All Entries Tagged With: "ADL NEWS"
Taste of Summer Leads To Turf Wars
(img: Truckin’ Web)
By Gunnar Heinrich
THE following news item was posted today on The New York Times‘ website.
It’s a bit off topic from the usual tri-star rant posted here, but I thought their article, “It’s Still Spring, but the Ice Cream Truck War Revs Up,” was too tasty not to share.
The City is home to well established territories where ice cream vendors who drive franchised ice cream trucks like Mister Softee’s and Good Humor have their respective routes where each vendor sells frozen treats to eager tots.
Trouble comes when one ice cream vendor runs over into another’s territory. Apparently, things can get messier than a melting cone of chocolate-vanilla swirl.
“There have been harsh words, hurt feelings and even bloodshed between competitors. In 2004, a couple in their 60s who owned and operated two ice cream trucks were ambushed in the Bronx and beaten with an oversized wrench. The motive, the police said, was the couple’s ice cream route. A rival ice cream salesman was charged with assault and sentenced to 10 years in prison,” The Times reported.
Who knew the ice cream business was so brutal? Makes one wonder what measures rivaling tri-state Mercedes dealers go through to snag clients in the same region…
[Linked: NYT | Mister Softee | Good Humor]
Rolling Across South America In A Phantom
By Gunnar Heinrich
SOME auto rags have all the luck.
More aptly put, some auto rag writers hold all the keys to getting some of the finest rolling stock.
CAR Magazine, a perennial favorite, is one such rag and Jeremy Hart is one such writer who holds the keys to one Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Now, rather than getting a Rolls for a day or even an overnighter, Mr. Hart has managed to convince the folks at Goodwood that it would be a right and proper idea that he, on behalf of his magazine, should take a $350K saloon on epic journeys through some of the world’s woolliest corners.
So far Mr. Hart has managed to do this three times.
“The first one crossed Africa from the Indian Ocean coast of Mozambique/South Africa to the Atlantic Coast of Namibia. Then, to celebrate the return of Rolls to India after 50 years, we took a car to Rajasthan. And last year 12 top musicians drove Phantoms around the world from India and Australia to Miami and the Nurburgring,” Hart wrote.
This time, however, the folks from CAR are taking the Phantom to South America where a crew of four will drive one Phantom from Chile to Buenos Aires using the longest and most circuitous path possible; through desert and mountains.
Their harrowing albeit paradoxically comfortable voyage will be recorded and updated on a daily basis on CAR’s website.
Some auto rags have all the luck.
[Linked: CAR Magazine]
Four Dollars Per Gallon
Still the cheapest means of getting from A to B.
By Gunnar Heinrich
FOUR dollar a gallon gas is an ugly reality facing Americans.
Unlike fair Europa with her sophisticated and relatively cheap public transportation networks, America’s rail infrastructure seems forever on the precipice of insolvency.
Train ticket prices for Amtrak seem to reflect this: hop onboard a standard non-Acela (that’s the not-so-fast “fast” service) train ride from Boston to Washington, DC and you’re looking at spending eight hours on a one way trip for the peak time price of $118.
That’s more than the 906 mile roundtrip would’ve cost had you driven your M.Y. ’07 BMW 328i (which averages 28 mpg highway) down and back, according to AAA’s Trip Gas Price Calculator (very handy site, by the way).
Incidentally, a flight from Boston’s Logan Airport into Reagan National averages $320 roundtrip and that’s an advance ticket purchase.
So, we can say that in the U.S. there really is no cheaper means to get from point A to B other than by das auto.
Despite this, the automotive industry faces enormous pressure from Green activists, a story-hunting media, and misguided politicians over so-called global warming while oil companies are happily cashing in on runaway oil commodities that are breaking the bank accounts of the average American consumer.
And lest we forget, a thriving middle income consumer class is what carries the whole of the automotive industry – from Ferrari to Ford.
Americans cannot sustain four dollars per gallon without being offered viable alternative transport. And switching to an alternative means of getting from point to point will prove an uglier reality still for the automotive industry.
In short, and to put not to fine a point on it, four dollars per gallon sucks.
Double Take: Exploding E-Class
Was it the work of a Sacco traditionalist?
By Gunnar Heinrich
ABOVE is a production still from Warner Brothers’ soon to be released film: The Dark Knight. Apparently, the movies’ producers felt that the (W210) Mercedes-Benz E-Class was the perfect car to destroy.
To see more pictures from the movie, including the next Batmobile, tap the link below.
[Linked: Slashfilm.com]
La Fin De La Semaine: News, Community, And ADL’s Site
Capping the week in style.
RECENTLY FEATURED ON THE MOTOR REPORT
BLOG COMMUNITY
Phil over at Top Speed gets mad props for posting Automobiles De Luxe’s NYIAS Segment last April. I was slow on the uptake, Phil. Thanks.
Swade @ TrollhattanSaab has shared with his audience that he and his wife are celebrating their Fifth Year Anniversary. Swade has been a good friend to Automobiles De Luxe and I hope that you’ll join me in wishing him and Mrs. Swade the very best.
AUTOMOBILESDELUXE.TV SERVICE
Since we’ve switched over from the Blogger, the site seems to be functioning efficiently. If you encounter any technical errors in using http://automobilesdeluxe.tv please say so using the contact form or comments.
Warning: Graphic Images
By Gunnar Heinrich
HURTS me to post these. But like a car accident, as a web surfing bystander I’m strangely compelled to stop, gawk, and point (to you).
These are among a series of photos posted on Digg this afternoon that show classic motor cars in various stages of decomposition. I warn you, what follows isn’t for the faint of heart.
For the full gruesome series, click the link at the bottom.
The MK II was one of Jaguar’s most beautiful models.
The glorious 300SL Gullwing.
