By Ted Berner

GTwildfire

There’s all kinds of nutty little Gyro Gearloose guys building homemade EV’s in their garages. This guy’s spoof on that format is pretty hilarious. I’d love to see his commute…

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We think it will also result in a marked reduction in the amount of lovin’ you receive from the opposiste sex, but imagine the money you’ll save in gas! This modification was worth a 15 percent increase in fuel economy. We’re still not rushing out to do it, though.

The guy who made this aerodynamic boattail and who owns the Geo Metro it’s attached to is Canadian Darin Cosgrove. He’s one of the more well known guys in the “hyper-miler” community, where people modify their cars and driving styles to achieve far better MPGs than manufacturers thought possible. This little car gets about 65 mpg with its new tail, but according to the story on Wired.com, Cosgrove has another car that can average 99 mpg when driven properly.

Parallel parking that thing must suck.

LINK: Wired.com story about Darin Cosgrove’s Metro.

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" »

I was giggling over this blinged-up Geo Metro convertible on eBay, but check this out: the side-pipe isn’t fake. The seller says it sounds just like "a mini muscle car" when it’s uncapped. The prices being fetched by these 42-50+ mpg Geo Metro drop-tops are no laughing matter either: I guess after all the buzz about a hardtop Metro selling for $7300, Metro owners everywhere are getting dollar signs in their eyes. And could be better than a convertible? Awhile back I did a blog on best cheap-to-run beater convertibles, and considered putting the Metro on the list—but with a lot of these auctions pushing up into the thousands, they hardly seem to qualify as "beaters." Can you believe some of them have opening bids of $4000? Would you drive one?

This four-dollar gas ain’t just hurting new car manufacturers. Collector car enthusiasts are feeling the pinch too, and many have already told me that they’ll be curtailing or altogether cutting out their show schedules this summer. Don’t blame ‘em, either–it takes a lot to fill up the tow rig and the ol’ showpiece they’re towing.

But there are alternatives. Such as this 1960 Fiat Jolly I found in the Hemmings classifieds. Perfectly restored, you’ll feel like you’re sitting in a rolling cabana while enjoying the economy of either a 499cc two-cylinder or 633cc four-cylinder. Then again, if you can afford the $79,000 price tag, maybe high gas prices won’t hurt your wallet as much as they do the rest of us.

If the initial price of that Jolly’s a bit too much, maybe a vintage Mini, such as this ’75, imported to Massachusetts from New Zealand and available for $6,500 – heck, Geo Metros are selling for more nowadays! Want a droptop? How about a 1970 Datsun 2000 convertible for $15,500? Now who said all old cars are gas guzzlers?

I mentioned the rising prices for used Geo Metros in New on the Net last week. There’s a longer article on this trend today on CNN. I’m seriously having trouble believing someone paid $7,300 for a Metro. Seems like most of the Geo Metros on CarDomain were scored for a few hundred bucks. But then I just went to eBay and it looks like quite a few have been bid up to $3,000 or more. So are all the pizza delivery guys gonna cash in? How much would you pay for a 3 Cyla Killa?

It’s just me and Sean today. John is still in Florida and it’s Jen’s birthday so she took the day off. Happy birthday Jen! Now, here’s the news:

• Two Comcast employees were street racing their vans when they hit another car and left a three year old in a coma. Jalopnik.
• Convertible sales were down across the board in 2007. Sales of convertible Mustang alone dropped 33%. Autoblog.
• With gas prices on the rise, used Geo Metros are starting to fetch some serious money. Left Lane News.
• A test mule for the next-generation BMW 1-series hatch has been spotted running around Germany. Maybe we’ll get this one in the States in 2011. Motor Authority.

Last month, a blue Geo was lampooned in a FreeCreditReport.com advert as the "used subcompact" which the underfunded and overspent protagonist was forced to buy instead of "lookin’ fly and rollin’ phat." This month, the beleaguered blue Geo returns in a FedEx Super Bowl ad, where it is picked up by a mutant carrier pigeon and lofted through the plate glass window of an office building several stories up. Would someone please give this car some respect? It’s hard to be the three-cylinder lightweight of the auto industry. More importantly, where are these blue Geos coming from? I haven’t seen one in real life in three years!

Darin Cosgrove and Ivan Limburg didn’t have any experience with electric cars when they decided to convert a 1992 Geo Metro, but they did a bang-up job. Using parts from an old forklift and eight six-volt batteries, the buddies built a machine which does 40 MPH and travels up to 15 miles on a single charge. The coolest part? They did it for the low, low price of $672. So, um, why is Detroit still whining about the new CAFE standards? For more info on the build, check out 2Solitudes, and to see the it run for the first time, watch the video below.

Need another reason not to let your dumbass friends borrow your car? Here’s one: if your ride is implicated in a felony crime, you could face the same punishment as the morons who committed it. That’s what happened to Ryan Holle, sentenced last week to life without parole for first-degree murder after lending his Chevy Metro to his roommate, who promptly drove it to a drug dealer’s house with three other miscreants to commit armed robbery. When they found the dealer’s 18-year-old daughter in the home, these lovely individuals smashed in her skull and teeth with a shotgun, killing her. Absent from the scene but unable to convince the courts that he didn’t know about the robbery ahead of time, Metro owner Holle was charged as an accomplice, and thus subject to the same punishment as his so-called friends. And all because the court concluded that the crime would not have occurred without the Metro. The moral of the story seems pretty obvious, though I understand that lending cars to friends is a pretty common practice among people less neurotic than myself. Just curious: how many of you allow others to borrow your cars?