Jan 01
Happy New Year everyone! It’s time to announce the 2011 car of the year. drum roll please!
The Lamborghini Aventador.
I-G car of the year
Why? Just look at it. If there were any doubts that the decades old deal with Audi would tame down Lambo they are all gone now. Behold the new poster for children everywhere.
Dec 31
Okay, let’s talk about the Intercooler. Possibly the most argued about, and misunderstood, car component there is, short of the humble blow-off valve (which we’ll discuss another time).
The internal combustion engine that we all know and love is known by industrial engineers and science-types as a heat engine.
The torque that a car engine produces is a function of the difference between the temperature of the air headed into the engine, versus the temperature of the gasses inside the engine at combustion point.
This is why your car tends to perform better on a cool night than it does during a hot afternoon.
In a turbocharged or supercharged engine variant, the intake charge fed into the car is being compressed, and therefore, heated.
Dec 29
An interesting topic came up the other day and it was if you had in your possession the last gallon of gas in the world, and had access to any car what car would you choose?
Let’s ponder this for a little bit. Would you want something that gets good fuel economy to stretch your gallon as far as you can? Of course I’m not talking about a Prius but maybe a pocket rocket like a Civic Si, Chevy Cobalt SS, or Mazdaspeed 3? All very fun to drive, but do you really want the last car sound ever made to be a Chevy Cobalt? I don’t.
Maybe you’d pick sometime like a Lotus Elise, it still gets decent economy but is a whole lot of fun. Still though, the sound isn’t that great and while they are plenty fast they aren’t kick you in the seat of your pants fast. We could go to the opposite end of the spectrum and pick an SL65 AMG Black, they sound amazing! Still, not my choice.
Let’s step our game up a bit. Maybe you’d pick a super car? If the last car sound ever heard was a Ferrari V12 that would be a pretty good send off for the internal combustion engine. How about a 911? The raspy six would sound amazing and no doubt the 911 is a worthy send of for the last car ever driven.
I’ve thought long and hard about this and for me it probably is going to be American muscle, but which one? I love the sound of a cammed C6 Vette and I’m sure someday they will take their place in the pantheon of American classic cars. However there are a million of them and I’ve got something a little rarer in mind. A Hemi Cuda would probably be a cliche answer so I’ll skip that. How about a Mustang? Probably the most popular muscle car ever. Nah. So my choice of a car to run the last gallon of gas ever in. A Plymouth Road Runner Superbird, with the 440 and a six pack.
Let me explain myself. First they sound awesome and that’s important. Second to me they encompass why we love cars. It’s a bit goofy looking, that wing is huge! It would have to be in some bright crazy color like Vitamin C or Limelight. It would probably struggle to get 5 mpg, and it’s not at all practical. That’s the point though, we love cars for a lot of reasons, most of them we can’t explain, and that’s the Superbird. It’s cool and you can’t explain it and it’s very worthy of the last gallon of gas.
Well there is my pick, it’s a goofy I know, and I’m not all that serious about it, but heck why not? What would you choose to run the last gallon of gas through?
Dec 28
(Photos to come later)
We recently tested 3 luxo-mobiles priced in the $115k – $130k(plus options) Aussie dollar mark in the Upper Yarra Valley of Victoria. Here’s our impressions of them.
The 3 vehicles we have assembled are the Audi A6 3.0TFSI, the BMW 535i and, as something of a wild card entry, Jaguar’s XF Luxury.
We also wanted to pit these three against an E-Class Merc, but couldn’t obtain a test car in time for the comparison.
