D.C., VA, MD, & PA.... by PT

The Good Car Guy had a birthday almost two weeks ago. Hold the congratulations and the birthday wishes. Oh... I guess you can sing to me if you really want to.

Better than the song was the gift from TGCGirl. An absolute surprise tour through Canada's capital city, America's capital city, and plenty of driving through Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Twelve days in total, with nights spent in Chantilly (very near D.C. but in Virginia), Gettysburg - home to THAT battlefield - Pittsburgh, and another back near Chantilly in Sterling, VA.

Top right, the northern part of Shenandoah
National Park. Below, underneath the
Pittsburgh sun.
In the upcoming days, GCBC and its affiliates at Good Value Bad Value and Good Talk Bad Talk will offer up articles directly related to this trip. Transportation was provided by Air Canada, through Air Miles Rewards, as well as Ottawa's bus service, Washington's Metro train/subway, a Chrysler PT Cruiser and an older Volvo S70.

Our PT Cruiser gave us fuel economy of 30 US mpg. Impressive.
Parking at the Vienna/Fairfax station cost only $3.75 a day. The PT Cruiser traversed the Appalachians around the Shenandoah Valley without difficulty. The OC Transpo in Ottawa, Ontario was the best bus service I have ever had the privilege of enjoying, even if it was for just a day. The roads from Gettysburg that led to the Penn Turnpike offered up magnificent views and crazy corners.

While in the States I never once saw a license plate from outside of the USofA, and can therefore say that Americans' complaining about fuel prices is not reflected in their driving habits. You'll understand what I mean in a few days.

GVBV will be discussing $ inside the airports, the contrasting prices of tourism-related activities, and the weight of food in Pittsburgh. GTBT is raring to attack airport security, profiling around the White House, and the knowledge that individual American's have when it comes to the rest of the world.

GCBC, however, will stick to the automotive universe. There are a lot of amazing drives to be found in North America. The leading road through the Shenandoah National Park must now rank near the top of your must-drive list. Read more tomorrow.

TO WHET YOUR PALETTE

After 12 days of State-side vacation, Good Car Bad Car is up and running again. You may have noticed a few posts in the last two weeks and realized that there was nothing new discussed. So before the real roundup of articles start, here's a taste of TGCGuy on GCBC stuff to get you revved up for eight days worth of PT Cruiser in Virginia, DC, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. This is some of the issues to watch.

Speculation is running rampant that BMW wants Volvo, and that Ford may want the cash infusion that would thither follow. The last major exchange between Ford and BMW was in the year 2000, when Ford bought Land Rover from BMW for $2.7 billion. I just did some tire kicking on an older Volvo in Pittsburgh last week, but I have no intentions to spend the billions required.....

Remember the story mentioned here regarding John Schneider's Dukes of Hazzard car, the General Lee? Well, that all that furious eBay bidding that drove the price to $10 million apparently came out of a hacked-into account. So Bo Duke gave it another go-round on eBay Motors and one bid reached $100,000. Niot enough for the General Lee, so Mr. Schneider will head for the next Barrett-Jackson auction in Arizona where, with 725 bhp, Viper brakes, the Charger will likely fetch a killing......

GM is a confident car company right now. Saturn dealers will soon have a Toyota Camry in their showrooms. Or perhaps a Honda Accord. Chevrolet dealers might soon sit a Camry or Accord right beside the new Malibu. General Motors will encouraging you to sit and steer both, and feels that they compare more than well with the Japanese. Hopefully the sales consultants know well enough not to hammer the Camry/Accord when it is the goodness of their Aura/Malibu that will make the sale. Nobody will believe you when you start attempting to defame the two best selling cars in the USA.....

69 percent of Americans want better fuel economy when they purchase their next car. 52 percent said they would be willing to drive a smaller car to make that happen, while only 41 percent said they'd sacrifice performance for fuel economy and 45 percent said they'd take less lux for more bucks saved at the pump. You want to complain about fuel prices and then you tell me this? I think I'm going mental......

News of Toyota's new Tundra V8 having camshaft problems could hurt. Twenty of their biggest V8's - and I mean big and powerful 5.7L V8's - have camshafts which cracked and failed. Toyota's execution and marketing of this truck seem so good, but crash ratings are worse than Ford's F150 and the reliability is already being scrutinized. Incentives have begun.....

Hyundai has upped the cost of entry on their Sonata. By $200.00. However, you can actually get into a V6 for less money now..... Renault has a new Twingo, on sale in a couple weeks. Unimportant to those of us on this side of the Atlantic, of course, but an event in Europe. Renault has sold 2 million Twingos since 1993. A little car with a little power makes a lot of sense in France. The UK gets their own right-hand drive model this time around.... By 2010, you should be able to buy RWD cars called Pontiac G8, Buick Park Avenue, and Chevrolet Camaro. GM seems to offer some assurance....

Recaps, stories, and issues from 12 days away start soon. Check back.

WATCH THE POWER GROW

Corvette evolution never ceases to amaze. Overlook technological revolution, without ignoring it altogether, but steadily improve the breed by tweaking and tuning. Every few years give us a major overhaul, but without breaking away from the past.

Give us overhead valve engines of massive displacement even as others offer tidy six cylinders and V8's that rev to the moon. Stick with a balsa wood floor when all around is new material. But, make that V8 of your own rev higher than any human thought possible and mix in some magnesium and carbonfibre when you can.

