Teh Car Blogz

A while back, I posted an article extoling the virtues of the third-generation, Yamaha V8-powered 32v SHO Taurus.  Included later in the article was a picture of an SHO engine bay, showing off a shiny supercharger install that I nabbed off of Cardomain.  Well, the owner of the car (Carter Fujibayashi) left a comment on the article about how he had updated the engine and sent a more recent motor shot.  I decided to head back over to Cardomain to check out Carter’s SHO, and it’s such a trick setup I felt the need to share some more details on it with all of you.  Here’s the old engine shot from Carter’s SHO:

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Among the most hotly contested “premium” markets is that for “mid-sized” luxury sedans. The mid-size luxury sedan has always been the dominant “image car” market, and is a hotbed for new technology and unique design. Because there are so many manufacturers fighting for a relatively small amount of dollars (compared to, say, the market for compact-sized economy cars), manufacturers really need to put every last ounce of their expertise and know-how into their products, as well as trying as hard as they can to adequately differentiate their product without alienating their core clientele. Oh, and these cars have to do EVERYTHING right - when your vehicles sell in the $50,000+ range to people with real jobs aiming at the upper end of their automotive budget, it can be hard to convince people they NEED that car. They need to be classy, they need to perform well, they need to be comfortable, and they need to have that “something special” to get people to sign on the dotted line.

For the longest time, there have been two main players in this field - the Mercedes E-class, and the BMW 5-series. The E-class was the Yin to the 5-series’ Yang - classic luxury and sedate lines verses taught suspension and BMW’s trademark minimalism. Of course, this market has expanded greatly in the last few years and things aren’t so cut and dry. So where does Infiniti’s M lineup fit into this equation? Well, that’s what we’re here to find out.

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The further along we got in our trip (which wound up being around 4800 miles round-trip - a long time to spend in a car!) the more I realized the importance of roadside attractions in the upper midwest. You see, driving through states like Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota - states that a lot of people refer to as “fly-over states,” as in lots of people fly over them but no one lives there - there is literally NOTHING on the highway. Just cornfield after cornfield, with a sprinkle of truckstops, Indian Reservations and weird stuff. So when you’ve been on the road forever and see a sign for a roadside museum or attraction, you’ll probably stop - just to alleviate the boredom of being in I-90 in the middle of a bunch of cornfields for hours on end!

Now sometimes these roadside attractions amount to little more than someone’s garage stuffed full of crap. Sometimes you strike gold. I was lucky enough on this trip to find two very good ones - the museum of military vehicles shown earlier, as well as this auto museum that is literally in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota. It’s in a town called Murdo, which is in southern central South Dakota just off of I-80.

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in a continuation of the last “Uncommon Q-ship” article, we now move our geographic concentration from Sweden to the good old US of A. Or well, sort of. A bit of Japan, too.

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Since I first understood a thing about cars, I’ve been a fan of the Colin Chapman school of automotive design. Chapman, for those not in the know, was the founder of a little sports car marque called Lotus. His basic design idea was “add lightness.” Extraneous components were not needed or welcome. It has been said that he would continue to remove material from a component until it failed, then add a little back in, and move onto the next one. This obsession with weight was obvious in the cars he made. Drive a Lotus Esprit and you can’t have a heavy right foot - the gas pedal hinge will bend under your foot. You want carpet in your Elise? The Porsche dealer is down the road, you wuss.

The reason for this isn’t hard to understand. Let’s break it down. What makes a car fast is, basically, it’s power-to-weight ratio: how many pounds is each horsepower burdened with? The less weight and the more power, the faster a car is going to accelerate (in a nutshell.) So there are two ways to make a car faster: add more power, or subtract more weight.

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There are a lot of things that can be said about the new Tundra. It’s remarkable in a lot of ways: it’s the first real bid by a foreign manufacturer at the full-size truck market here in the US, and it’s the first one done right. It’s built in San Antonio, Texas - domestic parts content is somewhere near 80%, which is a bit weird. It has the capabilities of a truck, but rides sort of like a car. It’s got a rather arresting appearance.

So there are a lot of impressive and surprising things about the new Tundra, in theory and in execution. But one stands out above all the others: this truck has a TON of power. As in, like, occasionally more than you’re really comfortable having.

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While I was in Chapel Hill with my mother shopping for her new car, I happened to chance a glance over to the BMW dealer and was delighted to see this beauty parked off to the side of the main lot:

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