Autoblog

Well, it was only a matter of time before we got around to posting our people gallery from the auto show. Models were pretty scarce this year in Los Angeles, but they were definitely still worth the effort to stop and photograph. We also had a few celebrity sightings again, although none at the press conferences and only one got caught on camera. California's own Governator made it over for his annual tour, but we missed him. The lone celeb in our gallery was Jerry Seinfeld, who showed up at the Porsche news conference with gorgeous blue 550 Spyder in tow.


Live photos copyright ©2008 Frank Filipponio / Weblogs, Inc.

While there is definitely a huge rift between those who favor a Detroit bailout and those who would rather see the Big 3 fade away, you'd think that someone like Flint-native and documentary maker Michael Moore would be all in favor of helping the Big Three succeed. After all, Moore rose to fame for his first documentary entitled "Roger and Me" that featured then-CEO of General Motors Roger Smith. According to this piece in the Detroit News, however, Moore doesn't profess unconditional support for a Big 3 bailout. It seems he has mixed feelings about the whole situation.

Moore was on Larry King last night saying that the automakers ignored the wishes of consumers by continuing to build bigger vehicles just to maximize profits. Foreign automakers, on the other hand, built SUVs and more fuel-efficient vehicles in other categories. Moore elaborated by saying that
the current managers don't deserve a dime, but that it would be terrible if so many people lost jobs because of them. He went on to suggest that Congress should demand change for any money given out, including building up alternative fueled vehicles and mass transit in the country.

[Source: Detroit News]

Click above for a high-res gallery of Seinfeld's '54 Porsche 550 Spyder

Alongside the facelifted Cayman and Boxster, Porsche brought this gorgeous 1955 550 RS Spyder owned by none other than car nut Jerry Seinfeld. While we love the silver in which we usually see this car painted, the light blue really makes it stand out. The 550 Spyder holds a special place in the hearts of Porsche fans, giving the make its first overall win back in the 1956 Targa Florio. Just 70 examples were produced, making it one of the most valuable Porsches, as well. Power comes from a 1.5L air-cooled aluminum flat-4 producing 110 horsepower and 88.5 lb-ft torque. That might not sound like much, but the motor only had to push around a mere 1,213 lbs. Check out the gallery of high resolution photos below for more proof that Jerry Seinfeld has good taste in cars.

Live photos copyright ©2008 Drew Phillips / Weblogs, Inc.

Tonight on Knight Rider, the new Mustang has a special guest appearance. Other stuff will happen too, mostly involving bad acting and a dumb plot.

The official synopsis, from NBC:

"Knight of the Zodiac" Mike, KITT and Billy head to Vegas to take on a money laundering ring.

I'm all in. See you after the jump.

Seriously, was there any doubt that this would happen? Here's the skinny, verbatim, from Ford's press release:

The 2010 Mustang will be seen in the episode "Knight of the Zodiac" inside the Satellite Surveillance Chamber, also known as the SSC or "KITT Cave." The 2010 Mustang poses as KITT during an inspection and impresses everyone.

As crazy as it sounds, this particular bit of product placement may be more subtle than the pathetic shilling of Goodyear tires that NBC cooked up for last week's episode, during which KITT actually utters, "The tread is from a Goodyear Assurance ComforTread. It's one of the most popular brands of tires sold and distributed in North America." Somehow, I managed not to immediately kill myself upon hearing that and, as a result, I'll be liveblogging tomorrow night's Knight Rider pony parade. You know where and when to find me.



[Source: Ford]

Rocker Neil Young has managed to create his own electric car out of an old Lincoln convertible. That's awesome, and we congratulate Young on the amazing accomplishment. But as far as his ideas on how to fix Detroit, it seems that the singer's plan has a few loose screws. Mr. Young suggests that the Feds give Detroit the money it needs to survive on the condition that the three remaining automakers stop building cars with gas-powered engines... right now. This, as you would imagine, presents a problem, considering that cars aren't all that useful if they can't provide actual transportation. Young's got a solution to that problem too: each automaker must convert one plant to assemble "re-power kits" that would allow these cars to be retrofitted as "self charging electric vehicles."

That sounds nice, doesn't it? The only problem is that "self charging" EVs don't exist. Batteries need power from somewhere, generally an outlet that gets its juice from the electrical grid. Furthermore, Young's plan doesn't actually account for how the car's would be charged or where all the "transitional rollers'" batteries would come from. It's a nice thought, but one that is entirely impossible at the moment.

