Before we begin, we have to state up front that we've rarely – if ever – had more fun with a car than we had with the Hotchkis E-Max Challenger. And the loud yellow Dodge was in our possession for maybe five hours. Why are we cutting to the chase like this? Why not structure this review like any other and start with the basics, describe the vehicle and then state a conclusion? First of all, just look at the bloody thing: "dripping with sex" is the only proper description. But the truth is that this is more the recounting of an adventure than a plain old car review. Keep reading. You're going to have some fun. Though not nearly as much fun as we did.
This is the type of experience that as a journalist you undeniably have to go through.But yes, we should start with the basics. Legendary suspension tuner Hotchkis took a 1970 Dodge Challenger with a 340 six-pack and built themselves an autocrosser. The list of modifications is not only the stuff of which jealousy is made, but exhaustive. Though, Hotchkis claims the E-Max isn't so wild, "Even in Auto-Cross trim, E-Max is a relatively stock vehicle compared to many of the auto-cross competitors." Good to know. That said, it's still a long list.
Here's some of it: Custom Moroso oil pan, Be Cool aluminum radiator, Red Line synthetic oil, Optima Battery, MSD ignition, Classic 5-Speed Tremec TKO, Flowmaster exhaust, Stoptech brakes, Forgeline wheels and Yokohama tires, Sparco Milano 2 seat (as in just the driver seat), Hurst Shifter. Not bad, right? Then you got all the Hotchkis stuff that lies beneath, including tubular A-arms, front and rear sport sway bars, subframe connectors, sport springs, adjustable steering rods with a fancy Flaming River power steering unit and adjustable strut rods. Says Hotchkis of their handiwork, "The bolt-on system creates a proper negative camber curve, sufficient positive camber for high speed stability and full bump and droop travel without bumpsteer. Prototype Hotchkis-Afco adjustable stocks provide high performance damping." Got it? Good – let's get to the story.
If there is one thing humans love, it's personal mobility. After all, what other species regularly harness other creatures for the sole purpose of getting around. The auto industry is all about personal mobility. Since the dawn of the car in the late 19th century, it has been adopted world-wide as one of the preferred means of getting around.
Mobility, of course, is about a lot more than just driving. Just moving around is important and when people find themselves unable to move or having difficulty, it plays havoc with the psyche. A number of automakers are researching ways to expand mobility beyond the automobile and the result is projects like the GM Puma and Toyota Winglet. Honda, too, is studying the problem and while we were in Japan for the Tokyo Motor Show, Honda took us to their R&D center to check out a few recent projects, including the quirky U3-X (shown above). Read on for a first hand account of what we saw and sat on.
A number of bloggers on our team actually have real jobs, those crazy 9-5 things we full-time bloggers hear so much about. Sure, an actual 40-hour work week can tie one arm behind your back when trying to be a power blogger, but our own Dan Roth gets around this by incorporating his two incomes to achieve a task we set out for him.
The charge was simple: Try out Volvo's City Safety technology that comes on the new XC60. City Safety is Volvo's new active safety technology that uses an optical radar mounted at the top of the windshield to measure the speed and distance of any objects in front of the car. It does these calculations around 50 times per second, and in the event of an imminent collision with said objects, will automatically apply the brakes. It only works when the XC60 is traveling between 2-18 mph, though.
Ducati. It's a name full of racing heritage and tradition, but it hasn't always been that way. The company's roots are much more humble, first by selling radio equipment before moving into the world of two wheels with a quaint motorized bicycle dubbed the Cucciolo – meaning "puppy" in Italiano – because of its cuddly exhaust note. Needless to say, there was no way of knowing in the early 1950s that the brand would go on to become one of the most successful grand prix racing companies in the world. But we're sure glad it did.
Racing success came early and often in the '70s for the Italian motorcycle manufacturer, and in 1972 Ducati won the Imola 200 with an air-cooled 750cc L-twin engine wrapped in a cradle-type frame. These are the bikes that Ducati sought to replicate with the SportClassic range that first debuted in concept form at the 2003 Tokyo Motor Show and finally went into production in 2006. Living up to a legend is never an easy task, so when we managed to get our greasy mitts on a brand-new 2009 Sport 1000 for a couple of weeks, we wasted no time getting familiar with this sleek black machine. Follow the jump to see what we thought.
H. B. Halicki was a used car salesman who wanted to make a movie. With a little money, one big idea, and a 1971 Mustang Mach 1, he made Gone in 60 Seconds. And in that particular way that movies, especially '70s movies, can be, it wasn't all that good, but it was awesome. Fast forward to Michael Bay's remake in 2000, and the Mach 1 was replaced by a 1967 Shelby GT500. When we got a call offering us the actual car from that movie for the weekend, we felt obliged to say yes... and then drive it like we stole it. The verdict: Eleanor is the hottest piece of car we've spent a weekend with in quite some time.
Coskata's newly-opened semi-commercial flex ethanol facility in Madison, Pennsylvania is as small as it can possibly be. Co-located at a Westinghouse facility that also in some fashion uses nuclear energy, the Lighthouse project, as it's called, is running 247 to turn wood chips into ethanol. It's also intended to show off just how far Coskata has come since emerging from stealth mode almost two years ago. Oh, and the plant can also be scaled up to fit the needs of cellulosic ethanol producers from coast to coast.
