Totally Gnarly Superbike Crash

Here’s some more proof that racing motorbikes isn’t for the timid. After one rider loses it just before a turn, Italian racer Vittorio Iannuzzo winds up running straight into him and goes over the handlebars head first. It’s unclear who came out worse, but it’s safe to say both of these guys were pretty sore when they woke up the next morning. Ouch.

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2010 Mustang vs. 2010 BMW Z4

Two redesigned sports cars are generating a ton of hype lately; one has been an American icon for over 40 years, the other is a relatively new innovation from our friends in Germany.

The 2010 Ford Mustang and 2010 BMW Z4 are very different, yet they’re generating equal amounts of passion from their loyal followers. Both deliver horsepower and speed. Both make a statement about their drivers. Let’s take a quick look at both, and then it’s your turn to tell us which you’d rather have!

The Mustang

The biggest news from the Mustang camp is the possibility of Ford’s new EcoBoost twin-turbo V6 being offered. This is an engine capable of a devastating 415 hp that would be offered alongside the V8 options. (No guarantee that this turbo will make it into production, though.) 

Remember when GT Mustangs came with a 5.0-liter V8 rather than the 4.6? Oh yes, the 5.0 is coming back, baby! Expect around 325-350 horses out of that power plant. There will also be a Bullit edition and the same entry-level V6 as before. Looks like we’ll again be treated to a Ford-built Shelby GT 500 version of the new pony, with at least 500 hp, though I’d bet on more. Can you say BOOYAH!?

The Mustang’s interior also gets revamped to accommodate a bigger navigation screen and audio gear. 

The Z4

The new Z4 will be offered in sDrive30i and sDrive35i trims. Completely redesigned inside and out, the exterior redesign is what I’m most excited about, as the current Z4 is a bit too chiseled for my taste. The new design is sleeker, more elegant, and more sophisticated, in stark contrast to the arrogant, muscled look of the Mustang. 

The other big news is the addition of a retractable two-piece aluminum hard top for this Bimmer in place of the current soft top.

Oh, but you want to know about performance? The sDrive30i is powered by a 3.0-liter V6 capable of 255 hp. The sDrive 35i has a twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6 rated at 300 hp and a 0-60 sprint time of 5 seconds.

Opting for the Z4 will also give buyers the option of adding a Sport Package with Adaptive M Suspension and Electronic Damping Control. This gets complicated, but the system allows for more driving control and the ability to change damper forces on the Adaptive M Suspension and adjust the response thresholds of Dynamic Stability Control.

This new Z4 will be built in Germany, as opposed to the current Z4, which is built in America.

So there you have it. Which would you rather have - the pure muscle and style of the Mustang or the sophisticated driving experience of the BMW Z4?

-tgriffith

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2008 Nissan Rogue Will Start Under $20,000...It's Cheaper Than the RAV4 and CR-V

Nissan plans on going head to head with Toyota's RAV4 and Honda's CR-V this fall with the Rogue SUV. In the first seven months of this year, the Honda CR-V has moved up to steal the top spot as the top selling SUV in the U.S. Nissan hopes to get in on the action with its new Sentra based SUV.

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Four stars means Chevy Camaro falls short of Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger crash tests

Posted by Autoblog

Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Safety, Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford

2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS – Click above for high-res image gallery

Modern muscle car buyers looking for reasons to purchase one machine over another may not be as easily swayed by safety…

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From the My Hemmings Reader Videos – GTX, day of arrival

Good news, everybody! You’ve known for a while now that you can upload a video along with your online classified with Hemmings to help sell your car, but now you can also upload your videos of your cars just to show off in the Reader Videos section of My Hemmings. And we’ve already seen a few videos roll in, including the above video from member abrke, who apparently couldn’t wait to start burning rubber with his GTX and christened it and his driveway before he could even bother to put plates on it!

Got a video you’d like to share? First, make sure you’re registered for My Hemmings, then on your Account page, look for the Your Videos box on the right of the page. If you’ve uploaded a particularly cool video, let us know!

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Ford Verve Concept Provides a Hint of the Styling of the 2009 Ford Fiesta

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$10,000: An Over-Under Flashback

Not long ago, I presented several automotive deals under $10,000 and $5,000 respectively. Looking back on those posts, it occurred to me that a number of the featured vehicles were station wagons. Realizing that not everyone has a hankerin’ for a wagon, I recently stumbled upon a non-wagon vehicle for sale that I captured back in January of this year that – for whatever reason – barely registered in the old gray matter between my ears:

It’s a 1962 Chrysler Imperial – for those not familiar with the telltale headlamp pods and Buck Rogers-like taillamp pods on top of the rear fenders. It was spotted for sale in the car corral at the well-attended Devereaux-Kaiser car show in Sarasota, Florida, with a then asking price of $8,499. Needing only a fresh set of tires, the seller stated that it was, “All original, new paint, rust free.” (Remember future purveyors of vintage iron, “new paint” conflicts with “all original”). Also included was the standard issue, four-barrel carbureted 413-cu.in. engine that made 340 horses – this in a four-door weighing in at roughly 4,600 pounds – and a pushbutton automatic. At the time, the asking price was well under what such an example in average condition ($12,500) would normally fetch, especially a clean, running driver most would not be ashamed to be seen in. Half a year later, and the average value is still holding true.

Not far away was this 1969 Ford F-100 Ranger. According to the seller, it had all of 43,000 original miles on the odometer, a 390-cu.in. two barrel engine, column-mounted three-speed manual, power steering, the original bill of sale and never-used spare tire, as well as the original radio (an AM/FM/Cassette was in place). So, too, were twin Flowmaster exhaust pipes. Not to linger on the particulars, but the bed featured an unnamed roll-on liner for ensured protection. The asking price here was $13,900, however the words “Trades of all kinds welcomed” and “Make an offer” were present, which to us indicated that perhaps $10K was not out of the question.

