If you’ve ever been involved in a mad dash to find where the last remaining parking space is, then you should know the frustration involved when somebody else beats you to it.
Parking, especially in congested areas like malls and ball parks, can be such an arduous task that frustration usually sets in after you spend an inordinate amount of time looking for a parking space. But what if there are specific parking spots reserved for specific cars? Wouldn’t that make life a little easier?
69 Pit Stop is here to find out after they began releasing personalized parking signs that feature a host of car models. The signs, which are made from plastic, come in a number of different car models including a Hummer H2, a Chevrolet Camaro, a Dodge Viper, a Porsche Carrera GT, and a Ford Mustang, among others.
Of course, these signs can’t be used out in public, but nevertheless, they still make for a great novelty item to put in your garage. Each sign costs 20 euros - about $28 – and can be orders at 69 Pit Stop’s website.
It’s a bad time to be a Toyota owner these days. After news broke out last week that Toyota was being forced to recall over 1 million cars globally due to those sticky accelerator pedals, the Japanese-based auto giant has gone into full scale damage control, giving Toyota owners a chance to return their Toyota vehicles to a Toyota dealership where they’d undergo free repairs to fix the faulty pedals.
Mikel Valviva decided to return his recalled Toyota Tundra in one of the local dealerships in his area, but after being told that he would have to wait to get his Tundra fixed, Valvina took matters into his own hands. Instead of patiently waiting for his turn, Valvina “somehow” accelerated his Tundra straight into the dealership.
While it seems ridiculous to accuse someone of deliberately crashing his vehicle into a dealership because he felt disrespected, this whole situation involving Toyota and all these faulty accelerator pedals have left everybody in a constant state of confusion.
As far as Valvina’s supposed accidental torpedoing of the Toyota dealership, local authorities have indicated that the whole incident could very well have been unintentional. Or maybe the accelerator pedal just got stuck.
BMW unveiled today the new X5 SUV, a model that comes with entirely revised range of engines and concise design modifications. At the exterior the new X5 gets larger side air intakes at the front and an increased proportion of surfaces painted in body color, reshaped rear bumper and the tailpipe surrounds, dual round headlamps with optional Xenon lights, fitted with LED corona.
The biggest changes are made under the hood: a choice of V8 and a straight six-cylinder, all featuring BMW TwinPower Turbo technology and direct fuel injection and and equipped with an eight-speedautomatic transmission as standard.
The model line-up include: BMW X5 xDrive50i powered by a V8 petrol engine with BMW TwinPower Turbo and direct injection that delivers a total of 407 bhp at 5,500 – 6,400 rpm. It makes the sprint from 0 to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds, while top speed is limited to 155 mph. The next model in the line-up is BMW X5 xDrive35i powered by a Straight six-cylinder petrol engine with BMW TwinPower Turbo and direct injection and a total output of 306 bhp at 5,800 rpm. The sprint from 0 to 60 mph in this version is made in 6.8 seconds, and top speed is 146 mph.
The first diesel model is BMW X5 xDrive40d powered by a Straight six-cylinder diesel engine with aluminium crankcase, BMW TwinPower Turbo and Common Rail direct injection that delivers a total of 306 bhp at 4,400 rpm. It makes the sprint from 0 to 60 mph in 6.6 seconds, while top speed is also 146 mph.
And finally there is the X5 xDrive30d powered by a straight six-cylinder diesel engine with aluminium crankcase, turbocharger with variable turbine geometry and Common Rail direct injection with a total output of 245 bhp at 4,000 rpm and a sprint from 0 to 60 mph in 7.6 seconds; top speed in this case is 137 mph.
It’s not every day that you see an alcohol manufacturer getting involved with four wheeled projects. However the Australian brewery VB Raw has taken on a rather unique approach to tuning with designer, Paul Begg, by stripping a classic 1978 Porsche 911 down to bare sheet metal before rebuilding it into a one of a kind rolling masterpiece that they are calling the ’Rawsche’.
The Rawsche was rebuilt via a live webcam on vbraw.com.au at the end of 2009, and was recently given away to one lucky viewer who best displayed their allegiance to the Raw cause by throwing one heck of a kegger. Everything from the modern headlamps sourced from a 993 to the classic grill over the flat six from an old 356 is pure Porsche.
In today’s day and age of sophisticated car tuning, there aren’t a lot of tuners that can proudly say that they were able to turn a Hummer H2 into a high-tech, horse-drawn carriage.
For the record, Jeremy Dean prefers to be called an ‘artist’ rather than a ‘car tuner’. But whatever title he wants to take, there’s no denying the painstaking labor he and a group of his buddies went through to make this highly unusual ride.