Show the Europeans that amazing performance does not necessitate out-of-reach pricing. But... do go ahead and make the car more and more expensive. Stick with the annoying skip-shift manual, but eventually (fiiiiiinally) offer a 6-speed automatic for the pretenders.

But most of all, when all vehicle engineers seem to be forced to concentrate on fuel economy, give us an increasingly more powerful sportscar that can, and will, return high-20's on the MPG scale. Increasingly powerful? Oh yes.

The 2008 Corvette makes gains of 30 horsepower (to 430) and 24 lb-ft of torque (to 424) by using a 0.2 litre larger engine. There is no replacement for displacement. Want some more noise? Opt for the dual-mode exhaust and you gain six more horses with the better breathing.

We're still on the C6 Corvette, but remember that the fifth-generation opened with 'just' 345 bhp. The previous-gen Z06 closed with 'only' 405. The old but famous ZR1? A piddling 375 horsepower. The old C4's ended around 330.

Check out CorvetteGuys.com and

their large inventory of Z06 Wheels

Interestingly, the new Corvette's power level still does not look impressive when put shown as horsepower per litre. At 70 bhp/litre for that free-breathing '08 and 72/litre for the Z06, the Vette can't compete with the old M3 which produced over 100 horses for every litre of displacement. Granted, the new hi-po Mustang, Shelby GT500, doesn't touch the old or new M3 either. And that's with the aid of a supercharger.

What doth it matter? The Vette is constantly improving in every way.

FORD&DIESEL, HYUNDAI ADS, ASTON MARTIN OFFERS, & SMART DEPOSITS

One Ford spokesman has voiced an odd feeling coming out of Ford's executive compartments. He said that Ford cars available in Europe as diesels aren't sold here, and the market is too small for them to develop U.S.-only diesels.

Uh-oh.

Ford, rarely one to spot or start a trend, may be letting this one pass them by. A few thoughts come to mind. For starters, don't most engines get used across the board of an automaker, or automakers? So the cars you sell in Europe; with diesels of course; aren't available here. Can you not just take the diesels; just some of them; and fit them to the cars you have here? And didn't CEO Mullally recently mention that some of those Euro-only Fords would be great on the continent anyway? The big luxury guns from Europe are a'preparin and a'executin their diesel plans. Even Honda and Hyundai are getting ready. Ford might want to keep the beat.....

Speaking of Hyundai, there is a great contrast between their Santa Fe/Land Rover commercial and Volkswagen's Passat/5-series commercial. We had possession of a Santa Fe for quite some time and enjoyed it thoroughly, and the brief time I had with an LR3/Discovery was a pleasure as well. I have no bias.

These vehicles aren't competitors. Even so, Hyundai has a mocking ad comparing the Santa Fe and LR3, with the Santa Fe being a quicker accelerator, quicker around the slalom cones, and $22,000 CDN cheaper. No joke.

I think it's interesting. It does a good job of pointing out that high-value vehicles can offer performance equivalent to or better than the high-end stuff. But if this is the new kind of ad we'll be forced to see, I feel that I must protest. Compare a car-based soft-roader that squeezes in 7 seats with a very spacious heavy-duty go-anywhere off/on roader? Nonsense.

Ford Mustang GT's are faster around a track than Bentley Conti GTs, but nobody is suggesting that as a justifiable reason to buy a Mustang instead of a Bentley. Therein lies the problem with the Hyundai ad: they really expect me to take it seriously. The VW ad has two guys in a car, the Passat driver comforting the BMW driver for being able to 'take him' on the highway. It's comical; fun. It humours me, rather than causing feelings of annoyance......

The Kuwaiti section of the Aston Martin ownership group has already received offers for its stake. Along with Prodrive's David Richards, somebody's rich uncle in Texas, Kuwait's Investment Dar bought Aston Martin from Ford - which still holds $77 million worth - just two months ago. Two months in and opportunity to make a 50% profit must sound nice, especially when the offers roll in "every day", like they do for Investment Dar, says executive VP Amr Abou El Seoud....

Roger Penske's United Auto Group revealed on Wednesday the 9th that 12,600 are quite eager to get their hands on a smart fortwo in the USA. UAG offered first dibs to people who put down $99 deposits. The money was refundable, but it puts you at the top of the waiting list and makes you a smart 'insider'. Only 50-60 dealers will sell the smarts, even with UAG's massive network of mostly-import dealerships. smarts will likely have a base MSRP under $12,000 in the States. The smart is oh-so-small is rated highly in crash tests.

Combine rising fuel prices with something unusual like the smart, and you may have a winner. UAG thinks they may sell out the first year's allotment before they even have vehicles on their lots, even if not all deposit-holders go through with the sale.

"YOU WANT CRAZY , WE'LL GIVE YOU CRAZY" - VW

Volkswagen, as people's carish as they might be, have always been a bit... out there. To their credit, a rear-engine car that looked like a bug was a fair success. I acknowledge that adding a turbo and supercharger to the same engine has worked out well.

And so it would be foolhardy to suggest that VW would never consider building the GTI W12-650. If I say they'll never put the car into production, and then they build 25, I'll get rude emails.

