Though it was only 6 pm, it was already dark out. The fall sent shivers to the Southern Hemisphere, and I ventured out to procure bread for my family. I got to the bakery shop, facing a small dilemma. All the parking on the bakery´s side of the street was taken. I drove around the block and parked on the other side. It’s a narrow two-way street and buses pass all the time, making it difficult for two cars passing at once. I worried about somebody hitting my car or smashing my side mirror. So I thought about it a minute and left the lights on when I exited the car, hoping that would be enough to alert our modern-day semi-comatose drivers. And that my friends is what makes me an enthusiast.

In an era of ubiquitous radars, crushing insurance for anything slightly sporting and obnoxious rice racers and ultimate car douche-bags, enthusiasm is not what it once was. I believe that enthusiasm nowadays is evidenced by thinking of your car. Granting it half a second of our overstretched attention. When I go to the mall, I inevitably bore my wife by driving around for a while looking for that “safe” space. One that affords my car some room to escape dings and scratches. Parking as close as possible to a column is part of my strategy. The other is avoiding mommy mobiles as the fairer sex is not known for respecting the doors of the cars parked next to them.

I also wash my car from time to time. I like to keep it neat and never leave anything in the trunk. I firmly believe a trunk is for the temporary transportation of objects and not an extra closet to store your excess junk ad infinitum. You wouldn’t believe my brother’s cars for example. Not only do they go dirty for weeks at a time, but pop his trunk and you’ll find old socks, tennis balls and rackets, stethoscopes, two-liter plastic soda bottles. The car of course has no feelings and is not offended, but such behavior is proof that he is not an enthusiast. It shows he doesn’t spare a thought to his cars.

I could go on (I get out of the car to watch over the gas attendant’s indifferent work instead of lazily sitting in the car), but my point is made. Modern enthusiasm is not about zero to 60 times, top speed or even engine size. It’s more about how the car fits into your life. How it makes you feel. Whether or not it gives you what you want from it. From sublime handling to icy perfection and boring, eternal reliability, whatever idiosyncratically rocks your boat.

In this vein, modern enthusiasm encompasses anything from the poster child of bland, the Toyota Corolla, to the epitome of cool, the Citroën 2CV. If you spare your car a half of second of thought throughout the situations you face going about your business, then my friend you are an enthusiast.

There are a lot of unappealing cars that most of us would never buy, and wish that automakers had never built. If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking of the Pontiac G5 right now. Or the G3. Or really any Pontiac made since about 1976. Except, of course, for the G8, which is automotive perfection according to their owners, who show them off in large numbers at cars and coffee events and do burnouts as they leave.

But how about a variation on the theme? What about cars that you’d never buy, but you’re glad were built? This question was inspired by a post on my blog where someone described the Buick Reatta this way. I don’t agree. To me, the Reatta belongs in the former category, somewhere between the Pontiac G6 and that awful Daewoo-based LeMans hatchback.

Instead, here are a few of my picks.

Buick Regal GS

I find the latest Regal GS absolutely gorgeous, reasonably priced, and surprisingly well-equipped. But what the hell do I know: I liked the old Regal GS. Yes, the one they sold from 1997 to 2004. Perhaps this invalidates all of my opinions for those of you who weren’t already skeptical after my post about Lincoln. The problem with the Regal GS – aside from the fact that it’s currently front-wheel drive – is obvious: it’s a freaking Buick. I wouldn’t buy it. But I’m pleased that GM had the balls to produce it.

Dodge Ram SRT-10

Unless I lived in one of those small towns where it’s a perfectly legitimate weekend night activity to cruise up and down Main Street, I would never buy a pickup. But there’s something hilariously cool about a full-size truck with an 8.3-liter V10 under the hood and an available six-speed manual transmission. I’m so glad Chrysler made this truck. I give a thumbs-up to the driver whenever I see one. (Which is usually returned with an offer to race, even if I’m standing on the sidewalk.) But I would never be caught dead in the driver’s seat.

Ford F-150 SVT Raptor

I absolutely love the SVT Raptor. I think it’s one of the coolest ideas in modern automotive history. In fact, I think car ideas should be measured on a scale of “Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet to Ford F-150 SVT Raptor.” Sto ‘n’ Go seating would be in Raptor territory, while the Murano CrossCab camp would include the Cadillac DTS and Maserati’s CambioCorsa transmission. But for as much as I love the Raptor, I think it projects a rather negative image, namely: if you vote Democrat, this truck will eat you.

Honda Insight (2000-2006)

The original Honda Insight is a tiny little car that can’t get out of its own way – and it certainly can’t get out of the way of people in SVT Raptors. But aren’t you glad these things exist? I love the original Insight, if only because it’s a stick shift hybrid that can do 80 miles per gallon. On a downhill. With a tailwind. Assuming the battery is still functioning. Yes, speed and size are the two things that would keep me from buying one. But I’m glad there are still a few people out there committed to keeping their original Insight on the road, no matter how many SVT Raptors get in their rearview mirrors.

Nissan Juke

The Juke is heinously ugly from virtually every angle. But it’s one of the few cars that manages to be so unattractive that it’s charming. I don’t think I’d buy a Juke for several reasons, the biggest of which is that it’s not particularly spry. But in the world of compact crossovers each styled to resemble slight variations on each other, the Juke is tremendously refreshing.

