Car Throttle

What can you get these days for $30 grand and change?  Well, if you're a sensible sort of fellow, the kind that wears slacks and a white polo daily, you could get a really darn nice Honda Accord.  To be specific, $29,755 (plus destination fee and accessories, etc) will get you a 2012 Accord EX-L with Navigation.  It's got a 2.4L engine that makes some horsepower, leather seats, an electronic map to tell you where to go, and it will without a doubt run flawlessly with 0 issues for 10-15 years.  10-15 years of perfectly predictable, sedate, drama and fun-free motoring. Seriously!  These cars last forever.  An acquaintance of mine works as a service adviser at a Honda dealer, and they recently got a 2006 Accord

Take a bite... outta news!  I'm back again with today's News Bites, where I hand-feed you today's automotive this-and-that with a humorous spoon.  So what's news today? Cadillac's ATS has been circulating the rumor mill for a while now.  This small, rear-wheel-drive sedan is pitched directly against BMW's all-conquering 3-series and Audi's A4.  We've known a bit about it's underpinnings for a while now - it will sit on GM's new Alpha RWD chassis, which fits below the Zeta RWD chassis - G8, Camaro, CTS, etc.  GM announced what you'll find under the hood, and there's reason to get excited.  Not about the base model, which will be powered by a 2.5L I4 (likely the same one in the new Malibu, with 190bhp/180lb-ft).  No, the mid-level

Ahahaha, oh my. An "entry level" supercar - right, that makes sense.  It used to be there were sports cars that normal people could afford (Mustang, Corvette, Porsche 944, etc), and Supercars that only oil barons and filthy rich Enron executives could afford (F512M, Countach, Cizeta Moroder, EB110.)  As the industry moves along, though, we've actually developed upper and lower echelons of the supercar.  It's funny to think of something costing nearly a quarter-million dollars as being "entry level," but despite all the insanity of the Ferrari 458 Italia, it's not the craziest thing they make. There didn't used to be a lot of choice here, either - you could pretty much get an F355 or an Esprit, and a few others have crept in here

If you've been eyeing the Aston Martin Vantage, but find the regular V8 too pedestrian and the V12 too dear (perhaps not a likely situation), Aston Martin has finally rectified this problematic situation. The British supercar maker announced a new member of the small Vantage line today, which is poised to sit in between the V8 and V12 for performance and price.  Called the V8 Vantage S, it's a little bit harder, faster, sharper, and prettier than a V8 - but not quite as much as the spectacular V12. The changes are mostly mechanical, which is good - the Vantage is arguably one of the most gorgeous cars money can buy, so avoiding the whole gilding-the-lily syndrome is for the best.  The Vantage's 4.7L 32v

Test Vehicle: Aston Martin Vantage 4.7L V8 with 6-speed SpeedShift Auto Gearbox Pig ugly. What a horrible looking thing. What were they thinking? All things that you will never hear when talking about any Aston Martin. The V8 Vantage was introduced to the world in 2006 to partner the already achingly gorgeous DB9. It looks like a shrink wrapped version of the DB9 with the skin pulled even more tightly across the frame to give a more taut looking car. I don't know if it's better looking than the DB9, but it's certainly no worse looking. Then there's the DB9 convertible. I can't even talk about it. Its the most beautiful thing on 4 wheels in my opinion. The V8 I was going to drive was a gorgeous green metallic. I believe