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Though the Germans turned out in droves yesterday to see Barack Obama speak , the company has banned a few videos put together by our friends at Fast Lane Daily that pointed out Max Mosley's Sex-capades . Ze Germans representing Mosley, stereotypically humorless, banned FLD , despite the fact that the video, seen here , is fairly inoffensive. For their part, FLD has put up a video reenactment of what happened with a Rescue 911 -level of acting and production. This makes us wonder if Ze Germans have banned us for all our coverage . Anyone want to go over and check?
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More fantastic investigative reporting from CNBC , this time focusing on the world of the especially affluent and called "Untold Wealth: The Rise Of The Super Wealthy." They own multiple houses and fly to London to bid on expensive cars. Clearly, the kind of reporting people want to see while they're getting thrown out of their homes and living in their soon-to-be-repossessed cars because of sketchy lending practices. The same lending practices from which many of the Super Rich benefited, incidentally, allowing them buy bigger homes and more cars. But hey, it's tough out there for a rich guy. The weak dollar makes it harder for him to bid on that Rolls Royce needed to fill the all-important 76th spot in his garage. Try watching without throwing up a little in the back of your mouth. [ CNBC Video ]
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While we don't think Mark Cuban will ever own the Cubs, we have it on good authority that PickupTrucks.com has been purchased by Cars.com in a deal that makes absolutely perfect sense. There's no doubt that there are few better sources of Truck-related news on the web than PickupTrucks.com , and there are also few automotive websites that spend as much on television advertising as Cars.com , meaning that the combination of the two is a match made in heaven. Fear not as Mike Levine, the site's editor and longtime Jalopnik super friend, is going to maintain editorial control of the site until Rabbi Dave of Kicking Tires stages a bloody coup later this summer... but perhaps we've said too much. A press release officially announcing the deal will probably drop tomorrow.
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Our sources from atop the New York offices of the surrender monkeys at French-owned Hachette Filipacchi Media tell us a mass email went out only moments ago to internal staff at Road & Track . The e-mail informed employees of the ampersand-happy magazine of news Thomas Bryant will be stepping down from his position of Vice President & Editor in Chief but remaining a columnist. We'll be awaiting official word — that it's not an April Fools' Day hoax.
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Someone decided it was a good idea to give Jack, Zerin and the Speed:Sport:Life crew an Audi R8 and a Viper SRT-10 convertible for a weekend of tossing around MSR Houston. Magically, the cars returned in one piece (well, two pieces, technically). Just to be safe, the boys had expert advice from some racing professionals and even ran a few practice rounds in Zerin's yellow TT. The results are, as always, entertaining and enlightening. [ Speed:Sport:Life ]
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The New York Times 's Lawrence "Lars" Ulrich took a swing at pithy commentary on the 2010 Pontiac G8 "El Camino" sport truck today, deciding to heap the bed full of liver-lilied liberalism and haterade. To wit: "Who exactly was clamoring for a two-seat, gas-guzzling pickup with the cheapest-looking interior this side of a Motel 6?" Who? Well, us for one. But we wouldn't expect Ulrich to understand anything about a vehicle... ...he misnames as the "Pontiac Sport Truck," forgetting those strong G8 roots. But he makes up for it with hackery like calling our beloved El Camino the "Like Hell Camino," the "Pontiac Wallaby" and the "Haulacious." Isn't that precious? It's like he studied at the school of me, but without the love of real cars. [ New York Times ]
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Here's nice piece of car-business analysis, from north of the border. Volkswagen wants to take another crack at the North American market, and according to biz writer Eric Reguly of The Globe and Mail, VW might be able to pull it off, despite some major hurdles. However, when it comes to the larger goal of knocking Toyota off its perch...well, there are some problems. First and foremost, VW needs to take on North America and the Toyota hegemony in partnership with Porsche. And, according to Reguly, who cites German press reports, Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking and VW chief Ferdinand Piech don't get along to well. As far as we can tell, Wiedeking is ticked off because VW has a deal that prevents the sort of cost-cutting measures that Porsche wants to implement at VW, as Porsche moves toward owning most of VW. Sounds like a potentially juicy automotive soap opera to us. And props to Reguly for laying it all out so cleanly, with just a tantalizing hint of speculation. We're keepin'...
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newVideoPlayer("Fake_Ferraris_Colbert.flv", 463, 387,""); We know we already told Stephen Colbert not to steal our stories. Apparently he's not listening. That's right, last night the propagator of "truthiness" yet again snatched up a story from our pages to splay across the basic cable airwaves. Last time it was " Our Country , Our Truck " and this time it's the Fiero Ferrari story. Stephen Colbert, just a reminder that this does nothing to help you get off of our "On Notice" list. Watch yourself there Frenchie -- the only ones who should be doing any splaying whatsoever will be us.
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Yesterday, we made an observation about a picture of the new Challenger in certain magazine racks at the Memphis airport. Our take on the picture, which came from Chrysler's The Firehouse blog, was somewhat satirical. To their credit, Chrysler responded with their own commentary on the subject. That response below. This comes from Ed Garsten, Manager of Electronic Media Communications for Chrysler, who has nothing to do with the fictional Ed Gersten in the piece: A full row of magazines with the Challenger winking from their covers isn't just dumb luck. It's part of a periodic tweaking of marketing strategies. Indeed market research shows that the theory of "alliterative display," as I call it, could very well spread to other aspects of airport newsstands such as grouping all newspapers together with names that begin with "the." It's breathtaking to imagine the boost in sales by displaying THE New York Times, THE Detroit News, and THE Sporting News consecutively...
