Post and Podcast by Kasey Kagawa

We return late with a rather short Dubspeed Radio episode this week, there just wasn’t much cars news this week. However, we have podcast news! If you look below (and hopefully for all of our past podcasts soon), a in-page player! No longer will I simply be linking you to a MP3 file that you have to play in a separate tab or window! Now, all you need to do is click that big gray “Play” button at the bottom of each podcast post to have my voice dripped slowly into your ear like the poison in Othello. And if you wish to carry my mediocrity around with you, you can still download the MP3 file by clicking on the small “Download” link in the player. Now, click play and enjoy listening to me rattle on and on about news that there’s a pretty good chance you’ve already heard.

 

 Dubspeed Radio 12/09/07 [9:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Post by Kasey Kagawa

It’s pretty easy to design a car. I mean, aside from the years of engineering school and work experience, the thousands of hours spent slaving over a drafting board and computer screen, the pages and pages of math and design printouts on every single conceivable bit of the car and the ten or twenty iterations of everything until you find something that actually works, it’s not that hard. Four wheels, an engine to drive them, seats to sit on, and a body that keeps the passengers from getting bugs in their teeth and water on their clothes. In order to sell, all a car really needs to be is cheap and functional. Look at the Chevrolet Aveo or Toyota Camry. The Camry’s quite possibly the single most boring car ever made, but they sell by the container ship. The Aveo’s been horrendous since the day it arrived in the US, but they sell in their thousands because it’s the cheapest car on the US market. As far as the average citizen is concerned, as long as it doesn’t fall apart too much, is cheap to fix, insure and drive, and gets them from place to place, it’s done its job.

Pointless pontificating below the jump.

Continue reading Navel-Gazing: Where Do Great Performance Cars Come From?

We’ve seen quite a few photos of the 2009 CTS-V covered up in camo over the last few months, but the guys over at Edmunds have managed to catch it in the buff. Expected to make it’s debut in just a months time at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, the 2009 CTS-V displays a new fascia and other muscular design elements that tie in well with the already sharp lines of the standard CTS.

Source: Edmunds –
Exclusive Spy Photos: 2009 Cadillac CTS-V

Post by Kasey Kagawa

I love El Caminos. My first car was possibly the best of all the El Caminos, the 1970 model. Based on the best of the Chevelles, mine was gray with black Chevrolet Chevelle racing stripes, tweaked suspension, fettled-with engine and extra-loud exhaust. I loved it to pieces (not literally, fortunately), even after it caught on fire and tried to kill me, and I think that there’s a big tar-shaped hole left in the US car market that still needs to be filled.

Well, as I mentioned last week in the podcast, Pontiac is bringing back the El Camino in the guise of the Holden Ute, which is based on the Holden VE Commodore, which is the base for the Pontiac G8. Unfortunately, it will not be called the El Camino, or even the Caballero. It will be called the G8 ST, ST standing for “sport truck”. Yes, it’s a lame name, but some El Camino is better than no El Camino at all. It will only come with the 6.0L L76 V8, which will put out 362 HP and 391 ft-lbs of torque in the G8. Of course, that’ll last about as long as it takes for the dealers to whine that they can’t keep up with the overwhelming demand for something plainly as Awesome as a new El Camino, and then they cram in the LS7 or whatever’s powering the Z06 when this sucker comes out.

El Catalina: Pontiac to Get U.S. Version of Holden Ute [PickupTruck.com]

Post by Kasey Kagawa

Yeah, I’m sick. I’m currently doped up on decongestants and cough syrup, and sound like I injected rubber cement and hot glue into my sinuses. Worst of all, this vile contagion has invaded my brain and is making me slur my words like I’m on my third beer of the night, making my already partially comprehensible words downright impossible to understand. I will be making news posts during the week about some of the things I had planned for the podcast, and here’s hoping that it clears up in time for me to make another podcast this next week.

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Story and Photos by Jack Baruth

It’s a shame P.T. Barnum didn’t live to see the release of the ‘08 Focus. The man who coined the phrase “There’s no such thing as bad publicity” might be surprised to see just how bad that publicity can be. From the moment Ford lifted the sheet at the 2007 Detroit Show, the race has been on between the media and the bloggers to concoct the most demeaning dismissal possible. The buzz spread through every car-related forum on the Internet: Ford screwed up! They could have had the Euro Focus – the charming-looking, if a trifle bland, “C1″ model that is the basis for the Mazda3 and Volvo S40/S30 here in the United States – but they didn’t take it! Instead, they facelifted the old one! And it’s a disaster! Disaster! That was the very word they used, as if Ford had ground troops stranded in Somalia, instead of a rather homely-looking little car rotating on a blue-lit platform. Disaster!

Continue reading Dubspeed Driven Review – 2008 Ford Focus – Looking for Ford’s Silver Lining