Category: Automobiles

MIAMI (Reuters) – Fed up with his troublesome car, a Florida man fired five rounds from a semi-automatic pistol into the hood of the 1994 Chrysler LeBaron.

“I’m putting my car out of its misery,” 64-year-old John McGivney said after the incident outside an apartment building in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, according to a police report that listed the car as “deceased.”

McGivney surrendered to police, was jailed on a firearms charge on Friday and released on bond a day later. He told them the car had been giving him trouble for years.

Reuters

Link via dangerousmeta!

Dan Neil reports on some intelligent new safety technology:

The new M45 is also equipped with Intelligent Cruise Control (ICC) — now fairly commonplace in luxury cars — that above certain speeds maintains a pre-set following distance with the help of radar or laser emitters in the car’s nose. When the car ahead slows down, you slow down.

In Albuquerque (and elsewhere) this feature comes with an optional “Road Rage” setting that allows you to program your car to speed up when the vehicle in front of you slows down.

More on GM from Dan Neil:

GM is a morass of a business case, but one thing seems clear enough, and Lutz’s mistake was to state the obvious and then recant: The company’s multiplicity of divisions and models is turning into a circular firing squad. How can four nearly identical minivans — one each for Pontiac, Buick, Chevrolet and Saturn — be anything but a waste of resources? Ditto the Four Horsemen of Suburbia, the Buick Rainier, Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy and Saab 9-7X. How does the Pontiac Montana minivan square with Pontiac as the “Excitement” division? Why, exactly, is GMC on this Earth?

For a company so utterly devoted to each of its 11 brands — counting offshore badges such as Opel, Holden, Vauxhall — the overarching strategy seems to be to flatten the distinctiveness out of all of them in the name of global efficiencies. Take Saab, poor Saab. The new 9-3s will be built in Russelsheim, Germany, alongside Opel Vectras. The 9-2X is a badge-engineered Subaru WRX. The 9-7X is a Chevy Trailblazer built in the Nordic enclave of Moraine, Ohio.

Mr. Newell, the former police officer, knows well that Hollywood’s penchant for making vehicle fires into dramatic disasters is unrealistic – particularly the cliché of gas tanks blowing up at the slightest provocation. Contrary to popular belief (and the fireballs that are a staple of television thrillers), he says, a tank full of gasoline does not have much room for the oxygen necessary to support combustion. “Cars only explode in midair on ‘The A Team,'” he said.

Detectives in Hot Pursuit of Evidence in the Ashes

From a report in The New York Times:

For instance, among four-door midsize cars, the Volkswagen Passat performed best, with an average of 16 driver deaths per million registered vehicles annually. At the other end of the spectrum, the Chrysler Sebring had 126 driver deaths. Among midsize S.U.V.’s with four-wheel drive, the Toyota 4Runner had 12 deaths per million registered vehicles annually, compared with 134 for the two-door Ford Explorer.

Two graphics accompany the story, here and here.

Dan Neil writes about the one-world of automobile manufacturing. He begins:

Cadillacs built in Sweden and sold in Bavaria. Chevrolets built in Korea and sold in Romania. The big bruiser Chrysler 300C built in Austria and sold wherever asphalt needs a good spanking.

Never mind the 200-mph Bugattis and stretch Rolls-Royces. The story of the 2005 centennial Geneva Auto Show (through Sunday) is one of vast global alliance-building as car companies go lean, cut development costs and reach out to new markets. Last week, to cite one example, production of the new Toyota Aygo minicar commenced in Kolin in the Czech Republic; the tiny town car is being built alongside the Citroén C1 and the Peugeot 107 and the threesome will vie for sales in the emergent Eastern European market.

Neil’s discussion of the fallout from the weakening dollar is informative.

Colorado Luis is unhappy about a change in state law:

It’s weird to be driving out on the interstate in rural Colorado and seeing the flashing highway signs (the ones that otherwise warn of icy roads or Amber alerts) saying “Keep Right Except To Pass.” Now, that was my driving habit to begin with, but why did the Colorado legislature feel like it was important to actually make that a law last year instead keeping it as just a good guideline?

If anything, I think making that the law makes things a bit more dangerous, because it leads to more cars in the right lane when people are coming onto the freeway — and Coloradans are notoriously bad at merging. But putting that aside, I can’t see what the benefit is to the rule except for making it easier for people who want to speed.

Works for me.

Of course, I’m probably the only driver who was taught how to merge at gunpoint.

Thirty-five years ago I was driving my VW bug in the right lane of a Detroit freeway. When a car coming down an entrance ramp attempted to merge in front of me, I sped up so that he had to slow down. He entered the freeway behind me, then came along side in the middle lane and honked. I gave him a friendly gesture (it wasn’t the peace sign). He honked again. This time when I looked over he was waving a revolver pointed at me (holding it in front of his passenger). He gestured to pull over.

This didn’t seem like a good idea, but the VW couldn’t out run his Oldsmobile. I attempted to lose him in congestion at the next exit, but he caught up to me when I got to a stop light.

