EasyAutoSales Blog

This story comes to you from the “My Current Twin-Turbo V12 Just Wasn’t Fast Enough” file.

Weighing in at 4,122 pounds. With 661 hp available at 5,400 rpm. Twisting those wheels with 738 lb.-ft. of torque through a five-speed automatic gearbox equipped with AMG’s speedshift software. The new SL65 Black can hit 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. The two ton teuton is the newest offering from AMG. It’s meant to fill the space between the outgoing SLR McLaren (since McLaren and Mercedes have officially disolved their street car making relationship) and the up coming Gullwing slated for 2010.

With those massive wheel arches, angry eye headlights, futuristic wheels and overall simple, race-like look, the SL challeges it’s little brother, the CLK63 AMG Black, in every way. Though it’s no doubt faster than it’s less powerful sibling, it’s just as agressive looking but being that it’s based on the SL, it makes us wonder: can I afford to give up the CLK’s two rear seats for a few extra hundred horsepower?

Source: AutoBlog

Weighing just 660lbs (the current average car is around 3500lbs) and with a drag coefficient of .16 (current average of around .30), the VW One-Liter Concept Car takes just 1L of gasoline to move 100km. This converts into 235MPG.

The two passenger car has anti-lock brakes, stability control and airbags. According to the magazine Canadian Driver, “Volkswagen says the One-Liter Car is as safe as a GT sports car registered for racing. With the aid of computer crash simulations, the car was designed with built-in crash tubes, pressure sensors for airbag control and front crumple zones.”

The car will be sold in limited production as early as 2010. Originally slated for 2012, the dramatic cost drop of carbon fiber in the past few years has brought the car into economic feasibility (about $55,000) much sooner than anticipated. As a daily commuter car, I can’t think of something more reasonable and practical, yet still novel and pretty cool!

Source: Wired

The Ansari X-Prize is a privately sponsored contest centered around various technological tasks that could change the way we as humans live every day. The first, and largest prize, was a putting an aircraft into low earth orbit and bringing it back to Earth without any need for disposable parts that our current Space Shuttle uses. Burt Rattan (creator of the “Voyager” airplane that made it around the world on a tank of fuel) and his SpaceShipOne won the $10,000,000 prize.

Doug Pelmear is one of the few who have signed a letter of intent to compete and enter their car into the Automotive X-Prize. His 1987 Ford Mustang puts down over 400 horsepower and still gets over 80MPG. Though the prize shoots for creating a economically feasable car that gets over 100MPG, Doug is shooting for a car that meets the economical target and is still usable in the “real world”. I think everyone at EasyAutoSales.com would love a “real world” test of any car that can reach these levels of performance.

Doug, a 48-year old electronic engineer, has done minimal modification to the engine’s mechanics itself, depending upon gaining most of his efficiency through ECU programming. He says that traditional gas engines operate “at a very low efficiency, like 8 to 10 percent, and our engine is like at 38 percent efficiency.”

While his technology doesn’t get quite as much absolute mileage as some of the other entries in $10,000,000 X-Prize, his is by far the most user friendly and considering his base for the platform, perhaps the cheapest. We’ll be excited to see some of the other entries to this contest in the coming months!

Source: MustangRevolution

What’s cooler than 18 open wheel race cars gunning around Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit at over 150MPH? Nothing. However, the GM built Batmobile used in both Christian Bale versions of Batman surely comes darn close. Known as “the Tumbler”, the car was first seen in Batman Begins. At 9 feet wide and 15 feet long, the 2.5 ton vehicle is almost the same length and width of an F1 car, though it’s almost twice as tall and twice as heavy. Thanks to a GM sourced 350 cubic inch V8 sporting approximately 550HP, it is still capable of 0-60MPH in under six seconds with a top speed of 110MPH. Thanks to its unique design, it is also capable of making unassisted jumps up to 30 feet. Tires are 44″ swap tires.

Similar to 2005’s Superman Returns theme Red Bull cars, Toyota cars and drivers will be sporting special Dark Knight race suits and, should they score a podium finish, are required to wear black capes (because F1 race suits aren’t cool enough already). Over the course of the weekend, the Toyota TF108 will take to the track with the “Tumblr” as well as various displays of other Bat related technologies.

My question is, with all this great Batman tech, are they going to chase the joker out of F1?

Source: AutoBlog

Your first look at the Uno can be confusing.

With Ben J. Poss Gulak, its 19-year-old inventor, crouched on it like a jockey, you might think “sportbike.” But where are the wheels?

The Uno’s custom hoops aren’t front and rear like a motorcycle’s, but side by side and inches apart under the rider, rising and falling independently over the road as he leans the gyroscope-stabilized machine through effortless turns.

This is not your father’s Segway…

So is this a “donor bike” or will it make the Chinese want to ditch their cars for bikes again? Only time will tell. Personally, I would love to try one of these when they’re in production mode. Ben, if you’re listening, send one down to Atlanta when you’re ready to debut the Uno.

After 5 years of steadly increasing sales, Scion has steadily become one of the coolest brands for youth automotive enthusiasts. With a combination of funky looking cars like the xA and xB as well as unique commercials and marketing thrusts, this sub-brand of Toyota (ala Saturn) was created in order to subvert the stodgy apperance of Toyota, best known in recent years for cars like the Corolla and Camry. In the course of doing this, they’ve exposed America to cool cars that are fuel efficient and they’ve shown that conceptually, these American versions of Japanese “kei” cars, can make a huge impact in our society.

