You would think that a car that commands a price tag of $700,000 would be something along the lines of a Bugatti, McLaren, or Lamborghini.
But there’s one other supercar that you probably may have a hard time picking out of your brain that sells for that much money: the Cizeta Moroder V16-T.
Unfortunately, one of these extremely rare supercars was shackled up in San Juan, Puerto Rico by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after the car was said to be violating a number of US import laws. We don’t know what the US government has in store for the Cizeta V16-T, but we just hope that for the sake of auto enthusiasts the world over, those people know just how expensive and rare that car is.
It looks like speed demons in Utah have been given a little more leeway to satisfy their need for speed after the Utah Department of Transportation recently raised the speed limit in various stretches of I-15 up to 80 miles per hour.
So far, the little experiment has received positive results after the UDOT determined that traffic in the area is safest when cars are going in the neighbourhood of 80 mph.
According to the Newspaper, the 85th percentile speed, which represents the speed at which 85 percent of free-flowing traffic feels is the safest, have achieved the best results as far as traffic safety among commuters are concerned. “Engineers have determined that the greatest safety can be achieved when speed limits match the 85th percentile speed,” the article said.
Based on crash histories that have been recorded over the years in certain sections of I-15, the UDOT determined that increasing the speed limit in these sections would eventually end up being beneficial not only to the drivers’ safety, but also in ensuring the seamless free-flow of vehicles, thus avoiding continuous traffic.
This comes as good news to a lot of people that have been frustrated with the lower speed limits. Let’s just hope that the rest of the country follows Utah’s lead because, as you know, traffic and car accidents are two things we can all live without.
The California based Fisker Automotive corporation has just been granted a sizable loan from the U.S. Government that will rapidly facilitate the automaker’s full scale production of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The U.S. Department of Energy has signed off on and agreed to the terms of a conditional totaling over half a billion dollars so that Henrik Fisker’s car company can create affordable, fuel efficient hybrid electric vehicles that are made right here in the U.S.A. The $528,000,000 loan will also allow Fisker Automotive CEO, Henrik Fisker to create at least 5,000 jobs for autoworkers right here in the U.S.
If only General Motors and Chrysler had lineups as desirable as Henrik Fisker’s then perhaps the U.S. Government would have been a bit more eager to step in and help out with their financial needs. It is no doubt that fuel efficient gas electric hybrids are going to be the next generation of personal transportation and it is confidence inspiring that there is an automaker who not only believes in the future, but also believes that we don’t have to sacrifice fun in order to save fuel.
Back on August 20th, Top Speed reported that the headquarters of the sports car manufacturer Porschewere raided by German officials in search of specific documents that would lead to prosecution of the Stuttgart based car maker’s former Chief Executive Officer, Wendelin Wiedeking, as well as the former Chief Financial Officer, Holger Haerter, regarding possible violations of the German securities laws and manipulation of the market with regard to the recent financial dealings with the automotive conglomerate Volkswagen.
The German manufacturer has now confirmed that subsequent searches have been carried out at private residences of select lower level Porsche employees. While the automaker has not revelaed the identity of the individual, an unnamed source informed Automotive News, "The investigators found what they were looking for." Just as we previously reported, Porsche is denying any allegations of bad conduct and continues to cooperate fully with the German government’s investigation.
The German regulatory body BaFin, which is similar to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is mounting the investigation against the former Porsche CEO and CFO for alleged market manipulation and insider trading. While the investigation focuses on individuals who no longer work with company, the proceedings should not have an adverse affect on the sports car maker’s day to ay activities, however this wave of suspicion could do a number on the much larger Volkswagen AG, who just acquired a 42% share of the sports car maker from Stuttgart.
Be extra careful when you’re texting and driving anywhere near Utah these days. If you get caught, that’s 15 years in the slammer.
In an unprecedented move to curb accidents caused by texting while driving, the State of Utah has now passed a law to crack down on texting while behind the wheel of a car. Anybody who’s caught doing so can now face up to 15 years behind bars.