He came up to my car, identified himself as an off-duty Detroit police officer (he was partially in uniform), and — at gun point — and despite the fact that he himself was profane — made me apologize to his woman passenger (his wife I was told) for my obscene gesture. He seemed as rattled from anger as I was from fear — his badge was upside-down when he showed it to me — but he did have his service revolver pointed in the right direction and I did what he said.

In the process he educated me to the difference between “merge” (give and take) and “yield” (right-of-way).

“Honda truck” is among the top Google search items bringing people to NewMexiKen these days, behind the ever popular Ron Howard’s brother. The original posts were here and here, but I thought I’d add this from Car and Driver Magazine:

The Ridgeline’s bed is also different, with a sheet-molding-compound coating that is dent and corrosion resistant—no bed liner needed. But the best part is the hatch in the floor of the bed that opens to expose a nine-cubic-foot trunk—large enough for three sets of golf clubs, a keg, or the Ridgeline’s chief engineer, Gary Flint. Think it would be difficult to load stuff into a trunk over a tailgate? So did Honda. That’s why the tailgate swings open from right to left like a door, in addition to its traditional tailgate moves, making it easy to get at the trunk.

Dan Neil thinks Toyota must be selling hybrids at a loss, but:

What matters is that the RX 400h works beautifully, just like the regular RX 330, only quicker (a half-second sooner to 60 mph than the RX 330) and with 33% better overall fuel economy (28 miles per gallon) and a whopping 67% better mileage in the city (30 mpg, according to the EPA).

Neil also tells this about GM:

However, General Motors Vice Chairman Robert Lutz has a subtler view of things. Last month he said he thought GM had “missed the boat” on hybrids: “We should have said, ‘We’ll lose $100 million a year on hybrids, but we’ll take our advertising budget of $3 billion, make it $2.9 billion and treat it as an advertising expense,’ ” according to the trade journal Automotive News.

Once one gets past the galling revelation that GM spends $3 billion on advertising and Lutz’s cynical dismissal of hybrid technology as mere marketing, his comments seem sensible.

More on the Honda Ridgeline from Dan Neil:

But the Ridgeline is full of market-transforming features, such as the lockable trunk under the pickup bed. This is a heck of an idea: a weather-resistant compartment situated between the rear wheels and the bumper about the size of a 50-gallon Igloo cooler. It even has a drain plug so you can fill it with ice and keep drinks cold. May I suggest another use? Bait well?

From Dan Neil:

Whatever bubble-headed robots there are in Detroit ought to be flailing their flexible rubber arms right about now, because the new Honda Ridgeline — the company’s first foray into the land of pickups — means danger, danger, Will Robinson.

Not that the Ridgeline will steal so many sales from Detroit. The Honda’s expected annual production of 50,000 units is a rounding error to the Big Three, which together with Nissan and Toyota sell almost 3 million pickups a year.

But the Ridgeline is so scary good, so smart and so instantly likable that it’s going to send everybody back to pickup school. Oh, the pain, the pain.

You might think “Honda” and “pickup” go together like “Bill O’Reilly” and “perfect gentleman,” but company execs argue that it has a long history in the light-truck market.

In just the first few paragraphs Dan Neil sets a world record for figurative language:

As long as there have been high school proms and students with no dates to attend them, parents have reassured their awkward/chubby/ mouth-breathing adolescents that it’s what is on the inside that counts. I myself was full of inner beauty, though that beauty was trapped in a sebaceous mutant with glasses as thick as lighthouse lenses.

I would counsel and console the Buick LaCrosse in similar fashion. It’s all right, honey. Don’t cry. If customers don’t see what a wonderful car you are, well, it’s their loss.

I would also go around the house discreetly covering all the mirrors.

The LaCrosse — which replaces the Century and Regal in Buick’s batting order — is a nice car trapped in some astonishingly boring sheet metal. I find myself drawn to meteorological metaphors. If dullness were thunder, the LaCrosse would send dogs running for cover under porches. If mediocrity were snow, Detroit’s Wayne County airport would have to be shut down.

How big a committee styled this thing? There is some of the Olds Alero, a lot of the Ford Taurus, the headlights off the Lexus GS300, the decklid from a Dodge Neon. The front and the back look like different cars and the sum of it has this strange, worked-over quality, like an in-flight magazine’s crossword puzzle.

Dan Neil finds things to like in the new Corvette — once he’s past the legend.

[The Corvette has] always been a big, audacious slab of a car for an audience that can be fairly described likewise. It’s always been America’s Sports Car, for those who would sooner down a wine-tasting spit bucket than drive a foreign-nameplate car like Porsche 911 or Acura NSX.

… Build quality is excellent. Compared to Corvette interiors of a decade ago, which chirred and rattled like Ricky Ricardo’s percussion section, the new Corvette is as solid as a steamer chest.

… top speed is a very creditable 186 mph, should your commute include a dry lakebed.

… The new Corvette is an Ivy League education in driving at state college tuition: The test car priced out at $52,795, which puts it in a class of exactly one. Nothing can touch it at anywhere near that price. For another 20 grand or so you can own a Viper; should you feel such a masochistic impulse, seek professional attention.

