Jun
03
There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip. Detroit has traditionally dangled tantalizing show cars in front of the public, only to deliver watered-down versions to showrooms. But Chrysler, in its renaissance of the ‘90s, rewrote the rulebook, delivering some production cars almost unchanged from the prototypes, including the Prowler and the Viper. The Chrysler Crossfire—first shown at the Detroit auto show in 2001—is as faithful a translation from concept to production as any in recent memory. The design concept was the work of 25- year-old Eric Stoddard, a wunderkind who has since been hired away by Hyundai. Read more…
What is smaller than a GMC Envoy, weighs more than a Chevy Tahoe, and gets the same fuel economy as a ford F-150 4×4? Answer: a Volkswagen Touareg. At 5580 pounds, this thing doesn’t need a diet, it need s liposuction to remove at least 1000 pounds of excess weight. Maybe the engineers need to start using the “lite” version of their design software. What’s next—a three-ton passat with duilies? It’s time to alert the FDA: The obesity problem in this country is worse than we thought! 
I have a fantasy going here. It starts with a Mercury Marauder, a cop car in Saturday-night duds, all black, wearing just a touch of jewelry around the side windows. This thing moves like a fullback earning fun money as a bouncer at Hooters. Leg into the four-cam V-8, and a happy howl comes out, I remember the days when big Detroit could outrun and out swagger anything the foreigners could throw at us, and this 4300-pound jock takes me back to them. I’m thoroughly amused. Even the driver seat works for me, something I haven’t said about a Ford in this millennium. 
