02 Yamaha V-star Custom Xvs650 Front Seat on 2040-parts.com

VW Touareg R-Line arrives & Volkswagen cut price of VW CC

Volkswagen has launched the Touareg R-Line in the UK with sporty looks and extra equipment,  and cut the price of the VW CC. A lot of VW’s SUVs – big and small – do conspire to look a bit bland in standard guise, so to give sales a bit of a boost VW is busy rolling out the R-Line option to tart up their cars a bit. Latest to arrive is the VW Touareg R-Line – Volkswagen’s biggest SUV – which gets the full R-Line makeover with a sporty take on the Touareg’s look by adding new butch bumpers and side skirts, the addition of a set of 20″ Tarragona alloys, R-Line badges – inside and out – and panoramic roof.

Hamana, hamana, hamana… SOLD!

The first thing that hits you driving over the hundreds of miles of desert on the way to see the monster Scottsdale classic and collector car auctions every January is the HUGE number of motor homes scattered willy nilly all across the sand and rocks like dice. Every winter Arizona sprouts fields of Winnebegos and Hitchhiker IIs like big, rectangular wildflowers, only less pretty (Not counting the requisite lion and dolphin murals airbrushed on the backs, what are those about, anyway?). Can snowy winters in Saskatchewan really be that bad?

CES: Cranking up Harman's QuantumLogic 3D surround-sound system

Yesterday we reported how Audi was readying a lavish 3D sound experience with 23 speakers and 1,400 watts of goosebump-inducing audio power. Not to be outdone, Harman had been quietly developing a system of its own: Quantum Logic 3D brings together 25 speakers and more than 2,000 watts of Tubthumping power to a new car near you, like driving inside Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. Sitting inside the demonstration BMW 7-Series that Harman painstakingly lifted into the Studio at the Palms, Global Audio Engineering vice president Phil Muzio explained, "great music is delivered in stereo, yet our consumer research indicates that people enjoy surround sound." QuantumLogic 3D's surround sound expands beyond the boundaries of the vehicle's cabin, providing "a sense of detail and spatial placement that you don't get in stereo." Five height component speakers mounted in the corners of the headliner, and above the rearview mirror, elevates audio beyond the confines of the roof, "almost like you're in a convertible," said Muzio.