Yeah, you see that post down there? The one that’s right below this one? Umm, ignore that, because here’s a podcast! Well, it’s not a full-blown podcast, no matter how much I’d love to make fun of Volvo’s plan to design cars made out of bubble wrap, Styrofoam packing material and down pillows, GM’s Q1 profits dropping $3.25 billion from last year and applaud Volkswagen for preparing an entry for the Baja 1000, I just don’t have the time. So instead, here’s a brief selection of my favorite news items over the last week. Think of it as a Greatest Hits album, except it’s all brand new. However, this will probably be the last podcast until the week after next, unless my physics professor changes his mind in regards to the importance of homework. So until then, I thank all of you who are still bothering to listen in to my voice talk nonsense about cars, despite my greatest efforts to chase all of you away though poor scheduling. I’m still having the time of my life doing these, and I hope you’re all enjoying listening even one-tenth as much as I’m having making them. Anyway, until next time, Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 5/09/08 [8:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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It’s not our normal practice to publish “teaser” stories, but given the importance of this particular car to our reader base here at Speed:Sport:Life, I’m going to break tradition a bit to let you know that we’ve just returned from the 2009 Audi A4 press preview at Infineon Raceway in sunny Sonoma, CA.

Upon our return from the 24 Hours of LeMons this weekend at Altamont, we’ll have a complete and detailed drive report on the A4 early next week, including some amusing Tommy Kendall-style in-car, on-track video footage and an exclusive “walkaround” interview with Carter Balkcom, Audi’s product manager.

In the meantime, we can set the record straight on one important point. If you’ve been worried that Audi would “ruin” the new A4 - that this all-new, considerably larger car has deviated away from the pattern that has made the A4 the most successful car in Audi’s history - there’s no need to worry. This one’s a solid winner from stem to stern and we feel confident that it will be the clear market leader in its segment. Our time on the road and around the track revealed a sedan which is superbly satisfying in every regard, packing 95% of the comfort and space found in the A6 in a dynamic package which is far faster around a road course than its predecessor. For the rest of the story - including the “secret” combination of “Driver Select” settings which unlocks the possibility for maximum racetrack hoonage - come back Tuesday morning and read our full-length, full-detail article. See you there!

Our dedication to our listeners knows no bounds here at Saucer Shaped Ligands Radio, and it’s with that in mind that we present to you the latest edition of our patent-pending automotive news adequacy. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t entirely in my right mind when I recorded this. After shotgunning a Mountain Dew or two though, I regained my sanity enough to edit out the twenty minutes of circular rantings about how the stack of papers and soda cans on my desk was slowly rearranging itself into a gestalt of wood pulp and rolled aluminum in order to exact its bloody revenge on me and my family. So if the sound levels in the podcast are a little uneven, you now know why. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/30/08 [7:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Yes, it’s another hideously late podcast, which means that it must be getting close to that magical time of year, when those of us who are so obsessed with learning stuff that we (well, not us usually, our parents) are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for the privilege to do so start pulling our hair out with frustration and stress as we approach the dreaded Final Exams. This will play havoc with the posting schedule for the podcast over the next few weeks, but hopefully they won’t be up as late as the last two have been. This week, BMW finds yet another place where they can go racing, the UAW starts throwing its weight around again, I express an opinion that’s sure to finally get me some bona fide hate mail, and a potentially world-record holding vehicle within the reach of the average consumer on this week’s Useless Automotive Tchotchke. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/23/08 [12:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Yes, this podcast is colossally late. Real life has once again dragged me away from spending time with you, the listeners, and forced me to pay attention to other things. Now though, we’re back, and we’ve brought a very special treat for you and put it inside the podcast. As far as news goes, we have some BMW news, some legislature news, some endurance racing news, and the final mention we’re giving NBC’s Gear until the show debuts, unless one of the hosts flips a Ferrari over and is killed. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/16/08 [10:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Highway 395 is a lonely stretch of asphalt on the back side of the Sierra Nevadas, and one of the most beautiful roads in California. Situated in the Owens Valley, it has spectacular views of the mountains that surround it on both sides. It’s also apparently a very popular place for butterflies and other insects to breed, as they were doing so in the middle of the road. A great many flying insects met their fates that day, but my personal favorite was the butterflies. They were large enough that you could see them arc into the windshield, where they exploded in a sticky yellow burst that sounded like a small bird detonating on the glass. One particularly good one was smeared from the bottom of the windshield almost to the top. It was a very amusing way to pass time between Lake Tahoe and Death Valley.

