1969 440 M Code Cuda Ad Article on 2040-parts.com

One Lap of the Web: Nine cars you'll drive in hell, airbag watermelon destruction and luxury, Soviet-style

-- After carefully weighing the options, Motor Authority has arrived at a list of the nine cars you'll drive in hell. The Aztek is an easy (if misunderstood) target, and the Renault Fuego makes sense on the basis of its name alone but there are a few unexpected additions, too -- like the Tesla Model S, which won't be easy to keep running because “… Hell is a lot like the San Francisco airport--roughly five thousand people and their 25,000 battery-powered devices, all fighting for a pull off Hell's only functional power outlet.” -- Don't ask us why, but we're fascinated with old Soviet steel, from the no-nonsense heavy duty trucks the crappy Cars of the People. The supposedly luxurious, Packard-inspired Chaika M-13 limousine sits somewhere between the two, and you can read a Special Interest Auto article on the car at Hemmings.

Ford, Hyundai, Toyota lead industry to 15 percent gain

Ford, Toyota, Subaru and Hyundai Group spurred a year-end U.S. sales rally that took some sting out of a painful year. Overall, December sales of 1,030,096 light vehicles rose 15 percent from December 2008, when the credit crisis and a deepening recession dragged industry demand to 27-year lows.

Car makers to be forced to disclaim ‘Official’ economy figures

We’ve banged on for a long time about the futility of official economy figures, especially as car makers get better and better at ‘gaming’ the official economy tests to produce the results they want. Much of the impetus to create the best headline economy figure for a car is driven by taxation, with car makers well aware that the better the official economy results are, the lower their CO2 will be (CO2 isn’t tested for – it’s just extrapolated from the official mpg) and the more appealing the car will be to buyers, particularly fleet buyers. But a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) against Audi could at least see car makers having to admit in their adverts that the ‘official’ economy figure bears no relation to what owners can expect to achieve in the real world.