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Daimler-Chrysler makes SMART. So it's not all bad news...

Hooray! The smart is due in the US in 2006. Unfortunately, they have decided for their first model to be the ForMore, an SUV-like iteration of the ForFour, their upcoming four-door four-seat model.

Then maybe we'll get the ForFour and the ForTwo later on. The powers that be at DaimlerChrysler seem to think that we won't buy the things, despite a barrage of grey-marketers trying to bring the the little cars into the US. And their US product announcement FAQ basically says that we won't get the smaller cars.

But there's hope!

An "Americanized" version of the roadster was debuted at the Detroit Auto Show. The Dodge SlingShot concept car is obviously based on the smart roadster, down to its three-cylinder rear-mounted engine and the targa style removable roof panels.

I'll keep my '94 del Sol a little longer, thank you!

Daimler-Chrysler makes SMART. So it's not all bad news...

Hooray! The smart is due in the US in 2006. Unfortunately, they have decided for their first model to be the ForMore, an SUV-like iteration of the ForFour, their upcoming four-door four-seat model.

Then maybe we'll get the ForFour and the ForTwo later on. The powers that be at DaimlerChrysler seem to think that we won't buy the things, despite a barrage of grey-marketers trying to bring the the little cars into the US. And their US product announcement FAQ basically says that we won't get the smaller cars.

But there's hope!

An "Americanized" version of the roadster was debuted at the Detroit Auto Show. The Dodge SlingShot concept car is obviously based on the smart roadster, down to its three-cylinder rear-mounted engine and the targa style removable roof panels.

I'll keep my '94 del Sol a little longer, thank you!

Daimler-Chrysler makes SMART. So it's not all bad news...

Hooray! The smart is due in the US in 2006. Unfortunately, they have decided for their first model to be the ForMore, an SUV-like iteration of the ForFour, their upcoming four-door four-seat model.

Then maybe we'll get the ForFour and the ForTwo later on. The powers that be at DaimlerChrysler seem to think that we won't buy the things, despite a barrage of grey-marketers trying to bring the the little cars into the US. And their US product announcement FAQ basically says that we won't get the smaller cars.

But there's hope!

An "Americanized" version of the roadster was debuted at the Detroit Auto Show. The Dodge SlingShot concept car is obviously based on the smart roadster, down to its three-cylinder rear-mounted engine and the targa style removable roof panels.

I'll keep my '94 del Sol a little longer, thank you!

Unfortunately, the guy seems very good at collecting money (regardless of how he got it) and very poor at spending it.

CLK vs. Aristo... I still don't see it. Although if you want to see something pretty amusing check out the BMW 6 series vs. the Mazda 3.

I agree that the Supra engine swap is the way to go, but I think the V8's never got any respect or aftermarket parts because they never were available with a manual. But then it could be that driving honda's has sort of warped my brain around the goodness of NA.

I agree that NA V8s can be the way to go, but with the Soarer it was never there. The V8 never pushed enough power to really be worth it. The 4.3L V8 in the CLK430 is a good engine to go with. I don't think that Toyota has enough R&D in the V8 line to be really successful with it. They can make engines with a lot of torque for their SUVs but for performance they are lacking.

But then it could be that driving honda's has sort of warped my brain around the goodness of NA.

Go test-drive a Camaro SS. That'll revive it, but don't try to turn :)

CLK vs. Aristo... I still don't see it. Although if you want to see something pretty amusing check out the BMW 6 series vs. the Mazda 3.

I agree that the Supra engine swap is the way to go, but I think the V8's never got any respect or aftermarket parts because they never were available with a manual. But then it could be that driving honda's has sort of warped my brain around the goodness of NA.

I agree that NA V8s can be the way to go, but with the Soarer it was never there. The V8 never pushed enough power to really be worth it. The 4.3L V8 in the CLK430 is a good engine to go with. I don't think that Toyota has enough R&D in the V8 line to be really successful with it. They can make engines with a lot of torque for their SUVs but for performance they are lacking.

But then it could be that driving honda's has sort of warped my brain around the goodness of NA.

Go test-drive a Camaro SS. That'll revive it, but don't try to turn :)

nobody wants to spend a few hundred grand to look like you're driving a box.

Really?

Are you sure?

I priced one up on MB's website, and it came in over $100k. Looks like a box to me!!

They are still taking orders for them; actually building them is a different story. Many people have waited 9-12 months for theirs, only to receive a nonfunctional (or hopelessly unreliable) vehicle that had to go back to the factory for another 9-12 months. Corbin seems to be in deep trouble.

Actually, Corbin is in deep, deep trouble; they are unable to produce their vehicles profitably; they have massive reliability flaws (3/4 of them have been recalled, literally); and they have at least four lawsuits pending against them that I'm aware of.

That's $1.2 billion over five years, and that includes $500 million already pledged by Bush to the Freedom Car Initiative (a continuation of the 80mpg car research project started by the Clinton administration 10 yrs ago). A hundred million or two a year is peanuts in the Federal budget. (story here). Fuel cell research will probably need 10 times as much money before it's ready for production.

But they did include the Saab 9-3 with Bluetooth and the Audi A8 with a Multi Media Interface that looks just as complex as BMW's Idrive. No word on which embedded OS Audi is using.

Still, those stories about the 745i are funny, like these from Autoweek:

"Many owners' cars have been suffering from an overwhelming number of electrical problems, from faulty tire pressure monitor readings to clocks that would run slow, to headrests that popped up on their own. One reader actually got a "limited danger of complete transmission failure" warning from his car--for no reason."

How about these? They got up to 13,000 ft!

However it ruins what should be a battle of man and machine and enables the big spenders to kill the little guys

That's what Prost says in this interview too.

"In modern F1 after all, the cars are so much more reliable than they were: These days you can't miss a shift, over-rev an engine, destroy a clutch, or anything like that. There are far fewer mistakes a driver can make, far fewer chances the car will break, so when you're dominating, you get more wins."

As a matter of fact, I do. Skydriving was covered in an eariler /. article.

I love it when a plan falls together...

VW Phaeton link 1
VW Phaeton link 2
VW Phaeton link 2

*g*

Toyota currently doesn't sell a car in the US that does 0-60 times that low (the Supra was the last car with that type of performance), so they are not looking to sell to your car tastes. However, within 2 years there will be high performance hybrids that have good fuel economy and also good performance. Both Acura (Honda) and Nissan have prototype 400HP hybrid cars. The Acura DN-X concept car has 400Hp and gets 42 MPG