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 Click for Larger Image Price: $54,950 In the fleet: 12/04/2008 - 12/11/2008 Approximate mileage driven: 285 Continue reading Speed Read: 2009 Chevrolet Corvette 2LT 6-Speed  If you ask the people who’ve spent a lot of time around me, talk to me on a routine basis, or possibly have spent more than a half-hour in my presence, they’ll tell you that I’m an argumentative person. I love a good argument, it gives me a chance jog my memory on a wide range of topics, improves my mental agility, and lets me stretch out to see things from someone else’s viewpoint. Arguments are like a gym membership for the mind, and I think it’s something that people should do more often, if only to really test what they believe in and exercise those critical thinking parts of the brain that go seriously underused these days. As listeners to the podcast will attest to, I’ve never shied away from making my opinions heard, and if there was some way to allocate all the time I spend saying the same line sixty-three billion times in an effort to make it sound like I haven’t coated the inside of my mouth with Vaseline and instead spend it talking and arguing with real people out there, I would do it in a heartbeat. Continue reading Speed:Sport:Life Reviews: 2008 Ford Focus SE Coupe First Impressions  Click for Larger Image Story by Jack Baruth, video courtesy of Audi NA It sounds more than a bit crazy, but we can’t help but wonder: do the powers that be at Audi ever contemplate the idea of sending a thank-you card to the producers of 60 Minutes? Consider the following: History tells us that the show’s deliberately misleading “news” story, which blamed the Audi 5000 for causing several “unintended acceleration” deaths, slaughtered Audi’s position in the marketplace, cutting sales from a then-high 1985 figure of 74,061 to a dismal annual average of 14,000 cars in the five years following. The four-ringed brand, which had been riding high on a wave of yuppie affection for the aero-styled 5000 sedan, became a minor player almost overnight. It would take nearly a decade before the brand was more or less reborn in America with the smash-success first-generation A4 2.8 sedan. The arrival of the affordable, tuner-friendly 1.8T variant a year later put Audi at the top of young drivers’ shopping lists. It was the perfect car for anyone who wanted a solid German sedan but who found the image problems associated with Mercedes-Benz or BMW ownership a bit too heavy to handle, and it offered a generation of VW drivers a perfect next step up the prestige ladder. The A4 single-handedly revitalized Audi’s fortunes in the United States, to the point where the company was able to move a record-setting 93,506 vehicles last year, but it did more than that; combined with the aforementioned media hatchet job, it had the effect of changing Audi into a youth-oriented brand. The average Audi 5000 owner in the Eighties was somewhere north of forty years old, so even if 60 Minutes hadn’t scared those customers away, most of them would be well into Social Security by now – a demographic more suited to Buick and Lexus than to the company that brought us the RS4 and the R8. By contrast, the twentysomething A4 intenders from 1997 are now entering their prime earning years. They’re still interested in the sporting, progressively hip demeanor of the original A4, but they also want a faster, smoother, more spacious sedan to reflect their current (and expected future) success. At the same time, they’re not quite ready for the sleek, subtle, rather middle-aged A6. What would suit them best? An A4 just like the original, but more so: bigger, quicker, more luxurious, and equipped in no-excuses fashion with all the latest comforts and conveniences. In a nutshell, that’s what Audi has delivered. The 2009 A4 is simply more of everything, whether we’re talking about rear seat room, horsepower, or iPod integration. It casts a shadow nearly the size of the original Audi 5000 and offers more than twice its power. The new interior has already received rave reviews in the A5 coupe, while the styling conveys grace, dignity, and the unique restraint which has characterized Audi for the last four decades. Still, none of this is particularly shocking. So-called “small” German sedans have been steadily growing larger for quite some time now. The latest Mercedes-Benz C-class and BMW 3 Series are quite sizable cars, and even if the A4 is now longer than either of them – which it is, by nearly half a foot – the simple, almost expected, fact that Audi’s “small sedan” is bigger than it used to be doesn’t do much to raise anyone’s eyebrows. The shocker, if you will, comes from the claim that the 2009 A4 is no heavier than the car it replaces, while being significantly more interesting to drive thanks to a revamped drivetrain and a rather fascinating new electronic system which offers individual control of steering response, throttle programming, and suspension settings. It seems hard to believe - but if Audi’s not fibbing, it would make for a rather fascinating turn of events in the entry-level luxury market. For more than a decade, every new entrant into the segment has been a little sleepier and porkier than its predecessor. Does Audi have the antidote?  Click for Larger Image Story by Jack Baruth, photography by Matt Chow and Zerin Dube It’s the space of an eyeblink. Three-tenths of a second. At one hundred and forty-six miles per hour, as the bright blue Viper SRT-10 convertible hammers into MSR Houston’s Turn Six, I am covering sixty-four feet in every twitch of the eyelid. In that space of time, as I apply the first touch of braking with my left foot while simultaneously easing off with the right, - in that sixty-four feet - the Viper strikes in a sudden scream of tire, the world slews sideways through the windshield, and I know, beyond doubt, that I have just made a very serious mistake. |
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