The MetaCars Week In Review

Justin Berkowitz
by Justin Berkowitz

Company No One’s Ever Heard of To Tune Exotic Car With Ugly Body Kit and Ostensibly More Horsepower

A company that no one’s ever heard of, but which claims to have 40 years of experience tuning the most exotic sports cars, plans to tune an extremely expensive, high tech exotic sports car with an ugly body kit and theoretically additional horsepower. While the original car’s engine was developed on the Formula 1 racetrack after hours and hours of race testing, and the body was honed in a wind tunnel and then refined on the same F1 track, the tuner company actually knows better.

“You see, we do what the manufacturer of that $500,000 exotic car was unable to do, as a result of limited budgets and engineering restrictions,” said a spokesman for the tuning company. “We know way more than the car’s nerdy original engineers how much horsepower the body can tolerate, and we’ll achieve that horsepower by using a carefully installed supercharger from the eBay.” Additionally, the spokesman told MetaCars, “Carbon fiber is light and really expensive. How could it be wrong to replace body panels on the exotic sports car with carbon fiber. One step: lighter, just as strong. Must make it better.”

In announcing that it will be tuning this particular high-end exotic sports car, he tuning company joins the ranks of the legendary Wald, Gemballa, Ruf, Brabus, Lorinser, Carlsson, Alpina, Novitec Rosso, Hamann, Koenig, Wimmer, and Edo Competition, all of whom have said they too have tuned it already. The car goes on sale from the manufacturer next year. The tuning company says its work will cost $200,000 in addition to a donor car. They also ask us to point out that the photos included here, which came with their press kit, are photoshops.

Economists: Toyota May Need 2 Entire Months to Be Beating the Crap Out of Everyone Else in Sales Again


Toyota may take as many as two months to regain its posture of beating the crap out of everyone else in sales again, according to Nobel Laureate in Economics Doug Gilmour.

“We’re projecting up to eight weeks where crazy incentives from competitors, Toyota’s sales hiatus, and some cautious people shopping elsewhere,” said Gilmour. “After that though, Toyota will resume its posture of just selling shit tons of cars.”

Gilmour was inconclusive whether this two month period where Toyota looks vulnerable will actually be the end of the world. “It’s tough to say. We survived the Large Hadron Collider, so I suspect we’ll get past ToyotaPedalScandalGate.”

Area Man Plans to Buy Next Dodge Charger Now that He’s Seen Partial Interior Spy Shot


A local man plans to buy the next Dodge Charger after having a good look at a spy picture partially showing the upgraded interior.The man, Chris Fryman, 34, says “now that I’ve checked out the inside of the Dodge Charger as they plan to redo it, I’m pretty sure I’ll buy one once my current lease is up. That was the main thing holding me back before. But from what I can see, it’s really hot now.”

This was a fast decision for Fryman, as the spy photo only surfaced today.

While the refreshed car won’t go on sale for another year Fryman tells MetaCars he is sure that the Charger is the one for him. “Well previously I was thinking you know, I should get that new Mustang when the 5.0 V8 comes out. Or maybe the new powerful V6 with the stick.”

UPDATE: Area man now says, having seen the aggressive pricing of the Hyundai Sonata and option of a manual transmission, he is positive he will get that instead of the Charger later this year.

Electric Cars to Cause Extension Cord Shortage, Potato Chip Surplus?


We have to face the incontrovertible truth: every car on the road will be an electric car as of next year. And with that, lots of stuff we don’t even think about now is going to change.

“America is going to experience a severe extension cord crisis in 2011,” says University of Oregon economics professor Bill Neihaus. “At the moment, the going rate for an extension cord might be 10 bucks. But in January 2011, that same extension cord will cost at least 13 chickens.”

Many are forecasting that the domination of electric cars will also mean the death of the potato chip industry. Potato chip lobbyist Sam Woland tells MetaCars that “at present, 99% of potato chips are sold in gas stations. When the gas stations close because everyone has an electric car, those impulse potato chip purchases won’t be made anymore. We’ll become a nation that only eats french fries and baked potatoes.”

Is this all fact? Absurd speculation? One thing’s for sure: it’s all just absurd speculation.

Justin Berkowitz
Justin Berkowitz

Immensely bored law student. I've also got 3 dogs.

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  • Nick Nick on Feb 08, 2010

    I wonder if anyone who visits here has first hand experience with the products of a certain tuner that promises 1000+ hp Challengers, Camaros, and CTS-Vs, and 2000 hp Vipers. Or more precisely how long they run before parts go flying through the oil pan and/or the hood. Call me skeptical.

  • Panzerfaust Panzerfaust on Feb 08, 2010

    Yeah, I mean what the 'f' does Ferrari know anyway? The Philistines!

  • Jeff JMII--If I did not get my Maverick my next choice was a Santa Cruz. They are different but then they are both compact pickups the only real compact pickups on the market. I am glad to hear that the Santa Cruz will have knobs and buttons on it for 2025 it would be good if they offered a hybrid as well. When I looked at both trucks it was less about brand loyalty and more about price, size, and features. I have owned 2 gm made trucks in the past and liked both but gm does not make a true compact truck and neither does Ram, Toyota, or Nissan. The Maverick was the only Ford product that I wanted. If I wanted a larger truck I would have kept either my 99 S-10 extended cab with a 2.2 I-4 5 speed or my 08 Isuzu I-370 4 x 4 with the 3.7 I-5, tow package, heated leather seats, and other niceties and it road like a luxury vehicle. I believe the demand is there for other manufacturers to make compact pickups. The proposed hybrid Toyota Stout would be a great truck. Subaru has experience making small trucks and they could make a very competitive compact truck and Subaru has a great all wheel drive system. Chevy has a great compact pickup offered in South America called the Montana which gm could be made in North America and offered in the US and Canada. Ram has a great little compact truck offered in South America as well.
  • Groza George I don’t care about GM’s anything. They have not had anything of interest or of reasonable quality in a generation and now solely stay on business to provide UAW retirement while they slowly move production to Mexico.
  • Arthur Dailey We have a lease coming due in October and no intention of buying the vehicle when the lease is up.Trying to decide on a replacement vehicle our preferences are the Maverick, Subaru Forester and Mazda CX-5 or CX-30.Unfortunately both the Maverick and Subaru are thin on the ground. Would prefer a Maverick with the hybrid, but the wife has 2 'must haves' those being heated seats and blind spot monitoring. That requires a factory order on the Maverick bringing Canadian price in the mid $40k range, and a delivery time of TBD. For the Subaru it looks like we would have to go up 2 trim levels to get those and that also puts it into the mid $40k range.Therefore are contemplating take another 2 or 3 year lease. Hoping that vehicle supply and prices stabilize and purchasing a hybrid or electric when that lease expires. By then we will both be retired, so that vehicle could be a 'forever car'. And an increased 'carbon tax' just kicked in this week in most of Canada. Prices are currently $1.72 per litre. Which according to my rough calculations is approximately $5.00 per gallon in US currency.Any recommendations would be welcomed.
  • Eric Wait! They're moving? Mexico??!!
  • GrumpyOldMan All modern road vehicles have tachometers in RPM X 1000. I've often wondered if that is a nanny-state regulation to prevent drivers from confusing it with the speedometer. If so, the Ford retro gauges would appear to be illegal.
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