This car is out there. Somewhere out there. Very far away from here. It is likely one of the coolest Volkswagens ever beheld - certainly one of the most visually striking. Volkswagen Rabbit/Golf GTI's traditionally come with a 4-cylinder engine. The current production GTI has a small four with a turbocharger to create around 197 bhp and more than 200 lb ft of torque. The R32 is a four-wheel drive Golf/Rabbit with a V6 engine that does indeed go faster, but also carries more weight.

Then you have the GTI W12-650. W12 signifies the engine configuration, a 12-cylinder in a 'W' formation, not unlike the 12-cylinder used by the Phaeton, Bentley Conti GT, and Audi A8. Also significant is the 650. Whereas the A8 and Phaeton limos make around 450 horsepower and the Bentley 552, the GTI has 650 thoroughbreds on its side. The numbers 553 may have been a bit much to add to the badge - GTI W12-650-553, but there is 553 lb ft of torque nonetheless.

Wondering how all this transpired? For starters, the engine is where the kids normally sit and the driven wheels are now the two rear most, rather than the front axle. It is safe to assume that just about everything you can't see underneath the body of this car is very different from a garden-variety GTI. Even what is visible has been changed indelibly. A gaping mouth; massive fenders; scoops ahead of the rear wheels - everything more aggressive and pronounced.

Verifiable top-speed numbers haven't been tested for yet, but Volkswagen says the W12-650 is safe for 202 mph. Theoretics say that you could travel 7,800 km in a day, without fuel stops and regular diesel Golfs hogging the passing lane.

This isn't the first time a middle-sector automaker has gone crazy with their bread-and-butter hatchback. Up until recently Renault sold the Clio V6. Renault's Clio is a tiny little car, and its performance editions are widely regarded as the best hot hatchbacks you can buy - if you live outside of North America. The typical Renaultsport Clio 172 was not enough for some of the crazier French engineers, so they converted the Clio chassis to rear-wheel drive, put a V6 where the rear seats were, and sold the car for about five years in two slightly different forms. Renault did the 5 Turbo back in the 80's as well.

Before MG Rover was sold to Chinese manufacture Nanjing, they converted the 75/ZT from the typical front-drive, four/six cylinder into a rear-wheel drive V8. Taking a Ford Mustang engine and slotting it where the engine originally rested, but switching the drivetrain to power the rear wheels created a pretty decent car. It was nothing near as crazy or extreme as what enthusiasts had hoped for.

Volkswagen has stepped it up a notch. Double, even triple the number of cylinders. Triple the power. One reason for making such a wild concept car include Martin Winterkorn's desire to revive the image of the brand. Another reason could well be, "We just wanted to have fun."

MAGNA'S ROUGH WEEK NOT ALL THAT BAD IN THE END

Canadian auto-parts manufacturer Magna International has lost out on some seriously handsome business opportunities in the span of one week. Reports were running rampant that Magna, based in Aurora, Ontario, was the top bidder for the Chrysler Group. DaimlerChrysler was already one of Magna's largest customers, so the splitting of one conglomerate to make another seemed a ripe opportunity, no?

But as you've heard, Cerberus came out as the winner of that battle, and Magna was left to say, "We desire and support the solution that is best for DaimlerChrysler and the Chrysler Group, who are among our largest customers. Magna respects the decision reached by Daimler and is confident our long-standing and mutually beneficial relationships with Daimler and Chrysler will continue."

That's a really sweet thing for your spokeswoman to say when your feelings are hurt. Sadness. A Magna subsidiary in Austria, aptly named MagnaSteyr, has also suffered the hurting of many feelings at the hand of another big German. BMW has effectively cut 45% of MagnaSteyr's automotive production by announcing that the next X3 will be built - by BMW - in South Carolina. MagnaSteyr has also been building two Chryslers, two Jeeps, two Mercedes and a Saab, as well as older Benz's, VW's, and Jeeps. Even Audi and Fiat have been clients.

To put it all into perspective, figure it like this. Belinda Stronach - Liberal Member of Parliament for Aurora; former cabinet member; former girlfriend of Canada's current Foreign Affairs Minister; former candidate for the Conservative party leadership; twice divorced and at times considered to be the ladyfriend of one of hockey's toughest men; and the former CEO of her father's company - recently announced that her political run is coming to an end. Her father's company, you say? Oh yes, that'd be Magna International. Belinda begins to concentrate on Daddy's new opportunities, and things go about as well for her as it did for her party in the last election. Lose out on the bidding for Chrysler. Lose the manufacturing of a BMW. Lose, lose, lose, lose, lose. Ouch. Sadness. Feelings... hurt.

The positives: Magna shares rose this week in light of quarterly earnings reaching higher than the forecasters predicted. Magna sponsors a soccer team in the Austrian Bundesliga, FK Austria Wien, which was league champion in 05/06. The company has 81,000 employees. Magna assumes full ownership of New Venture Gear, to become Magna Powertrain, this year.

Every cloud has a silver lining. The X3 is not even close to being considered BMW's best vehicle and Chrysler would have emptied Magna's pockets of over $7 billion. It's been a terrific day in the office, then.

FORD EXCURSION - ALL 7190 POUNDS OF IT

Any excursion in an Excursion is an excursion indeed. Small e, big E, small e. Ford's Excursion has been 'replaced' by the Expedition EL, never having made it onto the Sierra Group's list of top 10 must have items.

