By Kevin Gordon
It was a fun week of afternoon commutes this week. Some days, it seems like it is going to be tough to get something together for the ride home, but every day there is something worthwhile happening in the automotive world. We hope you enjoy the commentary from this week. If there is anything different you would like to see during the afternoon commute please let us know in the comments. After the break are all five commutes from this week. Continue Reading →
By Kevin Gordon
Look no further for proof that the automotive industry is out of the doldrums than the fact that they are pumping a huge amount of cash into advertising for Super Bowl XLVI (46). Historically, the lead up to the big game has seen hints and rumors of which companies were pulling out all stops to attract attention to their brand. Today, with hopes of viral videos dancing in their heads, advertising executives post their ads ahead of time to try to build hype. Why troll around YouTube for all of this year’s auto relevant advertisements? After the break, are all of them without written commentary. Lets face it, the people who make these things get paid to be clever. You be the judge of their success in the comments. As a heads up, all of the videos are on one page which may take some time to load depending on the speed of your computer. Continue Reading →
In our second full week of filming the afternoon commute, we fell into more of a rhythm. The audio issues appear to have been resolved and we’ve settled on a camera placement. Keep us posted on what you would be interested in seeing and hearing about in the automotive world. After the break are all of the videos from this week.
Every day we at Autosavant read an enormous amount of news about what is going on in the automotive world. Sadly, most of us do not have is the capacity to write about all of that news on a daily basis (our day jobs seem to get in the way). As a result, our Technical Director Kevin Gordon has started video blogging about the day’s happenings in a new segment named The Afternoon Commute. After the break is a bit more information, a link to today’s Afternoon Commute, along with a spoof trailer to the series. Continue Reading →
By Chris Haak
Those of us who work for Autosavant don’t do it for the money. Believe me, we don’t do it for the money! We write for this website in order to share our passion and interest in cars and the car business with you, our readers.
At the end of each year, we have traditionally used our Google Analytics data to ferret out which of the previous year’s articles were the most popular, solely in terms of pageviews. Note that this year, we are not counting pre-2011 articles that appeared in the top 10, even though some of our old work (like the eulogy to the Chrysler PT Cruiser penned by Roger Boylan in July 2010) continues to enjoy strong traffic.
By Chris Haak
Last week, we described the first day of a two-day event sponsored by IMPA, the International Motor Press Association. During Day One, we road tested nine different new or significant new cars. During Day Two, described below, we took nine more cars onto Monticello Motor Club’s track.
Monticello Motor Club, or MMC for short, opened in 2008 to very positive reviews. It’s a 4.1-mile asphalt track containing 22 turns in its full configuration, plus 450 feet of elevation changes. There’s a clubhouse, pit area, garage area (where members can keep their track-day playthings), and various other amenities. The grounds and landscaping are all gorgeous, and the track is challenging and fun for drivers of various skill levels. Memberships start at around $30,000 upfront, plus an annual fee of $3,150 and can go into six figures; the higher your membership level, the greater your access to the track. As a founding member, Jerry Seinfeld has almost no limits to how often he can put his Porsches on the track. Sadly, this gig doesn’t pay enough to make MMC membership an option.
By Chris Haak
Several weeks ago, Autosavant’s Kevin Gordon and I had the opportunity to journey to the Catskill region of New York to the sleepy hamlet of Monticello. A village of about 6,500 people, Monticello is about as unremarkable as any other point on the map. The town’s Wikipedia page is divided into Pre-Civil War and Post-Civil War sections, with the latter containing only four paragraphs of information against the former’s fourteen. Save for one thing – our main attraction today – Monticello is the very definition of “sleepy hamlet.” The main attraction is Monticello Motor Club, a members-only country club for [rich] car guys and gals. We’ll have more on MMC later this week.
By Charles Krome
Most gearheads know that Chrysler’s first go-round as a government-funded entity—for all the gnashing of teeth it caused—actually led to a number of very important product innovations that completely changed the course of the auto industry: The introduction of wide-scale platform sharing and the debut of the modern-day minivan. True, Chrysler wasn’t the very first to begin using the former or selling the latter, but it was the company that proved both could be successful in mass-market applications here in the U.S.
By Charles Krome
Looking at it today, it’s hard to imagine how radical the design of the 2002 Isuzu Axiom seemed when the vehicle was first introduced. But its sophisticated, highly stylized exterior was unlike that of any other SUV or crossover on the road at that time—and remember, too, that there weren’t very many of the latter on the road at all back then. Both Honda and Toyota had deployed their crossovers, but the only unibody crossover entries from Nissan or the Big Three were the Ford Escape and Plymouth PT Cruiser. That era’s Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 were taking pains to hide their pedestrian beginnings as the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, respectively, and the whole concept behind crossovers was looked upon with disdain by a fairly large swathe of American buyers.
By James Wong
We’ve just got back from the second press day at Frankfurt. Here are some photos to whet your appetite while we digest all the information presented to us for the past two days. We hope you enjoy these Mercedes-Benzes, Audis, BMWs, Peugeots, Toyotas, Alfas, and Ferraris! Click after the jump for the full gallery.
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