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After spending a billion (or three) dollars on market research, the elite Chrysler media team achieved a coup de grâce in the Muscle Car Wars by getting the new Challenger SRT8 positioned on the front partition of the southernmost magazine rack at Memphis International Airport's "LiterAIRy" bookstore/Elvis memorabilia depository. It was the greatest achievement for the automaker since securing the covers of every automotive magazine and Salt Water Fishing Weekly for the Plymouth Breeze. Said Chrysler media executive Ed Gersten, "So goes the Memphis airport, so goes America." Surveys show that people's beliefs are directly linked to the composition of magazines in airports, which explains the popularity of Mitt Romney and girls dressing like whores. Carthage, Tennessee homemaker Betty-Sue Hambone was brimming with excitement as she looked at the rack saying "Orange, orange, look at all that orange. I must have one. What is it? Oh look, Katherine Heigl in...
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If you know me, you know that I preach the gospel of good design quite a bit, especially in regards to an entertainment and infotainment center. The design and functionality of a interface is just as—if not more—important than the features and options included. CNET took a look at 17 interfaces of some of the bigger name manufacturers. Something to note, manufacturers: tabbing systems work, period. Regardless of the experience with high-end electronic equipment, anyone and everyone can figure out tabbing systems. It just makes it easier to navigate. CNET doesn't put a label on the best or worst design, but from my experience and the images provided, Volkswagen has to have one of the worst designed interfaces (pictured above) as far as design, ease of use and functionality are concerned. It's ugly. The lack of color, dynamic text and labeled side buttons could make it difficult to understand and operate, especially for individuals unfamiliar with multi-faceted media and...
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Dan Neil, the LA Times' Pulitzer-winning car critic, is among staffers at the embattled paper looking forward to heeding the the example of new owner Sam Zell and tossing around the salty language a bit more freely, according to The New York Observer. Here's the salient quotable: "There's a certain lasciviousness descending on the newsroom--I just look forward to using rude words in everyday conversation." Which makes us wonder: If the LAT newsroom needed the car guy to bring back crude inky repartee, perhaps Zell's affection for argot --he effin' loves the effin' eff word--is precisely what the joint needs. Official newsroom bar of soap, now officially retired. Let the filthy verbal hoonage commence! [ NYO ]
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The guys all about the Rods that are quite Hot have an absolutely enthralling report in their April magazine that AMC is back and will be looking to: "create a full-scale racing program to encompass NASCAR, Drag racing, IMSA, and reportedly, a highly modified Javelin for Pikes Peak this July... and possibly by 2010, at the Baja 1000, to celebrate the '67 baja run of Spence Murray and Ralph Poole, in a virtually stock Rambler." So how the hell did this happen? Supposedly, as Hot Rod tells the story, "...ten years ago, a multimillionaire vintage AMC enthusiast tried to acquire one of the six remaining AMX/3 mid-engine prototype sports cars for his personal collection. He was told none were for sale at any price, so our mystery mogul decided to do the next best thing -- he built his own. In the course of designing...the plan changed from a copy of an AMX/3 to a totally new, updated modern AMX/4." But wait -- that's only one car -- oh wait, there's more: "Here's...
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So Jim Cobb's the editor of the Automobiles section at the Ol' Grey Lady. If you didn't realize the section existed, that's OK, many people confuse it with the classified section. Yeah, you know, it's that section of the Sunday New York Times with a couple of reviews, a couple of feature-y stories and an absolute crapload of ads for car dealerships and luxe brands like Lexus, Mercedes, Lexus, BMW, Lexus, Cadillac and umm, Lexus. But if you've ever wanted to know more about big Jim and his adorable little section, he's answering Times reader questions this week. So feel free to drop him any questions to askthetimes@nytimes.com . I'm sure he'd love to have a whole slew of Jalopnik readers asking questions like "What's your favorite Toyota Hybrid?" or "Why run a drag race between a Toyota Highlander Hybrid and a Toyota Highlander and allow the writer to declare the Hybrid 'kept up' but give no 1/4 mile times for either like Sunday's...
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One of the big buff mag boys over at the House of Trend is showing some remorse over the Motor Trend empire's embargo-breaking for fun and profit. Mark Williams, chief truck-lover over at Truck Trend , is manning up to "accidentally" publishing their latest issue ten days early and revealing the new Hummer H3T a week and a half early (though curiously forgetting to apologize to Suzuki over the new Suzuki Equator embargo blunder). Mark says "...it looks like we were the ones who screwed up the whole thing...and no doubt the subject of a few heated conversations at General Motors..." Curiously, Mark forgets his magazine landed not only in subscribers hands , but also on newsstands ten days early. But his warm and folksy explanation for it (something about two people giving it to two people who gave it to two people who had nothing to do with two people buying it at newsstands on diametrically opposite sides of the country) leaves us feeling like he's just a simple...
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