You will find that most any passenger vehicle with a V10 engine will make people stare. Audi S6 is handsome enough to induce locked gazes. Dodge Vipers have always produced goggly-eyes wonderers. Likewise the Ford Excursion, for a couple of reasons.


Reason #1: It's big. 18 feet long, way over 6 feet wide and similarly tall, with over 8 inches of ground clearance and a 26.5 ft turning radius. Meet an Excursion in the Costco parking lot? Just back up - get outta da'way.

Reason #2: It has just one person aboard. At least this morning there was just one human on board a green V10 Excursion heading to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. One utterly massive machine with one typically sized human in a space that can hold about 100 cubic feet of cargo. People look... and look again. They think I am an insult to humanity as my vehicle guzzles about a gallon every time I drive a mile. I had no choice.

(Click pics for larger view)

At 8am I began my drive of the 8-passenger Excursion to Lunenburg, home of the famous Bluenose. Fishermen would be waiting for their land-based transportation. Thirty-six hours at sea and the entry port is a 100km drive from the last port of call. They want their truck and they want it now. Aye aye, Cap'n. Righty-o, boatswain. Roger, seaman.

This was not my first time alone in the Excursion. It was, however, my first time emptying the local gas station of their reserves on behalf of the Excursion. No, we didn't do quite that. I only took 87 litres from the Ultramar, at $1.14 a pop. Ouch.

Excursions are built to tow, and indeed it towed just this morning. 11,000 lbs is the max trailer weight, and today's trailer likely doubled the overall length of the combo. No trouble maneuvering through the company owned gates with a tandem like that, although the fish buyers and their 18-wheelers rubbed the nearby buildings a touch. Having such a capacity to tow makes for a brittle ride, even with the lengthy wheelbase and a weight of such magnitude. Power and torque is great, but a vehicle needs to be built to tow in the places you can't see. Take a body-on-frame heavy duty truck, make it into an SUV that can tow 11,000 lbs and add four-wheel drive.... expect to be jiggled about.

Passing power was discovered to be more than adequate. Torque is a lovely thing - especially when there's 425 lb ft of it at just 3250 rpm. Visibility is far worse than what you'd wish for though, and even a simple lane merging can be a trial in heavy highway traffic. Narrow two lanes in around Blockhouse and Mahone Bay are not suited to the Excursion. I noticed that the smaller vehicles coming towards me on narrow roads were far more likely to steer closer to the shoulder. Thanks, and uh... sorry.

Steering response and feedback is un and none. Unresponsive that is, and completely lacking in feeding back any telltale signs of what the front wheels were doing. Steering inputs are just suggestions, I found. "Please Mr. Excursion, turn a bit to the right; no, a little more please. Oh, can't do it today? OK we'll try again later. Sorry for asking."

The dead spot on center that you sometimes hear about in large trucks with large tires is really quite a misleading statement. Dead spot on center? OK, sort of. But really it would be more appropriate to say, "She's gone a little lifeless around the straight ahead, as well as to the right and left and any degree of direction in between."

The brakes were actually confidence inspiring. That may be because when the brakes fail, you'll never take the brunt of the impact. Brilliant.

Interestingly, that guesstimate of of 10mpg really is altered when you view such figures in terms of pmpg. People miles per gallon. Take you, yourself, and a smart fortwo dieseland drive back to the capital from Lunenburg and we may get the same pmpg. There'll be eight people on board the Excursion on that drive, thereby causing the bulking machine to fulfill its true role while multiplying its 10 mpg rating by 8. Sounds great.

BREAKING NEWS - CHRYSLER

Chrysler has been SOLD for $7.4 billion dollars. The seller keeps 20% of the business, leaving the door open for economies-of-scale benefits and some giving/sharing/taking opportunities between Benz and the Chrysler Group. The buyer is Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity management firm whose Chairman is former Treasury Secretary John Snow. Daimler-Benz paid $37 billion for Chrysler in 1998 in a so-called 'merger of equals'. The Good Buyer at GoodValueBadValue has done a great cost analysis.
Head on over to goodvaluebadvalue.blogspot.com

LAPTIMES - AS TESTED BY EVO

Driving a production automobile as quickly as possible around a racetrack may seem pointless. Driving a production automobile as quickly as possible around a racetrack definitely seems fun. Allowing evo magazine to drive production automobiles around the Bedford Autodrome's West Circuit can teach us plenty, if we analyze the data.

evo is an English mag. Their subtitle is 'The Thrill of Driving". The editors hanker after a particular kind of automobile. Not simply fast, or expensive, or grippy or goodlooking. They want cars that are fun-to-drive, and if you don't supply them with a fun car, the number of stars that car can potentially earn drops significantly - regardless of value, 0-60 stats, or exterior appearance.

The magazine tests each car on the 1.8 mile West Circuit whenever possible. Bedford Autodrome is owned by ex-F1 driver Jonathan Palmer. Two short straights are separated by one big right-hand sweeper. Two significant chicanes, named Club Chicane and Pif-Paf present a challenge, along with a couple high-speed sequences and the Bank Complex, which appears as a sickening half-circle. The most significant face borne out of the lap times at this track is simply this: handling trumps horsepower. Handling may even trump horsepower+light weight.

