http://www.bewbews.com/2008/05/27/lotus-exige-trunks-are-not-mafia-friendly

Click to find out!

So I’m out bicycling in sunny Scottsdale and I pull up to a grocery store and see this Mercedes R-class:

Are those Betty Davis eyes? I’m guessing it is not driven by a male, but who knows. Some people have no business driving an automobile.

The above gallery includes some photos from the November 2010 Arizona PCA event at the Millenium Resort in Scottsdale, Az.

The Arizona Region, Porsche Club of America displayed approximately 100 late model and vintage Porsche’s at the Millennium Resort, Scottsdale McCormick Ranch.

The event was open to the public and brought together families, car enthusiasts and Porsche lovers from the Western U.S. Proceeds from a weekend of club events, “Phoenix Flight 33″, will go to The 100 Club of Arizona, a local, non-profit organization which benefits families of public safety officers and firefighters who are seriously injured or killed in the line-of-duty.

Phoenix Flight has been held annually for 33 years, and is one of the longest running weekend events in the Porsche Club of America.

So there was a problem with the server back in January which prevented photos being uploaded. Following that there was a Photoshop problem, but all of this is resolved now. So, without further ado, Barrett-Jackson photos from the Scottsdale 2010 auction!

Marcos Mantis XP

This week’s Link Of The Week feature includes a really cool European-based web site. The Blenheim Gang is a nicely organized web site that features beautiful photographs of cars from a variety of eras. It also features a decent car guide, forum, and extensive road tests. The only catch is that the site seems to be entirely in French. Still, brush up on your Francais, and check out the link below. And even if you don’t speak French, you should still click on the link because the Marcos Mantis XP is one of the most beautiful cars ever made. The Denis Adam’s designed shares many features of the venerable and ultra-rare Adams Probe 16 featured in the movie A Clockwork Orange.

In particular, you should click on this link of the Marcos Mantis XP. For those of you not familiar with Marcos, they are a now defunct auto maker with a rich heritage in racing.

Enjoy!

BeyondTheKM.com is all about the commentary and analysis. In that regard, one has to admit that the Arizona Auto Show falls flat on its face. To be fair, no one expects it to be anything near as impressive as the bi-annual Frankfurt show. Held at the Phoenix Convention Center, the event seems to be mainly sponsored and staff with local auto dealer inventory and professionals.

In general, the layout of the event was confusing, and the actual product information being dispensed was little and far between. Though most manufacturers had a model/representative, the European automakers seemed slightly less staffed and in general showcased fewer cars. MINI, however, seemed to have one of every model.

Most disturbing was the poor signage and location of the European automakers. Indeed as the Porsche “area” featured not a single 911 or Boxster/Cayman model, we walked right by it. Even the signage was teeny as evidence in the photos below. Most interesting were the eco-cars including the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt. Second most interesting was the enormous price tag on the Chevy Corvette ZR1.

I admit, several years ago, I was nearly in an altercation with a Bison in South Dakota in the middle of a state park. On another trip with some of my German friends we came across some burrow/donkey-like creatures wandering about the same park on the road in front of me (incidentally, if you know what kind of animal this really is, please leave a comment):

Custer State Park, 2003

Of course, you would be right to wonder why such wild animals (and there were many of them) would hang out in the middle of a road like this.

The answer is because of fat slobs like this, who stop,  get out of their car and feed them:

Ugly Americans

Do note they are not driving a European car.

So that leads us on to a recent episode posted to YouTube.com in which a guy in a Porsche 911 Cabriolet gets “hunted” by some Wild Turkeys. After digging around, several sources seemed to confirm that these turkeys can get aggressive, and they can run on foot to about 25 miles per hour (40 KM/hr), and fly up to 55 mph (89 KM/hr). Of course, even such a “vicious” animal is no match for the 911, which eventually gets away.

Happy Thanksgiving!

SL 65 AMG Black Series (R230) 2008

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2010/10/autos-traffic-tickets.html

The LA Times recently posted an article about the cars most and least likely to be pulled over. The winner? The Mercedes-Benz SL-class is 4.04 times more likely to get you a speeding tickets versus the average. Unsurprisingly, a Buick model was least likely to be ticketed.

Recently reviewing this link from Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/09/15/smartest-cars-technology-lifestyle-vehicles-smart-car.html
Beyond the KM reflects on the significant technological improvements on the last few years…
No doubt, the features that actively improve safety deserve great acclaim. In that vane, one has to appreciate the achievements of the active cruise control system now available in most high-end luxury sedans. The technology uses radar in the front of the vehicle to throttle and brake the vehicle if it senses that you are too far or too close to the vehicle in front of you.

For several years now Mercedes has also included technology that senses when you are falling asleep behind the wheel of your Benz. If it believe your eyelids are getting heavy, the system will jiggle you in your seat and wake you with loud chirps and indicate to you that you should pull over and catch some “Schlafen”.

A less obvious choice for this category uses a very old technology indeed. BMW and subsidiary company Rolls-Royce have now integrated thermal cameras into their vehicles which assist drivers in recognizing animals or people on the road in front of the vehicle in low-visibility conditions.

Advanced airbags. 25-year-old airbags just exploded in your face, potentially injuring you. Newer technology still protects you, but it does it better because it is sensitive to the severity of the crash, position of the occupant, baby seat-aware, and the size of the passenger as well. Porsche’s Cayenne has this feature. Automakers are also adding more airbags, some vehicles having 8 or more!

