This week we’re thinking small. Micro actually. Our special guest for this episode is Jack Hollis, the Vice President of Scion. We’ll be talking about the pint-sized iQ and whether it could be the car that gets the brand’s mojo back. We’ll also get into the news of the week including the Indy race that never should have been run. We’ll also get an early look at the best cars of 2011 and which could take home the coveted North American Car and Truck of the Year trophy. To discuss this and more, John McElroy is joined in studio by Peter De Lorenzo the Autoextremist and Michelle Krebs from Edmunds.com.
This week the AAH crew is back from its hiatus and on location in the new studio. We’ll be making up for lost time, discussing some of the biggest stories we missed. Cerberus’ Bob Nardelli ran his mouth off about the Chrysler-Fiat partnership and had to issue a humiliating retraction. The guy who triggered the Nardelli backlash? None other than After Hours alumus Jason Vines. Also, the Big Three contract negotiations seem to point to the fact that the UAW is in fact running scared. And, some happy news for the Motor City, the Detroit Grand Prix will return in 2012. To discuss this and more, John McElroy is joined in studio by Peter De Lorenzo the Autoextremist with a special appearance by Mr. GreatNoRoCo himself, Roaster Jack a purveyor of fine coffee and a Buick fan.
We were preparing to do a long post for today or tomorrow running through all the teams and drivers that will be going after glory at this weekends Great Race. However, our friends at Speedcafe.com have done that for us with this very nice guide. Since they are allowing the embeding of it, we will do that for you.
Today we are going to share a video put together by Seven Network, who are the TV rights holder to the V8 Supercar series. This is a video from I believe 2009, though it was just uploaded to YouTube by V8 Supercars in the last few months.
Russell Crowe provides the voice over for this piece, and there are some great clips (vision for our Aussie fans) of some of the historic moments of the races from years past.
While this is not the most comprehensive overview of the race I have seen, the music, along with Crowe’s voice over lend great weight to this clip.
It is a lap still talked about with reverence. In 2003, in the Top 10 qualifying shootout for the Bathurst 1000, Kiwi, Greg Murphy, put down a lap that was not bettered until Friday practice in 2010 by Craig Lownes. In a series where the difference in Top 10 qualifying, even on a long track like Mount Panarama is measured in tenths and thousandths Greg Murphy blew the place up!
Murphy was an astonishing 1.0962 seconds quicker than second place qualifier John Bowe, himself, a legend of “The Mountain”. For those not familiar with V8 Supercar racing, the context of this may be a bit difficult, but just listen to Matty White and Neil Crompton call the lap, and that should be all you need to understand just how significant this lap was.
Austrailia’s great race, the Bathurst 1000 takes place this weekend. While many outside of Australia are not familar with the race, for that countries motorsports fans and athletes it is the pinicle of racing for them. Just as the Indy 500 or Daytona 500 are for American’s, the Monaco Grand Prix or the 24 Hours of Le Mans are for Sports Car fans, that is what Bathurst meens to Australians.
The Bathurst track at Mount Panarama is a “street course” but think of it more as a mountain road turned into a racetrack rather than the typical image that comes to mind when you think street course. We will be showing videos throughout the week of the track, laps of the track, and exciting moments for years past.
To kick things off today we are going to talk about Cam Waters. Cam, who is 16 years old, just won the chance to co-drive a car at this years Bathurst in the Shannons Supercar Showdown reality show run by the Kelly Brothers Racing and shown on Channel 7 in Australia.
It was a typical reality show format, “x” number come in, every week there are challenge and at the end of the show, someone goes home. The show was OK, but it was clear there were two or three contestents that were above and beyond everyone else, and Cam was one of them. The final contest was Cam against Andy and each had two laps to put in a qualifying time in a V8 Supercar, the winner would be the one with the quickest lap time. In the end, Cam won going a tenth and a half quicker than Andy.
Did we mention that Cam doesn’t even have a full license to drive on the road? However he Cam is in contention to win the Australian Formula Ford championship, so it’s not like he doesn’t have credentials!
So, here is a quick video put together to introduce eveyone to Cam Waters from the Shannons Supercar Showdown reality show. Good luck to Cam, the youngest person to drive a V8 Supercar in competition, and everyone else racing up at “The Mountain” this weekend.
For many people who have bought the BOSS 302 Mustang, they have been wondering when they would receive their TracKey. It is the magic red key, that changes 200 parameters in the cars systems to provide maximum performance. It is “For Off Road Purposes Only”, but yet CARB, the California Air Resources Board, has not signed off on it. Ford can not guarentee that the TracKey does not affect emissions, the engine’s durability or mess with on-board computer diagnostics.
Given how well California’s government works, it may never happen, and once again, the People’s Republic of Kaliforna fowls it up for the rest of us. In a responce someone made this brilliant video which plays on the meme of changing the subtitles to a particular scene in the movie “Downfall“
Have a look and be prepared to be in tears with laughter!
This week the topic is wood. Sorta kinda. Actually, we’ll be touching on the very special wood that went into the new Cadillac Ciel concept, and we’ll be talking with none other than Clay Dean, the Director of North America Advanced Design for GM. We’ll be asking him where the future of Cadillac and other GM design is going in the next few years, and we’ll see if we can talk him into letting us test drive Cadillac’s new über-sedan — but somehow we doubt it. To discuss this and more, John McElroy is joined in studio by Peter De Lorenzo the Autoextremist and Scott Burgess from The Detroit News.
This week the Autoextremist hijacks the Autoline airwaves while John is in Frankfurt for the big auto show. Speaking of the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung, we’ll be getting into a Frankfurt post-mortem including the invasion of tiny slo-mo EVs from VW, Opel and Audi and the Jeep Grand Cherokee-based Maserati Kubang. We’ll also discuss the NADA’s lobbying effort against upcoming fuel regulations, and we’ll talk about whether we’ll see watered down rules if Obama loses the White House. Also, Coda’s EV will be the first (almost) Chinese vehicle to enter the American market. And, Chevrolet will be aiming the next-generation Corvette at younger buyers — will it work? To discuss this and more, Peter De Lorenzo is joined in studio by Sharon Terlep of the Wall Street Journal and Gary Vasilash from Automotive Design and Production.
John McElroy is LIVE Tuesday from the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung, better known as the Frankfurt Motor Show, bringing you coverage direct from the floor of the show! Strap in and get a driver’s-seat tour of one of the world’s largest auto shows and participate in the interactive chat. Join us Tuesday morning to experience some of newest product being revealed and the people who are making it happen with representatives from Audi, Ford, Continental, BMW and more. So, get ready to see Frankfurt with an All-Access Pass courtesy of Autoline!
This week we’re thinking small. Micro actually. Our special guest for this episode is Jack Hollis, the Vice President of Scion. We’ll be talking about the pint-sized iQ and whether it could be the car that gets the brand’s mojo back. We’ll also get into the news of the week including the Indy race that never should have been run. We’ll also get an early look at the best cars of 2011 and which could take home the coveted North American Car and Truck of the Year trophy. To discuss this and more, John McElroy is joined in studio by Peter De Lorenzo the Autoextremist and Michelle Krebs from Edmunds.com.