Granted, the fastest time by a series production car was achieved in a 600+ bhp Porsche Carrera GT. But Porsche's previous 911 GT3 RS - a true lightweight - tops the previous 911 Turbo by more than 2 seconds. The Porsche supercar (6th overall, by the way) topped the more powerful Ferrari Enzo and Koenigsegg CCX.

Ferrari's F430 is widely regarded to be a magnificent handler, but in this instance horsepower reigns. The Ferrari's closest competitor, the Gallardo from Lamborghini, makes the finish line 3/10ths faster.

Bentley's immense Continental GT is a long ways down the list. No car that comfortable should be expected to compete for the title, but it is interesting that 552 horsepower (and over 5000lbs) couldn't topple the Nissan 350Z. The Z car did the loop on a damp track.

So horsepower doesn't actually guarantee a track-fast car. Not surprising. Money doesn't assure fast laps either. A highly-tuned Mitsubishi Evo - a Lancer underneath all the wings and spoilers - bumps the Porsche 911 S down a spot. Impreza STi's can take on BMW M6, M3, and M5, Aston Martin V8 Vantage, Vanquish S, and DB9 and beat each one. The latest BMW 330i is hardly a second slower than its big bro', the just-recently extinct M3.

Want to spend a little extra on your VW Golf/Rabbit? Changed your mind from GTI to R32 because you have a need for speed. Well, if a racetrack lap nets you a 1.2 seconds savings, what does real-world driving give you? Nothing, and you know it.

evo's testing is great for three reasons. It tells me how fast a car really is and how much faster relative to competitors. But chiefest of all, it proclaims that there doesn't seem to be much to shout about when you step down from stupid fast, to crazy fast, then fast, somewhat fast, capable, adequate, slow, and dead dog slow. It takes a few steps to find much difference.

If big horsepower and/or lightweight can't make much difference over 2 miles of 10/10ths driving, what happens on your favourite backroad? There really can't be much in it, can there?

The Maserati Quattroporte tops a big competitor, the BMW M5, by over a second-and-a-half. The Quattroporte is a big sedan, but beats bigger, more powerful sedans with ease. Credit goes to Maserati's test drivers and engineers.

Renault's tidy package from a year or two ago, the Clio 182 Cup, tops more powerful hatches from VW, BMW, Ford, Seat, and Honda.

To make it succinct, evo drives cars very fast around a racetrack. The results are surprising. Supposedly fast cars; cars with plenty of apparent performance appeal, don't always live up to the expectations. More importantly, fast isn't all that far from slow.

But fast is good.

ALL-AROUND COMPLAINING

First things first. Two nights ago I was about to turn left onto the best on-ramp in the city when I noticed a new convertible in my rear-view mirror. (It wasn't actually in my mirror, eh, it was just a reflection.) Get it? So I tell the Good Car Girl that at the top of the on-ramp a nice little cabrio was going to cruise on by.

White is the new... black, and this white Volkswagen Eos would please the Good Car Girl with her lifelong love of VW's. The Eos may be a touch soft, but it does look pretty nice and has a couple great engines.

I told her the Eos was likely being driven by a lady who would want to show us her impatience after being held up on the on-ramp. It is a GREAT on-ramp, and the urge to tramp it is hard to resist. I resisted, and she waited until the top.

Where, the lady in the Eos merged behind me, and then signaled for the next lane and flew on by. That 2.0L turbo doesn't have crazy stats, but there's no denying serious mid-range punch. Complaints? Acknowledging that winds shall buffet thee, why must the windows of every stinkin' convertible with its roof down (rare, see below) be up? The wind deflectors that manufacturers offer today are fine, a nicely amalgamated part of the design. But the windows up... ugh. It's gross. Notice the windows-down consistency in promotional shots. I was trying to impress the Veedub advocate behind me with one of her Veedubs. Not being a convertible lover, the end impression wasn't all that great considering that the windows-up posotion made the 29-year oldish female inside the Eos looked 79-years old.

Not cool.

Worse still was the Thunderbird I saw on the warmest day of the year up to this point. With high temperatures forecast for 28ºC, bright beaming sunshine, a black Thunderbird went moseying on through a 4-way stop in front of me with its black soft-top up.

Sure, he was going to a business meeting and he couldn't get his hair mussed. Tell me when exactly you want your hair tangled? Try..... never. Ever notice that certain convertibles are prone to having their tops dropped? 80's VW Cabriolet? The tops go down when the temperatures rise over 5º. BMW 3-series cabrios? Tops only drop on roads that lead to beaches or in southern portions of Florida and California where you have to show the neighbours your sprayed-on tan.

Lessons learned? Say yes. When, not if, you drop the top on your convertible, drop the windows as well......

Hyundai has a good-looking little wagon-ette with no plans to bring the car to North America. Pout. 'German-designed Hyundai' has a nice ring to it.....

They tell me now that my Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano is two years from delivery. Pout again. I can't get the Hyundai I want and now I have to wait for my Fezza? It's a rough life. No, seriously - wait times for Ferrari and some other exoto-luxo-prestige cars are lengthening as demand from China and Russia joins the burgeoning Middle-Eastern markets. China will buy at least 150 Ferraris this year; Russia took 60 last year, thereby prolonging my wait.....

