Auto Week took VW’s upcoming GTI on a burn from Wolfsburg to the Paris Auto Show, and came back with a pretty damn good report. This, the fifth-generation GTI, is a vastly different car than the one my friend’s dad used to drive us to soccer practice in, back in 19(cough, hack). Its got a smooth 200hp, 2.0 liter turbocharged 4, and seems to be tight little driver: little torque steer, on-rails cornering and boat-anchor brakes — a far cry from the oil-burning, plaid-furnished Golf-plus of the early ’80s. That’s progress.
Dead, Solid, Perfect: Fifth-Generation GTI Redefines the Hot Hatch [Auto Week]
Hot Rod takes a tour of Jay Leno’s Big Dog Garage, and gets an eyeful of the recently rebuilt and tweaked-to-the-max 1955 Buick Roadmaster Leno once slept in as a struggling comedian. The Roadie was recently treated to a ground-up restoration, including a GM 572 crate motor that produces upward of 600 hp, with 650 ft/lbs of (awful metaphors ahead) monologue-writing, president-skewering torque.
(Yes, Jay Leno keeps popping up on these pages. And why not? He’s a true car nut with seemingly inexhaustible resources for satisfying whatever automotive proclivity grabs him. We like that.)
Featured Vehicles: The Leno 572 [Hot Rod]
More on Jay Leno’s car collection [internal]
We think we had a dream about one of these once, probably the night our sister’s boyfriend dared us to drink a quart of strawberry Quik. We’ve never lost a bet involving pink beverages.
12 second school bus… one bad ass bus. — MPEG [ForkYou.net]
Filed under News
Automotive columnist, Eric Peters muses on what makes a great car great, instead of just fine. We agree with his assertions about looks and sound, but think his best point is regarding involvement. Driving a great car is an all-occupying exercise, like sailing, that calls up several senses simultaneously. Plus, it evokes the mystical sixth sense, which, for lack of a better term, we’ll just call, “hooh.” That’s the sense that starts at the pit of the stomach the first time you lay into a friend’s big-block Chevelle or hyper-tuned RX-7 off the line. People spend their whole lives chasing down a good hooh. That’s the sense that justifies spending all your money on a large enclosure you can’t (legally) sleep in.
What Makes a Great Car? [Netscape Autos via Ride]
Universal Hovercraft offers a hovercraft kit that converts to fly four-feet above the ground or water. Powered by a four-banger automotive engine (with an optional 100hp EA-81 Subaru motor), the UH-18SPW Hoverwing costs less than $5,000 to build. Crashing into an errant buoy? Priceless.
Personal hovercraft doubles as an aeroplane [Gadgetryblog]
Top Secret, one of Japan’s premier tuning houses, took a Fairlady Z33 - that’s the Japanese version of Nissan’s 350Z - and gave it an extreme makeover, creating the gold-standard in modified street burners. This hotter-than-molten-metal ride sports more than 690hp, turned out at a screaming 8,000rpm, making it more than able to separate foolish street racers from their gold.
Golden: Top Secret Increases Size 2-to-4 Inches With Its Latest 350Z [Super Street]
Fairlady Z Gallery [Club 33]
The 2006 Buick Lucerne, long- awaited replacement for the grandfatherly Le Sabre, was spotted by spy photogs recently playing trick-or-treat on the streets of Detroit. Looks familiar, though that could be the black tie and tails. Grandad would be pleased.
Spy Shots: ’06 Buick Lucerne [The Car Connection]
Jalopnik tries not to let jealousy creep into its posts, but we’re only human. Even The New York Times gets to drive a new Ford GT? And on a sweet road trip from San Francisco to Yosamite National Park, no less. Seriously, we need a new agent. Still, we’ll take any opportunity to talk about the GT, even one that makes us wish we hadn’t spilled that pomegranate martini on Csaba Csere.
A Latter-Day Odyssey in Ford’s Mythic Machine [NY Times]
Ford GTs for sale on eBay:
2005 Ford GT Speed Yellow [eBay]
2005 Ford GT All Options [eBay]
BRAND NEW 2005 FORD GT WILL BE A COLLECTORS ITEM [eBay]
New 2005 Ford GT Coupe [eBay]
Filed under Retro
Back in 1956, Chrysler introduced the “Hiway Hi-Fi,” the first automotive record player on the market. The set used a platform-specific type of record, developed by CBS Labs — on which only selected albums released by Columbia Records were available — that couldn’t play on conventional record players. Laugh all you want, but great-aunt Carol’s dash-mounted turntable gave way to cousin Dorkward’s wi-fi enabled PC-based digital audio/video hubs (to which I defer to sister site,
Gizmodo).
1955 Chrysler Highway Hi-Fi Press Release [Imperial Web Pages]
Audiomotive: Car-Bound PCs [Gizmodo]
Sure, any monkey can come up with a double entendre for cars and prophylactic devices. Now, according to the company that makes Hot Rod condoms, any monkey can put one of these on without losing their monkey mojo. Ingenious.
Hot Rod Condoms [Hot Rod Condoms]
Ferrari president, Luca Montezemolo told reporters in Rome on Friday that the Italian Formula One team will build a new ride for the Pope. The new popemobile, to be built in honor of John Paul II’s 26th anniversary as pontiff, will be based on a downscaled model of the championship-winning Formula One F2004 car. Whether or not the Vatican has scheduled track time at Monza is still unknown.
New popemobile a Ferrari [The Australian]
Ferrari to make Pope special anniversary car [Auto 123]
Razor-sharp automotive paparazzo, Hans G. Lehmann, snapped some photos of a roadster believed to be the next generation Mazda MX-5 Miata being taken for a stealthy spin. Sure, at first glance it looks just like the current Miata, but to the trained eye of the autostalker, several body updates, including reshaped doors and a flatter hood (a la Honda S2000) give away the goods.
Spy Shots: ’06 Mazda Miata [The Car Connection]
