Car Throttle

If you've been following some of the car shows I attend, you'll notice a recurring trend: cars so low, with so much wheel and so much camber and so little ground clearance, posing as race cars.  I'm not sure if this has caught on in every area of the world, but here in the 'States the "stance" movement is huge.  I personally am more about functionality than form - I would go nuts if my car scraped constantly - but even I'll admit that it's a great look. Still, I wanted to wrap my head around this stance thing a bit better, so a feature was in order.  Thankfully I've got a friend who's well versed in the "low life," David Whitley.  His '03 350Z

42 degrees, overcast, with a chance of rain and some mud: not ideal conditions for a stance society meet, ever, really.  Still, the turnout for Eurowise's meet on this frigid January day was great.  Sponsors included Wrong Fitment Crew, Stance Society, ISO, Hoodstatus, and others.  There was everything from slammed hoopty Hondas to a pair of nearly matching late-model NSX's to drool over.  Check out some of the great stuff from the show, with a more complete gallery below. A Subaru STI tucking tires is odd, considering the rally-bred background, but that doesn't mean it can't look good.  White makes the gnarly Scooby seem almost classy; the huge scoop and wing negate most of that seriousness.  Dig the hood pins. Almost 20 years on, Supras

The latest high-tech Supercar has all the numbers.  800 horsepower.  0-60 in 3.1 seconds.  A 7.0L engine, all wheel drive, and 15.1" Brembo 6-piston brakes up front.  Thing is, it's not some low-slung 2-seater styled by Pininfarina.  It's a Jeep Grand Cherokee - with a few modifications by Hennessey Performance Engineering (HPE.) Called the HPE800, it's based on the new-shape Grand Cherokee SRT8.  The new SRT is a pretty badass vehicle by itself: a 6.4L V8 with 465 horsepower, 0-60 in under 5 seconds, variable dampers and huge brakes, it's a remarkably well-rounded package - except for the gas mileage.  But if you're buying an SRT-8 for gas mileage, you're probably confused. Hennessey's engineers start by boring the block from 6.4L (392ci) to 7.0L (426ci.)  Then they

The 'Brains from Bradford' have done it again. Not content with the standard styling of the Range Rover Evoque which went into production in July of this year, A. Kahn Design have come up with their own take on the 3 or 5 door compact crossover SUV and boy does it look good. Famously designed with the help of British fashion icon, Victoria Beckham, the first thing noticeable on this fresh-faced Evoque is the fact that it has been lowered by 35mm, presumably to add to its sporty look. And with over 90% of Evoque buyers new to the Range Rover brand, touches like this will I'm sure convince the masses that Range Rover aren't all huff, puff and muscle, but that they can be sleek

A phrase I'm sure you're tired of hearing: "Hyundai's on a roll!"  Of course they are.  Sales are up.  Residuals are up.  They're making cars that people want because they're nice, not because they're 10% cheaper and 50% better warrantied.  And now that Hyundai's gone past cheap, they're going for exciting.  Sort of.

The big thing for Hyundai is the Veloster.  So big in fact, they brought six of them.  But more interesting to me than the front-drive, Accent-based Veloster is the Genesis Coupe Hurricane SC concept.

The big news is the supercharger, if you missed it.  The Magnuson blower sits to the side of Hyundai's 3.8L 24v V8, breathing 6-7psi of boost through an air-to-water intercooler on

Finally.  This was bound to happen.  Hyundai sells two cars called Genesis - the sedan and the coupe.  And while they're somewhat related, they're more different than similar under the skin.  So while the sedate (albeit good-looking, well-equipped, and well-priced) Genesis sedan and the related Equus uberlux liner enjoy the silent thunder of Hyundai's 4.6L and 5.0L 32v Tau V8, the company line is that all that quad-cam V8 goodness just doesn't fit under the hood of the smaller coupe.

This is a bummer.  The Genesis goes up against cars like the Mustang, Camaro and Challenger - all of which offer gigantic V8's with north of 400bhp - and some north of 500bhp - as upper level options.  The Hyundai Genesis

Pardon the overused meme.  It's nice to see Honda focusing on their new Civic Si for SEMA, rather than - oh, I don't know, Elements outfitted for dogs.  They brought a wide array of the new 2.4L powered Si's to SEMA this year, ranging from mild (the HFP package) to wild (the 450-horsepower Fox Marketing turbocharged one I showed you earlier.)  They also brought along a supercharged V6 Accord Coupe, just because.

The Tjin Edition Civic Si Sedan (Above, left) is interesting.  Most notable are the 19" Rotiform BLQ Concave wheels, in orange on the driver's side and purple on the passenger.  Why?  Don't know.  Rotiform is quickly becoming a standard go-to wheel choice for the stance crowd, so

Kia has a sports theme going on with their SEMA cars.  Well that, and race cars.  I showed you the Rio Surf concept and the Forte Hockey concept in the first preview post, and there's also a basketball-themed Optima and a Golf-themed Soul.

Of all the sports-themed Kias, the "Slam Dunk" Blake Griffin Optima Hybrid (pictured top) is... the weirdest.  Blake Griffin has been bouncing around (pun intended) in Kia ads for a bit now, so the tie-in isn't surprising.  Most obvious on this Hybrid Optima would be the basketball-looking paint job, although it strikes me as looking a bit like snake skin.  The custom paint was done by West Coast Customs, and a set of 20" matte black wheels spruce

You gotta love Mazda.  While some of their national competitors are chasing the big bucks with boring mainstream transportation appliances, Mazda still retains a bit of their whacky engineering hot-rod charm.  Want proof?  the Mazda2 Turbo that they're showing at SEMA this year.

As I guessed yesterday, the Mazda2 Turbo is powered by the engine from the MazdaSpeed (MPS) 3 - the 2.3L DISI-Turbo.  This engine, with 263 horsepower and 280lb-ft of torque, is a monster in the 3,000+lb MS3.  While the standard Mazda2 is a fun steer, consider this: dropping in the 2.3 DISI is an increase of 163 horsepower and 182 lb-ft of torque.  That's a 2.63x increase in horsepower.  This is why I love Mazda.  The normal top-mount

Here's Part II of the SEMA Preview coverage.  Alternative title: Turbos, widebodies, big brakes and roll bars, oh my!  In the previous post I covered GM, Mopar, Mazda, and Hyundai.  Now we're moving on to Toyota.

Toyota, Lexus, and Scion have always had a strong presence at SEMA. This year will be no different, with all three divisions bringing concept cars in a futile attempt to convince us the brand is still interesting. Toyota's "big announcement" was the introduction of the F-Sport package for the new-generation Lexus GS350 sedan, which makes the car better looking (negotiable) but not any faster. The exterior gets 19" alloy wheels with 235/40/19 tires (RWD F-sports get 265/35/19 rears, AWD's are square), a more aggressive front