Car Blog

Alfa Romeo 2017 Executive fastback saloon

This car is a wild missile for heck. It’s the 2017 Alfa Romeo Executive Fastback Saloon. What a mouthful! What an eyeful, you’re about to witness. Designer Jacob McMurry’s whipped up this magic machine to compliment the Alfa Romeo 8c Competizione in Alfa Romeo’s return to the North American market.* In this project, inspiration’s drawn from Carnevale di Venezia, aka the Carnival of Venice.

*This project was done before the Fiat/Chrysler partnership.

All glass roof, smart glass panels. These smart panels have the ability to go all opaque or transparent. Helpful if you’re Batman, or if you’re Dexter Morgan. Lines drawn directly from Italy, drawing inspiration again from the 2900B Type 35 racers of the 1930’s.

Power plant: Diesel V8 with rear wheel drive, optional bio-diesel conversion.

**As for the title of this post: this car may look like a fancy club, all elegant and seductive, and it’s name is Saloon, but it’s just a car! You’d better be in your garage if you plan on drinking in it. Be safe!

Source: High-Tech 360

Honda New Viral Dream

Honda Motor Company has launched an amazing viral campaign discussing subjects almost no company would ever consider for an ad. Failure. Its a widely accepted principle that failure breeds innovation. As seen in this video, the best and brightest engineers and drivers from Honda discuss the failures they have encountered in their professional lives. One of insights in the feature discuss the entry of Honda into IRL in 1994. It was safe to say, that could have been one of the worst seasons of racing Honda had ever encountered. After taking the lessons learned, Honda won their first race in 1995 and followed it with a series championship in 1996. Takeo Fukui, CEO of Honda Global, said it best, speaking in regards to the late Soichiro Honda, “We can only make fantastic advances in technology through many failures.”

Toyota suspending sale of eight models immediately

In an unprecedented move, Toyota has suspended sales of eight models until it fixes the stuck accelerator pedal problem that has led to a huge recall.
“Helping ensure the safety of our customers and restoring confidence in Toyota are very important to our company,” said Group Vice President and Toyota Division General Manager Bob Carter in a press release. “This action is necessary until a remedy is finalized. We’re making every effort to address this situation for our customers as quickly as possible.”

The models include the 2009-2010 RAV4; 2009-2010 Corolla; 2009-2010 Matrix; 2005-2010 Avalon; certain 2007-2010 Camrys; 2010 Highlander; 2007-2010 Tundra; and the 2008-2010 Sequoia.

Toyota is in danger of losing its top quality ranking to Hyundai, according to a test engineer at Consumer Reports, which releases it annual rankings in April.

iPad touchscreen tablet is here

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the new iPad during an event in San Francisco, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

After months of rampant speculation, Apple Wednesday announced a touchscreen tablet computer, the “iPad” for consumers who want to take their movies, TV shows, music, games and reading with them, be it around the house or on the go. Pricing starts at $499, and it should be available in 60 to 90 days.

“We want to kick off 2010 with a truly revolutionary and magical product,” CEO Steve Jobs told a packed audience at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on Wednesday. The wireless device can be used with Wi-Fi, as well as run on AT&T’s 3G, or third-generation, wireless network. AT&T has been the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the United States since its release in 2007, and some were hoping that Apple’s new tablet would also work with other carriers’ networks, including Verizon Wireless.

The iPad will cost $499 for a 16-gigabyte model, $599 for a 32 GB version and $699 for a 64-gigabyte model with Wi-Fi only, and will be available in 60 days. It will cost an additional $130 for units that also can use 3G, which should be out in 90 days, making the most expensive model $829. Jobs said AT&T will charge $29.99 a month for “unlimited use” and $14.99 a month for up to 250 megabytes. There will be no contract with AT&T required for the plans, he said.

“So far it really looks like an oversized iPod Touch,” said Avi Greengart, Current Analysis analyst, blogging from the event itself for Reuters news service.

The iPad weighs about 1.5 pounds, is 0.5 inch thin, has a 9.7-inch display and should have a battery life of 10 hours, Jobs said. It uses what he called Apple’s own 1GHz A4 chip, and flash memory, ranging from 16 to 64 gigabytes. The tablet has YouTube in high-definition built in to the iPad and Apple’s online iTunes Store, which will add an “iBooks” for purchase.

FT-86 the new Toyota Celica

Toyota, together with Subaru, is set to launch a new affordable driver-oriented sports coupe (think Toyota Celica reincarnation) and if these photos the FT-86 protoype are a sign we’ve got lots to look forward to.
The FT-86, set to debut as a production model in 2011, is a collaboration between Toyota and Subaru and will utilize a common chassis and some sort of 2.0 liter engine, currently rumored to be a four cylinder boxer engine dubbed the “C-45 Boxer” that can produce anywhere from 200 and 250 HP. A hybrid model isn’t expected. Rear-wheel drive though is.

A coupe is smaller in length, width and height than the new Nissan 370Z but has a slightly longer wheelbase. It’s also the first car from Toyota Motor Company to incorporate design cues from the Lexus LF-A concept.

CV joint boots

Most of modern vehicles are Front-Wheel-Drive, and they all have CV-joints (Constant Velocity joint) used to transfer the engine torque to the front wheels. The CV-joint is greased inside and sealed by a rubber boot that unfortunately, tend to break sometimes. If the CV-joint boot breaks, the grease comes out, the dirt and water comes in and the whole axle unit may become inoperative in a short period of time. CV-joint located on the internal side of each of the front wheels. You can check CV-joint boots visually looking inside the front wheel arch from the front of the car with the wheel turned outside. The boot should be dry. If it’s broken you will see a grease splashed all over the area. If the boot is broken, it needs to be replaced. If not replaced in time, whole axle shaft will need to be replaced which will cost you few hundred bucks more than just replacing the boot.

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