LA Auto Show is happening now! Also, DNA cocoon cars!

The always lovely LA Auto show will be happening in the Los Angeles Convention Center starting November 19th and running through November 28th, including Thanksgiving weekend. What better way to celebrate stealing land from the natives by showing off how environmentally friendly we can be after 125 years of the automobile. Attending manufacturers include Fiat (thanks for saving Chrysler), Toyota (nobody cares about the new Corolla), Jeep (they usually bring a 4x4 course with them - always fun), Chevrolet ("Buy a Volt"), Fisker ("We're better than Tesla we swear"), Volvo (who designed an air-powered car for the design challenge), and Porsche (Yes, the Panamera looks like a Photoshop job, but it's legit).

The big brouhaha this year is the design challenge, which will include German and Japanese entrants for the first time ever. The challenge is always based on a theme, and this year I like the choice:

"The theme this year addresses society's shift toward minimizing consumption of the earth's resources. The objective is to envision an efficient, light-weight, four passenger vehicle (not to exceed 1,000 lbs.), that is both comfortable and safe, while delivering satisfactory driving performance without sacrificing the styling consumers demand."

-taken from the LA Auto Show website

So that means to the wonderful people at Maybach to throw some Segway parts into a rickshaw. No, really. They're even calling it DRS; Den-riki-sha. Also, it's grown from a DNA cocoon. I'm not making this up.

Whatever floats your boat.

Mildly interesting cars parked in Evanston 1

In this pilot issue of Mildly interesting cars parked in Evanston, we
have what appears to be a 2006 or 2007 Mercedes-Benz SL 550 (feel free
to correct me if I'm wrong). All I know about this car is that it has
a big engine - great for getting around Chicagoland's tiny roads in
the winter when you can't get any traction anyhow - and that it was
pretty common for a piece of metal to fall into the fuel tank, causing
a mystery clanking doing until you write the Germans a check and they
replace your whole fuel tank. Also a seal failure in the rear window
would sometimes cause the roof retractor electronics to fail, which
was also not cheap to replace. Other than that however, the SL class
is not that bad looking, especially in this picture where you can't
really see it.

Don't park there!

The city of Evanston is getting mad happy towing cars on Haven st.
Literally 7 tow trucks were there this morning. Among the towed were a
recent model Audi A4, a VW Golf GTI, and a waste-of-space Toyota
Corolla ca. 1990. Those Evanston meter maids like their job a little
too much.

Mobile blogging wut

Here's an epic shot of the Nurburgring to test out this new mobile
blogging feature I just discovered.

2010 Ford Taurus SHO

Make: Ford

Model: Taurus SHO

First order of business -- this is a very large car. With a trunk size of 20.1 cubic feet, Ford claims you can fit 8 golf bags back there. Because, well, we all have 8 sets of golf clubs. Regardless of trunk size, sitting in the driver's seat makes you feel as if you're in a tank. With the high rear end and doors, I certainly felt the urge to just ram the Taurus into something to see how the multitude of air bags would protect me. The Taurus also did not feel as nimble as I was expecting, which makes sense considering the car weighs about 4,400 lbs!

Despite weighing more than 17 baby elephants, The Taurus SHO never felt sluggish, due in part to the AWD helping out in the corners and the twin-turbocharged V6 Ecoboost delivering 365 horses in the straights. One extremely noteworthy point is that there is absolutely no turbo lag whatsoever. Ford says that it's the direct injection that eliminates lag, yet having two turbos instead of one huge turbo definitely has an effect. As a result, while driving the Taurus I had the feeling that there was always more power in the reserve, just waiting to be unleashed. Unfortunately the nice man proctoring the test drive didn't seem like the kind of person who would think it funny if I were to open up the throttle just to pass a truck. Instead, he was the kind of person who pointed out the blind spot monitoring system, which consists of an amber light on the side-view mirrors which will illuminate when the system detects a vehicle in your blind spot. A very handy feature for those of us who have no mobility in their necks -- like my mother.

I had the pleasure of driving a fully spec'd model, and the interior felt very nice. It wasn't gaudy or fake looking, it just felt very high quality. Nothing had that tinny plastic feel like you find in a Kia. The leather-wrapped steering wheel was comfortable and felt at home in my hands, and the presence of steering wheel mounted buttons put all the functions of SYNC literally at my fingertips. I didn't have a chance to try it out during the test drive, but apparently it's brilliant. Seamless bluetooth phone syncing and the ability to insert virtually any usb audio device (including a flash drive) and have voice-activated access to the entire library sounds pretty cool to me.

Overall, the 2010 Taurus SHO is a big improvement over the Tauri of the mid 00's, and seems like a good choice for something to take the kids to school while not losing the the possibility of "spirited driving" on the way home. Or to the golf course, with your 8 golf bags.

Verdict: Fast!

2010 Ford Taurus SHO Test Drive PREVIEW!

Make: Ford

Model: 2010 Taurus SHO

Yes, The Fast and the Fugly is coming back to life.

Today's special edition brings you a preview of something The Fast and the Fugly has never seen before - an actual test drive! Now, you can read my cynical commentary (or praise) and know that it's coming from a real-life field test! Just a note: this may or may not change my actual opinion of the car. For example, I'm pretty sure that if I test drove a Kia Rio, I'd be even more unimpressed with the brand than I am now.

However, this all starts on Thursday, March 4th, when the lovely Ford Motor Company will pay me $50 to test drive a 2010 Ford Taurus SHO. The early 2000's Tauri always left something to be desired. Anytime I got in one, I always felt a little underwhelmed. It's a car, but it's just that -- a car. Nothing special. Nothing to "surprise and delight" (to borrow words straight from Ford's new design philosophy) the driver or passengers.

Will the 2010 Taurus be the car to change that? A brief looking over at the Chicago Auto Show said, "quite possibly." Be sure to read Thursday's post to find out what happens when I ask the test drive salesperson if I can "wind it up a bit."

Verdict: TBD

P.S. From now on, clicking the title of any post will send you to the web page of the relevant car. Pretty nifty, eh?