Post by Kasey Kagawa

For most people, the only media that they see relating to cars on a regular basis are advertisements on TV, which is a little sad, considering that the purpose of an ad is to distort the truth about a model, to amplify the good aspects and deemphasize the negative ones. Sure, it might be a great car, but if all you ever saw were ads, you’d think that not only is every car almost perfect, but other people have way cooler commutes than you do, like along the Malibu coastline or up the grade on the back side of the Palms to Pines Highway.

Some ads are fun to watch on top of warping your mind with subliminal messages to buy another car, though. The one company that’s been pretty consistent with turning out the really great ads is Honda UK. It started with Cog, which is posted below the jump, but the best ad they’ve done, and what I think is the best car ad ever, is Impossible Dream. It’s a crash course in Honda history, including the S500, their first car, the Super Cub, the first thing they sold outside of Japan, and historic racing vehicles like the RA272 F1 car that took Honda to their first F1 victory in 1965 and the 2RC413 motorcycle that captured their first Isle of Man TT victory. It’s a great piece to boost public perception of what Honda is trying to promote their brand as representing, and it’s very creatively done. If it wasn’t a two minute ad, Honda would have probably ran it over here as well, where it would probably do the brand some good.

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Post by Kasey Kagawa

Well, it’s finally happened. The UAW has started a company-wide strike against GM. Why? Hell if I know. I stopped caring about the UAW/GM deal months ago. I just figured that Farago’s GM Deathwatch piece needed another link. He knows a lot more about this whole thing that I do. They’re both wrong, GM will settle, blah blah blah. Wake me up when something that hasn’t been coming for months now happens.

General Motors Death Watch 146: The UAW Strikes GM

Post by Kasey Kagawa

You have to hand it to the Germans. When they want to do something, they don’t do it by half-measures. VW is leading the charge towards an automotive Fourth Reich with their new plans to overtake Toyota as the world’s largest manufacturer. Their plans include expansions of their business in the US, India and China and the debut of twelve new models in the next three years. Of course, their current position is, well, decidedly not near the front of the pack, with approximately 6 million cars sold annually to Toyota’s 9 million. They need to not only overcome this massive sales difference, but they also need to nail their big debuts in China and India, revive the practically comatose US sales market, come out with probably two or three huge sales hits, reverse thinking about German reliability, all while keeping the same level of build and materials quality that got them where they are today. Now, that’s not to say that it’s impossible. If anyone can turn around an impossible economic situation, it’s the Germans. I don’t think it’ll be as easy as when Toyota did it, though.

When Toyota decided to knock GM off the top perch, they had a lot of things going for them. They already had a reputation for being totally bombproof when it comes to reliability and the people who bought their cars weren’t looking for a well-apportioned interior, just a big metal box that you sit in and moves you around, probably on four wheels, and that doesn’t break down. VW, on the other hand, makes its current sales based on the idea that their cars are a little bit more expensive than the competition, but if you’re willing to pay the slightly greater costs, it’s better than its competitors and worth the extra money. It’s a great niche to work if you’re comfortable being fourth or so, but if you ever try to step it up to second or first, you’d better be able to do it without sacrificing your core business or you’ll piss off all your old supporters and stand a high chance of not being able to attract enough business to replace them, and if Toyota is any indication, that might not be possible. Toyota’s customer satisfaction and reliability has suffered recently, largely due to their shift in priorities caused by their bid for number one, and I don’t know if it’s possible to be a serious challenger for the top spot without cutting into build quality and reliability. If this really is the case, I recommend VW take a cue from Honda and instead of focusing on being the top seller, focus on making their cars as good as they can make them and take satisfaction from being the best instead of being the biggest.

Volkswagen plans to overtake Toyota as world’s largest by 2015 [Autoblog]

Post by Kasey Kagawa

I was going to do a post on the cool new Bose electromagnetic suspension. It uses linear actuators as shock absorbers and springs and uses computers to calculate the voltages needed to adequately cancel out the forces placed on the suspension system on the fly, making the whole thing look seamless. Supposedly it gives you the supple ride quality of a luxury car with the handling of a sports car, and the section where they use it like a hydraulic suspension to jump the car over a big piece of wood while it’s moving is really cool and moves my dreams of owning a Bond car one step closer to reality. Then I realized that it’s really boring to watch and dug up this video of the Mythbusters blowing up a car instead. Enjoy.

Post by Kasey Kagawa

I’ve already made my feelings on the 2007 F1 season abundantly clear, and the fallout of the stupidly-named “Stepneygate” scandal is the final nail in the coffin for this farce of a season.

After a couple weeks of it looking like it was just a couple guys in McLaren working on collaborating to create a engineering team that would be hired by another F1 team, emails between Hamilton, Alonso and Pedro de la Rosa, the third McLaren team driver, show that they had knowledge of the technology that was leaked from Ferrari to McLaren. The three testified in front of the FIA regarding emails specifically requesting information regarding the current Ferrari F1 cars, showing that they knew that Mike Coughlan and Nigel Stepney were exchanging information regarding the technical specs of the Ferrari car, such as weight balance, aerodynamics, and braking system. In response to this evidence, the FIA has stripped McLaren of their points in the Constructor’s Championship, while Alonso and Hamilton keep their points in exchange for their testimony. The McLaren team has also been assessed a $100 million fine, minus whatever amount McLaren would have won at the end of the season if they hadn’t been caught cheating. This penalty pretty much guarantees Ferrari the Constructor’s Championship, making the rest of the season a foregone conclusion. At least ALMS is good this year.

