By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

What’s up with all the goofy Batmobiles coming out of the woodwork lately? Via VWVortex

Continue reading "Toyota Yaris Batmobile" »

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

Natural progression or a fluke? You can’t open a ‘pic of the day thread’ on a random forum without getting confronted with cars that have a killer stance. Normally you would see cars like a Impreza or Evo and of course the S-chassis cars. But we can’t forget the little guys, like this Toyota Yaris or Vitz as it is known in other countries.

This particular car has its roots in Indonesia and is rolling round town on a set of 20″ Weds Kranze Bazreia wheels. There isn’t a lot of info about the car itself but I did spot a few items that aren’t standard. Continue reading at Speedhunters

By Jeroen Willemsen

By Jim Brennan

UDMan

Well, day two is off and running here at SEMA, so I thought it would be a great time to show how Toyota set up their booth for SEMA. First of all, there were a few manufacturers that skipped SEMA this year, so floor space opened up. The Toyota Booth was large, almost as large as their space at the major auto shows. They also had some cool custom trucks, and some very curious cars.

Continue reading "The Toyota Booth at SEMA: Cool Trucks, Odd Cars" »

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

The guys at Kaminari did an amazing job with this little Yaris. See their ride page for more pics and details!

I love rental cars. Not for the hoonage they frequently inspire, but because they are the opposite of press cars. Press cars tend to be higher-end models—the point is to impress the press, after all—whereas rentals are the base-model strippers that no one would ever pretend to own. The Toyota Yaris I picked up outside of LAX last week is a great example of why Americans will never willingly WANT econoboxes. Think of every bad Saturn Ion review you’ve read and pick out the worst parts. Throw in rock-hard seats and rattling interior trim, and you have the base Yaris. And don’t get me started on the gauge pod: at least the one in the Ion faces you. This one faces the cop behind you. And what’s with the cool coolant light in there? Can’t I already tell there’s no heat yet? Rental recommendation: ask the counter staff if you can size up, or at least swap it out for a different econo.

Continue reading "Rental: Toyota Yaris" »

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

I’m actually a pretty big fan of the Yaris, and this green widebody 5-door in the Toyota booth killed me. It’s got a MV Designz widebody kit, 19" DPE S5 wheels and a compressed natural gas system. A bunch more pics after the jump.

Continue reading "Widebody Yaris 5-Door Liftback in the Toyota Booth" »

There are few things more badass than fighter planes launching from the deck of a carrier. So you have to wonder what’s going to happen when you see this cute little Yaris drive onto the catapult. The results are predictable, but I got a disproportionately large kick out of this spot anyway. Enjoy.

With gas approaching $4 per gallon a lot of folks are starting to think about getting an econobox for their daily driver. There are a lot of cool options out there. My buddy keeps threatening to buy a Honda Fit. I kind of like the looks of the Yaris–I loved this one at SEMA. And the new Fiat 500 really needs to come to the US. How about old school econoboxes? Of course Jen loves her Escort. And I have a soft spot for Mark 1 Ford Fiestas. But if I had to pick I’d probably go with the Mark 1 Rabbit or the original Mini.

What’s your favorite econobox?

Generally, bad reviews of anything—records, restaurants, cars—are just more entertaining. Even when people are just saying, and not even hating, commentary which tears a product, or person, to shreads makes for pretty compelling copy. Why do you think buying a 12-pack of High Life without seeing a picture of Britany Spears is unlikely? But leave it to Consumer Reports to do the impossible, as the magazine’s list of 2008′s 11 worst cars is as boring as you’d expect from the consumer advocates. Reading this list is only slightly more gripping than reading my mother’s recipie for corn chowder. And I really didn’t like how the reviews dismissed off-road performance, then proceeded to trash a bunch of off-road vehicles. Bravo y’all!  Of course, domestics make up the lion’s share of the field, but there are also a couple of foriegn marques in the mix. What do you think about this list? 

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.