Autocollection loans cars to China

Autocollections at the Imperial palace loaned cars to China. The cars ranging from 1886 Benz to a 1972 Alfa Romeo, with values between $20,000 and $1
million. They will be displayed in the Blackhawk Pavilion of the Shanghai
Automobile Museum, scheduled to open mid-September.
The Auto Collections, the world's largest classic car lot with $100 million
worth of inventory on display and for sale, is celebrating its 25th
anniversary this year. Located on the fifth level of the Imperial Palace
self-parking facility, The Auto Collections is open daily 9:30 a.m. to 9:30
p.m.

Ford is thinking Hollywood

Jalopink has an interesting article about Ford making some episodes. It is mulling about making 50 episode saga of Ford history to get in the eyes of the public to improve publicity. Check it out!

Nanotube Batteries for Cars

MIT researchers are developing nanotube batteries that could be useful for developing an all electric car in the future. Given the high prices in Gas this could be one welcome solution that we can look forward to!

Exhibition of iconic Micro cars

Macklowe might have been a real estate developer in New York but he changed the face of Madison avenue by holding an exhibition of Micro cars from Europe.When he went to Italy he was facinated by the design and features of the small cars and sent his vice president to acquire and ship to Canada and loaded them on the flat beds to be sent to NY in time for the exhibition and transformed 340 Madison Avenue.

In the exhibit, five Smart Cars are displayed on floor-standing or ceiling-suspended platforms, emphasizing the "iconic status" of each. One of the cars has been "exploded," or deconstructed, to highlight the interchangeable body parts, and show off the details of the industrial design, while another has its door removed to invite visitors to participate by sitting behind the wheel.

30 day Money back on your Chrysler

Chrysler executives are seriously thinking about offering a money back guarantee on the cars. They plan to offer a 30 day money back guarantee so that the customer can have the car for 30 days and if he is not satisfied he can return the car back to the dealership for full repayment. An innovative idea to say the least in this dog eat dog car market. Full Story

Top car rankings

JD Edwards has released the rankings for this year. Only two out of the top 10 categories are held by the american car companies. Honda, Toyata and Hyndai make up the rest of the categories. The german giant Porshe has toppled Lexus for the top spot in that category.

London Cars Vs Chickens

Apparently, london cars are no faster than the Chickens. Despite the congestion charge the traffic in London moves at 10mph. This means that the cars travel only at the speed of running chickens!!

Commute helper

Here is the most creative idea ever conceived. The story involves a guy who lives in San Francisco and come up with an unique way to earn his bread. He posts a sign that says "Traffic is bad. Spend 2 hours or pay me $10 and get there in 20 minutes". What he does is he sits in the car so that the car can be driven in the car pool lane saving time. Jeffrey Strain has more.

Want to sell your car?

Barberautos.com has taken the car selling experience to another level. This is a new online site which lists your car on multiple sites and provide all the answers to the buyers and you get the maximum $$ for your car. It is expected to grow and read the full posting here.

Coolest car for disabled

While many cars can be adapted for disabled drivers, few, if any, have actually been designed with them in mind. The Kenguru takes a step toward remedying this. The electric mini-car, designed in Hungary, has no front seat; a hatchback opens, allowing the driver to roll his/her wheelchair into driving position. The car is controlled by joystick but tops out at around 25 mph, meaning driving will be restricted to surface streets. The vehicle is available in Hungary for $12,500 but is free with healthcare if an individual qualifies. Full story.

World's most expensive Lemon

The car, a Mercedes-Benz AMG CLK-GTR Limited Edition Roadster, was supposed to be one of only five made. In the lawsuit, the owner of exotic car dealership Grand Prix Motors also alleges that six were actually made, reducing the value of his car. Apparently, the car costs $1.7 million and would not run for ten blocks without creating problems.
Here is the full story.

Car Care

Found this cool site wherein you can actually see and find information about the specific car part. This has some summer tips for the maintenance of your car. Check it out.

Save gas - use your foot

By using your right feet properly you can gain 35% more out of your current vehicle. Here are the tips:
1) Roll your windows, reducing the use of air conditioning
2)Use cruise control on the highway which has big impact on the economy
3)Let go off your right foot in the city by accelerating slowly in the green light and stopping slowly on red lights. As soon as you sense that you will not be able to make the green light in an intersection do not accelerate let the car slow down and put the brakes for stopping near the traffic light. This saves approx 25% to 35% of the fuel. This takes some time to get used to and you might have somebody at the back honking but if you continue this is a big saver!
4) Inflate your tires and keep them inflated to their optimum level
5) Regularly change oil based on the manufacturer's recommendations and if you do the vehicle will consume less gas.
6) Find the cheapest gasoline station and you can easily find them if you look across the street, in one intersection you would atleast find one that is priced few cents less than the other stations. Compare with costco or sams club.
7) Save some money in your wallet!!