In the past 5 years, Scion has sold over 620,000 vehicles through over 900 Toyota-Scion dealerships. Despite only offering 3 car types through it’s lineup, people seem excited about the addition of a new vehicle every few years and the vast difference between cars like the xD and the tC. Though many criticize Scion for this move, I believe that it shows they are focused on doing what they do as well as they can and not trying to dilute their brand for “the bottom line.” Last year there was talk that Scion actually reduced it’s prodcution to keep the demand for the cars high by limiting the overall supply of cars.

Scion has proven that despite people’s criticisms, they are doing everything right and have been for the last 5 years. Here’s to you Scion and another 5 years of building quirky, yet great cars!

Source: TheCarConnection

Then you haven’t seen anything yet! As reported on Jalopnik recently, the following story transpired which resulted in a dealer attempting to shovel a $413,000 price tag on a brand new, yet to be build Corvette ZR-1. Despite putting down a deposit on the car over two years ago, one reader was told that to actually get the car, he’d more likely have to pay 2-4 times the MSRP of the ZR-1. The story goes a little something like this:

“I put a deposit down for the 2009 ZR1 about 2 1/2 years ago at “my” chevy dealer from whom I have bought many GM cars, including trucks, vettes. I have probably bought 15+ GM vehicles over the years. I was told 2 1/2 years ago that the price for this “iffy” car would be around the same ratio as the 5K overcharge I paid for my 2006 Z06.

I was called to order my ZR1 yesterday since I was #1 on the allocation list of this dealer’s 4 allocations. I was told that by the way the price would be between 2-4 times the MSRP. Tadge Juechter, the Chief of Corvette Engineering, has urged GM ZR1 dealers to respect the MSRP. I am very upset with the greed and disregard for customer loyalty in a down economy. Is there any recourse?”

I can’t say that I’m surprised by a dealer doing this, as we’ve seen it before from other more pretigious marques like Ferrari and Porsche with their super cars. However, never before have we seen this from a domestic car maker. I hope that after contacting GM directly, the user will get some satisfaction, or else demand some satisfaction. I am all in favor of full on capitalism, but when a loyal customer puts down a deposit on a car that might not even exist two years ago, I tend to think they need to honor his trust with a reasonble markup.

Source: Jalopnik

In the past 3 months there has been quite a bit of hemming and hawing about if there was going to be a NBC Top Gear, who are going to be the hosts, then back to no show, then if Jay Leno would be a possible host when he left the Tonight Show, then when he said he wouldn’t, how even he admitted that the show could be lame. For those of us who really care about Top Gear, it was a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. Now that we know the show will be around NBC in the coming months and the fact that Adam Carolla, Eric Strommer and Tanner Foust, we’re starting to get more details about the show strait from Carolla’s mouth. According to Carolla:

• The NBC adaptation will follow the BBC format: guest segment, stunt, test drive and, yes, the Stig (casting for that crucial role is still pending).

• The premiere episode will feature a race from Las Vegas to San Francisco, ending in a “mammoth stunt.” (NBC isn’t insisting on copycat stunts or episodes, a la Season One of The Office.)

• Carolla is pushing for an on-air drive of the just-unveiled BMW M1 Homage concept as soon as it’s available, as well as the Aston Martin DBS (though that would be a reprisal of a Clarkson drive).

• Clarkson and Carolla recently met face-to-face, but Carolla promises to focus more on improv than the heavily-prepared Clarkson.

• Officials from Top Gear in England, who are producing the show, along with “everyone involved,” have assured Carolla that he will be able to speak his mind on any car “without fear of reprisal” from advertisers, which he fully plans to do.”

The format looks great, as it’s based on the UK version. However, the unique content is really great to hear. At the very least, even if the show doesn’t live up to the UK version, at least we’ll have some unique shows that aren’t just a carbon copy of what Jeremy Clarkson and the rest of the British team has done.

Source: Popular Mechanics

For those of you who watch Top Gear (perhaps the single most watched TV show around the world), the seasons seem to sporadically come and go due to the creative nature of the television show and the fact that the producers and hosts don’t want to water the show down by “just getting episodes made and shipped out”. So, though it’s been quite a few months, the first episode of Season 11 aired yesterday on BBC television. If you don’t live where the BBC are all your primary channels, there are various sites on the internet (YouTube) to view the episodes.

As for a quick rundown of the episode, the most notable bits were filling up half a dozen super cars (Audi R8, Aston Vanquish, and a few others) with a gallon of gas and racing to see who was the most fuel efficient. Another race between a new BMW M3 and a Toyota Prius showed the M3 to be a more efficient vehicle when driven around a track at the same speeds. The 3 hosts were tasked with creating a “better, cheaper” police car for the average bobby and a few other standard bits rounded the episode out with a strong, albeit lacking first episode. The preview of this season did show some particularly exciting episodes which should be on par with previous seasons.

Source: FinalGear

ABC News wrote a nice article on the do’s and don’ts of buying a used car.  While the advice is sound, it does appear the website favors major brands over smaller dealerships.

What are some of the things you look out for when shopping for used cars?