Karl Lagerfeld's photography of the new Audi R8 will be displayed in New York City starting next week. Then the pics will be seen in a calendar called the "Kaleidoscope Vision of a Car". Problem? That calendar of this oh-so-nice Audi is only available to R8 buyers. I took the Ferrari - which I'm still waiting for - over the R8 and now I discover I forfeit the calendar too. On a more interesting note, have you ever realized that as photographers and like-minded artistic people become famous, their pictures of something often have them in it taking a picture of the true object? The preview pictures of the R8 are great, but Lagerfeld is in one of the shots, taking a shot of the R8? Well whose really behind the lens? Didn't R8 buyers pay all this money to get the car and pictures by Lagerfeld? "I didn't pay for the assistant's photography".......

The original Gordon Murray-designed Light Car Company Rocket will be reproduced. At a price of $99,500 USD. The car weighs less than 1000 pounds, seats two tandem-style, and rockets past just about anything. But they'll just make 10 per year, which likely lengthens the waiting list. Pout. Gordon Murray designed the McLaren F1 and I missed out on that, too.....

AGGRESSIVE COROLLA DRIVERS

We are stereotyping beings. "Government workers never do any work." That kind of thinking is rampant. "Redheads all have tempers." You know how it is.

I have some car-related stereotypes. Certain groups of people do tend to purchase certain kinds of cars. While walking across the crosswalk down our street a few days ago, with the WALK sign lit, I noticed at about the halfway point that a dark-coloured Toyota Corolla was not seeing us or 'her' red light. Yes, I instinctively spoke of the driver (as we paused at the median in fear) as a she. Sorry.

But I was right. She was on her cell phone, and looked a little bouncy with the music. Brakes gave a little squeal and the car gave a short slide toward our shins. She was not aware.

A lack of awareness does not pertain to my previous stereotypes of Corolla drivers. The stereotype involved a girl like this one, likely named Jen, who hasn't an ounce of enthusiasm for the automobile and about as much respect for the road and other cars. She's on her way to pick up Gabi who drives a 3-year old Cavalier but yearns to own a Corolla. They're going to the beach, but have no intention of going in the water. They might splurge and buy french fries, but I can't imagine they'd dare to eat them all for fear of not being able to wear a bikini next time out.

That's so cruel and oh so not true. Especially in light of news from South Africa, where on the N1 highway near Johannesburg six men were arrested for driving a little too quickly. Six men in six cars, the fastest clocked at 229 km/h, the slowest at 181 km/h. In between were cars at 192 km/h, 188, and 182.

Vehicles involved were made by Mercedes (no model specified), a Volkswagen Jetta and a Polo GTI, a BMW with no specified nomenclature, an Opel Corsa, and.... get this, a Toyota Corolla.

Now, driving dangerously is not condoned by The Good Car Guy or GCBC. However, I think this is actually a good thing for Corolla's reputation. Kinda like Martha Stewart going to jail, it only brought more attention to her person and empire.

Excuses came out of three men's mouths, one regarding taking his son to the hospital. Another said he had to take some people home who lived a fair distance, and another's wife was at home - pregnant - and in labour. All six men paid fines, were released, and were to appear in court.

Unfortunately, even as the Corolla garners a touch of coolness for being caught doing something real drivers do, it loses a touch of that cool factor for being the slowest of the six.

Nevertheless, the stereotypes I previously held must now be surrendered. Forever laid down at the feet - and on the monitor - of the Good Car Nation.


---- Notes: Mercury Topaz's have been tested at speeds of 180 km/h. Does that make the 'iconic' Topaz kinda cool?

THE CURRENT STATE

When Sobeys, Loblaws, H-E-B, Costco, and Safeway price their Coca-cola at... SHOCK AND HORROR, an extra $0.15 per litre, do the conspiracy theorists begin their tirade? "They're working together, Loblaws and Sobeys have always had enough boardroom changeover to make things appear a little fishy. Coke and Pepsi are paying them off!"

Perhaps that sentiment is somewhere on the internet, but I've yet to see it. Or what about the feeling of, "Can't the President work with Pelosi and Reid to sort this soda problem out? The American people can't live like this."

Then there's the persistent emotional backlash against a consumer-driven society from Oxfam and the World Wildlife Fund because we, as a race, can not survive on Coca-Cola alone and much more has to be done to educate humanity on the benefits of water and fruit juice. 'Acai or death', they shout.

Give me a break. If the world-at-large is so upset that regular gasoline on the east coast of Canada costs $1.17 CDN/litre or that Manhattan taxi-drivers are paying $3.05 USD/gallon or that the Shell garage on Newnham Road in Cambridge is charging 92.9 pence per litre, don't buy Coca-Cola at $1.59 for 591 millilitres.

We've all heard that argument before, and we hate it. You can't compare apples with oranges or Pepsi with gasoline. Yea verily. But, can we not admit to our own selfishness on the account of petrol? During my brief life, I've heard very few heated debates over inflation; specifically NO debates over the rising cost of soda or maple syrup and an unfortunate lack of debate over the increasing expense of school supplies and general medicine.

But boys oh boys, let us argue about gasoline. Nobody likes Microsoft's attempts at monopolization, but we'll not deny Bill Gates his well fought for money. We actually grow fearful when automotive and airline jobs are cut as a result of poor financial results. We want our government to have a surplus, we need celebrities to be rich (or they'd be just like us), and we don't generally reject the effects of capitalism.