The Lighthouse plant follows the Horizon integrated processing plant that started in 2008 in Warrenville, Illinois and precedes the Flagship plant that is due for 2012 at a location somewhere in the Southeast U.S. that will be announced later. The location for the Flagship plant has been selected, but Coskata will not specify where it will be until it can talk more specifically about the financing arrangements involved for the 55-million-gallon-per-year plant that will use forest residue and other woody biomass.
Coskata says the Flagship will be "the first commercially-viable, feedstock-flexible ethanol facility." The company has not taken any government money to date, but they may apply for DOE loan guarantees for the Flagship plant. Coskata will also not expand this Madison Lighthouse facility. In fact, they're only located there as a guest and will leave when the contract is up. The facility is modular and will actually be dismantled and trucked to the Flagship location in the future.
Shut your eyes and say the word "Suzuki" out loud. Unless you're a moto-head or one of those rare Geo Metro fanatics (they exist, trust us), the image that springs to mind isn't very nice. Odds are that the car your subconscious conjures is tiny, cheap and bizarre. It's probably named something forgettable like "Aerio" or totally inaccurate (and forgettable) like "Esteem." Forgettable cars tend to attract forgettable customers. Don't believe us? Suzuki referred to their recent crop of owners as "subprime." Ouch. But, with that pain comes some truth. And in an industry long known for complete and total self delusion, Suzuki's admission was cathartic across both sides of the automakerauto journo aisle.
The Kizashi drives better than basically everything in its class.But what would cause Suzuki to be so blunt? A number of factors, as it turns out. For one thing, "subprime" is so 2008. Meaning that relying on folks with poor credit to snap up your cars because they're so cheap just ain't good business these days. Nor is outsourcing big, potentially huge moneymakers like seven-passenger SUVs to General Motors. There's nothing inherently wrong with the XL7 other than the fact that it's based on the Theta platform, just like the (defunct) Pontiac Torrent and Saturn Vue. Smartly, Suzuki has indefinitely suspended XL7 production. More importantly, rather than not making bad cars, Suzuki might just be in the middle of a product renaissance.
Those familiar with the plucky little SX4 are well aware that it's a great driving, high content, practical hatch that's incredibly inexpensive (name another car featuring all-wheel drive and navigation for under $18,000). But you may not know the SX4 is half-Fiat, penned by none other than Giugiaro and half-designed by the Italian giant. So what Suzuki needs to really pull off a rebirth (or at least the early stages of a rebirth) is a fully 100% Suzuki-designed car that's not just "good enough," but "better than." And according to Suzuki, the all new 2010 Kizashi is indeed such a vehicle. But is it?
Outside of North America, the Golf has been Volkswagen's bread-and-butter model for more than three decades, making the diminutive hatch one of the best selling global vehicles since its mid-Seventies launch as the Beetle's successor. But in the States, it's a totally different story. Except for a few brief periods when fuel prices spiked, the GolfRabbit has always played second fiddle to the Jetta – little more than a Golf with a trunk.
While the sixth generation Golf has been on sale in Europe for nearly a year, U.S.-spec versions are beginning to trickle into retailers on this side of the Atlantic. But before you head down to your local V-Dub dealer to check out the newest Golf (and buy a Jetta instead), we made the trek to Germany to sample the latest iteration of VW's workhorse in and around its Wolfsburg birthplace. Is the new Golf finally enough to woo hatch-averse Americans out of their sedans and into something with an added helping of practicality?
As the company's number-one global volume vehicle, the Altima is instrumental in keeping the lights on at Nissan HQ. Now in its fourth-generation (last redesigned for the 2007 model year), the made-in-the-USA model is sold in both sedan and coupe variants with a choice of two gasoline engines or one hybrid powerplant. Nissan offers four sedans for the 2010 model year, with the Altima slotting in directly under the flagship Maxima in the lineup (with both sharing Nissan's D-platform architecture).
After spending time with the 2010 Nissan Altima, we understand why it's the brand's best selling model and while it's not a tire shredding sport sedan, this competent family hauler deserves all the kudos and sales volume it's earned.
It's fitting that General Motors has a vehicle named after an astronomical phenomenon that marks the seasons. The first Equinox came from the "old" GM during the autumn of its long slide. Since then, the General has emerged from a government-funded chrysalis, and the Equinox has followed suit with a redesign. Hopefully, the freshening signifies a springtime in GM's fortunes; a future desperately in need of a green infusion of the cash variety. Its products need to not only compete – but exceed – what's available from the competition. That figures to be a tall order, because the opposition is in rare form.
Just across town, Ford isn't sitting around – the Escape gets tweaks and updates seemingly every year. The Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 also crowd the top of the family CUV class, with the Mazda CX-7 and Hyundai Santa Fe playing supporting roles. Into this company of A-students wades the Equinox, fresh from reform school. Have the model's rough edges and troublesome behavior been smoothed out enough by remedial study?
