Mini USA VP: Our Cars Are Like Adorably Imperfect Wives

Mini USA VP JIm McDowell tried to explain away yesterday's J.D. Power IQS showing the automaker in dead last, by telling CNBC their cars take some getting used to — like "your wife." Also, Kudlow's like 100-years-old. [CNBC]

V-Vehicle: New Auto Company Buys Louisiana GM Plant To Build Cars

A new San Diego-based auto company named V-Vehicle, backed by billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens and staffed by former Mazda design chief Tom Matano, plans to build "environmentally friendly" vehicles in Louisiana. More »

Chinese Bridge Collapse Kills Nine, Incites Local Outrage

A 600 ft section of bridge collapsed in Zhuzhou, China, crushing 24 vehicles and killing nine. The condemned bridge remained standing after unsuccessful explosive demolition and traffic continued underneath. Outrage towards government officials has been swift. More »

Ferrari Outruns Clumsy Canadian Police

A police officer in Port Moody, British Columbia, spotted a red Ferrari speeding across a highway at top speed this morning and gave chase. Ferrari against Crown Victoria? We wonder how that one turned out... More »

Audi Intelligent Emotion Design Project Looks To Future

Audi's latest program with the Munich University of Applied Sciences is designed to cultivate the next generation of Audi engineers, designers and product direction for what it calls the "Audi Intelligent Emotion" project. More »

Carbon Motors E7 Stops, Searches CNBC

The Carbon Motors E7 police car appeared on CNBC this morning after ringing in the opening bell at NASDAQ. More »

UPDATE: Michigan Car Wash Vacuum Molester Gets 90 Days In Jail

Remember when a Michigan man was arrested after police caught him making sexy time with a car wash vacuum cleaner? Well his name is Jason LeRoy Savage and he just got 90 days in jail. More »

Detroit Lawmaker Proposes Texting-While-Driving Ban, Angers Youth

A Detroit legislator is trying for the second time to put a stop to texting while driving in Michigan, pursuing legislation levying a misdemeanor and hefty fine on perpetrators. More »

2010 British Motor Show Canceled On Account Of Carpocalypse

Autocar is reporting the 2009 British Motor Show has been canceled due to the Carpocalypse. Whatever. We know it was really because of the bland food, crummy weather and threat of ghost-of-Lucas-related electrical fires. More »

Mercedes Confirms Permanent Michigan-Based Hybrid Research Facility

Mercedes has confirmed a new $9.9 million hybrid and alternative propulsion research facility will be based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The facility will create as many as 454 new jobs in the area. More »

Rumors Of Crane Cams' Demise May Be Greatly Exaggerated

A couple weeks ago we heard Crane Cams would be shuttering after 56 years of operation. Crane Cams now claims it plans to reorganize under bankruptcy and restart operations this month. More »

Crane Cams Closes After 56 Years Of Awesomness

Friends, speed-freaks, grease-monkeys, lend me your ears; We come to bury Crane Cams, the latest victim of the Carpocalypse. The noble Crane, which delivered roller rockers and glorious lumpy idles, now falls silent. More »

Beijing Teen Hotwires City Bus, Goes On Destructive Rampage

A 13-year-old Beijing boy managed to slip into a parked city bus and take it on a massively destructive joyride through the city after swiftly hot wiring the ignition. More »

Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero Tears Into Fox News Over Bailout Double Standards

Virgil "Virg" Bernero is the mayor of Lansing, Michigan and he's a little hot under the collar from the bad wrap that the UAW workers are receiving and lays it all out for Fox News. More »

Austrian Uses VW Golf To Mooove Calves

Shocked motorists have spotted an Austrian softie who uses his tiny VW to relocate his beloved calves wherever they might need to go. More »

ING: Ronald McDonald's F1 Playhouse

Ronald McDonald and F1 rulemeister Max Mosley used to "party" in the 80s. Now we know the price of keeping the clown quiet. Are you a bad enough dude to caption this? More »

Victory! Arizona County Ditches Speed Camera Program

Success was had on Wednesday in the fight against robotic roadway policing, the harbinger of Skynet, when a small Arizona county struck down their failing speed camera van program. More »

REPORT: Saab Exploring Independence From GM

Saab is exploring breaking free from GM. This would include moving the majority of production to Trollhattan, a move backed by the Swedish government and the Swedish Chef. More »

Australian Grandma Banned From Roads For 1000 Years

It takes a certain kind of bad driver to be banned from the road for almost 1000 years, but 84-year-old Luba Relic of Warriewood, New South Wales, Australia has managed to be just that dangerous. More »

GM December Sales Down 31.4%, Still US Sales Champ

GM's reporting 221,983 US sales in December, 2008, down 31% compared with a year ago. GM kept the title of US sales leader, with a market share remaining steady at just above 22%.

