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BMW helping disabled vets get back behind the wheelKudos to the crew at BMW, who recently donated a few cars, a handful of instructors and one of its test tracks to an injured Marine training class. A group of soldiers wounded in Iraq were invited to the track to learn performance driving techniques behind the wheel of some seriously desirable machinery, including the 650i coupe on the right. The vehicles were modified in order to allow the disabled soldiers to operate them, some with hand controls for Marines who had lost their legs in battle. To operate the throttle, drivers pull back a hand lever and push forward to operates the brakes. Injured soldiers are provided with driver training after healing from their injuries. According to the Marines who attended the BMW training, though, the skills learned on the race track were much more thorough and will prove invaluable in their transition back to daily life.
posted : 9/14/2008 @4:51:47 AM
C&D dreams up future Mustangs they haven't made yet

We hear it from the peanut gallery every time we post about another new Mustang variation. It doesn't matter if the car comes from a small niche manufacturer, SALEEN, ROUSH or even Ford itself – people have gotten sick of Mustang mania. CARandDRIVER.com decided that beyond the Bullit, Warriors in Pink, Black Jack, Parnelli Jones and Dan Gurney Special Editions, as well as various examples from Hertz, there are a few more Mustang models that have yet to be explored. According to C&D, the market's ripe for a return of the four-cylinder Mustang, and there are plenty of other worthy causes around which you could market a Mustang besides breast cancer. Plus, if KITT could go from being a Trans Am to a Mustang, why can't Smokey's famous winged muscle car do the same? If you couldn't tell by now, the C&D folk are just exercising their funny bone here.
posted : 9/2/2008 @3:19:00 AM
All VW and Mercedes diesels eligible for tax credit

We knew last month that the Jetta TDI was qualified for the tax credit. Now, word is out that all of the new-generation clean diesels for Volkswagen (TDI) and Mercedes-Benz (Bluetec) will be joining the elite handful of vehicles that qualify for a federal alternative-powertrain tax credit. Formerly reserved for just hybrid vehicles, the diesels have been designated as advanced lean-burn-technology vehicles that meet the Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit standards of the IRS. The credits vary based on the vehicle. In the case of Mercedes, the ML320 qualifies for $900 while the GL320 is good for $1,800. If diesel still isn't your thing, the IRS has also qualified several Ford hybrids as eligible too. Of those, the highest credit (a sweet $3,000) goes to those consumers who take home an Escape or Mariner two-wheel drive hybrid crossover.
posted : 8/30/2008 @3:17:44 PM
Mocking the Eco-Poseury - MINI pushes the CarFun footprint

High fuel prices or no, MINI offers a solid entertainment-to-efficiency ratio. The neo-teeny MINI is fun to fling around, and if you can keep your boot out of the turbocharged engine in the Cooper S, you can have your fuel economy and eat it, too. To emphasize this point, MINI is launching a new campaign focused around what it calls the Carfun Footprint, and the new ad push includes its own website and new print ads and billboards with typically clever MINI taglines. If you're curious to see how your current vehicle stacks up against the MINI's Carfun quotient, head on over to carfunfootprint.com and plug in your vehicle info. Of course, you're not going to score as high as the R56, but you expected that, didn't you? At least MINI has avoided getting all preachy and kept its trademark whimsy intact.
posted : 8/9/2008 @5:30:48 PM
Weekend Photo Fun: Adventures in re-branding

Identity crisis? Repressed brand allegiance? People who intentionally rebrand their rides have reasons all their own. Take this pickup I encounted on my drive home yesterday. Maybe the giant bowtie on the tailgate is trying to compensate for something, but size doesn't matter here; there's no hiding the fact that this thing's still a Ford Ranger. Bowtie stickers also get applied to the front fenders, but the proverbial cherry on top revealed itself when I pulled ahead. Yep, that's a genuine gold bowtie badge where the blue oval ought to be. If you want to make your car or truck a member of the transbranded community, all you need is a few badges, some adhesive, a sense of humor, and maybe an ASE certified technician. Hey, everybody's doing it.
posted : 8/8/2008 @7:09:16 PM
Safety concerns cause NHRA to limit races to 1,000 feet

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.
posted : 7/3/2008 @6:31:16 PM

Montezemolo: Scuderia Ferrari not funded by Fiat

Many of the biggest teams in Formula One extract enormous budgets from the automakers that own them: BMW, Renault, Toyota, Honda, even Mercedes-Benz, which is part owner of McLaren. Not Ferrari, though. The team, part of the Maranello-based sportscar maker, is owned by the Fiat auto group. However, Fiat does not contribute even one centesimo (er... euro-cent) to the team's budget.

This according to Luca Cordero di Montezemolo. And he should know, being both president of Ferrari and chairman of Fiat (in the mid-'70s, Montezemolo directly headed up the Scuderia before being promoted up the Fiat ladder). The marquis insists that the entirety of the Ferrari F1 team's budget is generated from within Ferrari, through the sales of its road cars (all of which go for six digits) and the team's sponsors, to say nothing of the company's considerable merchandising efforts.

posted : 7/3/2008 @6:21:45 PM

Automobile Mag hands out Funky Ergonomics Awards

The scholars over at Automobile magazine have handed out their "Funky Ergonomics Awards" this year. As expected, BMW's iDrive and 7 Series interior (shown above) remains their favorite pincushion. Rightly so. Their list includes convenience keys that are downright inconvenient, window switches that are out of reach, touchscreens that are dangerously slow to respond, all center-of-the-dashboard mounted instrument clusters, complicated navigation systems, reverse-action manu-matic transmissions, and dimly lit interiors.

While we generally agree with their list, our own ergonomic pet peeves include spinning seat adjusters mounted inaccessibly outboard (yeah, by the doors), cruise control stalks hidden out-of-sight by the wheel itself, and manual modes for old-fashioned "slushbox" automatic trannies. Oh yeah, the list goes on and on...

posted : 6/15/2008 @1:55:25 PM
Mystery joker installing funny road signs

Seems like everyone enjoyed the post we recently published on funny stop signs, so we went out and found some more news on weird roadside signage. According to the Frankston Leader, a mystery man in Australia has been putting up funny road signs that have some local residents laughing, and others fuming mad. The first three photos in the gallery below show you just how real these fake signs appear, and while two are rather innocent, the first image in the gallery shows a sign of two people copulating in the horizontal position with the word "HUMP" below. It was placed next to a speed bump. The source, of course, quotes a 63-year-old Australian woman who calls the sign "blasphemous" and "obscene". The local government is also not amused, but whoever is putting up these signs usually takes them down before the authorities can do it themselves.
posted : 5/6/2008 @8:16:36 PM
Confirmed! Bureaucrats have no sense of humor, funny stop signs nixedInhabitants of Oak Lawn, Ill. apparently have a hard time understanding the meaning of the large red octagons posted on street corners through the city. So in an effort to get people to actually stop, the city installed smaller signs below their larger, legal counterparts to get motorists attention while providing them a half-hearted chuckle. The extra signs correlated with the "Stop" written above, with slogans including "and smell the roses," "right there pilgrim" and "means your not moving." While residents and the town's mayor found them funny, the Illinois Department of Transportation was less than enthused and claims that the signs violate the Fed's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. That means that federal funding for projects in the city could be put on hold, so $1,700 worth of signs are being pulled down as you read this. In a word: lame.
posted : 5/3/2008 @9:25:25 PM
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