Ford is recalling 434,593 2005+ Mustangs. Why? Well, a test on a 2007 car revealed that the airbag deployment force was a bit too strong for "an unbelted, front passenger 5th percentile female anthropomorphic test device." Ford is asking affected Mustang owners (check your VIN here) to bring their cars in so that the dealer can "update the software in the restraint control module (RCM)."

The whole concept of having little sensors that weigh front passengers and tell the airbags how hard to deploy sketches me out. I’ve heard plenty of stories of airbag lights flickering while people drive thier modern cars over bumpy roads with light front passengers. Have you guys ever seen this in your cars? Creepy.

Anyway, there’s a good thread on the recall over at Stangnet. Apparently some guys have already taken their cars in for the fix, and it was quite painless (though some owners are paranoid to take their heavily modded Stangs to a dealer, fearing the dealer might attempt to void their factory warranty). Az Pete at Stangnet reports:

Took my ’07 Vert in today. They hook up a scan tool the the PCM, run it for about 35 min, unplug it and return the car. Car was in my sight the entire time, hood was not opened nor was anything else disturbed. Real simple. No effect on any performance.

I assume Az Pete meant RCM and not PCM, but you get the idea. It’s easy as pie.

Check out Serge’s 1970 Duster. First of all, this guy definitely knows how to take a photo. This is a very original 4 speed 340 car–down to the carb, alternator and radiator–with all factory documentation. I think we can all forgive him for adding the hood scoops, though.

Playboy is the third owner of this beautiful 1971 Chevy Impala, which is incredibly clean and straight. The numbers matching 400 SBC breathes a little easier with an Edelbrock intake manifold, 600 Holley 4 bbl carb, Hooker headers and Flowmaster exhaust. Playboy drove over 1,000 miles to pick up the low mile survivor, and I’d say it was worth it. And I’m generally pretty old school, but I think it looks great with those 24s (which, apparently, he is selling). What’s next, 26s?

Edit: whoa, just noticed the truck nuts! And it looks like our buddies at Jalopnik noticed before I did!

Tage isn’t exactly comfortable with the whole "show off" thing at CarDomain. He doesn’t even like taking photos of his car. But he really wants to be selected for the Grassroots Motorsports Ultimate Track Car Challenge, so he built a ride page and scanned in an article and two ads featuring his ’95 Civic. He has done all the work on the car himself, and says that "because the car isn’t ridiculously excessive, it’s easier than most to drive at the absolute limit." He won his class and set a track record in last year’s Super Lap Battle. He promises that if he is picked for this year’s Ultimate Track Car Challenge, he will be a top contender. And if he doesn’t, "I promise to buy the entire staff at GRM lunch as well as a lifetime subscription." Sounds pretty confident to me.

The blog Stuff White People Like is pretty hilarious. And recently, they hit on the Prius:

It’s a pretty sweet deal for white people. You can buy a car, continue to drive to work and Barak Obama rallies and feel like you are helping the environment! Some white people decide to pull the ultimate move. Prius, Apple Sticker on the back, iPod rocking, and Democratic Candidate bumper sticker. Unstoppable!

Then again, white people are an easy target, and as one person commented, "you’re really confusing white people with white liberals lately." I especially liked this comment by Jim Hawk III.

Actually, I bought a Prius to get that sexy touch screen. It’s the ultimate nerd car. Daggone, that’s so totally white. Anyhow, I don’t want to save the environment. The environment can go screw itself as far as I’m concerned. I just want everything to have a sexy touch screen.

So how do you destroy a new Bentley Arnage T in parking lot and lose your job? Dustbmx, a tech at a high end service shop in Chicago, explains in this thread at VWVortex:

I pulled the car out of the garage. It got stuck in the spot you see it in the side shot pic. I got out to go get a snow shovel to dig it out. As i am in the garage I hear a loud bang from outside. Walk out to what had happened I asked the porter who was in the car if he was ok and asked him what happened. The porter tells me when you went inside i tried to get it unstuck He put it in revers and then in drive gassed it and bang the airbags went off. He thought thats all that happened till he got out and walked around the car. I took side pic cuz thats what I walked out too from the garage. The pic of the trunk before the fire is what we found when we took the spare tire out too put it on the car. We then got the spare on it and pushed it back into its parking spot. The last pic is of the trunk after the fire that happened about an hour later. That tire that went through into the trunk must have cut the positive battery cable or something and just heated up till it started the fire. I was not in or around the car when this all happened. I don’t know why i lost my job. I guess it just cuz i got it stuck. Or the owner wanted too just fire people. I understand it was a $400,000 car down the drain. It was the dealerships car so no one owned it yet. It did not have winter tires on it because it was in the showroom in downtown Chicago.

What do you think? A lot of people were calling BS in the thread. More pics of the carnage after the jump.

Continue reading "How To Destroy a New Bentley" »

The Mazda2 has been available in four and five door versions in Europe for some time now. It was just confirmed that Mazda will be offering a three door hatch over there as well. Definitely a cool little ride. Mazda, please, bring it to the US! More at Left Lane News.

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!)

After seven years as king, silver has been dethroned by white. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like white on classics that have chrome–like Paul’s 66 Mustang. And I think the white GTIs look pretty hot. But for the most part, white cars with integrated body colored bumpers make me think of Tic Tacs, or the cars in Woody Allen’s movie Sleeper. More at Forbes Autos.

In October BMW opened its new delivery center, the "BMW Welt" (BMW World) in Munich. It was designed by some hot shot Vienna-based architectural firm, and The New York Times sent one of their architecture writers out there to check it out:

Set against a backdrop of hulking factory sheds and 1970s office towers, the building weaves together the detritus of a postwar industrial landscape, imbuing it with a more inclusive spirit. Its undulating steel forms, suggesting the magical qualities of liquid mercury, may be the closest yet that architecture has come to alchemy.

Its cavernous main hall is packed with restaurants, a cafe and a shop hawking BMW merchandise. Clients arriving at the main showroom to pick up their new cars are handed frothy cappuccinos and led into a small booth where they can try out the car’s special driving features by computer simulation. They then proceed down a grand staircase to a platform lined with BMW cars. As they approach the bottom of the staircase, spotlights light up underneath their car, which begins to rotate on a platform.

Honestly, it all seems pretty damn silly and ostentatious to me. I’d much rather see BMW offer a more affordable 1-series than build some big fancy building designed to make yuppies wet themselves. But I guess it made the BMW execs happy. Anyway, you can read the rest of the article in The New York Times. You can also learn more about it at BMW’s Welt website.