V-Dub Pick up in the flesh

Now anybody who understands the car business will tell you that your average new car intro is planed a few years in advance, so that anything you see today was conceptualized and engineered over two or three years before it even makes it to the market.

Granted that this thing is being introduced in the European market and may not see the light of day here, but if they do decide to bring this here, I hope that it will have one of Volkswagens excellent Diesel options, otherwise why bother.

The market for this sort of thing is contracting and the last thing that people are calling for is a another truck with poor fuel mileage.

Autoweek

Toyota grabs first place in NASCAR Sprint Cup

This from Inside Line...

Busch and teammate Tony Stewart finished 1st and 2nd in the fourth race of the 36-race schedule. It was the first victory in NASCAR's top series for a foreign brand since Al Keller won in a Jaguar in 1954.

Hate to say it but this may be the first but it won't be the last for Toyota in the Sprint Nextel cup, while Toyota seems to have trouble finding it's  way to a victory in Formula one  even with a mountain of money to spend, Nascar is a different animal with a much easier learning curve. 

Once again the hollowed ground of the domestic auto industry has  been invaded, what comfort Chevy and the like could have taken in Toyotas lack of a first place victory in the racing series has now gone up with the tire smoke in Kyle Busch's Victory burn out.

What's a practical car

Inside line has a great  article comparing three vehicles in slightly different classes, A Toyota Sequoia, a GMC Acadia and a Honda Odyssey.the real question here is which one is the best all around vehicle to own.

I'll save the guess work and tell you that the Honda won,this isn't surprising when you really look at it,any minivan could have still finished out on top, the Toyota Sequoia comes in at the bottom and the GMC Acadia finishes in second place.

When you take space utilization and driving dynamics  any full size SUV will usually fare poorly,the Acadia does better because of the lighter curb weight and lower center of gravity, but the minivan in this test went the furthest and was the obvious choice.

Read the whole article at Inside line

Ford recall

If there's a good way to spin a recall I haven't figured out how to do it, it looks like ford had to recall 87,515  of their light duty trucks for improper seat welds.

what  comes to mind for this one, especially so soon after some earlier recalls  a few week ago, I really can't say here, but come on guys get it together, seat belts aren't exactly a new item are they?

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