The red Ferrari Enzo — one of only 400 ever made and worth more than $1 million — broke apart Tuesday when it crested a hill on PCH going 120 mph and slammed into a power pole.
The crash did not result in serious injuries. But it sent shockwaves through both the tabloid and exotic car worlds as one group wondered whether the driver was a celebrity and the other mourned the loss of a hand-built car revered by many as a work of art.
Category: Automobiles
Toyota Vies for One of Detroit’s Last Strongholds
The new Tundra, not available until next year, has some interesting features. Imagine, listening to your customers.
With this truck, Toyota has attempted to do its homework. Beginning in 2002, Toyota began interviewing every type of truck owner, from ranchers in Montana to construction crews in Atlanta and business owners in Houston, to be sure it understood their needs.
One basic: performance. While some people buy pickups as car substitutes, the most serious customers use them for work. So the Tundra is capable of towing more than 10,000 pounds, and will come equipped with a new 5.7-liter V-8 engine and six-speed automatic transmission.
To its surprise, Toyota engineers learned that they do not just use their pickups to lug things around: they are the equivalent of mobile offices.
So this Tundra is compatible with Bluetooth technology, a feature found on its Lexus models, and has multiple connection ports for laptops, cellphones and other devices.
‘[T]he Si corners like a weasel in a drainpipe.’
NewMexiKen just loves the style of Los Angeles Times auto critic (and Pulitzer winner) Dan Neil: An example from today’s column about the Honda Civic Si:
Tina is my wife and — setting aside her taste in husbands — she has very good judgment. While I ponder the Confucian mysteries of things like caster angle and shift throws, for the Tina-meter it’s all about comfort, security and serenity in the passenger seat. Yes, yes, your electroluminescent gauges and dials are all very pretty, but for me the Tina-meter is the most important readout in a car. If Tina arrives in a bad mood, well, my day isn’t going to get any better, is it?
Or:
From the driver’s chair, the Si is an endless source of infantile thrills, a high-fructose sports compact with all the yank and snatch of a tuned autocross racer. Think psychotic hamster. From the passenger seat, however, the car is kind of awful — loud and ungenerous and frantic, endlessly seesawing over 1-2 and 2-3 gearshifts. The sport-tuned suspension is leathery and the “tuned” intake system, routed through the fender well for more wailing resonance, performs exploratory surgery until it finds your last nerve, and then gets on it.
Small beginnings
According to The History Channel’s This Day in History, on this date in 1958:
The Toyota and Datsun (later Nissan) brand names made their first appearances in the United States at the Imported Motor Car Show in Los Angeles, California. Previously, these auto makers had sold in the U.S. only under American-brand names, as part of joint ventures with Ford and GM.
The $5 day
As The New York Times reported, on this date in 1914:
Henry Ford, head of the Ford Motor Company, announced…one of the most remarkable business moves of his entire remarkable career. In brief it is:
To give to the employees of the company $10,000,000 of the profits of the 1914 business, the payments to be made semi-monthly and added to the pay checks.
To run the factory continuously instead of only eighteen hours a day, giving employment to several thousand more men by employing three shifts of eight hours each, instead of only two nine-hour shifts, as at present.
To establish a minimum wage scale of $5 per day. Even the boy who sweeps up the floors will get that much.
Before any man in any department of the company who does not seem to be doing good work shall be discharged, an opportunity will be given to him to try to make good in every other department. No man shall be discharged except for proved unfaithfulness or irremediable inefficiency.
Read the complete Times article.
NewMexiKen must be thinking new car
Because cars are sure on my mind. Here’s a couple of items:
Before long your car will stay up-to-date with your entire iTunes library. SimpleDevices is working with auto-components company Delphi on an in-vehicle media system that synchs the media from your PC via a wireless link.
According to The Detroit News Ford’s new, stretched Expedition won’t get the name “Everest,” which the company’s marketing folks thought attracted too much attention to the truck’s size. The +19′ full-sized SUV will likely be called something less self-conscious, like Expedition L.
C’etait un Rendezvous
On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.
No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.
The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.
Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago.
Now, thanks to the miracle of the Internets, you can watch it in your browser.
This footage is really rather incredible; more exciting than typical movie car chases because you see the view from the car the entire time.
Link directly to the nine minute video. Here’s another link. The film has the car noise, which isn’t to be missed, but be aware.
Source for information above and links: Jerry Kindall: C’etait un Rendezvous.
Vroom, vroom
Dan Neil takes the new Bugatti Veyron for a spin.
About nine seconds ago, I was dawdling at 100 mph. Then I squeezed the throttle. The seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox clicked twice, the engine took a huge lung-busting toke of atmosphere through its twin roof snorkels — and then things got interesting. Something slammed me from behind and I realize it was the seat. Captain, it appears we have fallen nose-first into a wormhole.
