Name pretty much says it all. More pics on Mike’s ride page!

Welcome back to the CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot, a regular feature which aims to expand the notion of what a muscle car is, and to think outside the box while doing so. It has been several weeks since the last Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot feature, and now that LeMons is done, I now have time to re-introduce you to some obscure Muscle you may have never thought of. This time I’ve uncovered a car based pickup, that could be ordered with a Special Performance package, that you could get with a 350, 396, or a 454 Cu In V8. No, it’s not the Chevrolet El Camino SS, but it’s corporate cousin, the GMC Sprint SP.

Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot: the 1971-72 GMC Sprint SP" »

Another small crossover SUV was introduced at the Buick/Pontiac/GMC press conference–the GMC Terrain. While it shares the platform with the Chevrolet Equinox, the sheetmetal is entirely different, with more upscale features that you expect from a more expensive Chevrolet. Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "NYIAS: The GMC Terrain" »

For you diehard Rock Band players out there, Chevrolet has your ultimate setup in the form of a totally tricked-out Silverado. This mobile Rock Band entertainment system features lifted suspension, four doors, a trusty 4WD system, and enough subwoofers to crack the moon. All of these features combined together will let anyone get their game on almost anywhere! 

Besides the amazing integration of the video game setup, there were some other interesting details such as the guitar neck shaped external mirrors, and copious use of police-style lighting throughout the entire truck. This interesting contribution to the show was a working proof of concept showing that you can truly take your Rock Band setup almost anyplace you like!

Continue reading "Do You Like Rock Band This Much?" »

So here we have my ‘93 GMC stepside 4×4 completely trapped in a giant snow bank. This was a Sunday afternoon bad idea that happened at the tail end of a boring weekend at college. We went out to some of the parking lots on campus that had large open areas and proceeded to go bombing through the snow. “We” was me and my roommate Pete, who, other than being a bad influence, was of no help mechanically or physically with, well, anything.

We blasted through larger and larger drifts until he got on my case about trying to make it over, or through, this massive snow bank. I got a huge head of steam, which was idiotic because I had no idea what was under the snow, and tried to use large amounts of wheel speed to claw through. It obviously didn’t work. Continue reading at Freiburger’s Junkyard

I don’t know what else to say… I really feel bad for anyone who messes with President Obama’s limousine.  There’s a friggin 50cal in the Yukon that follows him! 4,000 rounds per minute, and they’re laced with cyanide … ok probably not laced with cyanide … but still awesome.

This year’s Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Auction can be summed up in this way: GM Heritage Collection Customized Show Vehicles, GM Heritage Collection Production Milestone Vehicles, GM Heritage Collection Engineering Studies, GM Heritage Collection Historic Vehicles, GM Heritage Collection Racing and Support Vehicles, a Ford 4-AT-E Tri-Motor Airplane (yes, they are auctioning off a significant historical Airplane!), and the remaining cars left to be auctioned. After going over the inventory listing that Barrett-Jackson plans on offering over the week long extravaganza in Scottsdale, I was truly amazed at the number of slots the Heritage Collection occupies. There are over 250 vehicles from the collection that GM needs to sell off.

Continue reading "Very Collectible Trucks Offered at Barrett-Jackson, from GM Heritage Collection" »

These are some of the tacky trucks that will be auctioned off for the GM Heritage Center. Most of them will be available on Tuesday, January 13, with a sprinkling available during the rest of the event right up through Sunday January 18th. Most of the trucks illustrated are one-off custom jobs, with wild paint, jacked up, or lowered, non production wheels, and questionable taste. Continue reading…

Continue reading "It’s Truck Day (from the GM Heritage Collection) at Barrett-Jackson" »

This truck won the GM Design Award at SEMA last year. Now it’s on CarDomain—and it’s for sale to help fund future projects!

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

I couldn’t find any info on this cool little truck, but after passing it about twenty times on the way to and from the media center, I finally decided to stop and snap some pics. More after the jump.

