As promised, your AT faithful have delivered the goods from the 2010 Brown City Days Car Cruise. We appreciate all who showed up despite Mother Nature’s insistence that we all get wet. Dampened posters and sodden trousers be darned, we put the top up on the Ambassador and the show pressed on! Click through to see the gallery. Read more…
Today is the 2010 Brown City Days Car Cruise and as such your AT faithful are out burning petroleum by the barrel driving around in a 1967 Rambler Ambassador convertible. We’ll be bringing you pictures from the show later today, but pictured above is the pair of boulevard brawlers we managed to pull together for the 2006 BC Car Cruise. Yeah they are a bit mismatched, but they sure caught everyone’s attention. The Saturn Sky won the beauty contest that day while the Mazdaspeed6 fascinated onlookers with its hidden talents (namely a turbocharged 2.3L).
The Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé is slowly and elegantly revealed to a crowd of journalists at the 2007 NAIAS. The Drophead Coupé styled after and remained remarkably true to the 2004 100EX Concept. Its list of features is a mile long, but some of the notables include a stainless steel hood, grille, and A-pillar, rearward opening coach doors and a teak deck to cover the convertible top when it’s stowed. Underhood is a 6.75L V12 featuring direct injection. With 453-hp and 531 lb-ft of torque on tap the Drophead Coupé is capable of hitting 60 mph in under 6 seconds.
Alright, I admit my lamenting over the loss of Mercury has led me to dig into the photo archives to dig up what we have on Ford’s middle brand. And what you see above is probably our favorite from the past 20 years. The 2003 Mercury Marauder. Available only in Henry’s favorite color (black) that year, the Marauder turned heads riding on 18″ chromed wheels. This Grand-Marquis-gone-midlife-crisis featured smoked head and taillamps, chromed dual exhaust tips and a unique 5-passenger seating arrangement complete with additional gauges and center console mounted shifter. Under the hood was a 32-valve 4.6L V8 producing 302-hp and 318 lb-ft of torque. The 4-speed auto that was coupled to this motor was a bit lazy and likewise the acceleration times, but this car’s token was its presence and an exhaust note that was piped right out of the ’60s.
Well, it is official. Ford Motor Company announced today that the Mercury brand will be phased out by the end of the 4th quarter this year. While we hate to see the brand go, none of us here in the AT garage could say that we didn’t see this coming. Ford has been limping the brand along on a life support of ancient Grand Marquis sedans and lightly re-trimmed Blue Oval cars for quite a while. Still, the news brings a tear to the eye. The bright side to this song of sorrow is that Fo Mo Co will be refocusing their efforts on Lincoln and promise seven new or heavily refreshed models will be brought to the lineup over the next four years. My vote is for a genuine CTS combatant and the dropping of the silly MK-whatchit nomenclature. But I digress. Our hearts are heavy tonight over the news that Mercury will soon be joining the Saturn and Pontiac brands at that showroom in the sky. Click through for a gallery of historical pics we dug up and remember the good times with us. Read more…
The 2007 Audi S6 had the grace and svelte of a German sports luxury sedan, and the heart of an Italian bull. The team from Ingolstadt shoe-horned a 5.2L FSI V10 from the Lamborghini Gallardo into the engine bay of an A6, threw in some fancy wheels, and lit up the front end with some rather handsome LED running lamps. In S6 duty the hoof-stomping nostril-snorting Gallardo V10 is detuned to 435-hp and 398 lb-ft of torque and routes its power to the ground via a 6-speed automatic and quattro all-wheel drive. A canyon carver the S6 is not, as nearly the entirety of that V10 hangs out ahead of the front axle. It will, however, pull away from a stop with authority! Click through for a more extensive photo gallery. Read more…
Just over a year ago yours truly co-piloted the 2009 Volkswagen CC you see pictured above on a road trip to obtain an Imola Red M Coupe for Executive Editor Dye. On that cross-country journey we learned to love the CC as a road trip companion and dismissed our qualms about it being a Mercedes-Benz CLS knockoff. While the CC’s profile isn’t near as elegant as the Merc’s, the CC is far more attainable for a lot of folks. Under the hood of our model was Audi/VW’s fabulous 2.0T. With only a 200-hp rating this 2.0L direct-injected and turbocharged four-cylinder provided ample power for mountain passes and returned an astonishing 32-mpg considering this is a 3,344-lb four door coupe.
Happy Memorial Day from your friends at Automotive Trends!!!
This might just be the date your parents wished that you didn’t bring home, and we found it at the 2007 NAIAS. The appropriately named HCD10 Hellion is Hyundai’s concept of crossover meets adventurous lifestlye. The body design inspired by hard shell backpacks is organic in nature with sheetmetal apparently stretched taught over the three ultra-lightweight structural ribs. The camouflage fabric roof is removable and the seats have built in removable/refillable fluid reservoirs, eliminating the need for cupholders. Under the hood is a 3.0L common-rail diesel V6 with 236-hp and 332 lb-ft of torque coupled to a 6-speed auto and 4wd.
Kia promised that the KCV III, their concept for the 2004 NAIAS, would be as fun to drive as it was to look at. I guess that depends on the driving you intend to, as forward motivation was provided by a 2.0L 4-cylinder putting out 145-hp and 140 lb-ft of torque. Kia then routed that power to the front wheels and set the rear on a torsion beam axle. Not exactly the stuff sports car fantasies are made from. Still, the KCV III made for an interesting design study for Kia. Along with the very curvaceous body it featured an all glass roof comprised of three sections that would stow at a touch of a button, allowing you to enjoy the open air ambiance regardless of the weather.