Porsche Cayenne manual

The fact that you can still get a Cayenne with a stick shift is Porsche’s greatest strength. That’s because it shows that somewhere beyond those thick German walls, someone still has a sense of humor. Someone still exists from the days of checkerboard seats and the murderous 930. Obviously, though, you could never actually buy a manual Cayenne, since the market is limited to about eleven rich Boston doctors with farms in New Hampshire, plus the occasional CarMax rep who grabs one at auction without realizing it’s a stick. (“Why’s this so cheap? I got a great deal! … Oh.”)

These are my choices, but now it’s your turn to announce some “cars I’d never buy, but I’m glad got built.” Or, you can just post angry comments about that Pontiac G8 remark. You know; whichever.

Doug DeMuro operates PlaysWithCars.com. He’s owned an E63 AMG wagon, road-tripped across the US in a Lotus without air conditioning, and posted a six-minute lap time on the Circuit de Monaco in a rented Ford Fiesta. One year after becoming Porsche Cars North America’s youngest manager, he quit to become a writer. His parents are very disappointed.

As noted in a triumvirate of TTAC reviews, the Scion iQ is a fun little box that’s hobbled by a somewhat crappy CVT transmission – though, it should be noted, not to the “’Tis but a scratch” extent that the SMART is de-limbed by its godawful gearbox. The above text message was received from my wife after she drove one briefly.

Naturally, after telling her how disappointed I was in her total lack of ethics, I felt rather pleased. When I met Katie, she was a dedicated cyclist and transit-taker who hadn’t bothered to get her driver’s license until her early twenties. With a series of Acura mid-sizers rotating through Dad’s driveway, she regarded the car as either an appliance or a necessary evil.

And then, along come I with my idiotic fervour for the things. Sure, I gave up my first car for the engagement ring, but when we got married I bought a Ford Escort GT with a 5-speed and set out to teach my new wife how to drive it.

It wasn’t easy. There were frustrations and setbacks, tantrums and whining and sometimes I thought the tears would never stop coming.

She wasn’t that thrilled about it either.

I toyed briefly with the idea of pitching this article with a more instructional bent: “How to teach your spouse to drive stick.” But that opens up a whole ‘nother can of worms about the sexual politics of driving, perhaps a topic for another time.

What’s more, it’s not like I could get you past the first step anyway. I did have strong and persuasive arguments about the necessity of learning to drive a manual car – what if there was an emergency, like if I accidentally tripped and accidentally repeatedly fell on some beer and it accidentally repeatedly spilled into my mouth and I accidentally repeatedly swallowed it and became accidentally incapable of driving, accidentally? Very. Convincing.

But, like so many things in a successful marriage, convincing was less important than compromising. I would attempt to reduce the amount of commuting I did by car, and she would, in turn, endeavour to learn to work a clutch and a five-speed.

As we’ve covered, driving a manual transmission is not manly. It’s not always more efficient. In most cases though, it is more fun.

Certainly, it made the little Escort somewhat enjoyable. 1991 and newer ‘Scort GTs are fairly interesting cars to drive as they’ve got a Mazda BP powerplant and decently nippy handling characteristics. Add a stick and burlap-based interior fabrics and you’ve got the makings of a Great Little Beater(tm).

It’s important to have a car you don’t really care about for any kind of instruction. Gears will be ground. Starter motors will be durability tested with repeated stalling. You will be participating in the dance known as the “bunny-hop”. Acrid clouds of clutch smoke will hang over the proceedings.

The Escort was as ideally suited to this sort of abuse as a Labrador Retriever is to a toddler’s ear-pulling. The 1.8L engine had modest power, but reasonable torque off the line, the clutch engagement was forgiving and the shifter had fairly wide-spaced gears.

Better yet, we had a ideal setting to learn in. The Gulf Islands off the coast of B.C. are sparsely populated in the off-season and we used to spend a fair bit of time on Galiano Island, where we were married.

Without worrying about traffic holding up traffic, and with plenty of rolling hills to provide challenges once the basics were mastered, it provided as low-stress environment as you could hope for.

One trick I learned that might be of use is to actually get out of the car and coach while walking beside it. In the same way that it becomes strangely difficult to parallel-park when someone’s sitting in the car with you, removing the audience seems to help things go more smoothly.

My wife has three degrees, including a Medical Doctorate. She’s an accomplished musician and chorister and has sung at Carnegie Hall. She’s also a surprisingly fast long-distance trail-runner. Currently, she spends her time as a palliative care physician, balancing an encyclopaedia of medications with exacting fineness, freeing her patients to reclaim the balance of their lives from either pain or opiate fog; caring for the dying and their families with empathy and grace.

In light of these achievements it is colossally stupid of me to be overly proud of her ability to operate an anachronistic automotive control system. Oh baby, work that steering-wheel mounted manual spark advance.

But I am proud of her, and I must confess to always bumping up my admiration of any person when I learn that they drive a stick. Competence is just plain cool.

