Car Throttle

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

Ford's new 5.0L "Coyote" V8 is a potent motor. My short time behind the wheel of a 2012 Mustang GT left me with surprisingly little negative to say about the Mustang itself, and a mix of shock and admiration for the new 32v quad-cam V8.  It's such a quantum leap forward for Ford's pony car that you're left sort of wondering what planet it came from. An engine this good does a 3,600lb Mustang wonders.  So there's no doubt shoehorning it into other places will work wonders, too.  How about under the hood of a brand-new Ford Ranger pickup truck? This 2011 Ranger was brought to Blow-By Racing in Delray, FL for an infusion of a little more power.  Out went the old 4.0L Cologne V6,

Ford's iconic Mustang musclecar got a significant revamp for 2010, and a pair of new engines for 2011. While the 2005+ Mustangs have always been pretty nice cars with a decent amount of punch, for a while they were playing for customers without any real competition.  With the introduction of the Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger, Ford needed to up the ante: the 315bhp GT just didn't have much to say against the 426-bhp Camaro SS. The battle-tested 4.6L "modular" V8, which powered Mustang GT's from 1996-2010 has finally been retired, and replaced by a thoroughly modern V8.  The return of those oh-so-familiar 5.0 badges to the flanks of the Mustangs mean a nearly 100-horsepower bump over last year's model, but don't be fooled into thinking

Hyundai's Genesis Sedan was a complete surprise when it debuted in 2008. No one was really expecting Hyundai, of all brands, to come out with a full-size, rear-wheel drive pseudo-luxury sedan.  Even fewer people were expecting it to be as good as it was, either - it was more than a match for luxury-biased mid-sizers like the Lexus GS, Acura TL, Chrysler 300C, etc. But even with a really good product, it's basically market suicide to leave it untouched on the market for a few years as the competition gets better.  So Hyundai has made some changes and updates to their now 2nd-tier luxury sedan (since they started selling the LS460-sized Equus in the US.) The biggest changes occur under the skin.  All the Genesis sedan

One thing the world has no shortage of is limited-edition Mustangs. I'm not sure they make numbers high enough to count how many "special" Mustangs there have been over the years, but it's somewhere between "A gazillion" and "X, where X=enough+1."  What's a shame is that most of them are nothing more than silly tape-and-stickers packages.  GT/California Special?  Vinyl decals and some nice wheels.  Shelby GT?  Loud exhaust, filter-on-a-stick, a $10,000 Shelby badge and some chrome hood pins.  Bullitt?  A Mustang GT with less of the tacky Mustang GT stuff stuck on it.  Just fabricated specialness that any gearhead can see through at first glance. So when rumors started circulating that Ford would be bringing back the "Boss" Mustang moniker, I didn't get my hopes up. 

2010 is undoubtedly the year of eco-consciousness among automotive companies. I mean, there have been some exciting gas-guzzling debuts (hello, Audi R8 V10 Spider, 2011 Mustang GT500, and Ferrari 458 Italia!) but for the most part the focus of the industry has been on boring things, like diesels and hybrids and, god forbid, diesel-hybrids.  Still, there's a whole heap of fresh metal coming out this year, and there's quite a bit to be excited about.  What upcoming cars are you the most stoked to get your greasy little paws on in 2010? For me, it's a pretty long list.  And atop it is Honda's polarizing CR-Z.  While "Hybrid" and "Sports Coupe" seem to go together like peanut butter and salmon, it's an intriguing concept to me

Hey, do you remember that one special edition Mustang? You know, the one with the vinyl stripes and stickers and the loud exhaust that was really rare? ...yeah, that doesn't narrow it down.  I know, I know, they all look the same.  But ol' Carroll himself picked this year's Barrett-Jackson auction as the place to debut his latest tape-and-stickers-and-go-faster-goodies Mustang special, and it actually seems like it's gonna rock.  Called the GT350 (original!), it's a faster and harder version of the 2011 Mustang GT, retuned for a little more face-punching power and grip. Starting with the brand new 5.0L Ti-VCT 32v V8, Shelby decided that 412bhp wasn't enough, and the GT350 is fitted with a Ford Racing supercharger setup, with a claimed output of 500+bhp.  This is

Soon, you will once again be able to non-ironically blast Vanilla Ice from a Mustang. OK, perhaps not - but come 2011, the faux-rapper's words (in case you're confused, they're "'Rollin' in my 5.0, with my ragtop down so my hair can blow..."  now do you remember?) will once again ring true. That's right, as you've probably heard, the Five-Point-Oh will once again reside under the hood of the Mustang.  Only this time around, if you do the math properly, it actually is a 5.0!  The initial details of the new motor leaked out last week; the basic goods were a 5.0L V8 with 412bhp and 390lb-ft of torque.  Today, Ford released the full monty press release on the 5.0, and at least on paper it sounds