By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Today’s pic is from Mario’s Nissan Altima ride page!

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Here’s our ninth DUB contest finalist, a Nissan Altima from Santa Anna, California. Nice work, Rod! We’ll announce our tenth and last finalist tomorrow, and then let you guys start voting on Friday.

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy—whew, say that three times fast!—just released a list of the greenest and meanest cars in America, and on the green side, Toyota’s Prius came up a big, fat loser. Sorry. It actually came in second, behind Honda’s greener-than-Kermit-the-Frog-on-a-lilly pad Civic GX, which runs on compressed air. As expected, small cars and hybrids make up the remainder of the green list, and also as expected, the rides on the mean list look way, way more fun. The VW Tourage—with the CFC-belching diesel V10—took the top "honors," while dream machines like Bugatti’s Veyron and Lamborghini’s Murcielago came in at numbers two and six, respectively. Of course, neither one of those models probably sees 1/10 the annual miles a Ford Focus—number nine on the green list—does, so in reality, they probably pollute a lot less. But whatever, check out the full breakdown over at Wired.

Ever wonder what life would be like without music? I’ve wondered it, but I don’t think I’d ever want to experience it. Music is one of the reasons I got into the Mobile Electronics industry. The gadgets and the cool devices that help make the music in my car and life are only secondary, but they make my job and hobby that much more exciting. I know nothing really beats the sound of a finely tuned engine, but nothing compliments it better than a finely tuned car stereo system. And if I couldn’t listen to music, well, then I guess I’d just hop over to SoundDomain and catch up on the news!

• High-end home audio manufacturer Naim has announced it will provide the audio systems for future Bentley vehicles. Produced under the moniker "naim for Bentley", the system will belt out 1100 watts of pure audiophile power to 15 speakers. How much does the Naim system add to the bottom line of a Bentley? Well, as the saying goes – if you have to ask….
• If you’ve got an old school muscle car or classic cruiser in your garage and you’ve considered upgrading the radio and audio system, your options are pretty slim. Fortunately there are companies like RetroSound that offer the latest technology in a radio package designed to look factory in your retro-rod. USB, MP3, CD Changer controls, multi-color LCD… Get all the modern luxuries in a classic package.
• Blast from the past… Back in the good ‘ol days of Car Audio, Alpine and the Lambo Countach were one of the most recognized symbols in the industry (Alpine still is for that matter). I was digging around the net and stumbled on some oldie-but-goodie shots of this classic car stereo icon.
• Our man "Crazy Like a" Brian Fox is at it again… This time he’s creating a work of art to be showcased at Nissan’s booth at the New York International Auto Show this March. His new project is another Nissan Altima Coupe that will sport the new Fox Marketing 6-piece body kit, 19" Work wheels, and a bad-ass Rockford Fosgate stereo system.

I just tallied up the votes in our latest showroom showdown, which had over 100 comments. By my count, each car ended up with forty votes. Time to call in the super delegates!

What cars do you want to see in this week’s showroom showdown?

The two hot import FWD V6 coupes for 2008 are the Honda Accord Coupe and the Nissan Altima Coupe. There were nice examples of each at SEMA–Honda brought this Accord, and Brian Fox brought this Altima. So, which would you choose?

I didn’t mange to make it over to the Nissan booth at SEMA, which as usual was over in the back corner of the South Hall. But Brian had his awesome turbo Altima Coupe parked there, and it looked hot. Luckily he has a bunch of pics and specs on his ride page. Larry also got some shots of the car in the Nissan booth. I just wish Nissan had made this one RWD. I guess we’ll have to wait for the Silvia in 2010.