And, miracle of miracles, now she actually prefers self-rowers! What’s more, having been somewhat spoiled by the generous horsepower of our daily-driver WRX, she’s the first to turn up her nose at a press car for being too dull.

Picking up an Acura for review, the Honda rep urged me to sign out the new CR-V: “I know you’ve driven it already, but let your wife drive it. She’ll really enjoy it!” Not even close.

A modern car will do a lot for you. It’ll tell you if people are in your bind-spots, figure out how to stop you if you just slam on the brakes, keep you on the road with stability control and take the guesswork out of highway-driving with radar-guided cruise-control. Some will even handle the parking for you, and it won’t be too long before some are taking on at least a portion of the actual driving duties.

Every electronic nanny, every helpful gizmo or warning-light whatsit is one more step away from being a driver and one step closer to becoming a passenger. Introducing a stick-shift into the equation pushes the sliding scale back a little bit. It makes a dull car interesting. It can make someone who doesn’t care about cars understand why you do.

I always knew I’d teach my kids how to drive stick. My father taught me at a very young age, putting our Land Rover into low-range and letting me trundle around the back-forty at a walking pace.

We’re just a few months away from finding out whether our first will be a boy or a girl: it’ll be years and years before we get to the point where that particular lesson needs to be taught. But, when the time comes, it’s not a lesson I’ll be teaching alone.

Once upon a time, the Dodge brand was brimming with pride. In the mid-to-late 1990s, Dodge had it all: affordable compacts, big front-drive cruisers, the hottest trucks on the market, and of course, the Viper. And when the times were good, all of those part melded into one brash, exciting, quintessentially American brand. From Neons and Intrepids, from Rams to Vipers, Dodge could do it all, as long as “it all” included a healthy dash of in-your-face attitude. But over the years, as Dodge’s shining moment faded into memory, the brand has managed to become both less viscerally appealing and less well-rounded. And when Fiat’s leadership stripped Dodge of the Ram “brand,” shucked its designs of their truckish cues, and repositioned Dodge as a more “youthful” and “refined” sporting brand, it seemed as if Dodge as we knew it was dying. Since hearing of Fiat’s plans to bring Alfa stateside, and with Dodge appearing to have lost out in brand alignment product battles, we’ve been wondering for some time now if Dodge isn’t headed out to pasture. Now there’s even more evidence that Dodge is being hollowed out en route to replacement with Alfa, as Automotive News [sub] reports

Absent from the redesigned SRT Viper will be the name Dodge… Viper has been linked to Dodge since the Dodge Viper RT/10 concept debuted in 1989. The first Dodge Viper SRT-10 went on sale in 1992, and over the years 28,056 Vipers were produced, according to Chrysler.

Not any more. Essentially, SRT becomes a brand with its own vehicle, in this case the SRT Viper.

That’s right, Dodge won’t have a Viper or a Ram (or, more prosaically, an Avenger or Caravan). Some might argue that, absent these components, the Dodge name doesn’t mean much of anything anymore. Certainly it doesn’t seem that Dodge can have a particularly bright future without any links to its last moment of glory.

Chrysler Group insists that the branding shift has nothing, NOTHING, to do with any elimination of the Dodge brand. In the words of a Chrysler Group spokesman,

SRT is the high-performance end of the company. The whole brand philosophy and the branding separation between Dodge and SRT will evolve over time. This is kind of that first step establishing what SRT means to the company and what that car means to the brand.

The other side of the company’s argument: the Dodge brand has “baggage” in some global markets, and by branding it as an SRT, the Viper can have a unified global brand and be sold (theoretically) at Alfa and Maserati stores. On the downside, these kinds of sleight-of-brand moves don’t tend to fool anybody, and more to the point, how many consumers know anything about the SRT “brand”? But all that aside, the mere existence of an SRT brand seems to trade off directly with Dodge’s continued success. After all, without trucks or performance halos, what exactly is Dodge again? And with Dodge’s post-Fiat-takeover brand boss Ralph Gilles jumping from Dodge to SRT, it seems that the corporate winds are blowing the once-proud Dodge brand towards oblivion. Perhaps Alfa will ultimately prove to be the more compelling performance brand, but in the short term, Fiat-Chrysler seems to be trading in one potentially strong brand for two relative unknowns.

Lotus is one of those brands that every auto enthusiast loved to lionize, despite (or possibly because of) the fact that it hasn’t made a profit for its owner, Proton, in 15 years. But now things are changing. Lotus itself is in the midst of a makeover, seeking to transition from niche sports- and track-car company to a Ferrari and Porsche-rivaling aspirational brand. Meanwhile, back in Malaysia, its owner, Proton, is undergoing a few changes itself. Having been founded as a state-backed business, Proton may soon be privatized, reports Bloomberg. And as a result, Protons private investors could push for a quick divestment of the firm’s Lotus holdings. One such investor, Gan Eng Peng of HwangDBS Investment Management, tells Bloomberg

It will make sense for them to sell it. Proton and Lotus are not a good fit. They are in different market segments, both in terms of geography and product.

