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NOVELTIES
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DEATH RACE
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FROM THE MAILBAG
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First Official Death Race Screen Shot Features an Intense-Looking Jason Statham (39 comments), Chevy Celebrates 50 Years of the Impala (Minus 10 years) (37) and Beautiful Hand-Built Air-Cooled V12 Makes 68 HP Per Liter (32).
Detroit Auto Show
Offbeat News
Bicycle Riding and GPS Receivers May Not Be the World's Best Idea
Some people just don't get it and I kind of can sympathize with them. A man was stopped on a bicycle in Amityville, New York by law enforcement officials with a number of items on his person and looking suspicious. Found on the man was a GPS receiver and that's where things started to go downhill. More »
Blogging The Auto Bloggers
Scott Burgess of the Detroit News Wants to Have it All
Scott Burgess, the most cuddly of auto critics over at the Detroit News has come up with an interesting, one-man-focus-group pseudo-review of the best parts of cars this year. Deftly sidestepping the realities of engineering, Burgess asks for somebody, anybody to put parts of some of the most dissimilar cars around into a Frankenstein's monster of platform prostitution. Take the brain from Ford's Sync System and put it into an Audi R8 body, bring in a heart from GM (what?!) and eyes from Mercedes... okay that's where our body parts/car parts metaphor runs out, but it's still madness, madness we say! Mwah ha ha ha ha! We're totally loving the diabolicalness of it all.[detnews.com]
New Cars
Chevy Celebrates 50 Years of the Impala (Minus 10 years)
The first Impala appeared as a special edition 1958 Bel Air. In 1959, after the popularity of the original Impala, Chevy introduced it as a stand alone model with a 335 horsepower 5.7L V8. To celebrate 50 years as a range topper, Chevy is introducing a new 50th Anniversary Impala with a 211 horsepower 3.5L V6. Progress! This fully loaded Impala comes with the FE3 Sport Suspension, ABS, 18 inch alloy wheels and enough 50th Anniversary badges to fill an HHR. Full press release and a history of the impala below the jump:More »
Gossip
Could This Be The 2012 Mazda RX-9?
The illustrator's over at Winding Road have been having fun with a possible future RX-9 based on previous concepts such as the Mazda Nagare. Their guesstimation picks up some of the Nagare aft of the A-pillar, with a modernization of lines from the current generation RX-8 and last generation RX-7 in the rear. As for under the hood, guesses range from a modified Renesis to something as out-of-character as a V8. But before you rotorheads get up in arms, remember this is all just educated dart throwing. [WindingRoad]
Question of the Day
Your Favorite LeMon?
My head is still spinning from this weekend's hoontastic voyage. And by spinning I mean that after two straight days of TOTAL COVERAGE I drove straight back to Los Angeles and am now somehow awake before 8:00 am. Anyhow, if you weren't near a computer this weekend, here's what you missed. If you were, you now have that much more info to process. And no, sadly, you cannot count the Caddy Wagon as a LeMons car. You have to pick one of the $500 crap boxes. Me? My personal favorite was the Nissan Sentra SE-R. Not so much for the machine itself, but for the mad men behind it. Totally inspiring to be around. Only next time I hope they decorate their car with a few rattle cans. Hate to see this thing get cursed. But, that's me. What's abouts yous?
Announcements
Happy New Year From Jalopnik
As we get ready to pass from one year to the next, those of us here who
First Drive
A tour of Germany wouldn't be complete without test-driving some of Europe's forbidden fruits, now would it? In our case we just couldn't pass on the opportunity to sample Fiat's new retro mobile, the reborn Cinquecento. The Bamberg Fiat dealer was more than willing to let us grab the keys for a trip around the block given that we'd provide a little free publicity. So if you're ever in Germany and hankering for a Fiat, maybe think of Matthias Steinfurth at AutoHaus Wittig GmbH & Co. Let it never be said that we don't whore ourselves out to get behind a fancy steering wheel — we're just not cheap.
