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

Right off the bat with that title, I'm lying.  The Chrysler 300 is the product of a company that's more than half-owned by an Italian company.  The point of final assembly is Brampton Ontario, Canada.  The engine's from Mexico, and the transmission is from ZF in Germany.  The rear suspension is based on an old E-Class Mercedes design, and actually only 59% of the Chrysler 300 is made of "domestic" parts: and for some reason Chrysler counts Canada as being domestic.  Want an American car?  Buy a Honda Accord. Still, this is an old and tired argument.  It's easy to poke fun at diehard domestic fans who trash talk the (built in Texas) Toyota Tundra for being Japanese (despite being designed and engineered largely in America,

It's either bizarre or sad, depending on how you look at it.  I'm talking about Lancia, of course.  Amidst the hubbub of the Fiat/Chrysler merger (or takeover, depending on your views), we've been hearing a lot about Chrysler, Dodge, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Ferrari, and the tech sharing that will occur between them. The 2013 Dodge Dart is an Alfa Romeo Guilietta underneath.  The Dodge Journey is making it's way over to Europe with Fiat engines (including diesels), new nose, and a slightly refined interior as the Fiat Freemont.  The Fiat brand has returned to the US after an almost 30-year absence, selling the 500. Supposedly the next-generation Viper will include some Ferrari technology mixed in with it's traditional big-block badassery.  The Ram brand will be

FINALLY.  The friggin' Buick Encore is here.  All my dreams and prayers have been answered, I'm so excited I can hardly...

...oh, sorry, got caught up in Auto Show mode there.  I'm just glad we don't have to deal with teaser images of a small SUV any more.  Look, I love auto show season.  Even after years of this, it still gets my blood going - who doesn't like seeing new stuff for the first time?  But not everything that comes out at the auto shows are worth an entire article.  Thus, Car Throttle News Bites: Detroit Auto Show Edition.  If you missed the earlier coverage, you can find it under the Detroit 2012 Category.

Speaking of that

I went to a junkyard yesterday in search of a few parts for my '97 3-series.  By this point, E36's are starting to pop up in junk yards with mechanical maladies or wreck damage, and the absolute cheapest way to get good parts is from a junk yard.  Sure, it's more of a hassle than finding the bit you need on eBay and clicking "buy it now" - you have to drive to the yard, pay a fee to get in, and find the kind of car you're looking for.  If it's got the part you want, most of the time you've gotta take it off yourself - unless it's already loose.

Turns out the only E36 there was a

Pictured: ZF's 8-speed Automatic for BMW's, about to be "old hat."

Luddite.  The term originated from England during the industrial revolution in the early 1800's.  Luddites went out at night, destroying wide-frame fabric looms that were taking away the jobs of skilled textile workers.  It was a man-against-machine revolution that got to the point of military intervention.  Technology was minimizing their usefulness in society, so the solution was to destroy the technology.  A noble fight, but today the term Luddite has been boiled down to mean someone not fond of technological advances. I am not a Luddite.  There's plenty of technology I'm fond of.  I like fuel injection.  I even like direct injection in some forms, particularly Toyota's D4S direct and port system.  Twin-clutch automated

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

Its September - hard to believe, the year has gone by quickly! For most, summer is over and we're heading back from vacations to work and school. The return also means the auto industry is set to get to business introducing new models and concepts. The Frankfurt Motor Show takes place this month and we've already seen significant launches from Audi with an S lineup of models along with Land Rover and the DC100 Concept. Now comes an official introduction for a model we've been expecting for a while; the Lancia Thema, a rebadged Chrysler 300. Fiat has taken to relaunching Lancia using rebadged Chrysler models. The decision to pair the two has resulted in the importation of the Town & Country along with the

2009 was a bad year for the once-famed Detroit giant, Chrysler. It managed to be saved from the clutches of extinction due to its partnership with Fiat and June 2011 saw the Italian manufacturer buy out the remaining US Treasury stake in the American icon. Introductions of important new models were delayed due to the company's cash crunch and bankruptcy. Throughout the process though, Chrysler's engineers were hard at work updating the lineup. Their efforts have brought a slew of new and redesigned vehicles like the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Dodge Magnum, Jeep Compass, Chrysler 200 and Chrysler 300. Chrysler is banking on the 200 to help it grow sales and market share until an all-new mid-size sedan arrives in a few years. When Chrysler rolled out its

We've already covered the new lineup of Chrysler's SRT-8 vehicles here on CarThrottle. The new Chrysler 300C SRT-8, Dodge Charger SRT-8, and the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT-8 all pack Mopar's trick new 6.4L Hemi, which manages to make more power and torque overall, significantly more torque at low RPM's, and much improved gas mileage over the old, smaller 6.1L Hemi.  We've gone over all the goodies they'll come packed with, how fast they'll be, all that - but how much will they cost? Chrysler dumped information on pricing for the new SRT-8 models today, and it's a surprisingly wide spread considering the mechanical similarity. The cheapest will be the Challenger SRT-8 2-door, with a base price of $44,070, although that doesn't include the