Chinese automaker SAIC and Genii Capital have been rumored as possible buyers, although Proton denies all rumors that Lotus is for sale. The problem is that Lotus won’t be worth much until 2014, the brand’s earliest projected break-even date. And even then, Bloomberg’s analysis shows that Lotus’s highest possible value then still wouldn’t be enough to return Proton to profitability, in light of increased competition in its home market of Malaysia. But in the meantime, Proton has no (useful) synergies with Lotus, and as the automaker emerges from the warm embrace of government ownership into the harsh light of the global market, it seems that selling off Lotus may be unavoidable.

Which leads to an interesting question: which automaker seems most likely to buy up Lotus? My money is on VW, who might buy the brand for no other reason than to kill off Alfa, after Fiat refused to sell. Of course, then it might create branding challenges with Porsche, but Alfa would have done so anyway. Another possible buyer: Toyota, which supplied Lotus with engines for years. In any case, we can probably count GM out of the picture, after their abortive relationship with the British brand.

Need an engineering project? Got 1,200 hours to kill with nothing to do? Take a tip from this heroically patient Spaniard, and hand-machine your own tiny (12 cc displacement) V12. This would be amazing feat of handwork even if it weren’t fully operational (using compressed air injection), but the fact that it works, runs and was made without a single CNC machine is nothing short of astounding.. If, as the book suggests, Shop Class is Soulcraft, this guy is like an engineering bodhisattva, inspiring us with his precision, patience and skill. In a world where not much is made by hand anymore, this achievement is worth taking a few minutes to marvel over… [Hat Tip: Dean Huston]

To be clear, we aren’t talking about the next brand to linger on long past its kill-by date, pitting the brand loyalty of its fans against common sense for an agonizing eternity. No, now that Saab is dead and its warranty coverage has been suspended [per Automotive News [sub]], Saabophiles need an alternative. TTAC commenter Pig_Iron writes:

Now that SAAB is gone, who is the new SAAB? By that I mean, who makes the best winter handling front driver in coupe, sedan and wagon avail with man trans?

Your pal,

Pig_Iron

My answer: Buick’s Regal. It’s a rebadged Opel, available in several states of turbo tune, it’s got a distinctively European feel inside (firm seats, dark cockpit), and a fine-handling front-drive chassis. What more could you want from a Saab? On the other hand, what Saabista is going to buy from GM now that The General has cruelly slain mercifully euthanized their beloved brand [PDF on the definitive causes of death here]? So, if GM is out… possibly some kind of Volvo? An Audi? What say you, Best And Brightest?

TTAC has long been bearish on the Scion brand, and in a lot of ways, Toyota’s global tri-branding strategy with its new “86″ sportscar (Toyota, Subaru and Scion versions are being sold) highlights how Toyota has lost its branding focus. On the other hand, the FR-S, Scion’s version of the 86, is by far the most compelling product that brand has offered… well, possibly ever (OK, since the Mk1 xB). If I were king of Toyota, I’d probably still kill off Scion and sell the 86 as a Celica in the US… after all, how much sense does it make to have two sporty coupes at Scion and none for the Toyota brand? But if Scion follows the FR-S up with a new truly compact pickup co-developed with Daihatsu, as has been rumored, I’d be willing to concede that Scion has a place in the market. After all, truly unique, funky vehicles justified Scion’s existence in the first place, before a watered-down second generation of products killed that positioning (and Scion’s sales). With the FR-S, Scion seems to be heading back towards focused and freaky niche confections… let’s hope it continues to return to those roots.

With engine management technologies creating ever-more refined, well-behaved engines, the snap-crackle-pop overrun at the beginning of this video is an increasingly rare throwback to the time when men were men and engines could blow up at any second. Sure, such playfulness will probably be managed out of existence by the time the F30 M3 hits dealerships, but it seems like a good omen for the M3′s return to six-cylinder power. In fact, it might even be possible that the backfire heard here has something to do with the electric turbocharger that’s rumored to give the new M3 lag-free turbo performance… but then you’d probably be a better judge of that than I.

Last Monday, we regaled you out with stories of Toyota coming to grips with the “new peak oil,” and other topics related to the growing gap (or lack thereof?) between global production and consumption oil. This week I’m feeling a little less apocalyptic, and little bit more indulgent. And really, why not celebrate those precious hydrocarbons while they’re still cheap and plentiful? This Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series may burn ‘em by the bushel, but it sure sounds good doing it. And though cars like the forthcoming 650 HP Shelby Mustang GT500 prove that performance is still alive in the 21st Century, high-revving, large-displacement, naturally-aspirated V8s like the AMG Black’s are going to be facing special challenges under future emissions standards. Which makes its gargling, chortling music all the sweeter to my ears…

The Mastretta MXT is not very well-known outside of Top Gear buffs who recall Jeremy Clarkson giving the MXT an incredibly hard time for its Mexican heritage. Of course we all know Jeremy is a shock jock more than a motor head these days, so his opinion aside the MXT slots in right behind the Doking as one the more interesting cars on display in Los Angeles. The MXT is the first sports car designed and built-in Mexico, but rather than trying to dethrone Corvette or Mustang, Mastretta is going for the niche market of small, light kit cars. Yes, kit cars. At least north of the border…

You see, the company doesn’t have the funds to make the MXT pass all the safety standards in the USA and we don’t have the legal exemptions available on our side of the pond to allow them to sell low volume specialty cars like they do in Europe. So, if you want one, the fibreglass shell and extruded aluminum chassis will arrive fully assembled with two seats and a radio, all you have to do is un-crate the Ford-sourced engine and transmission, drop them in the rear and crank a few bolts. Of course, I’d take the extra step of removing the fibreglass body and driving down the highway Ariel Atom style, but that’s just me. Shoppers wanting this hot tamale don’t have long to wait with production supposedly underway with shipments starting in the first quarter 2012. Pricing? A moving target that started at $55,000 USD and now is in the $60,000-$65,000 ballpark. Not pocket change, but neither is that Lotus. (But at least the Lotus will at least arrive fully assembled.)

