www.hybridlane.net

Motor Trend Car of the Year is……the Ford Fusion.  The Ford Fusion beat out 22 other competitors to win the award of best car.  The redesigned Toyota Prius, BMW 7-Series, and the Chevrolet Camaro were some of the competitors.  Motor Trend said that they chose the Ford Fusion as the best because of its good performance, comfort, and fuel efficiency.  Ford was praised for offering several versions of the Ford Fusion, such as the hybrid and sporty V-6 versions.   Motor Trend has extensive road tests that are completed before determining the car of the year. What a great honor for Ford and the Fusion. 

So I posted a newsclip about a driver that put their $1.8 million Bugatti Veyron into a pond, because they were supposedly attacked by a pelican (by the way there was no evidence that a pelican was at all involved!)  Now I have another story about a fancy car and a dumb driver.  Let me set the stage: A Ferrari California  was being driven by Luca Montezemolo at the Ferrari World Finals in Valencia, Spain.  Some drivers were doing like a victory lap waving to fans cheering when all of a sudden, Montezemolo decided (for whatever reason) to make a sharp right hand turn into the gravel trap that is used to catch slow cars that are spinning out of control at high speeds.  Anyways, the Ferrari got stuck and kept spinning its wheels looking quite ridiculous. See for yourself on youtube.com. Really quite funny.

I found an article by Larry Printz of The Virginian-Pilot that gives the name and some description of 8 cars that will be disappearing in 2010 to “Rust in Peace.”  Some of these vehicles have been around a long time, so it’ll be hard for some to say goodbye, whereas others life have been short-lived.

Bentley Arnage 1966-2009

Chrysler Aspen 2007-2009 - this SUV never took off. This was Chrysler’s first SUV and last.

Honda S2000 2002-2009 - a great sports car that was the “victim of corporate neglect.” Personally, I never even heard of this vehicle.

Hyundai Entourage 2007-2009 - This minivan is gone as the Entourage, but it will be in Kia’s showrooms as the Kia Sedona. Therefore, we won’t really have to miss the Entourage, just its name.

Mercury Sable 1986-2009 - With the new Ford Taurus 2010, there is no room for the Sable.  Sad but true.

Pontiac G8 2008-2009 - This was considered the poor man’s BMW.  This car will live on as a Chevy Camaro.

Saturn Sky 2007-2009 - Yet again, never heard of this car.  Another sports car that can’t make it.

Toyota Solara 1999-2009 - People don’t necessarily want spice in their vehicles, and the Solara was alittle spicy, therefore leaving us.

It’s sad to say that me personally will not miss any of these vehicles, but I’m sure there are some of you out there that will and for that I’m sorry.

Way back when I might have wrote about getting paid to drive, but I thought with the economy the way it is and people looking for work, I would touch on this subject again.  So in case you didn’t know, you can make money by just driving your own car around town.  As much as $900/month, actually anywhere  between $300 - $900/month.  Not a bad gig for just driving. That’s definitely probably your monthly car payment.  So what do you have to do?  You need to “wrap” your car in a vinyl decal with some company and their advertisement on it.  Not too hard, right? It’s not, but you do have to drive around with your car looking somewhat ridiculous, but then again you are getting paid.  There are two advertising companies that do this - Free Car Media and DrivenMedia.  You can go to their websites and fill out a questionnaire if you are interested in this.  In this day and age, why not, right?  Make a few bucks.   Years ago, these companies would lease you a car with the advertisements painted on the cars, but it wasn’t financially smart, so now they just use 3M vinyl and put the advertisements on your car that way. The amount that you get paid depends upon where you live and where you drive in your area. The companies that want to advertise decide what they are looking for and then Free Car Media or DrivenMedia decide who fits the best.  Some of the brands that are looking for advertising are Proctor & Gamble, Coke, Tang, Lacoste, and Vault energy drink.  I think this is a great idea. Maybe I’ll have to try it! 

I just thought I would post this for you guys to see what happens when you have the fastest supercar out there and a really dumb driver.  The car I’m talking about is a Bugatti Veyron that has a 16-cylindrer, 250 mph horsepower engine.   The driver was clearly not paying attention and dealing with a cell phone, when the Bugatti veered into a lagoon. If it isn’t bad enough that he had to get towed out, it’s on Youtube.com, then I just saw the story on the main page of yahoo.com. How embarassing! Check it out. 