Bloomberg Cuts New York City Municipal Car Fleet

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered city agencies to cut their municipal vehicle fleets by 10%. The move will eliminate 700 cars and put $20 million into coffers over two years.

French Hooligans Burn 1,147 Cars To Celebrate New Year

Sacré bleu! The French Interior Ministry is reporting the country's emerging New Year's Eve pastime of burning cars for fun has resulted in 1,147 torched automobiles, up 30.64% from last year.

California Highway 99 Crippled By 53 Vehicle Pileup

Dense Wednesday morning fog along California Highway 99 near Caldwell led to a mangled wreckage of 49 cars and four tractor trailers.

24 Hours Of LeMons Coming To Buttonwillow, Reno-Fernley, Nelson Ledges In 2009!

As the economy continues to take kidney punches, more and more once-exclusive tracks have decided that it's OK to allow the caddies into the pool, and thus it has come to pass that Nelsen Ledges in Ohio, Buttonwillow Raceway Park in Southern California, and Reno-Fernley Raceway in Nevada will be holding 24 Hours Of LeMons races in 2009! Jump away for the full schedule.

ExxonMobil Posts Largest Profit In US History, Makes $1,865.69 A Second

ExxonMobil has announced third-quarter profits of $14.83 billion, the largest profit ever recorded in US history. That number is up from the company's last record profit — in the second quarter — of only $11.68 billion. Let's put this into perspective; ExxonMobil could buy every Ferrari Enzo ever built, every 38 hours, and they'd still be profitable. Obviously this means additional tax incentives are needed to hasten oil exploration off the coastal shelf, to develop oil shale fields that'll be useless when a barrel of crude costs less than a movie ticket, and to create techniques to mine the souls of treehuggers for industrial uses. [CNN Money]

Wild Dog Pack Destroys Aussie Ute, Owner Poses For Hilarious Photo

"Doggone it! That's a bit ruff." That's the response Clayton Dwyer, a landscaper from Darwin Australia, gave when he discovered a pack of wild dogs had torn off the front bumper of his work ute and gnawed it to pieces. According to Dwyer, the dogs had been terrorizing the neighborhood for some time and had savaged his girlfriends car to a similar effect. The dogs are so problematic, the neighbors have taken to throwing mangoes at them to get them to go away. This story proves once again that Australia is a considerably more interesting place to live than your average country (as if more proof was needed). [You should head over to NT NEws because Dwyer has a lot of good one liners]

Police Arrest Michigan Man For Car Wash Vacuum Sexy-Time

On October 18th, Police apprehended an unnamed Michigan man in the act of coitus with his chosen mistress of the night, a car wash vacuum cleaner. Police were alerted to the unnatural activities by eye witnesses and approached on foot around 6:45 AM finding the man in the act, disturbing as that thought might be. When commenting on the situation, Sgt. Gary Breidinger said "I've seen some strange things, but this is the weirdest thing I've ever heard." We're wondering how many quarters that kind of thing costs. [AP]

Caterham RS Levante Sold Out; All Eight Of Them

Remember the Caterham RS Levante? It's a fire-breathing version of the lightweight Catherham SV, with a supercharged 2.4-liter V8 making 500 HP. With that kind of power sent to street tires in a car that only weighs a few feathers over 1100 lbs, the RS Levante is the kind of ride that would make even the Stig's pants turn yellow. Not surprisingly, they've sold all of them. Sure, they only made eight, but that just means there's eight people who have purchased a $198,000 suicide kit. At least they'll go out smiling. More »

Clarkson Decides Not All American Cars Are Rubbish, Would Take Cadillac CTS-V Over BMW M5

