Car News Articles

The Nürburgring 24 hours is one of the very toughest races on the motorsport calendar, a grid packed with 230 cars where dedicated amateurs can mix it with factory teams and the world’s best drivers.

Read more

BMW is putting the finishing touches to the mildest of mild facelifts for its all-conquering 3-series saloon and estate – caught here almost camo-free – ahead of its Paris motorshow debut this coming October. The brush up readies it to take on the new C-class and Audi 4.

Read more

Danica Patrick is the best known driver in the IndyCar Series, and she erased any doubt that she belongs in April when she became the first woman in history to win a major open-wheel race.
Her popularity with the fans, however, hasn’t been shared by her fellow drivers of late. After last week’s race in Iowa, Scott Dixon called her “a menace,” and Ed Carpenter referred to her “normal supreme block job” in suggesting that Patrick’s blocking style hampered his finish.
“I don’t really know where those comments came from,” Patrick said during a meeting with reporters Thursday at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway, the site of Saturday night’s SunTrust 300 IndyCar race.
Patrick’s style was further brought under scrutiny Wednesday when Brian Barnhart, the IndyCar Series’ president of competition and operations, said she needs to continue treating her fellow competitors with respect or risk losing their respect because of her driving style.
Asked to respond to competitors’ objections to her aggressive style and unwillingness to give up track position, she said she’s doing her job.
“All I can say is with the words you used — aggressive and giving up spots — those are things that drivers never do,” she said.
“You should never give up spots and you ideally don’t want to be someone that’s just passive out there. As a driver, I’m always trying to be aggressive and I think, if anything, last weekend I maybe wasn’t aggressive enough on the restarts. That’s where I lost my spots.”
Respect, she added, is something she’s worked hard to earn.
“One thing I’ve worked really hard on ever since I entered the series was earning that respect, and walking that fine line between being too passive and getting pushed around and being too aggressive,” she said.
Patrick finished sixth at Iowa, two spots behind Dixon, and said she was particularly perplexed by his remarks since she was only aware of him being behind her on the last restart, “and he flew by me,” she said.
Dressed in black on a blistering day, Patrick said she’s not out to become the IRL’s answer to NASCAR bad boys Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart.
“I don’t think that’s ever a route that you ever choose,” she said. “I think that in an ideal world, I would win over everyone’s heart and be a sweetheart and be tough on the track and have good finishes.”

Read more

I am not a math person, but I can tell that the EPA mileage estimates have little relationship to my actual fuel consumption. Maybe it’s just me and my lack of algebraic competence, but as far as I can tell based on my rudimentary arithmetic skills, the numbers just don’t add up.

Read more

I was wrong. In spite of indications to the contrary, the GMC salesman blogger defending your right to suck-up fuel and clog the roadways with oversized trucks didn’t have a change of heart about hybrids. In his latest anonymous posting on the Commercial Auto Dealers web site, the same person who warned us about the dangers of hybrids (so quiet we’ll all fall asleep behind the wheel) is “irked”  about environmentalists who “who think hybrids are God’s gift to humankind” because of “Al Gore’s half-truths and theories.”  And he’s specifically “annoyed” with those of you who’ve commented about his views on trucks vs. hybrids. Just to make sure you understand where he’s coming from, he states “I’m sticking with my truck and I’m not going to feel guilty about it.” Neither should anyone else “feel guilty about going to your local GMC truck dealer and getting the biggest, baddest truck you can find and driving it for no reason at all.” Gas prices be damned. After all, “when [hybrid owners] need a tow, the guys with the big trucks are the ones they’re going to call first.”