[Source: Huffington Post via Autofiends]

Hey, if you missed the For Yor Eyes Only Lotus Esprit sale a couple of years ago, your shot to own another Bond-driven Lotus is on the horizon. In December, Bonhams will auction one of the two 1976 Lotus Esprit S1s used in The Spy Who Loved Me. The film is well known for the car/motorcycle/helicopter chase that culminates with the Lotus flying into the drink and turning into a submarine (one of those famous prop cars sold last year); and the Stromberg hench-babe giving chase in a JetRanger turning into a charcoal briquette.

A look at the photos Bonhams includes with its listing make it pretty clear that the interior used in the chase sequence's dialogue scenes between Roger Moore and Barbara Bach did not match the one in the actual car being auctioned. The proud new owner of this one will surely revel in the splendor of its green-and-red plaid motif! Bonham's expects this Esprit to fetch more than £80,000 -- a healthy premium over what less famous S1s go for on the open market.. Still, we'd fork it over in about two seconds if we had that kind of walking around money. For some of us, this car was our first exposure to the Esprit, and it looks as good as ever. (Even better with Barbara Bach riding shotgun...)

Follow the jump to relive The Spy Who Loved Me's chase sequence.


[Sources: BBC, Bonham's]

Writing about cars for a living is a great gig, but as we're sporadically reminded, not without its occasional dangers. Few know that as well as the guys on BBC's Top Gear, where Richard Hammond miraculously recovered from a spectacular 280+ mph jet-powered dragster crash and Clarkson was recently involved in a head-on collision on location. But with franchises being set up in Australia, Russia and the United States, we knew it was only a matter of time before one of the local hosts followed suite, but we didn't think it would be the pretty boy in the hybrid.

According to Stromer's account, he was rollin' down the street in Hollywood, sipping on gin and juice a "triple grande nonfat latte" in his Camry Hybrid when someone rear-ended him, flipping the Toyota up on its side, sliding 50 feet down the street and roof-first into a curbside palm tree. None of the airbags deployed (suprisingly) and People Magazine's "sexiest man alive" emerged unharmed, so our base audience of middle-aged women can rest easy. Meanwhile, given the incident, we're not sure if we feel better or worse about Stromer's role in the show, but at very least he's proven he can demolish puppy-tear-powered family sedans as well as he can drywall.

To listen to how Stromer was "raped in a Camry" on TG co-host Adam Corolla's radio program, click here.

[Source: The Adam Corolla Show via Jalopnik]

After Daniel Craig's triumphant return as James Bond in Casino Royale, my family and I were really looking forward to seeing his sophomore effort in Quantum of Solace. We were among the guests at a Ford preview screening of the new Bond flick last night, and after we walked past the gorgeous Aston Martin DBS placed in the lobby (talk about product placement), the movie got off to a promising start. The opening chase sequence with Bond's DBS being pursued by a crew of Alfa Romeo 159s was classic 007. In fact, the first third of the movie was actually quite promising. Unfortunately, my wife, who is a film buff, noticed something during the opening credits that is usually a bad omen: three different screenwriters. That's typically a sign that other writers had to be brought in to fix the original script.

In this case there were a number of plot elements that seemed to pop up and then be forgotten, while others seemed to appear with no explanation. It's almost as though the three writers were each assigned one act to write and not allowed to read the work of the other two. Given that Ford hosted this screening, it should come as no surprise that Ford vehicles figured prominently. Fortunately, having multiple brands in the family allows for some extra variety in the movie vehicle fleet. While the Ford Edge dominated after the opening, Volvos, Range Rovers, and Jaguars also appeared. Now that Aston Martin, Land Rover and Jaguar have been divested, it seems unlikely that Ford will be a part of the next Bond Film. What about the stuff besides the cars? Read on after the jump.

When artificial intelligence finally figures out that its creators are inconvenient pests in the way of its quest to control the entire world, some of the first machines created by the supercomputers will be motorcycles. Come on, it makes sense, doesn't it? Single-track vehicles can go places that their four-wheeled brethren can't fit, and are quicker in getting there to boot. Of course, it's a bit harder to fit a butt-load of weapons on a two-wheeler, but AI is smart enough to have that problem fixed with gyroscopic turrets on each side, particularly when there's no carbon-based rider.

Looking at the early preproduction pictures of the concept Moto-Terminator makes us pretty excited to see what else is in store for the fourth Terminator installment. We're pretty geeked by the way the bike's backbone is made up of a mechanized humanoid, complete with the requisite red eyes up front instead of headlights. In a word, awesome.


[Source: Next Autos]