The Lexus LF-Ch Compact Hybrid is an odd little car. Or, to be more exact, it’s odd that Toyota would badge a car like this as a Lexus. The hybrid part makes sense, but making a small hatchback as a Lexus, even if Toyota is calling it a “Premium Compact”, seems to run counter to what Lexus has been marketed as up to this point. The fact that Toyota will be showing the Lexus LF-Ch Compact Hybrid at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show this coming December points out that the company is pretty seriously considering offering the car in North America.

A Lexus LF-Ch Premium Compact Hybrid … will Americans go for that?

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Long rumored, the new “Gullwing” is finally here. Officially dubbed the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, the ‘Gullwing’ name still fits. It has those doors that have been copied by every wanna-be tuner as well as folks like Briklin and DeLorean. And since it’s a Mercedes it’s been engineered and designed to within an inch of what Stuttgart thinks a Gullwing for 2010 should be designed and engineered like.

The quick thumbnail sketch works like this: aluminum spaceframe body with gullwing doors, AMG 6.3-liter V8 cranking out 571 hp, dry sump lubrication, seven-speed semi-auto dual-clutch transmission hanging in a transaxle out back and a aluminum double wishbone sports suspension. All that will add up to quite a car, because Mercedes wouldn’t let it be anything else (now would they). Continue Reading…

With the iPhone’s accelerometer controls at their disposal, developers have been making all sorts of racing games for the platform. The ability to simply tilt your iPhone right and left to steer is an incredibly useful feature, and game makers are crowding the category in the iTunes App Store with countless racing games, from bikes to slot cars, boats to supercars.

As you may know, I’m a racing game fanatic. I prefer the road-racing, realistic games with an arcade feel that use real street cars (none of that NASCAR BS.) Project Gotham Racing 4 is my current favorite, and I’m very much looking forward to Need for Speed: Shift. But when I’m away from my Xbox 360, of course I need an iPhone racing game to keep me entertained. I’ve played quite a few iPhone racing games, and while most of them are at least somewhat good, Real Racing by Firemint promises to overtake them all, and provide the most console-like racing game for the iPhone to date. That’s a big statement to make…did they pull it off? Continue Reading…

Here’s something that has been a long time coming, even if it is only a prototype/design study from a German Technical college. Rolled out at this year’s Frankfurt Auto Show, the E-Wolf e1 is an all electric formula style racer that is completely electric. To say that this is something that should have been done decades back would be an understatement. And to say that we’ll all benefit if something like this takes off is an understatement as well. The old saw is that ‘racing improves the breed’, and if we want to have enjoyable EVs that are fun to drive, then we should all be pulling for the E-Wolf to be made by the score, raced all over the world every weekend, and for that technology to make it into our future cars.

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When Toyota Motor Company introduced Scion to the American car scene in 2004, it had one goal in mind: Sell inexpensive, yet funky cars to the young Generation Y driver as a way to develop their loyalty to the brand. There was the tiny xA, the toaster-shaped xB, and the cute tC. As soon as these cars started rolling off the back of the delivery truck, they rolled right into people’s garages, being a frugal, fun and reliable choice over the competition.

Shortly after the sales numbers started coming in, two very big surprises popped up: one was the most popular model in the line-up was the box-on-wheels xB; the other was the average owner age was 46, nearly twice the age Scion had originally projected.

To us car nuts, it doesn’t really matter who is buying what, but why. What makes the Scion xB hatchback, now in its second generation, such a popular choice for a car? Let us find out. Continue Reading…

It looks like one of consequences of VW buying Porsche is that the controversial Porsche Panamera is likely to become some sort of permium, high end VW product. If not ending up a VW, the four-door coupe’s platform might end up with one of VW’s other brands, either Bentley, Bugatti or Audi. After amortizing all the development costs, the platform will most likely go away all together next decade.

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