Blind-spot assistance is nearly commonplace today as well. Sensors in the car know when another vehicle is in your blind spot, and will notify you with signal in the cabin or on the side-view mirror.

Other smart, but less safety-conscious features include assisted parallel parking (in case your car is too big to easily fit into that spot!). This technology, which involves little or no input from the user to get your car, parked properly without scrapping the paint off your bumper. Available from many automakers now including BMW, Lexus, Ford, and the list goes on…

Self-closing or soft-closing doors and trunks/boots are now de rigueur in many German cars, including the Mercedes and Maybach lineup, the Rolls-Royce lineup, and BMW, just to name a few.

Rear parking cameras. They appear in just about any car these days, from the Toyota Prius to the Lamborghini Gallardo. Never again will you have to worry about backing over you small child. Similarly, it makes parallel parking much easier, especially in larger vehicles.

Flexible fuel cars. This is current and future technology. Some supplier are developing systems to allow cars to run on any of 4 types of fuel, including biofuel, petrol, diesel, and natural gas. Hydrogen will eventually follow.

What’s next?

Inter-car communication. While this has already been attempted by several car makers, we can expect that the future of inter-car communication will include features such as accident avoidance and even vehicle pacing, which would reduce breaking/acceleration, and therefore increase fuel efficiency.

A couple of things, first, Mercedes has already announced they are testing an underbody airbag for their cars. The airbag would deploy in the event of an inevitable crash and by using massive friction, it would slow down the vehicle just a little bit extra – in a crash every millimeter counts!

Autonomous driving vehicles. Audi has been testing a version of the Audi TT, which actually has the ability to run on its own volition and even compete in hill climb racing events. What is next in this area? Well, for one, user acceptance must be achieved. No doubt many people will feel uncomfortable with a computer taking control of their vehicle. Google, too, has been testing a vehicle of this type, which uses a highly computerized Toyota Prius to navigate it around any city street.

Is it possible that viral marketing videos from OEMs are growing old????

Very possible if you are Ford making a half-baked effort to compare the “new” Fiesta to a Lamborghini Gallardo. Presumably a few people watched this video, but no doubt all were disappointed. Even the “cupcake addict” failed to get me all that excited… Uff!

EPA fuel economy proposed sticker

The big news of the day, aside from Tom Brady crashing his Audi S8, is that the EPA wants to change the Fuel Economy stickers that appear on all new cars. The current sticker uses numbers to explain a vehicle’s fuel economy. The proposal stick would take that idea and but a big fat letter grade on the sticker. The motivation may be in good faith, but the practicality of the proposed change leaves much to be desired so far as consumer education are concerned.

Beyond the KM’s concern with putting a letter grade versus a nominal integer is that people associate letter grades on products in the same way they associate letter grades with school performance.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you have ever been to Germany and gotten to know people, you might notice that their sense of humour is a little different from that of say Americans or Chinese. Indeed, it is in a league of its own, and this German television show demonstrates it. For those of you not fluent in German, basically what happens is that the fugitive duo rob a fake bank and try to get away in 3 simulations of 3 different cars: the MTM Audi TT, the Magnum Turbo S, and the Dodge Challenger. The “polizei” is driving a BMW 123d and attempts to catch up. Guess who wins? (hint: not the Dodge!) This is certainly a new interpretation on the film Ronin’s Audi S8 car chase!

Enjoy the weekend!

Oh, and if you love the S8 in Ronin, you can see it here:

Either way, we can’t expect people to respect the police, if the police don’t respect people and their property. Understandably, a person may be accused of a violation, but this is subject to judicial interpretation. Until convicted, and there is no reason to do anything but secure the vehicle, UNLESS it is inhibiting traffic. In such a case, the government should take the responsible action to ensure that an individual’s property (whether owned by the individual or a leasing company/bank) is respected not just to the letter of the law, but to the spirit as well.

How the driver survived this Pontiac being launching into the air and into a bridge is a bit of a mystery…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11078575

Hyundai's Equus and VW's Phaeton

If we had a dollar for every customer that had a negative dealership experience, we’d have retired ages ago, example story a la the Chicago Tribune. Anecdotally, auto OEMs would be wise to put great amounts of resources into improving the dealer-customer relationship. The U.S. market is still in credit crisis recovery mode. The rich-poor gap in the country continues to increase. Status quo of the 2000s is no longer tenable and we are paying the price in the industry.

One such change recently proposed by Hyundai is the way in which its dealers interact with customers. Beginning with its new flagship Equus car, Hyundai will have sales specialists show the US$50,000-US$60,000 base price car to potential customers. One has to admit that a car company selling US$60,000 sedans requires more than a little imagination and polish to also sell US$10,000 hatchbacks, and vice versa. The real question is can the new experience lead Hyundai to sales that eclipse the BMW, Cadillac, Lexus, and Mercedes brands. Hyundai claims they wish to achieve a modest 3,000 sales per year. Less clear is how Hyundai’s brand image will convince well-to-do, discerning Bimmer and Benz drivers to toss their keys into the wind and have a go with the Hyundai brand.

Source: http://www.leftlanenews.com/hyundai-equus.html

Read the rest of this entry »

Though Ford is very much an American car company, they have done a few things right over the years, in particular was the launch of their European-design models the Ford GT40 and the RS500 series. Ford reintroduced the GT a few years ago, and they are back to making more “economical” hot hatches with the RS500. The options list is sparse, but it does offer to launch the driver to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds.

At the end of the day though, it begs the question, “why isn’t this car made in the US for the American market?” Wake up Ford, and smell the petrol!

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