Say what you want about Saab fans, the guys have some dedication. At a time when most have finally accepted the fact that Saab is at the end of the line, Saab’s hard-core “dead-enders” are taking up their social media arms to rescue their beloved brand. After all they have a perfect opportunity: after months of wading through a quagmire, uncertain whether to support Victor Muller, Vladimir Antonov, or one of Saab’s Chinese suitors, all Saab fans can now rally against their old enemy, GM. Long blamed for Saab’s decline despite the fact that the brand’s peak sales came under its ownership, GM has long been the bête noire for Saabistas. And with GM now taking the wheel of Saab’s fate, Saab’s rabid fans have taken over GM’s Facebook wall, posting images of their favorite Saabs and demanding The General “let Saab go.” Will it be enough to convince GM to go against its carefully-crafted Chinese relationships and interests by giving Saab carte blanche to ship its technology wherever its new Chinese masters want? Don’t count on it. But for the moment GM has to sit through the online equivalent of an “Occupy” protest.

Americans may no longer be as completely obsessed with road travel as they once were, but for first-time visitors to the USA, a round-the-nation roadtrip is always the ultimate fantasy. And really, what better way is there to appreciate the great expanse and diversity of this great nation than by car? Luckily for those of us without the time, money or reliable transportation to discover America by highway, we can now get a taste of the magic in an internet-attention-span-friendly morsel: five minutes, fifteen seconds. Someone named Bryan DeFrees condensed a 12,225 mile-long road trip in a giant loop across the US into this film, making one of life’s epic adventures available from your desk or smartphone. Warning: Video may cause sudden desire to “hit the road”…

[via: Laughing Squid]

Though we owe Jalopnik a few well-deserved raspberries for this week’s inane tease-n-reveal of some wildly overhyped and under-delivering “renderings” of the 2014 C7 Corvette (look it up if you must), we’ve actually got to tip our hats to the Gawker site for finding a truly relevant petition at the White House website. The petition’s goal?

Stop using Homeland Security funds to seize imported vehicles, and change the DOT/EPA exemption to 15 years.

The Department of Homeland Security spends a shockingly disproportionate amount of its budget not on security initiatives, but on customs seizures. In particular, importers of grey-market vehicles have been targeted by monies taxpayers have intended to be used to secure our country against terrorism and terrorist activity. We call upon the Executive Branch to immediately cease this wasteful activity, and furthermore to change the DOT/EPA exemption time on grey-market vehicles from 25 years to 15 years (to match the vehicle regulations of Canada), recognizing that the 25-year rule was enacted due to support from special interests such as Mercedes Benz North America.

This is the kind of cause that we can absolutely get behind. In fact, if TTAC and Jalopnik combined can’t get under 22,000 readers to sign it… well, it will be Jalopnik’s fault. They’re a much bigger site. Seriously though, please sign this. There’s no guarantee that this will change anything, but as long as future generations can grow believing that they too might be able to someday import some awesomely clapped-out foreign jalopy that will demand all of their spare time and money just to stay running, well… the world just might become a better place.

Done signing the petition? Why not tell us what 15 year-old car you would import if you could?

Drivers cannot be pulled over if they peel out from an intersection with a bit of tire squeal, Alaska’s second-highest court ruled Thursday. In countries like Australia, a similar chirp of the tires could lead to the impounding of the vehicle under “anti-hoon” laws that generate millions in revenue. A three-judge panel in The Last Frontier was more forgiving when considering the fate of Vernon Burnett who was pulled over after midnight on September 20, 2009.

Alaska State Trooper Lucas Altepeter saw Burnett’s truck stop, then spin its tires one-third of the way through the intersection while turning left in the city of Bethel. Burnett made no driving errors, but Trooper Altepeter decided to stop him anyway, as he had “never seen somebody accidentally lose traction and spin their tires as fast and as far as this particular vehicle did.” The trooper believed he could write a citation for the tire spinning alone. A district court judge agreed, saying the the spinning was sufficient proof of negligent driving. The appellate court sided with Burnett.

“Under (state law), a person commits the offense of negligent driving if they drive in a manner that creates an unjustifiable risk of harm to a person or to property, and if their conduct actually endangers a person or property,” Judge David Mannheimer wrote for the court. “Altepeter did not assert that Burnett’s driving endangered Burnett or anyone else, or that Burnett’s driving put property at risk.”

Prosecutors countered that spinning tires represented a potential threat to everyone on the road, and that the trooper had reasonable suspicion to effect a traffic stop, or issue a safety warning to the driver. The three-judge panel found this line of argument unpersuasive.