Full text of FIA World Motorsport Council decision [Grandprix.com]

We are now at the cutting edge, nay, literally standing upon the single row of atoms that comprise the absolute apex of the nano-scale crystalline metallic sword of TV technology. This last weekend was spent fighting with cables, installers, CableCARDs, and customer support drones to set up our new FIOS TV account. It’s extra fancy and shiny when it works, which is about 80% of the time at the moment. So before I dive back into the tangled morass of cables and ineptitude that is the FIOS TV CableCARD install process, here’s a video of a car that’s just as sophisticated as our home theater system will be when I or whoever takes my place after I fall in battle finishes setting it up. Next week, I tackle SlingBox. Pray for me.

Post by Kasey Kagawa

It just turned into a bad day to be a German car manufacturer. 7tune.com has transcribed an article from Holiday Auto, a Japanese auto magazine, that reveals the full extent of the curb-stomping that Nissan is about to deliver to Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi. Finding that their VK45 V8 was too pedestrian for the new GT-R, they instead lopped two cylinders off of the VRH35L Le Mans V8 and added two turbochargers that are built into the exhaust manifolds, like human beings in an Alien nest. This apparently gives them extra stability, weight saving and quickens the response, as well as making it next to impossible to modify the turbochargers. The engine was also touched by the tuning gods of Cosworth, who bequeathed an aluminum monoblock design and lightened various parts of the engine to make it rev harder and faster. All of this mechanical goodness means that the engine puts out about 473 HP at 6800 RPM and 419 lb-ft between 1700 and 5600 RPM, which puts it almost dead even with the Porsche 911 Turbo and blows the RS4, the C63 AMG and the M3 away. The 911 Turbo makes 480 HP at 6000 RPM and 460 lb-ft between 1950 and 5000 RPM. They both turn in identical 0-60 times of 3.9 seconds however. This differs from the official figures on the Porsche US website, but I don’t know if there are any changes between the US and the Japanese versions of the 911 Turbo. Also, I wonder how understated the Nissan figures are, since the R32-34 GT-Rs were famous for understating their horsepower outputs.

Even if the 0-60 numbers are slightly inflated for the GT-R, that’s still damn-near Porsche 911 Turbo beating performance in a package with an even smarter AWD system and looks that don’t originate from the 1970’s for half the price. That’s right. The current base price of a 911 Turbo (and let’s face it, no one buys a base Turbo) is $126,200, while the Japanese price when converted from yen is about $69,000, and judging by the price comparisons on the 7tune.com article, that number’s larger than it will most likely be over here. So the GT-R looks better and has them beat on the HP/dollar ratio. Now all that remains to be seen is if it drives as good as it looks.

VR38VETT Confirmed by Holiday Auto [7tune.com]

Post by Kasey Kagawa

Autoblog snagged a few pics of the new Wiesmann GT MF5. It’s got the BMW 5.0L V10 in it, and I’m sure it’s a great car, but it’s hideous to a degree that should be outlawed. Check out below the jump for what was the first thing I thought of when I saw the MF5.

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Story and Photos by Zerin Dube

When I first laid my eyes upon the 2008 Cadillac CTS at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show in January, it was love at first sight. Of all the press conferences and reveals scheduled over the duration of the press days, the CTS reveal was probably the most highly anticipated of the entire show. This was one of the few reveals that wasn’t leaked out onto the internet weeks ahead of time, and thus carried a bit of mystique and drama behind it. Once the curtains dropped on the CTS, and the hip-hop violinists had left the stage, I was left mouth agape and captivated by the beautiful evolution of the art and science design language.

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Post by Kasey Kagawa

Usually we try to keep the topic of the Video of the Week different from one to the next, but this one was just too good to pass up. Out of all the awesome hot hatches that we don’t over here in the States, I covet the Fiat Panda 100HP the most. Sure, it’s the least powerful of the hot hatchbacks, putting out a paltry 99 HP and 97 ft-lbs from its 1.4L DOHC engine, and it has the dimensions of a car that’s more suited to carrying Grandma back and forth to the shops, but don’t let the pedestrian appearance and engine power throw you off. That little 1.4 loves to rev and is mated to a killer six-speed gearbox, and with a weight just under a metric ton and a great chassis and suspension setup, you get a sweet little screamer that just lives to be thrown through corners at 4000 RPM, inside rear wheel cocked up in the air. Best of all, at £9,995, it’s an absolute steal. Out of all the great cars that never see our shores, this would be my choice to gray market if I was given the chance. Sure, it’s underpowered and the exchange rates suck for us right now, but I think that it’s actually physically impossible to not smile while you’re driving a Panda 100HP, and isn’t that what all cheap cars should aspire to be like?