Culture|Garage

So what’s the make and model? And don’t cheat, if you find the original picture, don’t link to it. I am curious to see what the crowd thinks it is. Oh and when you leave a comment, you will notice that Ryan updated a few things this weekend. Among them, he added an avatar function. Head to gravatar to set an account up (it takes less than a minute) and any site that has gravatar function installed will showcase your pretty face.

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Oh wow, this is hot.  Now if only the couple was powered by the CTS-V’s powertrain.  This is a much better looker than the CTS-V.  I think it’s the subtlty of the grille.  Plus the CTS is all “angly” and “angly” seems to work a lot better as a coupe than as a sedan.  The Car Connection brings you a bunch more photos… in a crappy gallery interface.

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We already learned about the Japanese motorcycle oddities, now GrandJDM takes on the Tokyo Auto Salon. And wow, what a bevy of weird interesting vehicles. There were Lexus LS series with Pep Boy stick on port holes. A bunch of mini-van’s decked out in VIP treatment. My personal favorites were the Datsuns (both the Skyline and the beautiful 240 with the over-fenders) and the lifted Cressida. This is mainly due to personal relevance, my first car was a 1989 Toyota Cressida, a car years ahead of the competition and arguably one of the best cars I have ever driven. And the Z cars have always been a huge infatuation of mine, hence why I blew all my money restoring one (a few quicks snaps can be seen here). Anyways, many pictures from the show, post jump.

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I remember when car awards consisted mainly of Car and Driver’s 10Best and Motor Trend’s Car (and Truck/SUV/etc) of the Year.

Now we have all sorts of ridiculous car awards. Edmund’s Inside Line now has an award for the most wanted vehicle (in separate categories), their inaugural awards went to; Honda Odyssey, Audi S5, Mazda3, GMC Denali, and the 911 GT3. Robb Report (pretentious rich dude magazine) just named the Audi R8 Car of the Year. There is even an organization awarding body called Car of the Year.

And don’t even get me started on the sham that is JD Power. Essentially, they award a manufacturer in one of their many categories and then offer them the “rights” to use the logo for their marketing purposes. It’s like that “Who’s Who” yearbook thingy, where you had to buy into it. I guess what I am getting at, do people really care about all these awards?

Is an award something that the common person brags about to friends, “yeah Doug, I know it’s a mini van and all, but look Edmund’s named it most wanted, right next to the GT3.” As a long time car guy, I don’t care what the press says (or I certainly wouldn’t be driving Saabs), it’s how I feel connected to the car.

That being said, I am thinking of starting a culture|garage award series, what should we name it?

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“The Courage” tipped over today at the port in Jersey City, NJ, causing major damage to over 300 BMWs, not including some 70+ BMWs that were total losses.

A majority of the destroyed vehicles were M3s (mostly in dark blue), with a variety of 3-series and 1-series smashed up as well. A small number of the cars destroyed had German Tourist plates on them, and unfortunately those European delivery customers will not be getting their cars back.

If you were expecting your M3, E90/92, or 1-series in the next month, you’re going to be in for a sad surprise.

More info and pictures of the damage Read the rest of this entry »

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There isn’t too much information of how this poor owner ended up in the swamp with his Velocity Yellow Corvette C6 Z06. But I’m pretty sure speeding was the biggest factor.

Not only is the thing flooded on the inside, please remind me to never call that tow guy for service, “Be sure to not scratch the car,” and “Easy with the lip bruda” made me chuckle.

So how long before it’ll show up on eBay?

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Chrysler Marketing Guy: We need to be viral and be on the Internets

Advertising Account Guy: Oh yes, the web is where it is at. Especially the 2.0 version.

Advertising Creative Guy: ugh!

Chrysler is running a new promotion via a special YouTube channel. They want to get all consumer generated and have Chrysler 300 owners film a brief two minutes showing off their customized 300. Now when I think of a vehicle as a “blank canvas,” the Chrysler 300 doesn’t really pop into mind. Oh maybe that is because, Scion pretty much owns the segment of being a canvas. And most of the customization you see on a 300 is big ass wheels and fake Bentley grilles. My dad has a 300 as a company car, maybe I will have him do a two minute video on the satellite radio he had installed.

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Nissan has released just about everything about the GT-R GT500 race car except the technical specifications of the most powerful GT-R ever. Expect this data to be released in late January, along with Nissan’s full range of global motorsports activites for the 2008 race season.

The GT-R GT500 will replace the current GT500-class competitor which is based on the Fairlady/350Z platform.

And for your hopes of seeing the GT-R racing here are non-existent. Nissan has suspended its North American motorsports activities. So your best bet of catching some seat time in it is in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue scheduled for US release in March 2008.

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