Car News Articles

For those planning on attending the Monterey Car Weekend at some point in their lives, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Are you ready? Ok. Arrive in Monterey by the Wednesday evening before the weekend, get a good night’s sleep, and be out by the equestrian grounds at Pebble Beach around 7:30 am Thursday morning. Why? Because that’s when the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance kicks off every year. And get this: it’s completely free. Even the coffee is complimentary.

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TRAVERSE CITY — Chrysler LLC will invest $1.8 billion to retool and expand its Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit and develop a new line of vehicles for the factory, including a car-based sport utility vehicle to be sold under the Jeep nameplate.

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Lotus is joining forces with Queen’s University Belfast and Jaguar to develop Omnivore, a revolutionary new multi-fuel combustion engine with significantly enhanced thermal efficiency when running on any combination of alcohols and gasoline.

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So Mercedes took the old C-class Sport Coupe and grafted on the nose from the new C-class. Who are they trying to kid? The resulting CLC is the newest car on the Mercedes stand at the 2008 London motor show and CAR’s assistant editor Ben Barry ponders its provenance in our new motor show video report.

Click on our video player below to watch our film.

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Ignore the zany camouflage – beneath the canvas, swirls and dots sits Chevrolet’s new Beat supermini. It’s the car that will replace the aged Matiz – thanks goodness – and it sits on GM’s new ‘world car’ B-class platform, developed in Korea. It’s early days yet for the fresh-looking Beat though â€“ it only arrives here in 2010.

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Kansas Speedway is hoping to get a second Sprint Cup date for the 2010 season. While the track is the closest geographically to Texas Motor Speedway, TMS president Eddie Gossage doesn’t think another race in the Midwest will hurt attendance at the track.
It hasn’t happened yet.
“I don’t think it will have any impact on us,” Gossage said. “They’re the closest speedway to us. We haven’t lost any fans to them with their one date,” Gossage said. “I can’t imagine losing fans to them with a second date.”
Kansas’ lone race on the schedule is a Chase race. Getting a second date is contingent on a new hotel and casino getting approved on the property. After that, it would seem like a formality because the track is owned by International Speedway Corp.
— Anthony Andro

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It’s back to school time where I live, and that means lots of kids getting transported to school in big yellow taxis, commonly referred to as school buses. As the most seasoned MotherProofer (no, I didn’t say old), I thought I’d share some of my tips for safe school bus behavior. Before you start questioning my qualifications, here’s my background: Not only have I been the parent of a bus rider for more than 10 years, but I also have a parent who was a transportation administrator for a major public school district in Colorado (thanks for the help, Dad). I also serve on my local Board of Education where I deal with matters of school bus safety on a regular basis.

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I promise we’ll post something quirky to lighten the mood later, but I feel compelled (compelled I tell you) to mention that Detroit’s meltdown is finally getting the coverage it deserves. Detroit News’ columnist Daniel Howes– he of the jump down turnaround better days ahead– has just used the “b” word in his latest rant, finally admitting that “Big three need cash fast” (never mind a competitive small car or ten). The Detroit Free Press is also beginning to wake up and smell the ashes. While I’m pleased that the Motown print media is finally growing a pair, I am astonished that these two august institutions have failed to fully and persistently chronicle the human cost of The Big 2.8’s inexorable decline. Jim Dollinger (a.k.a. Buickman) tells me that Flint is even more like a ghost town these days, with business drying-up and blowing away. Where are the papers’ reports on the lives disrupted by Detroit’s downsizing? While we await these tales of woe from the sharp end– which will arrive in force the moment Chrysler files– we’d appreciate any local reports from our Best and Brightest. 

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When The National Motorists Association blog noticed a large number of pro-red-light-ticket-camera editorials coming out of the Orlando Tribune, they decided to investigate. Turns out that every one of the pro-camera pieces was written by a single member of the Tribune’s editorial board, George Diaz. Well wouldn’t you know it: Diaz is “the point man on editorials pushing for red light camera legislation in Florida” for the National Campaign To Stop Red Light Running. The lobbying group is funded by the fine people who make and sell red-light-ticket- cameras. Needless to say, the Tribune has ethical standards which state that Editorial staffers “should avoid situations in which their activities in connection with any group or cause could be perceived as influencing what the Sentinel publishes or broadcasts.” What’s more, “when conflicts of interest are unavoidable but not obvious to readers, they should be disclosed in the story.” And of course, Diaz did neither. For shame.

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