Yet, when we hear the yearly financial earnings of Shell, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil, our intelligence is insulted. With good reason, on some occasions. To see the price of fuel after Katrina and then hear of record profits - well, that stings. But if we the consumer buy from the producer and see no reason to let $3.00 a gallon stop us, they have every right to keep on selling. No, they really do. If you want to get upset because of the high taxes on fuel, that is another argument. But when it comes to the profits Shell and others make because of simple supply and demand, we have got to blame ourselves. At least a little.

The price is high in my hometown. I am about to drive to the mall. The Good Car Girl needs shoes, ya know, the things we put our feet in so that we can walk. We're going to drive a car to the place where she can find shoes for her feet. Catch the irony?

Last night we were five minutes too early to pick up a passenger, so we took a brief drive to look at cars. Admittedly, we spent most of the time looking at Lexus hybrids. Good for us. We were channeling DiCaprio and Sarandon.

There is a vicious cycle going on. Conservation is a big time buzz-word now, and it's a buzz word that will continue to.... umm... buzz. We all know cleaner cars would be a good thing, but while requesting cleaner cars we still use the same old liquid that causes every vehicle to pollute. And to buy that liquid, we support companies that drill in areas that ought to be left untouched. There goes that part of the conservation. We accelerate quickly away from the gas station because we're so ticked off that it cost $75.00 and by accelerating so quickly, we burn more of that 'expensive' liquid and return to the gas station sooner. As our words say, "Conserve, preserve, reuse, reduce...." our actions sing another tune.

We say gasoline is expensive. We don't act like it.

---- Simulcast with Good Value Bad Value

SATURDAY CHATTERING

Amongst the world of automobilia comes news that....

General Motors is making a push for Uzbekistan. Apparently, unbeknown to me, GM has already made some inroads in Kazakhstan and plans to develop in Romania as well. All of this comes through their takeover of Daewoo, whose presence in these markets was secured in the 90's. President Karimov must be so excited for his country's economic expansion.....

On April 27th, the eBay bid for Bo Duke's personal General Lee was at $505,000. This Charger is especially, er.... special because it was indeed John Schneider's own General Lee. But yet the final selling price of $9,900,500 does seem extravagant. A Bugatti Type 41 Royale sold for $11 million in 1987. All in all, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, Mr. Schneider's PayPal account is more handsome than mine.....

It was kind of neat in 2003 when the Ferrari/Maserati group won the title of best place to work in all of Italy. Now, the Great Place to Work Institute has given the title of Best Place to Work 2007 to Ferrari, but not just for Italy, but all of Europe. Amidst fun events like new-car unveilings and Grand Prix races come medical checkups for worker and family, preventative medical programs and the recognition of human beings as the 'fulcrum of the company's work systems' and by placing an emphasis on the necessity and importance of each individual worker, regardless of their duty. Forza lavoro.......

The upcoming Dodge Durango Hybrid will offer its hybridized-powertain to its platform mate, the Chrysler Aspen. This means there will be not one, but two, Hemi Hybrids. What a conundrum. Hemi and hybrid......

An atomic orange, gold-ribboned Chevrolet Corvette will pace the Indy 500 this month. Interestingly, McDreamy will become McRacey and do the driving. Patrick Dempsey is an avid race fan and car enthusiast and the co-owner of the Vision Racing team. He raced in the celebrity undercard at Long Beach this year and does voiceover on Mazda commercials, as well....

BACKSEAT DRIVER? - MAZDA 5

Tell me something. When your child, boy or girl, comes home from school and says, “Mom! Dad! I saw the coolest car today. Can we buy a Mustang GT?”, how do you respond? My guess is you say no. I am likely correct.

But, for one second, could we just consider a car purchase from the youngster’s perspective? On the most recent test drive I took I was the backseat tester. No, not backseat driver, just tester. I decided I would let my good friend do the driving, and my wife and I would consider what a Mazda 5 was like from the rear-most inhabitants outlook. What’s it like back there? How’s it feel back there? What kind of life did I lead when I was 7 and in my mother’s Grand Caravan?

This is something different altogether, the 5. In Europe, miniature minivans, or MPVs to those on the Continent, are huge hits. Renault offers 5 MPVs altogether, and three of them are sized like the Mazda or smaller. Opel/Vauxhall makes the popular Zafira, which seats seven. Ford is in the game with the C-Max, and VW offers the Touran. You see what I mean, everybody’s got’em.

Now Mazda wants to try out the segment on this supersized side of the pond. People here drive Suburban’s, Sienna’s, and Odyssey’s, but will they like the smaller and less capacious 5? I decided to find out from the viewpoint of the people who caused their parents to need such a vehicle.

Here’s what I discovered. Firstly, the middle row of the six-seater is incredibly spacious, whether you’re talking legroom, headroom, or even arm/hip room against the door. If there is nobody behind you in the rearmost row, you can slide the middle seats back to further yourself from the driver and front passenger. All in all, the second row gets my recommendation.

Secondly, the 5 lends itself to being seen out of very well from all angles and all seats. The windows are large, and the car (I hate to call it a van) isn’t actually all that large, which you’ll find out if you park it side-by-side with the already small Mazda MPV. So to the kid who always misses the moose on the Cabot Trail, or who doesn’t even notice he is on the Golden Gate Bridge , I’ve found the place where your carseat needs to go.

