It isn’t hard for a company like General Motors or Nissan to build an amazing car like the Corvette ZR-1 or the GT-R. With hundreds of millions of dollars - well, at least before the auto industry imploded - to throw at a project, you’d expect them to build some awesome iron.

But to take a car and modify it to do more than its makers God intended takes a special kind of skill, foresight and, in some cases, lunacy. We have a lot of respect for gearheads whose passion pushes them to do amazing, and sometimes insane, things to their cars.

Here are five cars we’re especially impressed with. It is by no means complete - such a list would include thousands of cars - so feel free to add to the list.

Continue Reading “Five Cars Only Gearheads Would Love” »

Teens don’t know how to drive. It might seem obvious, but it’s worth noting because the instruction they’re given is skeletal and leads to abysmal driving habits at best and traffic  accidents at worst. It doesn’t help that most of their parents aren’t any better behind the wheel. Americans by and large are trained to drive at a level only marginally better than 19th century textile mill workers.

Chad McQueen wants to correct this problem. Yes, McQueen, as in Steve’s kid.

Continue Reading “Teaching Teens To Drive” »

Via the wonders of the internet, comes word from England of a row over a magazine pointing out, quite fairly, that SUVs don’t make most sense. It’s been picked up by various green websites on this side of the pond, prompting something of an argybargy.

The British moto-mag Which? Car, which has an opinion on everything, recently posted a story asking if it was time to ditch the SUV. It offered a bunch of fairly cogent reasons why SUVs make little to no sense for most people and offered some alternatives.

The Association of British Drivers took great umbrage and let fly with a press release stating that the claim by Which? Car that gas-guzzling SUVs "are becoming socially unacceptable - unless you are a farmer" was an "insensitive and unjustified comment" and - get this - "inappropriate given the economic downturn."

Continue Reading “Anti-SUV Screed Prompts a Row in England” »

People who drive Hummers receive almost five times as many traffic tickets as the average driver, according to a new study.

Quality Planning Corp., which helps insurance companies identify risk, surveyed data from 1.7 million drivers and found the Hummer H2 and H3 are the most frequently ticketed vehicles on the road, surpassing even the 565-horsepower Mercedes CLK 63 AMG. At the other end of the spectrum, the Jaguar XJ GMC Sierra CL1500 pickup was the vehicle least likely to attract the attention of Johnny Law.

The study found those who drive the leviathans get 4.63 times as many tickets as the average driver, something the researchers attribute to the feeling of invincibility that comes from driving a rolling bank vault.

"The sense of power that Hummer drivers derive from their vehicle may be directly correlated with the number of violations they incur, or perhaps Hummer drivers, by virtue of their driving position, are less likely to notice road hazards, signs, pedestrians and other drivers," Raj Bhat, president of Quality Planning, said in a statement.

Mark S. Foster, author of "A Nation on Wheels: The Automobile Culture in America Since 1945," was even more direct, essentially calling Hummer drivers colossal jerks.

Continue Reading “Hummer Drivers Get More Tickets. A Lot More.” »

J.J. Abrams and Autopia readers aren’t the only people who think the Aptera 2e three-wheeler looks like something out of the future. Check out this ad for Touchstone Energy Cooperative.

What is Touchstone Energy Cooperative?

Continue Reading “Mad Men Agree Aptera Is “The Future”” »

As Toyota Corollas and Ford Focuses languish in dealerships awaiting factory incentives and buyers with good credit, the first Hurst/Viper to roll off the production line proved just how badass it is by smoking its tires all over previous Barrett-Jackson sales records. Sweet.

The limited-edition Hurst/Viper bearing serial number 1 and satin gold paint sold for $250,000 in Scottsdale, bringing in the highest price ever paid at a B-J auction for a Viper or a Hurst Performance Vehicles car. Half that money went to Victory Junction, a camp for sick kids founded by racing legend Kyle Petty and his wife Pattie. One hundred percent of the purchase price shows how a pistol-grip shifter, racing stripes and a big honkin’ V10 engine can make bidders forget we’re said to be in the midst of a global economic meltdown.