Cars on Autopilot

At one point in 90s the cruise control was one of the greatest inventions for cars but now it is outdated. We have cars that go on autopilot like Mercedes S class which can sense the traffic and adjust the throttle which it calls "adaptive cruise control". Then there is Lexus LS 460 which can do parallel parking with some braking from autopilot. The Acura RL has a collision warning system and if the driver does not respond then it will brake automatically. Infiniti has lane departure warnings if the car strays from its original lane without signals. Given these kind of innovations James Bond cars are not unrealistic.

Oldest truck in the world

The oldest truck was built by Mercedes Benz on 1st October 1896. It had four hp two-cylinder engine, weight of the complete vehicle: 1,200 kilograms for carrying a load of 1,500 kilograms, invoiced to British Motor Syndicate Ltd. London. Ten years after the invention of the first car, Gottlieb Daimler had built the world´s first truck.

The world´s first truck looked like a horse-drawn cart without a drawbar. The driver was seated on the coach-box ahead of the front axle, out in the open air. Hence the truck was a cab-over-engine unit.

The engine was installed in the rear – a Daimler "Phoenix" two-cylinder engine which developed 4 hp from a displacement of 1.1 litres. Engine power was transmitted to the rear axle by a belt system, a design resembling that of the planetary hub reduction axles introduced decades later.

coolest cars

Since the beginning of the automobile era, people always found a way to be different from the norm. Sometimes, these differences made them stand apart, sometimes they looked weird. Although Monster cars/trucks are different I would not know if they qualify to be cool but there are lot of car which makes the driver cool. Automobile magazine has done extensive research and came out with the 100 coolest cars something to check out in the weekend and be proud of yourself if you are a owner of any of the cars.

Fastest car

Imagine a car that travels over 230 mph and costs in the neighbourhood of $1.2 million and can hit 62 mph in 2.5 seconds and it is not a dream but a reality. The car Veyron manufactured by Bugatti is the world's fastest, most expensive and most exclusive factory-built car. It has short curvy two-seater with massive power. Its 1,001 horsepower engine has four turbochargers. The car's features sound like those on a jet: diffuser flaps, air-intake scoops, a tail wing that acts like an airbrake and 1.7 miles of cable to power onboard electronics. Bugatti, owned by Volkswagen, can only produce one Veyron per week in its newly built factory in France, and will only produce the two-tone vehicle when one is ordered. The company will also stop when it hits 300 orders.Veyron took Bugatti seven years to build. The seven-gear, all-wheel-drive Veyron is so fast that its designers customized three different suspension modes: a mode for "standard" driving below 136 mph; a "handling" mode engaged when the front diffuser flaps open, the body drops closer to the ground and the tail wing and spoilers are "deployed"; and a third "top speed" mode, used for speeds above 233 mph, that has to be manually activated with a separate key.

Daimler's alternate fuel vehicle

Finally Daimler has an alternate fuel vehicle that runs on ethanol and the company said in a news conference that it will dedicate 25 percent of its vehicle production to ethanol-ready vehicles because of this rising gas prices. The car maker is expected to sell about 250,000 flex-fuel vehicles next year and half a million by 2008. Chrysler will begin offering flex-fuel versions of its Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Jeep Commander and the Dodge Dakota pickup truck, the company said. What with the rising gas prices and mounting tension in the middle east, this seems to be a genuine alternative.

Turtle cars

Turtle transit brought in more than $2 million by transforming ordinary cars and trucks into promotional vehicles. The first customer was Monster.com and the company transformed the car into a monster and once this was done the company took off. They had orders from Dunkin' Donuts for which Turtle Transit turned the cab of a truck into an 11-foot-high cup of coffee. (The truck bed was, of course, a box of doughnuts.). To promote Puffs tissues last year, Riseborough's staff of 11 created a fleet of "noseways" - Segway scooters with fiberglass noses. Pictures.

$4 per gallon of gas - reality

Already the gas has hit $4 in some full service upscale neighbourhood gas stations of California and New York. Follow the full story..Follow these tips.