According to a report in The New York Times, Ontario is about to pass Michigan as the state or province in North America producing the most vehicles. Ontario 2.7 million; Michigan 2.6 million.

Hard to think of Toronto as Motown.

Dan Neil loves the new Acura RL — particularly the Bose sound system — and starts off with this tragic tale to set the stage:

I was an audiophile in college. Incorrigible, really. I shouldn’t have been allowed within 100 yards of an audio.

My stereo system comprised a 400-watt McIntosh amp and preamp, four Klipsch speakers, an anvil-heavy Thorens turntable and a Tascam reel-to-reel four-track recording deck. I remember standing outside my burning apartment in worse-for-wear BVDs and hearing — as if they were Clarice’s bleating sheep — these components shriek and sizzle and puddle together with some 500 albums and tapes.

So much for that hobby.
…

Unique to Acura is its Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) system. In principle, it works just like Bose’s noise-canceling headsets (which makes me wonder why Bose doesn’t market a system like it). ANC monitors low-frequency cabin noise (around 100 hertz or lower) and then reproduces the signal 180 degrees out of phase, which has the effect of muting the booming low-frequency sound in the cabin. Call it the sounds of silence.

ANC operates whether or not the audio system is turned on. As soon as you turn the ignition switch, the cabin fills with a cottony, comfortably numb quiet above which the richer and more pleasant sounds of the car and stereo can be heard.

He’s got me thinking test drive.

Crash Testing. You won’t believe these photos.

From the Desk of David Pogue: More on the Toyota Prius.

Money quote —

This, to me, is the most exciting part of hybrid drives: 90 percent fewer emissions, two to four times the mileage, at a price that can meet or beat gas-engine prices (or will soon).

Pogue lists the hybrids we can expect:

They include the Chevy Silverado, Honda Accord (2005 model year), Mercedes Vision GST (2006), Subaru B9 SC, Toyota Highlander/Lexus RX 400h, Toyota Tundra pickup (2006), and even a GM city bus, which will save 750,000 gallons of fuel a year in Seattle alone.

Most dangerous states:

Louisiana 2.32
Montana 2.30
South Carolina 2.27
Mississippi 2.18
Wyoming 2.16

Safest: Massachusetts 0.90

Colorado Luis tells us about a paradigm shift for automobiles — a hybrid Lexus. Check out the whole post, but here’s some highlights:

So what’s your image of a hybrid car? I’ve thought “small, underpowered, the kind of car you would get if you were, well, more committed to good gas mileage than I am.” ….

I just found out that Lexus is coming out this year with the Lexus h, the first luxury hybrid car. It even uses the energy generated during breaking to power the car! And don’t worry, they say, it will have all the power of a Lexus V-8. Damn I should have seen this coming. After all, Lexus is owned by Toyota, and Toyota is the world leader in hybrid technology.

Maybe I’m just showing my weakness for really nice cars, but seems to me this is going to change everything.

Colorado Luis describes his blog as “Political and social commentary with altitude.”

Geez Dad, didn’t we do this when I was a kid?

From the Detroit Free Press

Matt Vermeulen grew up near Lake St. Clair and knows the frozen lake’s slippery ways and how to stay safe. Or so he thought.

On Tuesday, he drove his Tahoe onto what he assumed was solid ice. But without visible indication, the ice thickness was no longer a sturdy 12 inches — instead it was a mere 5 inches that cracked, sending the rear end of his 1997 sport-utility vehicle into the icy water.

“There’s nothing you can do,” said Vermeulen, 25, of Fair Haven. “You just jump out.”

“It’s embarrassing, and very, very expensive,” he said Friday, declining to estimate the cost.

Every winter across Michigan, cars, trucks and other vehicles go crashing through the ice on lakes and rivers. Salvage companies charge thousands of dollars to haul out the vehicles, and drivers can face hefty traffic and environmental penalties.

During Prohibition, bootleggers scooted across the ice from Windsor, but today it’s usually sportsmen or reckless young drivers who may have to make the humiliating admission: “Honey, I sunk the car.”

Effort behind the scenes at the 2004 North American International Auto Show (aka the Detroit Auto Show).

• Fourteen semi-trailers are required to carry the 75,000-plus yards of carpet used for the exhibits and aisles at the NAIAS. If the carpet was made into a two foot-wide runner, it would be 66 miles long. With the average home using 125 yards, the carpet used at the NAIAS would cover the equivalent of 600 homes.

• Auto show exhibits, theatrical lighting and sound equipment will use enough electricity to power a 360-home subdivision for six months.

• Equipment needed to set up the show includes over 1,000 semi-trucks, 14 million pounds of freight, 75 forklifts, 18 45-foot booms, 20 scissor lifts, and 12 miles of electric wires.

• In the 10 weeks it takes to prepare the NAIAS for the media and public, more than 1,500 carpenters, stagehands, electricians, Teamsters, riggers and ironworkers will be employed full time (12-14 hour days; some double shifts) until the job is done.

• It takes many other personnel to prepare the auto show including: 200 janitorial workers, 500-700 catering personnel, 65 vehicle polishers, 135 car porters, 87 full-time Cobo Center staff members and 20 additional part-time Cobo Center staff members.