Anyway, this week, we have more news on the Tata Motors purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover, BMW considers shedding the pounds on future M cars, Jay Leno weighs in on the potential suck of the US version of Top Gear, and fancy footwear on this week’s Useless Automotive Tchotchke. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/7/08 [12:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Story and Photographs by Jack Baruth

Sixty-three years ago, a young woman left Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio and headed back to her home town with a single goal in mind: to build homes in the new “Usonian” style for her family and friends. The result was the Rush Creek development in Worthington, Ohio, a tightly knit collection of more than forty-five houses built during the Fifties and Sixties to embody Wright’s principles of modern living.

In this era of massive McMansions with thousand-square-foot “great rooms”, kitchens large enough for a Spinning class, and four-car garages cluttered with the detritus of America’s incandescent prosperity, it’s a shock to cruise through Rush Creek and notice how small everything is. Most of the homes are well under two thousand square feet, and some don’t even reach half that size. They seem to hide in the landscape rather than stand proud of it; many of them have no “curb appeal” at all, as they are deliberately obscure, or invisible, from the street. There isn’t a single garage in the neighborhood, although a few homes have add-on open-air carports which wouldn’t cover a Toyota Highlander from head to toe. A stereotypical “modern family” would find living in Rush Creek to be unbearable, even before they began to find out first-hand how expensive and difficult it is to maintain and repair a half-century-old home built by iconoclastic architects, out of unusual materials, to one-of-a-kind specifications. And yet these still, small residences command quite a premium on the rare occasions when they come up for sale, often changing hands at prices up to twice as high as the transactions on the larger, more convenient, and utterly traditional tract houses which surround Rush Creek on all sides, in the manner of an angry Wehrmacht menacing Stalingrad.

If you can understand why this is the case - why a one-bedroom, leaky-roofed, nine-hundred-square-foot home tucked against the ground to the point of invisibility would cost more than a perfectly decent, brand-new single family “soft contemporary” - then you will have no difficulty understanding the Audi TT.

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A slightly still sugar-buzzed edition of SSL Radio this week. If you eat too many of those marshmallow Peeps at once your heart explodes, so I’ve had to spread it out over the last few days. We wrap up coverage of the New York International Auto Show, finally get an answer to the ridiculous Z06 vs. GT-R battle, GM finds a way to put a stain on the until now spotless new Camaro, yet another corporate CEO is given an amusing characterization, and more miniature car fun on this week’s edition of Suspicious Solar Lighting Radio.

 

 SSL Radio 3/25/08 [15:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Behold, our new, colon-filled title! Seriously, Speed:Sport:Life is a much better title than Dubspeed Driven, despite my ineffectual and half-hearted grousing to the contrary, since, as I mention in the podcast, it’s hard to make a quality first impression that shows off our professionalism and dedication to the honest truth about the automotive industry when I have the word “Dub” tacked onto the front of my name badge. And the fact that I’m roughly 20 years too young to be considered a human being in the automotive industry. And my wardrobe, which consists almost entirely of jeans and t-shirts purchased off the Internet. But I’ll be damned if we didn’t fix that first problem! Anyway, we’ve got a quality but short podcast for you this week. Enjoy.

 

 SSL Radio 3/18/08 [11:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Post and Podcast by Kasey Kagawa

Ah, the air in the Swiss Alps is so fresh this time of year. Or so I’m told, as I’m far too poor to be able to afford to jet to the Alps to cover some fancy motor show. Still, we’ve got a lot of great news for you this week, almost all of it from Geneva. Also, globalism news, Champ Car imploding a lot faster than everyone thought it would, and the death of Mopey McWhinesalot, all of this and more on this SSRI-fueled edition of Dubspeed Radio.

 

 Dubspeed Radio 3/10/08: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download