We had some outrage from the readers when that Jeremy Clarkson fella (who recently crashed and is not at all dead) from across the water done made the Chrysler Sebring convertible one of them- whaddya call it- metaphors for the entire United States and dissed 'em both. Well, you disgruntled types can go ahead and regruntle yourselves, because now The Stig is shopping for a 4-door saloon and Clarkson thinks the Cadillac CTS-V looks like a helluva lot better deal than the BMW M5. His logic goes something like this: 1) The Cad is £19,000 cheaper than the M5, 2) The CTS-V is faster around the Nürburgring, and 3) The Stig won't worry about the insatiable thirst of the CTS-V, because he saved so much money buying it in the first place. More »

Austrian Politician Jörg Haider Killed In Phaeton Crash, Driving Twice Speed Limit

Far-right politicians from Austria tend to get a lot of scrutiny from the rest of the world, for really obvious historical reasons, and Jörg Haider, long-time leader of Austria's nationalist Freedom Party, definitely made plenty of headlines. That's all over now, as the anti-immigrant Haider perished on Saturday when his 3-month-old VW Phaeton hit a concrete pillar in Klagenfort at 88 MPH, on a stretch of road with a 42 MPH speed limit. [Times of London]

Ford "Nanny Key" For Teen Drivers Limits Vehicle Speed, Radio Volume

Ford has announced a new feature available on many 2010 models called "My Key," consisting of a programmable computer chip imbedded in the key that limits vehicle speed to 80 MPH. Designed for parents of teen drivers, the My Key system will also limit the stereo volume settings and sound a constant chime if seat belts are not fastened; a chime can also be programmed to sound if the car exceeds 45, 55 or 65 MPH. So how is Ford countering the predictable teen driver PR backlash? By telling kids that the My Key system might get them behind the wheel more often. More »

Chevy Dealer Dominoes Keep Falling: Alameda's Good Chevrolet Closes Without Warning

Even as mega-dealerships keep going under, the older urban car dealerships that had managed to stave off the edge-city auto malls clung to life somehow… but all the personalized customer service and convenient locations in the world couldn't save Good Chevrolet in Alameda, which had operated out of the same downtown location since 1950. Day before yesterday, the axe fell, for Good as well as two other Bay Area Chevrolet dealerships, as gas prices and credit woes administered a cruel bumper-jack beating to new Chevrolet sales. I went by and took some photos of the suddenly-defunct dealership yesterday; make the jump to see them all. More »

Jeremy Clarkson's Most Hated Car Fails As Armored-Car Heist Getaway Vehicle

The three robbers in Saujana Impian, Malaysia, had almost all the details worked out for the perfect crime. Almost. They did pretty well with the part involving the hijacking of an armored Toyota van carrying cash for ATMs. And the getaway? Flawless! Then, however, the weak link in their scheme made itself known; their Perodua Kelisa proved too small to fit all the loot, and they had to leave nearly half the cash behind in the van. The Kelisa, you may recall, is the car Jeremy Clarkson described as being "made in a jungle clearing by someone who went to work on an ox," enraging the Malaysian Parliament. Make the jump to see the Kelisa's famous appearances on Top Gear. More »

Deadly Truck Accident Spills Millions Of Nickels On Florida's I95

Last night on Florida's I95 freeway a US Treasury truck carrying four million nickels was southbound on its way from Philadelphia to Miami when it collided with another southbound truck, spilling $187,000 worth of coins all over the scene. The passenger in the Treasury truck died as a result of the accident and Florida police are currently investigating the scene. Also on hand are Treasury officials attempting to clean up the mess and eager citizens trying to grab some coins and not get slapped with a Federal robbery charge. [Local6]

T. Boone Pickens Has Secondary Motivation For Wind Farm Push: The Ogallala Aquifer

We've been wondering to ourselves over the last month or so, why has oil-baron-turned-environmentalist T. Boone Pickens been pimping his wind farm idea so hard, even including direct ads to the US public? It's just a bunch of big-ass windmills after all; it's not like rocket science. It had to be, we thought, that he wanted tax breaks or green incentives to help defray the cost. Well, that may be the case, but a second, less-publicized motivation has emerged other than getting us off of foreign oil (and by foreign we mean mostly Canadian). The DC Examiner dug in and found out it's not just electricity T. Boone is after: It's the water in them thar hills. More »