For starters, Dean bought a second-hand H2 for a relatively cheap tag of $15,000. Then, he decided to use up all of his life savings to convert the H2 – which he describes as a ‘monument to America’s consumption, greed, and arrogance’ – into, of all things, a horse cart.
To fully understand the rationale behind Dean’s thinking, he explains that there will come a time when the world’s resources will all but dry up rendering all the extravagant and gas-guzzling vehicles roaming the world today useless - unless it is being pulled by a horse. To illustrate his point, he went ahead and converted the H2 into what can only be described as the glitziest and most glamorous horse-drawn cart in the history of the world.
Check out the video and watch how a full-fledged Hummer H2 ended up becoming a pretty razzle-dazzle of a horse cart.
Wald International are very well known for their tuning program for Lexus models. Their latest addition is a tuning customization program for Lexus LS460. The kit will be available starting March.
The appearance of the LS is much more aggressive, thanks to a very large set of rims called "isabel" and a dark exterior color.
The Ford Fusion entered the 2010 model year with two new versions added to the line-up: Hydrid and Sport. The new Fusion features new design (inside and out), improved and new technologies and new powertrains with improved fuel consumption.
The 2010 Fusion features a more aggressive front fascia with new headlamps, grille and fog lamps; the three-bar grille in particular is larger with a more modern look. The fog lamps are housed below in a trapezoidal-shaped lower opening to help complete the more-muscular look. At the rear there are new modernized taillights and decklid to help give the vehicle a more unified look from front to rear.
The hybrid version is powered by a combination of a 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine that delivers 155 hp and 136 lb.-ft. of torque and a nickel-metal hydride battery. The hybrid vehicles can operate up to 47 mph in pure electric mode, approximately twice as fast as some competitors. Plus, the city driving range on a single tank of gas is expected to be more than 700 miles.
The Sport version get a 263-hp V-6 Duratec engine, mated to a six-speed automatic transmission with SelectShift. It is offered as a FWD model, but AWD is also available.
The model line-u include (besides Sport and Hybrid): S, SE, SEL. The S version gets a 2.5-liter I-4 engine that delivers 175 hp; the SE and SEL get a new 3.0-liter V-6 engine that delivers 240 hp.
By now, a lot of us have probably been hammered with lectures and tutorials about the idea of electric cars and how it’s going to revolutionize the auto industry in the future.
One of the most visible proponents of electric cars has been General Motors and with the Chevrolet Volt, the auto conglomerate has the ideal car to show everyone the merits of EV driving without compensating for performance and reliability.
But for every one of us that know about electric cars like the back of our hands, there are probably hundreds – maybe thousands – that still can’t tell the difference between standard vehicles and those that run on electricity.
So, in a PSA round-about way, GM decided to release a video showing exactly how the Chevy Volt works. Don’t worry; if you’re watching this for the first time, it’s not as complicated as it looks. GM did a smart thing in keeping it simple. After all, you can’t teach someone new tricks without having to explain it in as easy a way as possible first.
The commercial was shown a few months ago so this should be old news to us now, but even if we’ve seen the Porsche Family Tree commercial, it doesn’t mean that we can’t watch how it was made.
If you recall, the Porsche Family Tree commercial was, for all intents and purposes, made to promote the brand’s new flagship sedan, the Panamera. In the commercial, the Panamera was joined by over 50 different Porsche models – hence, the name ‘Family Tree’ – with all the cars racing around an airport tarmac with the Panamera in the front and center of all the action.
In this particular video, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at how the commercial, which took over three days to make and over 160 crew members and 22 different professional drivers participating, came to symbolize the Panamera as the latest in a long lineage of Porsches to ever come out of Stuttgart.
Suffice to say, if you’re a Porsche fanatic, then this should give you all the Porsche machineries you can handle, all in one commercial.
If we’re going to take Audi’s word, then this teaser video of the new A1 premium hatchback is, for better or worse, the last teaser Audi is releasing before the A1 breaks cover in Geneva next month.
In this particular video, Audi is giving us a live tour of their production facility in Brussels, Belgium, which, incidentally, is the site for production of the A1. In preparation for it – and the possibility for future productions done in the plant – Audi is shelling out over €285 million ($388 million) to upgrade the facility.
While the previous videos promoting the A1 were ok at best, this last one is actually pretty interesting, given that we don’t always catch videos of how a car production facility actually works in building the cars that we later on drive.
The robots assembling some parts of the A1 are a sight to behold, especially the incredible detail in which they build the parts from the ground up.
We haven’t been especially glowing about the past teaser videos of the A1, but as far as we’re concerned, this one is a must-watch.
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