“A person can not be convicted of negligent driving for creating a theoretical or speculative danger,” Mannheimer wrote. “The statute requires proof of actual endangerment.”

The appellate court also rejected the safety warning concept as there was no evidence Burnett was pulled over because he needed assistance or because intervention was needed to protect the public. The last ditch effort of prosecutors was the claim that a peel out gives rise to the reasonable suspicion that the driver is intoxicated. No testimony was given to back up this claim. Similar claims have also been rejected in cases before the New Hampshire Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

“Because we conclude that the traffic stop of Burnett’s vehicle was unlawful, the evidence obtained as a result of this traffic stop must be suppressed,” Mannheimer concluded. “And because the primary evidence of Burnett’s impairment was obtained as a result of this traffic stop, Burnett’s conviction for driving under the influence is reversed.”

A copy of the decision is available in a 275k PDF file at the source link below.

Source:  Burnett v. Alaska (Court of Appeals, State of Alaska, 11/10/2011)

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

Garth Stein is a better driver than you. Really. In 2003, he won the SCCA Northwest points championship in his Spec Miata before a crash while driving in the rain, no less, ended those Senna dreams. The novel that sprang from those experiences is a lot like his little Miata: a bit cutesy on the outside but equipped with such a perfect balance of heart and engineering that you can’t help but go back for more. Maybe that’s why it’s been on the New York Times best-seller list for over 120 weeks and Patrick Dempsey, more race car driver than actor now, has picked it up for the big screen.

I should mention that the story is written from the perspective of a dog. But, so was White Fang and The Call of the Wild and I dare you to tell the old oyster pirate Jack London he wrote a kids books. Driven by his desire to be more than a dog, Enzo, the puppy protagonist in Racing in the Rain, is the perfect vehicle for Stein to explore racing, philosophy and humanity. Stein explains that Mongolians believe good dogs will be reincarnated as men when they’re ready. Enzo’s owner and semi-professional racing driver, Denny Swift, serves as a model human, whose skill at navigating obstacles on the racetrack translates well into real life where he battles for custody of his daughter, a dying wife and trumped-up rape charges. Denny’s racing mantras, like “the car goes where the eyes go,” and the intense, accurate driving scenes help the reader to learn along with Enzo that lessons learned from racing–courage and balance, for example–are just as applicable to life.

Stein’s writing is fresh, darkly comic and devoid of cynicism. His deep appreciation of cars and racing culture makes this a perfect choice for racing enthusiasts and car guys. More importantly, wives and girlfriends of car guys will gain a deeper understanding of what makes their significant other tick while enjoying a heartstring-tugging, Marley and Me meets Le Mans, high-revving good read.

Garth Stein pitted long enough to chat about the novel:

TTAC: A dog named Enzo?

Stein: I think that car people will get the connection, it may be a bit overdone if I had to explain Enzo Ferrari. When I first started writing the book, Enzo was Juan Pablo, after Juan Pablo Montoya, but clearly Enzo is the better name for a dog.

TTAC: Any stories about racing in the rain?

Stein: Only that I crashed my last race car during a downpour. If you’re in a race in the Northwest, you really need to be comfortable on a wet track, so that title, The Art of Racing in the Rain came from Don Kitch, Jr. who runs a race school out of Seattle.

TTAC: Have you raced at all the tracks mentioned in the book?

Stein: No, in fact, I met one of the owners of Thunderhill at a reading I did in Sacramento and he said, “Boy that was just great, you really know the track well.” I kind of bluffed because I’ve never driven Thunderhill. Basically, I studied some in-car camera footage from a buddy of mine who’s raced there several times and another friend lent me his track notes and I wrote the scene. I’ve always wanted to race there. A dream of mine is to race the 25 Hours of Thunderhill. I kind of had to bluff my way through that, and I guess it worked.

TTAC: What has Enzo learned that readers haven’t yet?

Stein: The whole Enzo philosophy, which is, “that which you manifest is before you,” means we have to take control of our destiny. If we allow other people to dictate where we are, we are no longer in control of what we’re doing. If we maintain control, at least we can pull out of the spins in life.

TTAC: Ayrton Senna plays a large role in Enzo’s spiritual development. Any insight there?

Stein: Senna was a very religious man, but this book was more of a universal spiritualism rather than a specific religion. People ask me if I’ve studied Zen Buddhism, the answer is no. When I was racing, my buddies and I would goof around that we could apply the same rules that we used on the racetrack to life. You know, “Don’t worry about something that’s already happened, you can’t change it. Only worry about the things in front of you that you can change.” If we do that in our daily lives, then we’ll be good fathers, husbands, etc. Really, that’s where Enzo came from.

TTAC: I see “Go Enzo” stickers plastered on race cars now.

Stein: It’s very popular with the racing crowd because I think a lot of club racers feel somewhat misunderstood by their friends and family. You know, “Why would you spend all of this time, energy and money to make this sport?” And I think this gives them a voice. You know, “Here, read this book. You’ll understand why.”

TTAC: How did your wife take it?

Stein: She laughed when she read the book. She said, “Oh, now I understand why you were doing all that racing; you were doing research.” Which is totally not the case. I was doing it for four years and then I wrote the book.