So, I guess you can take this information for what it’s worth, but I found the top 10 searched vehicles on AOL autos, and thought I would share them with you.  I know this information is just 1 site and you can probably find a completely different top 10 on another site (well maybe not an entirely different top 10,)  but I still think it’s interesting to see what vehicles people like and are interested in at least interested enough to search them.  So here they are (in no particular order:)

Ford Taurus                                             Honda Accord

Chevy Camaro                                         Honda Civic

Chevy Equinox                                        Toyota Corolla

Kia Soul                                                   Toyota Camry

Smart Car                                                Dodge Challenger

I’m not surprised with several of these searches, but a few (Dodge Challenger?) are interesting choices for me. 

Here’s something you probably never thought about. The new hybrid electric cars are not only cutting down on air pollution but also noise pollution. That’s good right?  Well, it is, but then there is another problem.   Silent electric cars are some what of a problem for the blind.  Congress is considering federal regulations for electric cars.  I can see their point. Yes, the driver of a vehicle should take responsibility and not hit somebody, but that doesn’t always happen, and a blind pedestrian has no chance if there can’t hear the vehicle.  So, Fisker and other automakers as well as toying with different ideas to decide how to have the electric cars alittle noiser.   Fisker will emit a sound from speakers that are in the bumpers.  BMW was thinking of allowing the customer to choose their own sound for their vehicle.  Some are thinking maybe a ringtone that you could manually push on your steering wheel. Whichever way the automaker chooses, it sounds like electric cars will be getting louder.  I guess a quiet car cannot completely happen after all.

www.cars.about.com

So, I mentioned the Lexus LFA last week when talking about concepts being debuted at the Tokyo Motor Show, but I failed to mention the particulars of this car.  I just read an article by Matthew Debord on msnbc.com that kills Toyota and the Lexus LFA for basically building this car.  Toyota used to be known as the powerhouse.  They built the best cars, most reliable, etc. and then there were some bumps in the road with financial losses, recalls, etc.  Anyways, at the Tokyo Motor Show, the Lexus LFA was their baby. This was going to help turn Toyota around. Now granted it is too early to tell if it worked, but this car is sooo unrealistic for most people.  The average Joe (or Sue) will probably not be purchasing it. Though the rumors around town are that this Lexus will probably become ”an instant classic” when it is sold in the future. 

With that said, here are the details.  The Lexus LFA is a supercar with between 500-600 horsepower V10 engine.  It is supposed to compete with the Ferraris and Lamborghinis.  The problem with the Lexus LFA is the price……do you have about $375,000-$400,000 to spend on it?  If you do, go for it, if not, sorry the Lexus LFA is not for you. 

An annual survey was done by Consumer Reports shows that the Asian automakers (Japanese and Korean) are the top for reliability in vehicles. They took 8 out of the top 10 spots. That’s pretty impressive.  An interesting fact is that several Ford models are consistently scoring higher than Honda and Toyota.  The Consumer Reports stated that “Ford is now making some vehicles that have world-class reliability due to the fact that the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan have been at the top of their class for a couple of years now.  That means that the Fusion and Milan are considered more reliable than the Accord and Camry, which are known for trust and reliability. 

Good news for Ford…..not such good news for Chrysler.  Chrysler had only one model that was recommended by Consumer Reports for their reliability and they came in last out of the 33 brands that are sold in the U.S. Not so good, Chrysler.  For GM, 21 of 48 models scored average or better for reliability. Not so good for GM either. 

The survey also found that higher-priced cars are not necessarily more reliable and that less-expensive small cars and midsize family sedans were the most reliable.  Also, the Honda Insight hybrid was found in the survey to be the most reliable vehicle and the Volkswagen Touareg was the least reliable. 

The number 1 brand for reliability….drum roll please…..Scion by Toyota.  This is the second year in a row for them to get this honor as the top brand!  Good for them, but somewhat surprising for me. I guess because the Scions don’t appeal to me, I would never consider even looking into them and checking out the details of these vehicles. Maybe I’m dumb and I should be!

A website called fuelclinic.com has been started that will allow you to track your actual gas mileage online and “will teach you safe and efficient driving techniques that will improve your gas mileage, and help you monitor your progress as you continue to practice better driving techniques,” according to the website.  Fuelclinic.com says that it can improve your gas mileage by 10-20%, possibly more. I’m all ears I have to say.  The developer of the website, Michael Bragg, owns a Toyota four-wheel drive pickup truck and he has improved his gas mileage from 18 or 19 mpg to 23 mpg. That’s pretty good, right?  I’m interested. 

Basically, we as drivers have to change our driving styles in order to successfully improve our gas mileage. Plain and simple.  We need to not be in such hurries,  accelerate and brake gradually, avoid traffic jams (though I’m not sure how you do this, who really wants to be in a traffic jam?), and “in general just calm down” Bragg says.  Easy right?  I know that this won’t be easy for me, but I think I’m going to sign up at fuelclinic.com and try to track my gas mileage. I’ll track it for a few months, then report back.