Read more

TTAC has finally broken through the 600k unique visitors per month barrier again (606,569 as of today). Our page views are also looking healthy: 2,018,749 per month. And visitors are spending an average of 4:58 hereabouts. This is a most gratifying result– especially after the huge dip incurred during our most recent site instability issues (a.k.a. daily crashes). My thanks to the technical team for sorting that shit out, and, of course, to TTAC’s ME and writers for slogging away through thick and thin. With a bit of luck and the wind in the right direction, we’ll keep building from here. (We might even have a photo gallery before Christmas.) At the moment, we’re still ironing-out a few kinks. Your patience is most appreciated. And it may be required again; the prospect of our switch to the new WordPress platform leaves me as nervous as a Gloucester teen during her first pregnancy test. High five! Anyway, we’ve had a nice, slow, steady growth of new registrations lately. So I want to welcome the newbies to TTAC. You couldn’t have come at a better time (said the actress to the Bishop). It’s gonna be a wild time in the industry for the forseable future. I’m honored to share it with you. Thanks.

Read more

The Easton, Pennsylvania City Council is set to pass a town ordinance that would seize the cars of “johns” cruising through their town looking for prostitutes. The Morning Call reports that the new law would apply to any vehicle used ”to solicit prostitution or to engage in an act of prostitution or to solicit or engage in sexual activity.” We’re not talking about impounding (so to speak); the ordinance would allow the city to keep or sell the confiscated vehicles. Councilwoman Elinor Warner introduced the ordinance, which was last mooted a decade previous. She has no doubts that the law will scare off the mobile sex trade that’s been plaguing the city for years. In an unfortunate choice of words, she claimed it would attack the demand side of the equation and ‘’spread the love around, and make it hard on the johns as well.” Warner’s City Council colleagues have no problem with silly little things like constitutionality. Councilman Roger Ruggles told the paper that state law already allows police to seize vehicles used in drug deals. ”I don’t see much of a difference.” I wonder what kind of car he drives…

Read more

Does it sound like a good idea to advertise the new Lancia Delta in the U.K. by showing Richard Gere frolicking with some Buddhist monks from Tibet? Odd? Certainly. Cute? Maybe. Problematic? Well yes, if you dislike the kind of lefty vegetarian sanctimonious Hollywood type Gere represents (which I don’t). But could this spot really be a reason to apologize? Just-Auto [sub] reports that upon hearing of cockamamie protests from Beijing, Fiat kowtowed to the dictators in the People’s Republic. “Fiat Group reiterates its neutrality in connection with any political matter, be it on a national or international basis. To the extent that the Lancia Delta advertising may give rise to misinterpretations of its well established position of neutrality, Fiat Group extends its apologies to the Government of the People’s Republic of China and to the Chinese people.” Yes, it hurts the Chinese Government’s feelings that the pro-Tibet Gere is shown in some vaguely positive way in Tibet, or something. And it dismays us that Fiat, a car maker on the ascent, apparently didn’t know what it was doing when it OK’d this ad, and obviously doesn’t have a pair.

Read more

Consumer Reports have a brand-spankety new survey out, and it says that Americans can tell that gas is expensive. Oh yeah, and that they might do something about it. Survey says that four-dollar gas™ has 79 percent of us car-shopping Yanks wanting a “car with better fuel economy,” and 74 percent driving less to keep costs down. Even though the respondent-identified $4.32 per gallon “tipping point when drivers would further drastically curtail driving” is only upon those of us on the left coast, a full 80 percent of prospective buyers are considering a “diesel, flex-fuel, or hybrid vehicle.” Too bad those numbers aren’t broken down between those three very different options. So America has taken notice of pricey gas, but the real question is who do Americans blame? And the answers are as unimaginative as you might expect, with the federal government (77 percent), oil companies (75 percent), foreign oil producers (70 percent), and Middle East conflict (68 percent), taking the rap for pain at the pump. When asked what the feds should do to fix the mess, 90 percent say “increase support for alternative energy development”, 84 percent say “negotiate lower prices with oil-exporting nations”, 83 percent say “encourage conservation through tax incentives for alternative transportation”, while 81 percent want to “allow more drilling in the U.S. and offshore.” Interestingly, “Putin-style nationalization of oil firms” and “wholesale invasion of the middle east” weren’t polled, suggesting there might not be convenient solutions to scapegoats number two, three and four. 

Read more

So I was wondering, where in the world was your craziest driving experience, and what stories have you got from roads that tested your taste for mortality? If we get a decent response we’ll even list a top five.

Read more