Car Throttle

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

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

The yearly SEMA (Special Equipment Manufacturers Association) show happens in Las Vegas.  That's enough reason to want to go to it.  But more than the exotic locale (way better than, err, Detroit), SEMA is a hotbed of aftermarket parts.  If you're inclined to think this is a no-big-deal sort of affair, that's not the case.  The SEMA show attracts so much attention that manufacturers themselves have been getting into the SEMA game for a few years now, whether directly or through various 3rd party companies.

There are so many "new car" debuts prior to SEMA that I would literally flood your RSS feed with them.  I don't want to do that.  Plus, I can't write an entire article about a Chevy Sonic

The Honda CR-Z has a lot of potential.  It's really a neat little car.  I drove one a while back, and there's a lot to like about it.  It's got a well-appointed, comfortable and high-tech interior.  It's light, and it handles pretty well.  Fuel economy is decent, and in sport mode the IMA battery assist gives you a useful thump of torque.  But frankly, for those expecting a CRX Si, it's a massively disappointing car.  I mean, here's this sporty looking low-slung hatchback with a racy interior, and it has less power than a lot of garden tractors.  It's terribly slow, and after a while the game of "how many corners can I take at wide-open throttle?" becomes boring.  Adnan drove one too,

So my big question is this: what do we call it?  The original VW (in the '30's) was eventually called the Beetle.  The one that came out in 1998 based on the MkIV Golf was the New Beetle.  So wouldn't this be the New (New) Beetle?  And here you get to a simplified version of the problem VW faced with the really new Beetle: how do you update a car that's retro in the first place? While Ford's answer with the Mustang is basically "new grille and tail lights," Volkswagen has reimagined the entire Beetle - so even though it's remarkably similar looking on the outside (you won't mistake it for anything else), it takes about 10 feet behind the wheel of a 2012 to tell

I'm a big fan of comparisons.  Let me make one real quick: a Camry is to cars, what KFC is to Chicken.  As a society that accepts "good enough" as good enough, America loves the Camry.  There's not a whole lot to actually love about the Camry, but it's quiet, comfortable, and has good resale value.  And Toyota says it's reliable, when it's not experiencing demonic acceleration influence and catapulting you into your neighbor's hedge. The Camry is the unflavored ramen noodles of cars.  It's boring, and it's meant to be boring.  The less people you can offend, the larger a demographic your product appeals to.  So how do you make a Camry that fuel-in-their-veins car enthusiasts would like? Well, you give it 728 horsepower.  At

Some manufacturers would choose to space their introductions of performance cars out a bit.  Maybe one or two at Frankfurt, and another at Detroit.  Not Audi - they're bringing four all-new S models to the Frankfurt show this fall: the S6, S6 Avant, S7 Sportback, and the S8. The big trend with performance cars is obviously engine downsizing.  The BMW M5 went from 5.0L and ten cylinders to 4.4L and eight (gaining two turbos and 60 horsepower or so in the process.)  Mercedes' AMG Division has shrunken their thundering 6.2L V8 down to 5.5L, but added twin turbochargers.  The new Focus ST is dropping a cylinder and gaining direct injection for more power.  This comes from a seemingly contradictory pair of needs: meeting rising fuel economy

The Ariel Atom is already the purest distillation of a sports car you can get your hands on in the US.  I suppose with the exception of the kit-form-only Cateram 7 and the soon-to-be-imported KTM X-Bow, anyway.  It doesn't even have body panels.  It looks like an alien probing device with an engine, wheels, and a license plate. A regular Ariel Atom weighs in at 1,350lbs(!) and the weakest engine is a Honda K20 drive-by-wire motor out of the RSX Type-S, an aluminum 2.0L 16v motor with VTEC, 200bhp, and an 8,000+rpm redline.  There's also the option of a tweaked naturally aspirated 245bhp K20, and a supercharged 300 horsepower K20.  300 horsepower in a "normal" car is pretty intense.  300bhp in a 1,350lb car gives it a

Times are tough.  Credit used to flow like water, getting a job after securing a bachelor's degree in English was a sure thing, and the world was a lot easier place to live in.  Not so any more: those who once figured "Hell, I have a job and a pulse, I can get a new car" are now realizing that no, they can't.  They don't have a credit score of 700 and a 10,000 down payment sitting around.  What's a car enthusiast to do? If you're handy with wrenches and know a fuel injector from an EGR valve, you don't have to plunk down 40 grand for a car that will both plaster a smile on your face 95% of the time and not leave you

I always make it out to Raleigh's Cars & Coffee event the first Saturday of every month. It's always worth it, even though I abhor waking up early, because there's always awesome stuff to see.  A lot of the same cars show up, so I won't show pictures of stuff you've already seen - for those you can check previous Cars & Coffee coverage here, here, and here. For starters, here is one of 337 Porsche 959's ever built, which was Porsche's rolling technical showcase that blew everything else out of the water in the 1980's, and set the standard for supercar performance.  None were ever imported to the US; it's likely this one has been fitted with the Canepa Design engine