Continue reading "SEMA 2008: Low Sonoma" »

GM is serious about moving away from gasoline. On Wednesday I went over to the West Seattle Auto Shop with Dave Barthmuss, GM’s Group Manager for the Western Region, Environment & Energy Communications. Dave gave the advanced auto shop students a short talk on some of the alternative fuel technology coming down the pike at GM, then turned them loose on a brand new Yukon Hybrid. This two-mode hybrid gets 21mpg around town, which isn’t too bad considering its weight (Dave claimed that it matches the Camry four banger in city driving–I was a bit skeptical about this so I looked it up and he’s right). And apparently GMC dealers are having no trouble selling them, even with the hefty $50k+ price tag.

Still, this isn’t exactly a "green" vehicle. But Dave says it’s just a small step compared to what’s in store. Dave owned a EV1 and loved it (though as you might guess, he’s not a big fan of the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?"). And he’s very excited about the up-coming Volt and Saturn VUE plug-in hybrid, both slated for a late 2010 release. He admits these vehicles aren’t going to be cheap at the get-go, but GM is really hoping that tax incentives and credits will be in place to help motivate the early adopter crowd.

In two weeks Dave will return to our fair city with Bob Lutz, and I’ll have a chance to get the latest and greatest on the Volt and other alternative fuel initiatives from the man himself. So is GM just doing this cause they’re a bunch of tree huggers? No. Dave told the kids that, "CAFE standards don’t matter cause the market is going this way." Still, according to Dave, GM is very focused on "removing the vehicle from the environment debate." Why? Cause it’s good business.

Continue reading "GM Going Green As Fast As It Can" »

The owner cut pieces of square tube-steel on an angle to make a toothy rictus for his GMC pickup. The result is something you sure wouldn’t want jumping out at you from a dark alley at night. Don’t get too close, you might lose an arm!

Continue reading "Viva Las Vegas: Up In Your Grille!" »

The Vatican has proposed adding polluting the earth to the list of the seven deadly sins. That’s cool and all, but my favorites are still lust, gluttony and sloth. Here’s the news:

• Though it’s been going on for weeks, and has affected 29 of its plants, GM is staying out of the strike at American Axle. Given that the only products the strike is affecting are trucks and SUVs�products which GM is flush with�this might actually be good for the General. At least for a while. Auto Observer
• Audi is the latest European automaker to consider bringing production to the US. All this "coming to America" business is starting to make me nervous. After all, companies aren’t moving here because they think the dollar is going to get stronger. Auto Week
• BMW has just completed a study on the feasibility of launching a micro car for the Indian market. No word on what the verdict was, but the report did say that production should be based in the United States to save money. Kidding. World Car Fans
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that in 2005, 1% of traffic accidents occurred after the person behind the wheel became incapacitated. So what’s the right thing to do in this situation? The California Highway Patrol has some ideas. LA Times

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.

Since the Big Three have been crying incessantly about the new CAFE standards, it’s always interesting to see something which points out just how long they’ve been asleep at the wheel. Way back in 1973, Shell�yup, that Shell�sponsored a contest to see who could make the most fuel efficient car. The winner was this 1959 Opel T-1, which achieved a mind-numbing 376MPG while traveling at 30MPH. The secret was light weight, hard, low-resistance tires, and an innovative fuel system which fed the little four banger leaned-out gas vapor. Until recently, this masterpiece had been languishing in a museum at Talladega Superspeedway, conveniently forgotten by champion whiners like the General’s Bob Lutz. But fortunately, Seattle car aficionado Evan McMullen has just plucked it from obscurity. McMullen, who owns the Emerald City’s Cosmopolitan Motors, is no car-hating tree-hugger. Over the years his sales floor been home to numerous Bugattis, Ferraris, and rarities like the Jaguar XJ220, so it’s pretty cool to see him trying to keep folks honest about the possibilities for fuel-efficient cars. Read more at the Seattle PI.