Car Throttle

To be totally honest, I'm more interested in Hybrid fuel economy than football.  Maybe there was something weird in the water where I grew up, or maybe I just agree with Ernest Hemmingway: "There are three real sports: mountain climbing, bull fighting, and car racing.  Everything else is just games." Regardless, I hard it find to fake enthusiasm for the Super Bowl.  This year some overpaid athletes in spandex played against some other overpaid athletes in Spandex for the title of something.  Yay.  But I don't need to fake my enthusiasm for the advertisements.  Manufacturers spend vast sums of money to get ads in the superbowl; it's the highest-viewed event every year in the US, but at $3.5M USD per 30-second spot, they try especially hard

We heard a while back that there’s a new Fiat Panda in town, but this...isn’t it. It may have a whiff of the old Panda about it, but it is in fact a new 500. Don’t worry, this isn’t a complete train wreck design update to the stylish and fun 500, but rather a bigger 500 for people who, well, are bigger. Or have a family. Called the 500L, with the ‘L’ standing for (surprise surprise) ‘Large’, it will be unveiled in Geneva in March ahead of its sales launch towards the end of 2012. You can see it isn’t the best looking car in the world, but then again it isn’t a Rover Metro so it’s not all bad. And when it arrives in the

We've known it was coming, but now we have all the details on the US-Spec Fiat 500 Abarth.  Following the regular 500 and the 500C quasi-convertible, the 500 Abarth packs more of everything:  power, grip, brakes, and attitude.  Here's what to expect. We've known the US Abarth would be getting the turbocharged 1.4L MultiAir I4, but we didn't know whether it would arrive in regular (135bhp) or EsseEsse trim (160bhp.)  Thankfully Fiat realized that we love power, so the turbocharged Italian will arrive in full-strength form, packing 160bhp and 170lb-ft of torque under the hood.  The Abarth version gets goodies like forged connecting rods, piston cooling jets, and lower-compression 9.8:1 pistons, down from 10.8:1 in the normal 500.  The small turbocharger breathes

I'm back in North Carolina now, where you can swing a dead cat without hitting a Bentley.  On one hand, it sucks.  I like seeing exotics constantly.  On the other, it's nice that exotics remain exotic. I walked around LA the whole time with my camera around my neck for you guys - so I'll continue now with day two and three of car spotting in LA.  Hope you enjoy it! Classic cars, especially older Japanese cars, seem to have a much longer shelf life in California's relatively mild, dry climate.  This 240Z would have a lot more rust bubbles over here in North Carolina.  I could do without the period window louvers, but YMMV. You could do worse for your commute than driving an

One of the stars of this year's Frankfurt Motor Show was the smallest car there, the Volkswagen Up. This is VW's latest city car replacing the old Fox and challenging rivals such as the Ford Ka, Fiat 500 and Citroen C1. The big news now though is that Volkswagen have made a GT version of the Up that promises to bring back the spirit of the Mk 1 Golf GTI, a small, fast and cheap hot hatch. This little VW comes with wider front grille to help more air get to the engine which promises to produce around 100bhp. Attached to each side of the wider front grille are cooling ducts which have the job of keeping the brakes chilled and also house the LED daytime

Do you want a retro-styled hatchback with some turbo thrust, but the idea of a Cooper S makes you uncomfortable?  Well, if you're in the US, you'll finally have a choice early next year.  Fiat released two images of the US-specification Fiat 500 Abarth today ahead of the car's official debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November.  If you're familiar with Fiat's European lineup, this won't be a surprise.  If you're a fan of the 500 in the US (such as myself) but were waiting for one with more power, the wait is nearly over. The Abarth show car Fiat is sending over is black.  Very black.  Black paint, black wheels, black tint - oh, and red racing stripes and mirror caps.  It turns

I liked the Fiat 500 Sport quite a bit.  And that was with 101bhp.  It's a fun little car, with Italian flare, enough cute to make a Mini puke, and a fun little chassis that likes the curves.  How much more fun would the 500 be with oh, say, triple the horsepower?  I'd bet a lot.  I want to drive one. This is the Fiat 500 Abarth Stradale, built by Romeo Ferraris.  It's a road-legal version of their 360-horsepower Abarth race car, complete with a carbon-fiber widebody kit that gives it a striking resemblence to everyone's favorite Sith Lord. While the Abarth race car makes a ridiculous 360bhp from 1.4L, it's toned down a bit for the road going version - with 300bhp.  Romeo

I tested a Fiat 500 Sport about a month ago, and with a few reservations, I loved it.  Cute, characterful, fun to drive, well-equipped, efficient, reasonably priced; I've been extolling it's virtues to everyone that'll listen since then.  Fiat's only been back in the US now for a matter of months, but they've already added a second model to their lineup: the 500C.  As the name would suggest, it's a convertible - sort of.  So what's different?  How does it work?  And how does it compare to the 500 hard-top?   Read on to find out. The biggest difference between the 500 and the 500C is obviously the roof.  While a normal 500 has a metal roof and a hatchback, think of the 500C as having

Y'know, I really like the Fiat 500. It's cuter than Alyson Hannigan, it sips fuel at a glacial rate, and it's a lot of fun to toss around back roads.  It's also reasonably priced, well equipped, and has a lot of character.  What it doesn't have: an engine behind the rear seat, powering the rear wheels, allowing you to drift it like some sort of Italian Camaro.  While I never really thought this was an issue when I reviewed it, Motore Centrale in Monza, Italy decided that was the way it should be, and went about rectifying the situation. What they wound up with was this: the Motore Centrale R230 Stradale.  It still uses the Abarth-fettled 1.4L Multiair Turbo engine, only... well, it's sitting

Ok, let's get one thing out of the way first: the Fiat 500, by American standards, is small. Very small, in fact.  The only shorter vehicle on sale here is the Smart ForTwo, which isn't actually a real car.  The US-spec 500 is 6 inches shorter than a standard Mini, 2.2 inches narrower, 3.2" taller, and the wheelbase is 6.5" shorter.  These dimensions are hard to wrap your head around for Americans; we're just not used to cars this small.  Which might be why the Smart has sold so poorly here (or because it tops out at 90mph, has the directional stability of a Chihuahua on Red Bull, has no cruise control, and takes 14.5 seconds to hit sixty.)  Just the sight of a car