By Chris Borrelli

Chris Borrelli

This past Friday the 22 year old driver of the Oscar  Meyer Wienermobile accidentally crashed into a home in Racine, Wisconsin. There were no injuries, but some serious damage to the house.  Via Associated Press.

By Chris Borrelli

Chris Borrelli

Have you ever wondered what significant events in the automotive industry happened today or maybe on your birthday? Well, on the History Channel website there is a “This Day In History Section” where you can do just that. Turns out on July 7, 1928 Chrysler debuted the Plymouth. Check it out at History.com.

You’ve probably been subjected to this site by your wacky aunt. They do have some funny pictures, though, and a few are car-related. This one was good, too.

SoundDomain made a change to the blog yesterday. We’re going to experiment with moving the comments for the blog posts over into the forums rather than in the blog. You can do both right now, but the forums might end up being an even better comment sounding area. You can read all about why we want to try this here.  But of course that’s not the news you really care about it…. This is:

• XM announced the winner of the "Wild Ride" contest, where you could enter for a chance to win a $30,000 vehicle of your choice plus a free year of XM. I bet you thought nobody ever actually won these things, huh?  What did the winner choose? Check it out.
• Looks like the whole "We’re switching over to digital and switching off the analog" isn’t going as smoothly as OnStar hoped. Are you getting screwed?
• I recently dubbed the Navigon 7100 the "King of Portable Navs"…. Well it’s already getting dethroned, but the crown is staying in the family. Welcome the Navigon 8180.

What?! It’s the last day of the January? Where did the month go?? Oh yeah, I remember… CES 2008 and the relaunch of the new SoundDomain.com! We had quite a busy month and over the next few it’s going to get better and better. But to hold you over until then, you should check out the hot news over at SoundDomain. Here’s what you missed yesterday:

• America, F&#K Yeah! InPhase Audio had these patriotic sub boxes on display at CES. Not quite what I’d rock in my trunk, but I can appreciate the pride!
• The mad scientists over at JML Audio just wrapped up an install on a hopped-up IS300. This bad boy pumps out 540HP to the wheels and is loaded with an audiophile-quality install of the highest caliber.
• Navigon’s 7100 portable navigation device is quite possibly the new king of the streets! It’s sexy and loaded with features to make your life a much better place. Find out how!
• Cadillacs 2009 CTS-V is going to come equipped with an Alpine radio the features a pop-up nav screen, 40GB hard drive, DVD capability, USB 2.0 and more, all wrapped into one of the sexiest dashboards I’ve ever seen.

Ford and Dodge unveiled new versions of their full size pickups at the Detroit Auto Show. They both look hot and come in a wide variety of sizes and flavors. So if you were looking for a new full-size truck, which would you choose? F-150 or Ram? (Thanks to Charlie for suggesting this match-up!)

Yup, someone made the Cayanne even uglier! Now, the guys over at Porsche did their best to make the Cayanne hideous straight out of the box, and in my opinion, they did a great job. It’s even more awful than regular Porsches! But once the sickos of Stuttgart have a look at this Russian masterpiece, I think they’ll be scrambling back to the drawing board. Where do you even start with this thing? I mean, the grill alone makes me want to claw my eyes out, and I’m going to have a whole bunch of lunch beers to forget about the back. Yuck. While this is probably the horrid Porsche on the planet, something tells me the Panamera will make this monster look like Mila Jovovich.

Yep, I’m waiting to hear about how it’s an illness, and we how should feel sorry for the punks who compulsively take people’s cars—but as is so often the case, these theives’ antics just seem plain stupid, and if they did something to eliminate themselves from the gene pool, I wouldn’t be sad at all. A group of convicted teenage car theives in Winnipeg boosted someone’s car on their way to the court-ordered counselling intended to cure them of their theiving ways. These thugs had already been designated "level four offenders," the city’s "highest designation for chronic auto thieves." And yes, they got caught. Again.

Seriously: why would you blow a million bucks on the No. 1 ZR1 Corvette when you could snag the infamous Robosaurus for half that? The lucky bidder gets to take home four storeys of fire-breathing, car crushing mayhem for the paltry sum of just $575,000. Included with the sale is a garage full of Robosaurus spare parts, controls, and pyrotechnics. We predict that, within the year, the purchase will more than pay for itself in negotiation leverage and vigilante dispute resolution. This buyer isn’t someone who is ever again going to have to worry about someone taking his parking spot.

We had a ton of comments on Friday’s Pony Car Comparo post. A strong majority seemed to feel that the new Camaro is the best design of the three. I’m still waiting to see the production Camaro and Challenger up close and personal, but at the end of the day, I think Ford should get major props for keeping the pony car alive all these years. If it wasn’t for the success of the current generation Mustang, I doubt we’d see GM and Chrysler jumping back into the fray.