Two-hundred mph. And I’m not even in top gear.
Top speed: 253 mph. But it has a safety feature. At that speed it will run out of gas in 12 minutes.
MSRP: $1.25 million. (“The down payment is $413,000, enough to buy six Chevrolet Corvette Z06s.”)
The Mother of All Vettes on the Mother Road
I had driven a 2006 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 more than 2,000 miles from Chicago searching for bits of Historic Route 66. In California’s Mojave Desert there was a long, lonely stretch of the old road that just might let me flirt with the 6’s top speed of 198 mph.
I hadn’t passed anyone in miles and I could see the road ahead was empty to the horizon.
I dropped the six-speed gearbox from 6th to 4th and floored it. Like a cathedral pipe organ playing Bach’s “Toccata” with all the stops out, the 7.0-liter, 505-hp LS7 V8 began to thunder and howl toward its 7,000-rpm redline.
The dual-stage mufflers opened to release back pressure and a soul-stirring roar that echoed off the mountains. The head-up digital speedometer and tach display changed numbers faster than a premium gas pump totals dollars.
105, 118…think, look, stay on it. 139 — the front end is feeling light over the rough pavement. Stare at the horizon ’til your eyes harden — and keep your foot planted. 145…flick your eyes for an instant to check the HUD.
154 mph.
Things are beginning to blur…there’s a slight rise looming….
Not today, folks. The cross-drilled front and rear disc brakes hauled the most powerful Corvette ever from 156 to 90 in two heartbeats. Sanity (and the wife-in-my-head) nags.
Bill Baker for Inside Line
NewMexiKen’s personal best is 113, but that was in a Honda.
Best lines of the day, so far
“Even with the smaller engine, our IS felt friskier than a grotto-full of Hef’s houseguests.”
“Dremmel only wishes it made a drill this smooth.”
“The interior has the soundtrack of a Vicodin overdose ….”
Dan Neil writing about the new Lexus IS
Something else I learned
… from the auto blogs. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a website with ratings of all cars tested since 1990 — SaferCar.gov.
And I don’t know what this actually means, but that little shoebox looking Toyota Scion. It has an 18% chance of rollover. That can’t be good. Dodge Dakota, 19%.
Car talk
Autopia, Wired’s auto blog, has a report that you can now get your car’s GPS system to talk to you in the voice of various stars. Or, as they say, B-list stars, such as Burt Reynolds, Dennis Hopper and Mr. T. Or Jerry Lewis: “Hey, look out for that laaaaady!”
Assuming all celebrity voices were readily available, whom would you chose to talk to you in your car?
Like the horse in Oz
Car paints changing with temperature by ZDNet‘s Roland Piquepaille:
It’s now common to build materials which can change colors depending on their surrounding environment because of progresses made in colloid chemistry. But now, German researchers have gone a step further. They’ve used ion bombardment and gold metallisation to produce new particles whose bonding behavior can be chemically tailored. This could lead to new shimmering car finishes which can change with temperature or humidity, new cosmetics,….
Chile: 4×4 by 4,000 miles
Pultizer prize-winning critic (his topic just happens to be automobiles) Dan Neil reports on his car trip in Chile. He begins:
I’ve got a thousand miles behind me and three thousand to go. I’ve got a dashboard tan. Hammer down. Radar love.
It’s the middle of the night in the middle of the Atacama Desert, along a stretch of haunted ground called the Pampa del Indio Muerto. I don’t speak Spanish but I get the idea. This is the land that rain forgot.
Guidebooks call this part of northern Chile “lunar” or “Martian,” and during the day it’s understandable because the cracked lifelessness stretches to the ashy horizon. Water seems like folklore. But at night, well, night is different. Northern Chile has dark and transparent air — silver-lidded observatories eye the heavens from nearby mountaintops — and the sky is whitewashed with stars. You will never feel more Earthbound. Here you can appreciate your significance in the universe, and the news is not good.
Key quote: “But the fact is, most of the world isn’t paved, and that’s the part I long to see.”
I’d like to quote more, but go read Neil’s report — and don’t miss the photos.
Best line of the day, so far
“Imagine if there’d been some sort of hideous Pentagon mess-up and someone had decided that the Army would go into battle driving a fleet of Camrys. . . . So why in the name of all that’s holy is it somehow acceptable to cruise down to the mall in a military vehicle?”
Richard Porter, author of Crap Cars, regarding the Hummer H1, quoted in a review by Roy Blount Jr.
Also included is Porter’s advice on the Geo Metro Convertible: “Don’t buy a car that’s smaller, and indeed less comfortable, than your shoes.”