There’s no word yet on who placed the winning bid, but we don’t imagine they’d let us take the car for a spin even if we could contact them.

As we told you last month,
Hurst Performance Vehicles developed the super-exclusive Viper to continue the company’s legacy of building "gentleman hot rods."
It’s probably a good business model, considering only a few gentlemen and the U.S. government have a quarter of a million bucks to shell out for a Chrysler product.

Continue Reading “Hurst/Viper Laughs Off Recession With A Record Price” »

These are strange days for the auto industry, and car companies gotta do what they can to get by, what with the economy the way it is and car sales what they are. Even respected brands can suddenly find themselves doing unseemly things. Take BMW for example.

Bayerische Motoren Werke is legendary for building stout engines (their inline sixes being the best of them) and sedans that handle pretty well, given their limitations (e.g. 2002 Tii et al). BMW prides itself on building "the ultimate driving machine," and the M-designated cars like the M3 were always the best of the best.

Until now, because now comes word via AutoBlog that BMW will sell M badges (and other bits) to any Klaus, Werner or Florian that walks in off the street with the Euros to buy them.

I know, I know. It’s sad. How sad? Look deeper after the jump.

Continue Reading “Can’t Afford An M3? BMW Will Sell You The Badge.” »

Caught up in the drama of Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s, and Festivus, we’ll forgive Americans for overlooking a tricked-out truckfest that happened earlier this week south of the Rio Grande. It might be worth your attention, though: its participation rate might be a bellwether for the future flow of cross-border migration.

Paisano Day, now in it’s ninth year, celebrates the art of finely painted American-made pickup trucks at a competition in Jalpan de Serra, Mexico. They call these camionetas "trocas," and most of them, according to the Associated Press, are purchased by young men who grew up in the impoverished state of Querétaro but moved to the United States for work. They’re festooned with audio systems, statues of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and hydraulics kits — customizations that would cost a family’s life savings in Jalpan de Serra, where wages run less than $10 a day.

This year event organizers noticed that participation had doubled. The reason? The economic downturn in the US meant work was scarce, and lots of the troca owners had moved back to Mexico. "The turnout increased because of the crisis," organizer Iber Silva said. "A lot of migrants are returning." 

Continue Reading “How a Customized F-150 Portends Immigration Trends” »

As we prepare for the annual Thanksgiving slog over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house, we’re compiling a playlist to keep us from falling into a tryptophan-induced stupor on the long drive home. After all, British researchers have found belting out your favorite song behind the wheel makes it less likely you’ll plow into the back of a semi.

Being car guys, it occurred to us that there are approximately 1.2 gazillion songs about cars. Has any topic short of love so often been the subject of song? We don’t know for sure but we’d bet Karl Benz had no sooner fired up his Motorwagen before someone was writing a ditty about it. Cars are as much a part of rock-n-roll as sex, drugs and Marshall stacks.

We could spend days compiling the ultimate moto-centric playlist, but why bother when we can let you do it for us? To get you started we offer our picks for the best songs ever written about cars. Use the Reddit Widget to tell us what you think, add your own and vote for your faves.

Continue Reading “Cars and Guitars — Autopia’s 10 Best Songs About Cars” »

If they were looking for press coverage, the folks at SEMA couldn’t have picked a worse day to start their annual show. Everyone’s reporting on the future of the free world and could care less about muscle cars and tricked out performance mods. We’re here to give you a break from the wall-to-wall election coverage and talk about a great American drag racing rivalry from the past century that’s been resurrected at SEMA 2008:
Chevy vs. Ford.

The Cobra Jet Mustang and COPO Camaros were legendary race-ready cars upgraded by just as legendary dealers. Their symphonic exhaust notes should be etched into the brains of any gearhead who remembers the Nixon administration. Ford and Chevy hope the Cobra Jet and LS7 Camaro have a similar effect on car-lovers who lived through two terms of George W. Bush. Details are sketchy — but both look to be solid contenders for weekend racing.

Vote for your fave after the jump…

Continue Reading “Election Distraction: Cobra Jet Versus LS7 Camaro” »