the first appearance of Chris Bangle’s new direction for BMW cars, and was the flashpoint for the hate over all the subsequent BMWs. Over the years since it debuted though, the Z4 has gained acceptance and is even held up by some as beautiful. In comparison, the E60 BMW 5-series was considered ugly when it came out and is still considered ugly today. I think that the main difference between these two cars, and what I think will be the make-or-break factor for whether or not the Jaguar XF design grows on us like the Z4 did, is whether or not the design is ugly because it’s challenging or ugly because it’s a compromise. The reaction to the Z4 was powered by just how different it was from previous BMWs and even previous BMW roadsters like the Z1 and Z3, while the E60 5-series is, was, and always will be a ugly compromise with the same kind of glasses that your crazy aunt with 30 cats wears and a weight to match. I think that the XK will come to be accepted and loved in the same way the Z4 is. I’m not so sure about the XF, though. It seems too much like a compromise to ever truly fit with their “Gorgeous” ads.

Massive press release containing info on power, interior toys, and other such things below the jump.

Jaguar XF Photos

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Post by Kasey Kagawa

This week’s lesson is the metaphor, a common literary device, often used with great effect by skilled writers and even more frequently horribly abused by mediocre writers; I’ll leave it up to the readers to decide which we fall under. As an example, this footage of David Coulthard’s spin out and fire during practice at the Turkish Grand Prix is a perfect metaphor for the massive flaming failure that is year’s Formula 1 world championship. We’ve had wonderful era of earnest competition between the top tier teams in F1 the last couple of years, starting with the rise of Renault and McLaren in the 2005 F1 season. It continued into the 2006 season with the return of the Ferrari-Renault dual, the return of Honda and their win at the Hungarian Grand Prix. The 2006 season ended on a high but somewhat sad note, with the retirement of Michael Schumacher and the promise of major changes in the F1 team balance, hopefully leveling the playing field and promoting competition within the sport.

Instead, the constructor’s championship has become a one-and-a-half-horse race, with the unstoppable duo of Fernando Alonso and Louis Hamilton laying waste to all that stand before them when they’re not going at each other’s throats in the pits. In the Ferrari camp, Kimi Raikkonen has spent his season completely blowing his big chance to finally get with Ferrari after all those years of bitching about not being with Ferrari, and Felipe Massa has been spending half his races showing the amazing level of skill that only comes when incredible talent is shaped by the very best in the sport (see Brazilian Grand Prix 2006, where he blew the entire rest of the field clean off the track) and the other half spinning in circles and showing the kind of amateurish impatience that keeps him from being a serious contender for the driver’s championship.

Rant continues below the jump.

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Post by Kasey Kagawa

To be entirely honest, most Clarkson videos are a mix of bombast and shouting, all ego and no info. See Heaven and Hell or The Good The Bad The Ugly if you don’t know what I’m talking about. It can be a lot of fun to watch him wave his arms about and shout in a high-pitched tone of voice, but about fifteen minutes or so of concentrated Clarkson is all I can take. Fortunately, his Speed documentary series is much more fact-based. Sure, the History of Flight episode is predictably Brit-focused, but it’s still the BBC. The two episodes presented here, The Thrill of Speed and Superstars of Speed, are pure facts and very well-presented. Plus, we get to see what Clarkson looks like when he’s scared out of his wits. Each episode has a segment that renders the Great Talker absolutely speechless, and that alone makes them worth watching. Second video below the jump.

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Post by Kasey Kagawa

I’m a big fan of karting. It’s a great way to learn how to drive fast, a fun and safe way to introduce those of us who don’t have race gas running through their veins to racing and driving, and it’s not that hard to find a good karting track. Of course, the superkarts you see in these videos aren’t exactly the same as the lawnmower-powered put-puts you find at your local karting track. They pack 250cc engines, full aero packages, five or six speed sequential gearboxes, and can go from 0-60 in around 3 seconds and hit 150 MPH, so getting a helmet’s eye view of Laguna Seca on a superkart should be one hell of a video. I enjoyed it, at least. Also, the Isle of Man superkart video that got me on this path is posted below the jump.

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Post by Kasey Kagawa

We need rally in the US. I haven’t found anyone who disagrees with this statement who knows a single thing about racing. Not only is it a spectacular sport to watch, it’s one of the easiest motorsports to get into, the tech from it actually makes its way down to cars that normal humans buy on the street (unlike Formula 1), and it’s an entirely new kind of motorsport that I think has a lot of potential appeal. Rally America is smart to get together with the extreme sports side of ESPN, as NASCAR is currently sucking all the air out of the traditional motorsports coverage in the US, and if this year is anything even close to last year, the rally event at the X-Games should be an absolute blast to watch. So if you want rallying to really make it in the US, we need all the viewers we can get. Please tune in to the X-Games rally event on Sunday, from 3:00 to 6:00 PM EST, and to ESPN2’s coverage of the Rally America championship races, all of which are listed on the Rally America website. Let’s show people what rally is really all about.

Rally America