Cars-n-Coffee is a weekly gathering of automobilia in Irvine, California at Ford's former Premier Auto Group parking lot. Every Saturday morning from 6AM, Ferraris, Jaguars, Lamborghinis, Porsches, '50s hot rods, Mercedes, Camaros, you name it, rumble their way into the lot. On one recent overcast morning, Autoblog headed down to the dawn soiree, having been offered a drive in the Hurst HEMI Challenger. Although 6AM is closer to our bedtime than it is to reveille, we stayed up and paid a visit to the Challenger, hoping to find out if it had any hope of being a champion. Follow the jump for the story.
California isn't the only one taking aim at the pumps in an effort to raise state revenue. The Michigan state legislature is also proposing a hike in its gas tax that could potentially make its gas taxes the highest in the nation. The current nineteen cent per gallon tax on gas, and fifteen cent per gallon tax on diesel, would be replaced by a simple 18% tax on the wholesale prices of both. Michigan says that the state isn't earning enough now that people are driving less, and driving more fuel efficient cars. The reasons in for the tax are the same in MI as they are in CA: the transportation sector and road funding are sorely inadequate. Michigan has legendarily bad roads -- not the worst in the nation, but close in some cases. The oil and gas station lobby, however, wants none of it. One oil company exec said, "Cheap fuel prices are fueling the (economic) activity we have now. Taxing gasoline to fix roads is an old way of doing it." They are also worried that when gas prices inevitably go back up, the tax will make pump prices exorbitant.
A Michigan transportation rep said "We didn't necessarily see memos coming out from them when the price of fuel exceeded $4 a gallon." He also said that the tax is capped in the first couple of years, so no one needs to be concerned. The measure, along with a rise in DMV registration fees, is expected to raise $1.5 billion per year. If it doesn't pass this year, the legislature is expected to resurrect it next year.
California hasn't been able to borrow money for months, and according to the state's treasurer, it will run out of money in February or March if it doesn't pass a budget and get some income flowing. The majority Democratic legislature has sent Governor Schwarzenegger a budget that contains a suite of "revenue enhancements" that the Democrats call fees, not taxes. In addition to a jump in the state sales tax and personal income tax, there's also a provision to apply a per gallon gas "fee" of 39 cents. The biggest problem with the proposed budget is the way in which it was passed, which relies on the definition of the word "tax". Democrats used a simple majority vote to pass the proposed budget, instead of the mandatory 2/3 majority needed to pass new taxes, because they say "it does not technically increase the amount of taxes on Californians." For instance, because the gas "fee" would be set aside for transportation projects only, it isn't a tax, it's a user fee, and so it doesn't require a 2/3 majority vote.
Call it what you want, Californians would be paying more money, so Republicans have vowed not to support what they call increased taxes. Citizen's groups have also promised to sue the state if Schwarzenegger signs the proposed budget as is. The other problem is that Schwarzenegger has already vowed to veto it, but not over the tax vs. fee issue. He said he'll let other people sort that out – what he really wants are bigger cuts in spending before he'll approve anything. The budget discussions resume on Friday as lawmakers work to have something done by year's end.
New York Governor David Paterson needs to close a $15.4-billion budget deficit, and has proposed 88 new fees and taxes to do it. One of them is aimed at New York car buyers: a 5% tax on all cars sold for $60,000 or more. Notice the phrasing "sold for," not "MSRP of". That means if you add $8,001 in options to a $52,000 car, then you can add 5% to the final price. Intriguingly, the proposed new luxury tax on yachts doesn't happen until a buyer crosses the $200,000 mark, and not until $500,000 for planes. The bill would need to be passed by the legislature, but we can imagine that luxury car dealers in Connecticut and New Jersey are watching this one closely.
While Formula One has been a relative constant for the past several decades, the various feeder series running up the ladder to the pinnacle of international motorsport seems to always be in flux. The FIA recently announced plans to revive the old Formula 2 series with a new low-cost format to compete with F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone's contemporary GP2 championship, but Bernie isn't about to let himself be dominated by Max Mosley without putting up a good fight.To that end, Ecclestone is now reported to be working on launching a new GP3 series. The new feeder series would sit one step below GP2, which itself has supplied a crop of new talent – including Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen, Nelson Piquet Jr. and Timo Glock – to the F1 grid every year since its inception in 2005. GP3 would compete directly with the fractioned Formula 3 – under which separate series operate around the world without a single united championship – and swallow the International Formula Master's series established last year. While Mosley's discredited vision of a low-cost Formula 2 would cap annual budgets at 200,000 euros per car (compared to the 800,000 euro cost of the F3 Euroseries), GP3 could keep things down to the more realistic 450,000 euro budget required in the aforementioned IFM.
Bottom line: there's a war of racing series going on between Mosley and Ecclestone, and racing fans could stand to benefit from the competition.
The NHRA has acted very quickly in an effort to improve the safety of its Top Fuel and Funny Car races. Due to the tragic death recently of '94 and '95 Top Fuel champion Scott Kalitta, the drag strip for these two fastest classes will be shortened from the traditional 1,320 feet to 1,000 feet. Race officials and team managers believe that this compromise will continue to make for an entertaining race as the cars will still be hitting speeds of around 300 mph. This is an interim change as the sanctioning body investigates the crash and its causes, and will stay in effect until more definite changes can be made. The first race which will incorporate the new shorter track length will take place on July 11-13 at the Mopar Mile High Nationals in Denver, Colorado.
Hey, Stompy, you wanna take a test drive?
Nein, I'll just take the one in black, please."
So goes the imagined conversation between Michael Herzog, he of size 12 (UK) feet, and the Volvo dealer from whom he purchased a C70. Herzog says his feet are too large for the pedal box in his Volvo, precluding use of that most essential pedal, the accelerator. The issue went to court in Wiesloch, Germany, where a judge ruled that size 12 is not freakishly large, so Volvo should have designed a car to accommodate that size foot. Size 12 on UK size charts is about the same as a U.S. size 12, so it's not an incomprehensibly large foot. The dealer has been directed to refund five percent of the purchase price, a total of £1,350, to pay for a custom pair of shoes that allow the owner to drive his new car, as well as compensate him for time lost to shoe-changes. And we thought the U.S. was litigious.
Never mind all the adrenaline, the horsepower and the glory. The coolest part of being an F1 driver could very well be the Superlicense. That's the prerequisite certification that any F1 driver needs to get from the FIA before driving in Formula One. Now, however, the World Motorsport Council has decided to raise the fees, and not by a little, either.
Until now, the standard fee for a Superlicense was €1,690 for a newcomer – a sizeable chunk of money compared to the standard fee that you and I pay down at the DMV, but not entirely unreasonable in relation to all the money being spent in F1 altogether. On top of the base fee is an additional €447 for each championship point scored in the previous season by a returning driver. The new fee structure, however, has gone up exponentially: €10,000 base fee, plus €2,000 per championship point. That means that for Kimi Raikkonen to get recertified after having won the championship last year, he'll have to pay €230,000 (over $336k) – that's a staggering €199,255 more than last year. Gulp.
Sure, that's no big deal for a driver pulling in millions each year, and the teams will likely pick up the fee for their drivers. But it does seem to run counter to the cost-cutting measures that the FIA itself has been putting in place.