Deals are out there folks!

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How to Clean Leather Car Seats

If you own, or lease a car, and you have leather car seats, you’re probably going to find that you’re going to have to clean them every once in a while.  What you don’t know is that you don’t want to clean them the wrong way, because they can do more damage than good.

Get a good cleaner - The first thing that you want to do is get ahold of a nice leather cleaner.  You don’t want to go too cheap, because some chemicals can leave marks on your seat.  Check out Amazon’s recommend products when it comes to great leather car seat cleaners.

Sprays usually work the best - You’ll find that many cleaners that you see on your local store shelves are going to be sprays.  The reason that sprays work so well is because it’s going to limit what you get on your seat, rather than applying a chemical from a cloth.

Spray and wipe - Once you directly spray the cleaner on your seat, you’re going to want to grab a hot washcloth with water.  You’ll then dip your washcloth in the water, and proceed to wipe the seat.  Make sure that you reach every part on your seat.  With most cleaners, you’re going to see that it will foam up.

Dry it up - Now that your seats look nice, and foamy, your next step that you’ll want to take is by grabbing a nice dry cloth, and wiping the foam directly off the seat.  After you do this, your seats should look a little shinier, and cleaner than before.  If you do see that there is some dirt, or residue left over, you can repeat the process, until the car seats look clean to your liking.

Here’s a great video that you can view to see how the process is done –

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Inside the Poughkeepsie Fiat factory

With all this talk of Fiat buying Chrysler and coming to the United States, it bears mentioning that Fiat was already once here and even had an assembly plant in Poughkeepsie, New York, a stone’s throw from the Hudson River: Fiat incorporated in the United States in 1908 and built its plant two years later.

The venture lasted less than a decade, but according to the Hudson Valley Ruins website, the factory remained in Poughkeepsie, first inhabited by Western Publishing, then by the Mid-Hudson Business Park and nearby Marist College in the 1980s before it was abandoned. Hudson Valley Ruins claims that after the factory’s demolishing, the site now hosts a Staples store, but Associate Editor Mark McCourt, who hails from the mid-Hudson area, notes

The Fiat building was near the plaza where the Home Depot went up, but it wasn’t the exact same place. I used to drive by this building every day on my way to Dutchess CC (I had no idea of its history until I came here), and it was directly across from the southern portion of the Marist college campus. A strip mall and student housing condos are now in that area.

And based on his recollections, we can narrow it down to a better view of where the factory once stood. Mark said he believes the factory was torn down in the late 1990s.

The reason for this little history lesson, however, lies with a recent email from reader Kim Morris, who sent the above photo and postcard and wondered if the photo was taken inside that Fiat factory.

You can see the stylized “A” in the window and the cars appear to be about 1913 Fiats. The windows also look right from the exterior photos I have seen of the plan, also attached.

That’s very much the possibility, Kim.

UPDATE (11.June 2009): Tim Lavery confirmed with the Dutchess County Historical Society that the plant was located on the northeast corner of Rt. 9 and Fulton.

On the suggestion of a friend, I checked out Google Earth, which offers historic maps, and in their 1995 map of the region, it looks like the building’s still standing:

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Gold Leaf "Premium Bond" Aston Martin DB7 Tackier Than Roger Moore [Custom Cars]

Gold isn’t known to the be the most durable of materials, which is probably why over-the-top tuning firm Alchemist left it off the bumpers and rockers. The 24-carat gold leaf on this Aston Martin DB7 is actually part platinum for longevity, but we still wouldn’t advise running it through a car wash, especially since we’re not sure how the seven (as in 007) diamonds are attached to the bodywork. Alchemist will be debuting its "Premium Bond" at London’s MPH car show next week at, what we can only assume, will be a champagne and cocaine-fueled five hooker Nazi orgy.


[via MPH]

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Detroit Gets a Christmas Present . . . Sort of

Can you believe it? George W. Bush has saved the car industry. All those cheerleaders for instant bankruptcy, like Sen. Richard Shelby (R. Tenn.), can now go back to their drawing boards, along with the automakers.

Chrysler Line Worker Gets TARP Blood from Paulson

Chrysler and GM got a transfusion of $13.4 billion in loans to tide them over to March, with the prospect of $4 billion more to come in February if necessary. The deal is pretty much the same as the earlier bailout bill Congress offered that last week went down to defeat. It essentially buys the industry time to come up with a viable (much debate on the meaning of that term) plan for reorganization.

A couple of interesting add-ons to note: the administration, according to the Washington Post, “has set as a target that the companies convince holders of up to two-thirds of their outstanding debt to accept stock in exchange, and that half of the payments into a union benefit fund be made in company stock.”

The idea is to get all major stakeholders to take a haircut, sharing both the present pain and the risks to come.

Cerberus Capital, the buyout firm that owns Chrysler, agreed “to hand over [its] equity in the company’s automotive operations to labor and creditors as part of its loan agreement with the U.S. government.” GM boss Rick Wagoner acknowledged that the road ahead would be tough but also called the federal loans a blueprint for the company’s second 100 years.

So who is going to oversee all this? There is talk that Secretary Hank Paulson will function as the new car czar. Hmm. This is the guy who opposed helping the automakers in the first place and refused for months to take any money out of the TARP funds—which they have done, finally, to support this bailout.

And for the moment, Mr. Bush seems to have given over his talk yesterday of an “orderly bankruptcy,” though that may well be down the road for the industry in any case. The President said he didn’t want to drop this financial bomb on the President-Elect in his first day in office. But it looks like Mr. Obama will have to defuse it anyway.

Can you think of a worse person than Hank Paulson to oversee the bailout? Let us have your nominations.

—jgoods

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