The bill, which has been on the burner for quite some time, was officially passed after an incident in the area cost the lives of two scientists after their car got hit by another car whose driver was pre-occupied with his phone.
While other states have already banned texting while driving, the punishment’s for being caught have been nothing more than just slaps in the wrist, with a little monetary penalty to go with it.
If you’re the type who has always wondered what kind of car the US president rides on, then you should head out to your local bookstore and buy ‘President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect’.
While the book doesn’t entirely dwell on cars, it does provide a detailed look at the official presidential ride: a 2009 Cadillac limousine.
Naturally, a car that had the president of the United States inside should be far from ordinary, and this particular Cadillac limousine is unlike any other. The car, which has been coined as ‘The Beast’, was built on top of a GMC truck chassis making it tougher and stronger than most limos out on the road these days.
It didn’t take as long as anticipated and you can’t question the fact that the Cash for Clunkers program got the results it wanted. The program that was supposed to last until November on a $1 billion budget has finally come to an end – and not without the government having to shell out another $2 billion for the program.
All in all, the program generated a little over 700,000 car sales with a total estimate of a staggering $2.877 billion. Percentages of car sales saw that the most popular purchase were pick-up trucks, with 84% of all participating customers buying one of their own. Additionally, 59% purchased passenger cars while the remaining 41% fell on the other vehicle lines.
Curiously, the three most purchased cars under the program – although it is still being questioned by a number of sources – all belong to Japanese manufacturers. Sitting on top was the Toyota Corolla followed closely by its chief rival, the Honda Civic. Rounding out the top 3 is the Toyota Camry. As far as local brands are concerned, the Ford Focus – which for a time, was in the top spot - and the Ford Escape were the top sellers.
The CFC program also showed that most Americans actually prefer foreign brands more than their local counterparts – 61.8% of all cars sold were from foreign automakers while the 38.6% belonged to the three Detroit brands.
That car, the No. 48 Chevy, belongs to Nascar driver Jimmie Johnson, who, along with colleagues Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Dale Earnheardt Jr, dropped by the White House on the invitation of the Commander-In-Chief.
Mr. Obama gladly took some time off – what we can only assume – his hectic schedule to honor Johnson, the three-time Sprint Cup titleholder and defending champion.
We all know the President is a sports nut but we didn’t figure that he ranks Nascar right up there with the NBA and the NFL. While a number of celebrated athletes have all been invited by the President, this is the first time he’s met with NASCAR drivers, something that he’s been looking forward to for a long time. When the time finally came, Obama showed why a lot of Americans have called him the ‘People’s President’, cracking jokes with Johnson and the rest of the NASCAR constituents.
Early this morning in the sleepy town of Stuttgart, a group of German police inspectors arrived at the Porsche headquarters in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen complete with search warrants in hand in an attempt to uncover some evidence of suspicious activity. The search order was handed down by their local public prosecutor’s office and dealt with the suspicion of breaching a publication duty as prescribed by the German Stock Corporation Act which means that they could have been manipulating the German market. The boys in blue who were on the scene were said to have seized numerous business documents by the end of their exploration.
Of course the German sports car manufacturer denies any allegations and are cooperating fully with the German officials in the hopes for a speedy resolution. Off the news that Porsche is making major moves on the financial market, recently selling 10% of their stock to a state run Quatar based investement group and only a short period of time after the Porsche/VW merger was completed, the perfect time for a world wide corporation to fudge some paperwork, not that this is the case. However now that the authorities are involved, this incident can’t help but make you think back to this past January when one of the richest men in the world, Adolf Merckle, took his own life after betting wrong in a big way on the German automotive conglomerate VW, which is now quite entangled with the sports car maker Porsche.
This is something we never saw coming. We were recently watching an episode of Glenn Beck at FOX News when the broadcaster turned to a subject near and dear to our hearts: cars.
As it turns out, Beck – and some of his constituents, we think – talked about the repercussions of using your computer to try to avail of the Cash for Clunkers program. Apparently, when you want to trade in your clunker, a warning box pops up, which says:“This application provides access to the DoT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, this computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the US government.”
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