Day-glo ankle warmers were cool once upon a time. Fashions (thankfully) change, but inevitably society cooks up fads that are just as questionable as the faux-pas they replace.

Case in point: the disturbing new trend of deliberately rusted bonnets.

The rusty bonnet craze apparently traces its origins to the USA, where it steadily gained popularity amongst the [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

General Motors has released the first few images of the 2011 Chevy Volt ahead of its official launch early next week, giving the world its first good look at the car that many hope will redefine the way motorists use fuel.

So, is it a looker, or is it time to break out a car-sized [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

Suzuki has announced that its updated-for-2009 Grand Vitara will hit showrooms Australia-wide in September, bringing with more power, better economy and greater safety than the outgoing model, along with a few minor cosmetic upgrades.

Two new petrol engines join the Grand Vitara range, with a 2.4-litre inline four replacing the old 1.6 and 2-litre units [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

And you thought $1.70 was bad.

A new report issued by the Australian research institute CSIRO warns that the price of a litre of petrol could soar as high as $8 AUD within the next decade if current fuel consumption and production trends continue.

The aptly-named Fuel For Thought study believes that unless something is done [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

We’ve seen the JDM style of car customization grow from unknown to played out to solidly ingrained in automotive culture. We’ve also seen bizarre reversals of the trend in which Japanese owners buy a Japanese car only to trick it out USDM style (more on this in a later post). Now, to really twist your [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

ArtCar, a blog seemingly devoted to cars in the types of embarrassing situations their buddies at car school will get high on, have got a great post listing the 25 secret tips for recognising a fake General Lee.

For those not in the know—including myself until I looked into it about eight minutes ago—there’s something of [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

One unique facet of Japanese society is that there is genuinely not a single type of gadget, device, object, piece of clothing, or vehicle that is not fair game for hardcore customisation.  You need only search for “square watermelon” or “poop hat”—I kid you not, dear readers—and you’ll end up at a page you’ll soon [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

The last time we reported on the Jaguar F-Type, not much was known other than Tata’s willingness to eventually build it. Now Road & Track magazine have reignited speculation on the entry-level (for Jaguar, anyway) coupe, saying that it could be based on a modified version of the XF’s chassis and employ a twin-turbocharged Ford [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

Mazda announced a new minivan for the JDM market today, called the Biante. Specs are sparse at the moment but it looks to be one notch larger than the existing MPV. As you can see the styling is, um, interesting. It’s taken the whole tall headlight look to a new extreme, extending them all the [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

The Japanese are nothing if not masters at separating your hard-earned dollars from the warm, cozy confines of your wallet. Whereas the rest of the world thinks of the automobile as a long term investment, many Japanese think of it as a seasonal fashion accessory. As everyone knows by now, there’s the prohibitively expensive shaken [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

To those who know their GT-R’s the fact that Nissan is believed to be looking into producing a four-door version of their R35 GT-R, shouldn’t be a big surprise. After all, you could buy a four-door R33 and R34 GT-R.

What is surprising is just how good it may look. If these Motortrend renderings are [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More

Ferrari has finished 2007 on a roll, reporting record breaking results that are unprecedented in the history of the marque. The icing on the cake was the success of their Formula One team which secured both the manufacturers’ and drivers’ championship titles. But, the real success lies within the ever indreasing popularity of their road [...]

• 
• Comment
• Read More