By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Jonathan is building his ’93 Camry to resemble a BTCC Super Touring car, yet still keep it streetable. Check out his ride page!

By Alex Vickers

Katakuna

I’ve been on CarDomain for nearly two years now, and in that time I’ve seen some of the most amazing custom cars you can imagine. Camaros, Cobras, Vipers, Chevelles, Cadillacs, all of those you’d expect me to mention, right? Those kinds of cars are the kind you’re expected to fawn over at a show. Me, I love ‘em all, but deep inside is the feeling that the winter beaters we reserve for most of our abuse deserves more respect than any show car trailer queen.

With that said, some of us feel that some beaters are more fun to, well, beat on. They last through it all without a complaint, some need a fix here and there, and some just can’t handle our bad driving and completely drop an engine (for the record, that’s happened to me once). What I’ve done is compiled a list of five beaters that I’d love to have, for the simple purpose of running ‘em until they die:

1. 1992-1998 Geo Metro- 3 cylinder

When I first noticed these cars, I absolutely abhorred their weak engines and their odd styling. Over the last month they’ve grown on me, and now I realize the charm that these little runts have. It’s like it takes hold of your imagination. You hate it, but then again the utter joy of beating the piss out of it is equal to that of, say, a Porsche 911 Turbo at Laguna Seca? I can’t for the life of me think of a way to make it look cool, I do know that window tint would be in order for the simple fact that no matter how much fun it is to ride it like Fergie, it’s still embarrassing to be seen in one. After all, not everyone will see it my way, which, in my opinion, is just another reason that I enjoy them.

Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "I Want These Four Beaters" »

By Alex Vickers

Katakuna

Wire wheel covers: check. Colored tape on the headlights: check. Mass amounts of chrome trim: check. Fake triple side-exit exhaust: check.

I swear this guy isn’t even a teenager. The owner is almost eighty years old and is retired. At least it sounds good, even great. But still… More pics after the jump!

Continue reading "Ugliest Camry Ever" »

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Truth About Cars writer Paul Niedermeyer rented a new 2.7 liter Charger along with a high mileage ’93 V6 Camry on a recent trip to Hawaii, and followed up with a review comparing the two cars. If you’ve ever read The Truth About Cars it probably won’t come as a huge surprise that he preferred the Toyota. Now, I’ve never driven a 90s Camry. I’ve also never driven the 2.7 liter Charger, but I rented the 3.5 liter Charger SXT for a week in the SF Bay Area and thought it was great daily driver and family hauler. Of course the 2.7 liter Charger is going to be slow, but it gets better gas mileage than the old V6 Camry (18/26 mpg vs. 16/22 mpg). The Charger is also RWD, roomier, has a bigger trunk, and it’s MUCH safer (though this isn’t a huge issue in Hawaii, where no one drives faster than 35 mph). I agree that Dodge probably does a disservice to everyone by offering the 2.7 in the Charger (then again, they offered a fairly wimpy 318 in the original, too). But Paul didn’t seem to like anything about the Charger. He complained about the quality of the interior materials and ridiculed the outward vision. Mostly, though, it seemed like Paul was embarrassed by the Charger. And whose fault is that?

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Ok, so a lot of you guys don’t care about hybrids or anything “green.” I get it. Still, the Fusion hybrid beat the Camry hybrid by a very healthy margin in last week’s Showroom Showdown. We’re gonna skip Showroom Showdown this week and then come back with some real gas guzzlers next week.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Last week the guys at Jalopnik posted some truly impressive mileage numbers with the new Ford Fusion hybrid. They admitted the next day that they were doing some serious hypermilingwith the thing. Still, the Fusion hybrid is looking like it might be fairly serious competition for the Camry hybrid. Both are priced right around $27k. So, which would you choose?

Check out the hot set of rims that KCR’s otherwise sleeper-looking Camry is rollin’ on. I’m not usually into this sort of thing, but KCR’s 7-color LCD lighting setup is oh-so-much more tasteful than those LED-screen rims with the goofy commercials, and it has earned him the top spot for custom lighting on CarDomain! KCR has since gotten some black aftermarket rims to show off his lighting with, but I think I almost like the polished factory wheels better, because of the way they reflect the colored light. Which set do you like best?

We all know that old-school Camries are rugged little cars. But wait’ll you get a load of this 4wd Camry ripping it up in the woods! What makes it even funnier is that the stock-looking Jeep Cherokee in the background looks totally tame by comparisson.

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.

If you do one thing on a road trip, you should visit a factory, and the coolest factories in America make cars. On my recent road trip vacation from Detroit to Savannah, GA and back, we stopped in Georgetown, KY to visit the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky plant (TMMK). TMMK is home to the largest Toyota plant in North America and produces the Camry, the Camry Solara, the Camry Solara Convertible, and the Avalon. It’s a fully integrated plant, meaning they not only assemble the cars there, but also make stampings and engines and plastics, too. The free tour included a short video presentation on working at the plant and a nearly hour-long tram ride right on the assembly lines. You’re within 20 feet of the conveyor for most of the ride–about as good of a view as you can get at any plant in the US. The visitors center includes several car cutaways, a Toyota merchandise shop, and displays on the history of Toyota. They don’t allow cameras past the front door, so this is the only shot I have! Have you been to an assembly plant? Tell us about it!