TTAC: You still racing?

Stein: I’m not racing currently, though I certainly enjoy it and hanging out with the racers. Talking shop and stuff like that. I was just at the Grand-Am Awards ceremony last month and I got to present an award to professional racers and team owners. It’s been a lot of fun. I mean, racing’s fun. There’s nothing like the adrenaline rush of the green flag.

Reuters reports that GM Europe President Nick Reilly is retiring just as his successor predicts a slowdown the European auto market in the turmoil of the Euro crisis. Replacing Reilly is Opel’s CEO, Karl-Friedrich Stracke, who just last week told Automotive News [sub]

We expect that the automobile market in Europe will experience a painful cooling, and we expect a significant shrinking of the market.

And as if slow sales projections weren’t bad enough, Opel also faces a tough union boss in Klaus Franz, who is pushing for ever more production or not just Opels but Chevies as well, in the Euro zone according to AN [sub]. But despite the challenges facing Stracke, he’s still got a song in his heart… in the tune of GT. Though GM has no lightweight rear-drive platform to draw on, and in spite of all the gathering storm clouds, Stracke tells Auto Motor und Sport that

I can well imagine a car like the Manta, but with new technology and a new design. I could also very well imagine a proper Opel GT which recalls our classic model of 1968.

Ludicrous teasing? Possibly. An understandable escape from the depressing reality of mid-debt-crisis Europe? Definitely. I mean, what would you rather imagine, a cascading collapse of confidence in sovereign debt, or the scenario depicted above? Yeah, that’s what we thought…

HP: 147kw (200ps) / 200hp @7000rpm
Torque: 205nm (151 lb/ft) @ 6600rpm
Weight: 1210kg (2662 pounds)

Of course, that’s for a low-spec, manual transmission version, which rides on 16 inch wheels. Top-spec versions with an automatic transmission will weigh as much as 2,755 lbs. Toys for the top-spec version include LED headlights, leather steering wheel, 6 speakers audio and sport pedals… but then, this is all JDM spec anyway. Since the FT-86 will be coming to the US as a Scion, it’s tough to predict how the spec sheet will be structured. Still, the basics are there… and they look tempting (and in line with what the car’s chief engineer has told us). Now we just need to drive the thing!

Here’s hoping your weekend motoring has been a little bit safer than surfboard designer Roberto Ricci’s…

Finally, there’s one key issue with this FT-86 image leak that must be considered: when this car comes stateside, it will be as a Scion FR-S, not a Toyota. Which means it could well be visually tweaked even further for our market, as it transitions to Toyota’s youth brand. In any case, the mystery won’t last long: TTAC’s Bertel Schmitt will be on hand for the FT-86 (and Subaru BRZ) reveal at the upcoming Tokyo Auto Show. Until then, speculate away!

Video of cold-weather prototype testing runs fairly hot-and-cold, to use a rather indulgent metaphor. Often times the footage is deathly dull as test drivers nurse their million-dollar charges through the arctic ice. Other times, however, cold-weather test video gives us some of the best prototype footage, as when BMW’s i3 was caught showing off its rear-drive proclivities, or when its brand-mate the i8 revealed its interesting ergonomics when a test driver had to stop to pee. This video is less revealing, as we not only know about the Boxster’s basic attributes, we’ve actually seen it completely revealed. Still, seeing a not-ready-for-market sportscar flipping its tail out thanks to some injudicious use of the throttle is worth a look… even if you just fast forward to the 1:40 mark to skip the less-intriguing stuff. Did the rumored turbo-four base engine feed someone more torque than they were expecting? Did the driver throw some brakes into the recovery effort, or was that the work of a nanny? There’s also a second, less dramatic incident of ass-end antics at around the 2:07 mark, which the driver catches without the use of brakes…

With both China’s NRDC and Sweden’s NDO appearing unready to approve the Chinese takeover of Saab before a Halloween bankruptcy deadline, it seemed that Saab was properly borked. Without Vladimir Antonov or Gemini Investment Fund to hit up for yet another “bridge loan,” we fully expected to see Saab placed into bankruptcy a week from Monday. But if Saab’s parent company, Swedish Automobile, had found a private equity fund that was gullible enough to rush in where Antonov feared to tread and drop $44m on Spyker… well, we should have known that North Street Capital would be fool enough to get sucked into the Saab maelstrom. And sure enough, Reuters reports that

The private equity firm of racing car enthusiast Alex Mascioli, which bought the luxury sports car business of the Dutch owner of Saab in September, is to invest $70 million in the cash-strapped car maker as Chinese bridge financing looks uncertain.

Here we go… again.

Still not convinced that the situation is dire? Consider Swedish Automobile’s official response to the North Street offer:

Swan intends to accept this offer because it has doubts that the bridge funding of Youngman and Pang Da, of which a partial payment has been received, shall be paid in full on 22 October 2011. Immediate availability of funding is necessary to continue the reorganization process of Saab Automobile.

Saab had previously said it expected approval from the NRDC on the 14th of October, an estimate it backed away from… on the 14th. Clearly Saab has to keep the drama going, but if it now admits that the money likely won’t come by the 22nd, what does that mean? As Bertel has been saying for months now, Saab could be waiting forever: the NRDC doesn’t say “no,” it just waits until you give up or die (see: Hummer).

