Atlanta Dragway- Ashley Force was the winner this weekend in Atlanta, taking down her father, John Force, in the final round. It was an all-around good weekend for Castrol/ John Force Racing, with the patriarch coming in second, and Ford-linked Bob Tasca III going down in the semis to Force. It was a historic day in Funny Car, where if senior Force were to win, it would have been his one-bazillionth career win, and having Ashley win gave her both her first overall victory, and the first victory by a female in Funny Car, one of the most hotly contested categories in the PowerADE drag racing series. On that note, “Full Throttle,” a Coca-Cola brand, will be sponsoring the series beginning next year, with a contract to do so until 2013. Read the rest of this entry »

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I was lucky enough to have NYC local and c|g commenter, Leigh (Blix), join me for the NYIAS activities. She has quite the passion for cars and luckily also has photography as a hobby. She let me know that she has begun uploading them to her flickr stream. Stay tuned for more.

The above picture is the the 9-3 TurboX, limited run with less than 60 still available for purchase. The bald dude in the background wasn’t a Saab booth model, but rather me making remote posts via iPhone.

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The new STI. The Volvo C30. The Audi A3. The Mazda Speed 3, hell, even the Ford Verve concept. And now the 9-x concept.

It’s such an absolute love/hate split. I love them for their functionality. And quite honestly, driving a hatch makes me feel all Euro. I feel smarter than the masses. I get performance and functionality. And not another appliance or point to point shuttle.

More rambling… and do hatches do it for you? Read the rest of this entry »

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Lutz gave a pretty open an honest status of Pontiac during the unveiling of the Solstice Coupe, the G8 ‘ute (wtf?) and the G8 GXP (400hp and six speed).

He told us how they tried to claim “driving excitement,” but what that meant is we got a four cylinder Grand Am and enough body cladding to fill an Aztec (yes, he really said that). And that now their goal was to actually deliver some excitement to the brand.

And by bringing RWD and true performance models to the brand they were going to be able to ignite this passion and excitement.

Read my thoughts and reviews Read the rest of this entry »

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The unveiling of the Pontiac Solstice Coupe was another one of the autoshow surprises. I liked the Solstice, but I am not a huge fan of ‘verts. I wasn’t really waiting with bated breath for the unveiling.

But when it pulled in behind Lutz, I just stared in a lusting fashion. This car is just chiseled. When I spoke with Jose Gonzalez, the lead designer on the Coupe, he said his inspiration was sculpture… and it shows. Round of applause to Mr. Gonzalez, because he pulled this off extremely well.

I am not a Coupe guy, mainly due to the impracticality, but beyond that, there are very few coupes that I find attractive and they are limited to pretty much the Porsche Cayman S (breath taking drive) and the BMW Z4 Coupe. The Solstice certainly derives some of its cues from both those cars.

More thoughts and comments Read the rest of this entry »

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Ok, we have all seen the Sync commercials. We all understand the basic premise. But how many of you have actually used speech technology and voice recognition devices? We have all tried it at one time or another using our shitty Motorola or had to deal with the computer chick on Comcast’s 800 number. And you know what, it has all sucked.

Ford’s biggest dilemma is going to be convincing people that the Sync doesn’t suck. One of the friendly Ford booth gals asked me if I was familiar with the Sync and if I wanted to try it out.

I told her I had an iPhone so I doubted it would work with the Microsoft interface. Wrong. So I hop in the Focus with her, we set my iPhone to discoverable, and then entered the PIN number that the car provided.

Full write up Read the rest of this entry »

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If I had a Mini it would so look like this.

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

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Tucked. Opposite staggered drive wheels. Uhhhhhhh

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

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