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2008 Fiat 500
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Novelties
Beautiful Hand-Built Air-Cooled V12 Makes 68 HP Per Liter
68 horsepower per liter! Air-cooled? You betcha. This hand-built V12 engine, the fruit of hobbyist Ralf Drendel's labor, clocks in at a mere 87 cc's of displacement and cranks out a
Novelties
The V8-Powered Snowblower Owns Frosty's Ass
What do you do when you have a 454 c.i. chevy big block V8 and a massive amount of winter precipitation? While there are those among us that would rather toss it in a LeCar, Kai Grundt decided a six-year journey to create the world's greatest V8-powered snowblower was the way to go. Remember: engine displacement = snow displacement. There's no price on this monster, though the company claims that it'll build one. Either way, it's fun to look at. Full details below the jump:More »
from the mailbag
We get some strange requests here at Jalopnik. Sometimes those requests are admittedly from some very strange people. But the e-mail we got last night was by far the most strange request we've seen in quite some time. It's from a man named Rustam Mamedov. If it's the same Rustam Mamedov we found in a quick Google search, then we're under the impression the President of Azerbaijan is looking for an armored Maybach 62 S — but only in black. Full e-mail after the jump.
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Jalopnik Reader Requests Armored Maybach for Azerbaijani President?
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Detroit Auto Show
Detroit Auto Show Just Two Weeks Away, Cobo Hall Getting All Gussied-Up With New Walkway
The mother-of-all-auto-shows, the Detroit Auto Show, is just a couple of weeks away so it's now time to start the deluge of pre-Auto Show stories from the local Detroit press on how Cobo Hall's getting ready for the limelight. First to the plate is Bryce Hoffman of the Detroit News and his enthralling piece on Detroit's aging Convention Center's attempt at prettying itself up for the media and scores of public attendees. Bryce tries really hard, but it's hard for us to get hard up on a piece describing... More »
Thunderhill Lemons
The types of cars that really dominated at the Thunderhill 24 Hours of LeMons weren't quite the same as the ones we saw owning at the October race at Altamont. With the track's long straights and the new hardass, black-flag-o-riffic policy about aggressive driving (not to mention the outlawing of nerf bars), straight-line power and sturdy engine internals were far more important than the sticky grip and ability to take repeated impacts that proved so crucial at Altamont. We saw Detroit iron making a far more respectable showing, while the Bavarian Bullies no longer ruled the race. Make the jump to see how things sorted out by the time the Flag That Is Checkered made the scene...
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The Top 50 Lemons of 24 Hours of LeMons
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New Cars
Mercedes CLS AMG 63 Images Leak on to Internet
Although we'd already heard the new Mercedes CLS AMG wouldn't be getting a power boost beyond 514 HP under the hood, now we're not only hearing what it'll officially look like, we're seeing it. Here's the first shots of the new four-door "coupe" from Daimler — helpfully making the rounds on the internet well before the official reveal date of sometime in the indeterminately near future. Noted differences between the old n' busted model and the new hotness pictured above and below the jump are the bigger 19" wheels, new front grille, rear LED lighting and an odd little carbon fiber mini-spoiler. One more pic below the jump. More »
Novelties
Inside the Tokyo Traffic Center
Our brother site unnaturally obsessed with shiny new toys has a cool gallery up of the Tokyo Traffic center. Apparently it's a place where a team of dedicated compulsive-obsessive bureaucrats work round-the-clock to make sure the city's ginormous infrastructure of roads and twisting mess of highways don't grind to a complete halt. This team uses a very high-tech system of huge multi-unit TV screens, LCD panels and one analog clock to help to make sure the mess o' roads don't become a mess o' traffic. See how we'd like our living room entertainment center to look via the link below. (Hat tip to Richard Blakeley!) [Gizmodo]
Down On The Street
1983 Jeep DJ-5
In keeping with our newly-enacted DOTS Truck Monday tradition, we're going with this interesting little Jeep for the last day of 2007. This former mail carrier lives on the same block as the 1966 Lancia Fulvia, and it serves as very practical (except for drive-thru lanes, thanks to right-hand drive) daily driver.More »
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