Best line of the day, so far
“You might expect me to object to the 2 1/2 -ton Jeep Commander Limited 4×4 on the grounds of its in-the-teens fuel economy. You would be wrong. I wouldn’t drive this thing if gas were free and I got 72 virgins with every fill-up.”
— Dan Neil, Los Angeles Times, who also has this:
“The purpose of the Commander — based on the Grand Cherokee platform — is to give Jeep a seven-passenger vehicle, two more seats than the Grand Cherokee. Which raises the question: Who are these two additional people and what did they ever do to Jeep? The third-row seats, reached after a brief spelunker behind the folded second-row seats and onto the hump of the rear axle, are hilariously cramped and uncomfortable.”
For the Civic-minded
Dan Neil assesses the political debate over hybrid cars as a lead-in to a rave for the 2006 Honda Civic hybrid.
The reason hybrid cars are flying off dealers’ lots is not because they make such a galvanizing financial brief. It’s because people of goodwill, conservative and liberal, are growing weary of the moral calculus of gasoline. What people are learning is that private choices have public consequences. Sure, I’ll make my money back, but the more important thing is the 643 gallons of liquid crack I will save. Now that’s conservative.
Almost lost in all this is just how amazing these machines are. The Honda Civic hybrid is a five-passenger, full-featured sedan measuring 176.7 inches long; it’s packed with safety features, everything from compatibility-minded body structures (helping to protect occupants in collisions with heavier, higher vehicles such as SUVs) to an energy-absorbing hood to help lessen impacts to pedestrians. And yet, loaded like Tara Reid on Ibiza, the car weighs only 2,875 pounds, aces Honda’s internal tests mimicking the government’s frontal and side-impact resilience, gets in excess of 40 mpg and has almost immeasurably clean emissions. Such a car was the stuff of science fiction 10 years ago.
According to Neil, “The EPA rates the 2006 Honda Civic hybrid at 50 miles per gallon city and 50 mpg highway. Honda’s testing puts those numbers at more modest 47/49 mpg and suggests real-world results of around 44 mpg….”
Best line of the day, so far
“Once it finds its posture, the MX-5 clings to a white line like Kate Moss.”
Dan Neil. The MX-5 is the new, renamed Miata.
Love, actually
In a review of a Bentley and a Jaguar, Dan Neil shows he understands the human heart (at least, when it comes to cars):
Comparing these cars reminds me of just how eccentric and personal, even irrational, tastes in cars can be. Whether you have $20,000 or $200,000 to spend, there are a set of imperatives that go beyond price and function — purely emotional, extra-textual concerns that make cars the expressive and interesting objects they are. After all, if car-buying were completely rational and deterministic — an X-and-Y plot of price and features — we’d all be driving Hyundai Sonatas. And do we really want that?
Best line of the day, so far
“This thing has more voices than Linda Blair in full antichrist mode.”
— Dan Neil on the “deep whirring, warbles and roars” of the Ferrari F-30 Spider, price, as tested: $212,000.
Why I occasionally buy a lottery ticket
The Lamborghini Gallardo SE — MSRP $170,000.
Pad Thai, motherhood and Chevrolet
The United States produces the most trucks. Which nation is second?
Canada. Nope.
Mexico. Nope.
Japan. Nope.
If you guessed Thailand, you’re right.
A free trade agreement being negotiated between the United States and Thailand could place the Asian nation alongside Japan, Korea and China as a major threat to U.S. automakers and American manufacturing jobs, officials say.
Thailand is the second-largest producer of pickup trucks in the world. The United States currently has a 25 percent tariff on all imported light trucks.
If the tariff were removed on vehicles exported to the United States from Thailand, Japanese and other automakers with assembly plants there could compete much more effectively for American truck buyers.
Source: The Detroit News
General Motors and Ford both build trucks in Thailand, though most produced there are by Japanese companies.
A gas
Where’s the downside? As I said, there are many good reasons to own a Civic GX, but driving pleasure is not among them. Styled like the dull end of a spoon, this car is boring on a scale that calls for parsecs. Cloth seats, a dinky two-speaker stereo, a trunk eaten up by the CNG cylinder, steel wheels and a 1.7-liter four-cylinder under the hood — or an asthmatic squirrel — the GX could school Savonarola on privation. The car’s CVT gearbox howls for mercy at 80 miles per hour, which is how fast you have to drive sometimes so you don’t get plowed under in the HOV lane.
— Dan Neil in the Los Angeles Times
Another great vehicle auction
Just look at the collection. Photo from Cincinnati Enquirer, which has background.
Please, can I have one?
Want to buy Christine, or Bob Falfa’s ’55 Chevy, or the Beverly Hillbillies Truck, or The General Lee, or Smokey’s Trans Am? They’re being auctioned this Saturday in Los Angeles by Bonhams. Take a look.