But at least Saab has another bridge loan to nowhere. Although, to be clear, even that’s not a done deal. Per Saab’s release

Procurement of a loan to Saab Automobile in the amount of USD 60 million to be collateralized by a first lien on certain assets of Saab Automobile as well as a second lien on the collateral as pledged to NDO. This loan is subject to further documentation. The object of the parties is to finalize documentation no later than Monday October 24, 2011 with subsequent funding within two days thereof.

So, what exactly are those “certain assets”? Isn’t Saab out of silverware to pawn? Meanwhile, with bankruptcy such a real possibility, why is a private equity taking a second lien against assets already pledged as collateral to the Swedish government? It’s possible there’s some form of financial logic to that move, but I’m guessing that Mascioli’s passion for automobiles is clouding the judgement here. For more evidence for this theory, see the fact that North Street is paying over four times SWAN’s current stock price for its equity stake. But hey, it’s just $60m, right?

Meanwhile, with more cash to burn while waiting for a Chinese investment that will likely never come, Saabsunited is keeping the fire of enthusiasm alight by promising fans that

Even though many engineers have left the company the spirit is still very high and work has continued, perhaps not in the phase initially thought but still at a high rate on the next generation 9-3. We have heard from several sources that the car should be ready for production within about 14 months, which means it could be either aprox 14 months or even sooner…

One source told us that the car looks really cool, that even the base line model features a lot more than normal and looks incredibly good!

14 months? Saab would be burning an estimated $50m per month in a “nuclear winter” scenario where absolutely no development work is being done. If development on the 9-3 is being done, the burn rate could be $60m per month or higher. Which means the firm is going to have to find one of these North Street-style suckers every month for the next 14 months. And I’m not convinced that there are that many suckers left…

When Buick announced that it would not be rebadging the Opel Insignia OPC as the Buick Regal GS, and that instead of the OPC’s all wheel drive and turbocharged V6 we’d be getting a front-drive turbo four performance model, I was a bit skeptical. On paper, the proposed GS just didn’t seem different enough from the turbo model (which I liked well enough as-is) to elicit much initial enthusiasm. But this is why we drive cars instead of just comparing spec sheets: having spent some time alone with the GS, I’m happy to report that my skepticism was entirely unnecessary.

The first three minutes or so of the forty-odd minutes I spent hammering the GS around the hills of the Northern Willamette Valley, I spent familiarizing myself with the GS’s whistling turbo. After some light lag, the turbo starts twisting out a smooth river of torque that seems to swell graciously (rather than ferociously) under the driver’s right foot. Switching from a naturally-aspirated six-cylinder to the GS, there’s a brief adjustment in driving style, requiring subtle turbo management as the boost build. But by the time the first curves in the road appear, the turbo’s learning curve is over and I’ve figured out how to keep 295 ft-lbs at the ready.

Though the ride feels utterly planted and the few short bends are easily dispatched, the sight of the first sharp corner has me rushing for the brakes. This is, after all, a front-drive Buick, and there are no shoulders or guardrails between it and a thrilling adventure in potentially fatal understeer. The GS shrugs off the speed, turns in with surprising sharpness, and before I know it the boost is building again under my foot and we’re away. On the next corner I brake considerably less, and it pitches intuitively into the turn, and then clings furiously to the asphalt as I feed in the throttle. With each successive corner I push a little bit deeper, flick it a little more aggressively in the tighter turns, get on the throttle in the faster turns. In fact, I spent the rest of the drive trying desperately to find out what happens to the GS when it’s pushed to the point where a chassis shows its true colors… without success.

There are two basic schools of performance car preference: first is a car with low but exploitable limits, which delights with its playful incompetence, the second is a car that is so utterly composed that it delights with its sheer poise. My beloved Z3M fits in the first category, at its best when you’re pushing or catching it around corners. The Regal GS is squarely in the latter category, offering the kind of calmly assuring performance that allows extremely rapid on-road pace at while building the driver’s confidence at every step. Between the turbo’s power delivery, GM’s HiPer strut suspension, the stiffer “GS Mode” and some good summer rubber, the GS is able to take improbably high cornering speeds (GM claims .9g on the skidpad) with zero drama… you could tell this car you slept with its sister in the middle of a sharp curve, and it would simply shrug its shoulders and tug you to the next corner. But more than grip, the GS puts its power down so smoothly under so many circumstances, AWD would be an unwelcome addition.

More power and AWD or rear-drive elicit something of a Pavlovian response in auto enthusiasts, but the GS proves that a well set-up front-driver with a good manual transmission can be as much fun as anything else. It’s not a madhouse, eye-rolling, tongue-lolling kind of fun, like you get from, say, a CTS-V. It’s a quietly confident, real-world, hustle-you-home kind of fun that tugs incessantly at the corners of your mouth. The Buick yin to the Cadillac yang, if you will… at the same $35k-ish price point as the nowhere-near-as-fun-to-drive base CTS sedan. With apologies to John Lennon,  A middle-class hero is something to be… 

Buick made the vehicle for this review available at a launch event