The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder, but car cruise season hasn’t come to an end yet. Tag along with us as we exercise the digital SLR on all the shiny metal that showed up for the 2010 Faith Missionary Church Car Show in Flushing, Michigan. Bonus points to the reader that spots the Automotive Trends’ feature car. Better grab a snack, this gallery is extensive! Read more…
All Things To All Men
Our review of the 2007 Land Rover Range Rover Supercharged wasn’t exactly a glowing compilation of superlatives and conjunction. In fact, it emphasized several things that the Rover didn’t do well. So now that Land Rover has stepped out from the corporate umbrella of Ford Motor Company and into the tent of Tata, the manufacturer of the world’s cheapest car (the Tata Nano), does the proud Range Rover stand a chance of making it back to the position of its former glory? Read more…
Michigan’s Little Bavaria puts on quite a show for the classic car enthusiast. The Frankenmuth Auto Fest is a three day festival dedicated to the celebration of the classic automobile. Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to put on a pretty good show as well. Just as your trusty auto scribes were making their way to the show, the skies opened up and poured out their abundance. Determined not to come away empty-handed, Gernand and I pressed on and managed to snap a few shots from the show before the digital SLR had to be stowed for fear of excess moisture accumulation. So grab your galoshes and raincoat and wade through our gallery. It’s worth it! Read more…
Not Intended for Retail Sale Within the United States.
Sometimes the automakers will tease us and not mention that little tidbit right away, but no there it was third sentence of the press release “the Cruze hatchback will not be offered in the US market.” It is rather disappointing that yet another beautiful car from the General will not be coming to our shores because the buying public in this country won’t look at anything hatchback or wagon-ish unless it has all-wheel drive and is riding on stilts! And it is beautiful. Read more…
Quick on the draw this afternoon Design Editor Gernand nabbed this shot of what looks like a prototype mule of the Ford Mondeo. What is a Mondeo doing on this side of the pond you may ask? Well, and this is all speculation, but this may just happen to be an early drive mule of what will become the 2014 Ford Fusion / Mondeo. Ford has already stated that the next Fusion / Mondeo will extensively share components in all areas except where specific market regulations demand otherwise. And while Gernand was unable to snap a front end shot, he did say that the front camo seemed to be hiding a Taurus-like nose. Hard to speculate from this angle, and odds are the actual styling for the 2014 model isn’t even close to set. It’s also hard to say what will be under that hood of this car once it comes to fruition in a few model years, but if our money was on the line it would be a pair of 4-cylinders with at least one being an EcoBoost. Ford has already promised to proliferate the EcoBoost tech throughout the line and it makes sense that they would save development dollars and only set up the car for 4-cylinders like what Chevrolet will most likely do with the next Malibu and what Hyundai has already done with the Sonata. Keep your eyes on Automotive Trends and we’ll keep our eyes on the road so you’re up to date on Everything Automotive!
Overcast skies failed to stop dreamers from cruising Woodward. Nor did it keep our own Design Editor from hitting M1 (Woodward Avenue) in his ’68 Cadillac. Grab a snack and enjoy the gallery. You don’t even have to get wet. Read more…
If you travelled to downtown Flint for the Back to the Bricks car show you were far from the only one, as Design Editor Gernand found out. Record numbers of spectators and rolling pieces of art (cars) flocked to brick-paved Saginaw Street for the show. Gernand even managed to pull himself away from the all-Buick street long enough to take a tour of the newly renovated Billy Durant Hotel where they had a few vehicles from four of the seven divisions of Durant Motors parked out front. So if you were lucky enough to stroll the bricks take a walk down memory lane in our gallery. If, like this editor, you were called away to an important wedding in North Dakota, then you really better hit the gallery to see what you missed! Read more…
The 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, shown here at the 2010 NAIAS, may not be the polarizing supercar that the SLR McLaren was, but the SLR didn’t have gullwing doors! The SLS is the first car designed and developed by the AMG division of Mercedes-Benz. Fitting then that the engine under that long hood is none other than AMG’s own 6.2L V8, pumping out 563-hp and 479 lb-ft of torque. Each engine is hand assembled by one technician in Affalterbach, Germany. Everything from the routing of the wiring to the topping off of the oil is handled by the expert craftsman identified by the signature nameplate affixed to the enigne. Tipping the scales at 3,573-lbs the SLS is a lean machine capable (according to AMG) of hitting 60-mph in 3.7 seconds and an electronically limited top speed of 197-mph. Try not to drool on the keyboard too much as you imagine yourself rocketing through all seven gears of the SLS’s dual-clutch transmission while being firmly planted in those red hand-stitched designo leather seats. Trust me, it gets messy!
Eat My Soot-Free Ammonia-Treated Exhaust!
Talk about your one-up! Starting this week Ford will step out from behind that shadow the General was casting with its 6.6L Duramax V8. Ford’s new 6.7L V8 PowerStroke turbodiesel says I’ll see your 397-hp and 765 lb-ft of torque, and raise you to 400-hp and 800 lb-ft of torque. Ah, horsepower wars at their finest! Read more…
Ford finally unmasked the 2011 Explorer today. About time too, because the slow reveal over Facebook was really starting to try the patience of Executive Editor Dye (who still hasn’t joined the 21st century with a Facebook page). But now we have the pictures and the story behind them. Click through for our first impressions. Read more…