Next is the third row, more of a split bench than the front four seats. To be honest, this isn’t a place where I would want to spend a lot of time. Then again, I’m a mighty large child at nearly 6 feet and double the weight of a big kid. So, in this case, you kind of need to suspend the importance of my thoughts. Beneficially, you can seat the tallest of those people allotted the third row to the right side of the vehicle, so that the front passenger and the middle right passenger can slide ahead. Then put the smaller passenger in the left side, behind those who require more space. Got it? The first problem in the 5 is that you’re tempted to carry five or six passengers on a trip, but you can’t, because there ain’t no room for yo' luggage. So as I said to my driver, we must not think of the Mazda as a six-passenger cargo hauler. It’s a sextet people hauler, or a four passenger cargo hauler. And it will certainly carry a bunch of stuff when you equip it for four by easily folding down the third row.

Folding is an altogether easy thing in the 5, with the five passenger seats all going down, four of them perfectly flat. Finally, driving impressions, er... riding impressions. We were in an automatic (yes, a manual is standard equipment even in this MPV) and it was only found a little breathless navigating a steep on-ramp. Albeit, that was purely from my inherent g meter - the driver found it fine. The manual would be quicker and better on fuel, to boot.

The ride/handling compromise was favourable. It’s likely the most fun to drive tall-roofed six-seater you can buy, even from my backseat position. The suspension is designed for smoothness, but roll is kept in check. Very nice. In other words, if a kid sees a Mazda 5 at school, and dares to ask for one, you might even like it more than he or she does. This is one of the first attempts to bridge this gap in the market, and it comes in at a price that happens to be very attractive, considering the safety and convenience features that come standard.
Everything you’d expect to be powered is, and 4-wheel discs and ABS slow everything down, all for around $20,000 CDN. The 2.3L 4-cylinder is the only powerplant, and the 157 horses the engine produces are suitable in a vehicle of this size. If you want similar space in a Mazda, the 6 wagon comes only with the V6. Besides, it's just a five-seater.

So why do I mention the kids coming home from school and asking for a new car? Well, they may just ask for a 5 after they see that it is in the van configuration that Ma and Pa want, but with the sleekest, stylish, and most svelte looks to land on an MPV since I don’t know when. It ticks all the boxes.

APRIL SHOWERS PUT A DAMPER ON AMERICAN CAR SALES

'Two fewer selling days' was part of General Motors reasoning for their drop in sales this April, as compared to April of 2006. GM's sales dropped 9.5 % to 307,554 but with two less days to sell cars, their daily selling rate was down just 1.9 percent.

DaimlerChrysler was a rare example of improvement this past month. Sales of the Chrysler Group cars were up 2%, even as Toyota; Honda; Nissan; Hyundai; and Kia dropped.

Average sales capitulation for those five Asian automakers was 8.7%, a number that reflects negatively on Toyota and positively on Nissan. Purchases and leases of Toyota's dropped only 4.3%, while Nissan's went down 18 percent. Honda, Hyundai, and Kia regressed with percentage drops of 9, 5, and 7 respectively.

Ford Motor Company sold 12% less F150's, which seriously inhibits any chance of growth. Therefore, Ford's numbers were down 13% as a whole. The intentional drop in fleet sales can only be considered a small part of Ford's overall plummet. (See story here.) Ford sold to fleets at a 5% slower rate in April of '07.

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If you decide to buy yourself a city car in 2009, would you stick with the obvious choice (below) or try something new (right) ? What if something new was a Toyota Endo and could potentially seat more than two?

Rumours are gathering momentum, and the common thinking is that Toyota will produce an Endo-like city car sometime in 2008. The Endo concept was a 3+1, with a small seat behind the passenger and a child-sized perch behind the driver. The Endo would be a healthy 16 inches shorter than Toyota's already small Aygo.

Mix a little Toyota quality and dependability with a terrific concept, and you may have a winner.

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Add Hyundai to the growing mix of diesel believers for America. DBA is a growing group. Hyundai has a desire to produce a 50-state compliant diesel engine by '09 or '10, specifically for the Veracruz. A 240bhp torque monster would do quite well in a Tiburon or Sonata, too..... The Gaffoglio Family Metalcrafters added 12 inches to the midsection of a Lamborghini Gallardo. What righteous cause could they find? Shaquille O'Neal. Hopefully that'll cheer up the big man after getting swept out of the playoffs..... Apparently the keys to a Volvo XC90 are at the bottom of the ocean with $50,000 in gold doubloons.... If you are pregnant, do deliver your child at 2:03:04 on 05/06/07. The birthing parents closest to that time - a sequence that will not happen again for a century - could receive a new Chrysler Sebring. Ask the concept facilitators to make it a 300C instead.

GOODUHAULBADUHAUL

Excuse the lack of a proper posting today. The Good Car Parents were moving. U-Haul double-booked on day #1 of moving, which was number one of a few stresses.

The Good Car Parents, on two occasions in the very distant past, have had far worse experiences with the do-everything-yourself company. On a 3000 mile U-Haul journey, we broke down 1/3rd of the way in Schuylkill, PA. On the 3000 mile return journey from Texas one year later, we broke down within site of the Canadian border. These pictures exemplify some of that frustration.

The pressures of yesterday and today - such as sofas, hide-a-beds, and deep freezers - proved to me that the physical strain of sitting at a desk supplying The Good Car Nation with reading material is not so bad after all.