One of Ettore’s finest.
The third generation of the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. Breaks the heart.
[Linked: auto.web2doc.com]
Five Hundred Million Is Impossible To Ignore
No badges on that Rover.
By Gunnar Heinrich
NIKOLAI “Niko” Bellic is the new Scarface. And true to inflationary form, his gig has already netted him (and his creators) far more dough than Tony Montana ever could imagine.
Starting this week, we can expect that dorm rooms and frat houses on college campuses around America will pin up large posters of this rags-to-riches video game antihero who’ll appear alongside Al Pacino’s omnipresent Cubano stoking mug.
Not a week old, Niko’s already made it to cult icon status.
Niko is the fictional protagonist in a third-person shooter game called Grand Theft Auto IV.
The game, developed by Rockstar Games and “published” by Take-Two Entertainment is part of an eight edition strong brand of console games that’s pushing the entertainment envelope off the proverbial table and blowing the gamer away with an uzi spray of physics simulations and gritty plot lines.
“Players can expect visible detail down to the weeds growing in the cracks in the sidewalk, cars and buildings of visibly different ages and a much greater level of verticality [huh?] in the buildings and bridges that they are able to explore as Niko moves through the city streets,” Amazon.com’s official reviewer enthused.
TAKEN FOR A RIDE
The auto industry, doubtless unprepared and beholden to political correctness, is already along for the ride in this carjacked vehicle of next wave interactive entertainment.
And there’s plenty of money to be made; The Financial Times hyperventelated that, “The Grand Theft Auto IV video game has stolen all entertainment records for an opening week, with global retail sales of about 6 [million] copies, or $500 [million].”
And yet none of the automobiles that appear in Grand Theft Auto IV are marque identifiable.
But like the game’s setting in fictional “Liberty City,” whose appearance is as eerily close to New York as the Jaguar XF’s profile is to the Lexus GS (ahem), there’s really no mistaking a Range Rover Sport HSE or a Ford Crown Vic for anything other than what they seem to be – but technically and legally aren’t.
Surely, you say, the auto industry will find a way around its collective P.C. inhibitions to cash in on this cow of new wave media gold.
Perhaps, though they’ll have to first contend with the likes of MADD, a militant Floridian lawyer, the skeptical Televised press, and governmental agencies like Gotham’s own City Hall who have all been busy vilifying (and rightfully so) the glamorized violence that the game’s content aims at the world’s impressionable 16-32 year olds.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
That said, the dollars generated by this surging enterprise is something a cash strapped Detroit nor a keen Stuttgart or Tokyo can afford to ignore.
There’s really only one question the automakers’ marketing departments are likely asking themselves: what’s the cost for cross-marketing with a malevolent new wave cult icon?
[Linked: FT | Wikipedia | Amazon | Rockstar Games]
When The British Copy The Japanese, Things Get Ugly
Twins?
By Gunnar Heinrich
READING two somber reviews recently that focused on Jaguar’s XF got me to thinking that it’s been some time since anything has been written on the midsize cat, herein.
When I found the above picture posted on ThePassionatePursuit.com, I knew it’s been far too long.
But let’s come back to that later and first discuss some other recently published pictures.
In their melancholic review, The New York Times did post some appealing [P.R. sourced] shots of one XF sedan finished in Blue-Hair blue. Some might be given to calling the paint’s color “Calypso” but I think that’s being charitable.
Regardless, some angles of the cat that hasn’t ever crawled out from its conceptual forebear’s shadow show traces of elegance and even sport. That rounded roof line that summits before the B-pillar and then gently slopes into a short boot is, true to Jaguar form, graceful.
The muscular hood is another fine aspect of art that managed to sneak its way past Ford’s ugly mill. There’s ample surface tension present and the central power dome suggests that this car did plenty of lap time at the Nurburgring.
But that’s where the excitement ends.
FRUMPY
The XF looks as everyday common as the Ford Five Hundred Taurus. And when the high gamma, PhotoShopped images give way to the bargain lot shots that trickle in on Ebay, more people will get a very clear picture of how frumpy the Jag really looks.
And now back to you the aforementioned image up top that shows the eerily similar profiles of the Jaguar XF and Lexus GS.
The image is sourced from ThePassionatePursuit.com (a nicely done blog, by the way) to Le Blog Auto whose people rightly observed that the production model XF had a little too much in common with its competition.
To rip one off of Sammy Davis, Jr., I’d say their too close for comfort.
TWINS
From the five spoke rims, to the angled lens of the headlamps, to the door sills, bulky rearview mirrors, triangular C-pillars – you name it – this is an example of severe design overlap.
Was it corporate espionage?
Or a tryst between designers in rival departments that led to one copying another?
Or are Lexus and Jaguar plotting to mainstream a joint design of the Vanilla executive sedan in an effort to woo Acura RL drivers?
Hard to say for sure. But what isn’t is to know that when the British copy the Japanese, things do get ugly.
[Linked: NYT | ThePassionatePursuit.com]
Thank You, Goldman Sachs
By Gunnar Heinrich
RECALLING the 1989 flick Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner’s character is told by a mysterious voice that “If you build it, they will come.”
Well, the market got a taste of that today when a Delphic voice from investment bank Goldman Sachs seemed to tell investors: if you forecast high prices, they will come.
On Goldman’s words that the future price of a barrel of oil could rise to $200 a barrel (economists like round numbers don’t they?) the market took it as a green light to make it happen.
According to the AP, June deliveries for Light Sweet Crude jumped two bucks to $122 a barrel on Goldman’s announcement.
This news comes just as gas prices had actually ebbed a little this past week from all time highs in North America. What…propitious timing.
Of course the falling dollar doesn’t help pump prices, either.
[Linked: Brietbart.com | MSNBC]
