04-05 Nissan Infiniti G35 350z Quest Interior Rear View Mirror 015633 W/homelink on 2040-parts.com

Vauxhall Ampera & Chevy Volt win European Car of the Year 2012. Are they mad?

Vauxhall Ampera - European Car of the Year 2012 The Vauxhall / Opel Ampera (& the Chevy Volt) has won the European Car of the year 2012. Which seems completely stupid. Last year we had a car that almost no one is buying – the Nissan LEAF – voted Car of the Year.

Volkswagen Woofwagen – There’s a dog for every VW (video)

There’s a dog for every Volkswagen Instead of focusing on marketing just one car in its enormous range, Volkswagen UK has decided to go mad and produce one video advert for its entire line-up. Sensibly, VW has used a simple mechanism to make sure the advert gets the attention of British car buyers by using 36 different dogs to identify with the over 20 car VW model range (and it’s not the first time VW has used a lot of dogs to promote their cars). With getting on for half of all UK households owning at least one dog, it’s a simple way to get attention from viewers along with lots of ‘Aaahs’ and ‘that one looks just like ours’ to keep attention to the end of the sales pitch.

Travis Pastrana canes the Global RallyCross Dodge Dart: Video

While Erik Carlsson showed the world that lunacy had an appropriate place in rallying—they didn't call him "Carlsson on the Roof" for nothing—it took Ken Block's marketing savvy and the paste-it-anywhere-and-watch ubiquity of YouTube to get a broad swath of American kids amped on the antic fun that can be had with an all-terrain compact car. In a bid to get that same group excited about the new Dodge Dart, Chrysler enlisted Travis Pastrana to pilot its Global RallyCross entry. And in a sort of low-budget, less-elaborate version of Block's wacky-upon-zany Gymkhana videos, Pastrana puts the Dart through its paces, losing the passenger-side rear corner of the bodywork in the process.