Video: Life On Cars visits the SMMT Test Day

Champion motoring correspondent David Simister gives his verdict on some of 2011's most important new cars at the Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire:

Full road tests of all the cars in this video will appear in the Fire Up The... section in the next few weeks.

FUHH! FERRARI SUPERAMERICA 45 (GAMBAR & VIDEO)

Inilah satu-satunya kereta yang direka hanya untuk 1 keluaran dan bukan untuk dijual. Siapa tak kenal model atau badan permotoran dunia yang ternama iaitu Ferrari. Ferrari telah mereka sebuah kereta yang diberi nama Ferrari Superamerica 45, ianya adalah projek istimewa yang dijalankan oleh Ferrari team berdasarkan 599 GTB Fiorano.

Kereta ini juga direka untuk lebih pick up dan ia sememangnya sebuah kereta yang laju dan istimewa. Dibawah ada sedikit video berkenaan kereta ini.

LAGI GAMBAR PERODUA MYVI 2011 DI IPOH

Lagi gambar spyshot Perodua Myvi 2011 baru yang berjaya dirakamkan di sekitar Ipoh, Perak. Mungkin anda ternanti-nanti gambar penuh Perodua Myvi 2011 baru ini tetapi buat masa ini kami belum lagi dapatkan gambar penuh termasuk bahagian dalam kereta ini. Walaubagaimanapun, bagi peminat kereta tempatan jenis kompak ini, anda boleh dapatkan atau tempah kereta ini pada 4 Jun 2011 disetiap cawangan Perodua.

PROTON PERSONA VERSI SOLID WHITE DIPASARAN

Proton Persona kini didatangkan dalam versi baru dari segi warnanya iaitu warna putih solid dengan dua transmisi iaitu manual dan juga automatik. Dari harga RM59,049 untuk High line (Automatik), RM55,549 untuk Medium Line (Automatik) dan juga RM52,549 untuk Medium Line (Manual).

Infiniti FX 30dS tuned by AHG Sports

AHG Sports, the tuning division of Infiniti Zentrum Hamburg, has a kit that upgrades the Infiniti FX 30dS into a true Porsche Cayenne Diesel competitor.

For €1250, the tuner dials up power on the 3.0 liter V6 diesel unit to 280 PS (206 kW / 276 bhp) and 600 Nm of torque - up substantially from the standard 238 PS (175 kW / 235 bhp) and 550 Nm (406 lb-ft).

The tuner then adds a nice 21-inch wheel and tire combination. The 3-piece CC rims from Schmidt Revolution come in size 11 x 21-inch and are wrapped in 295/40R21 tires. Cost of the wheel set is €7,900.

Lowering springs also drop the suspension by 25 mm at a cost of €1,495, installation included.

Essential Services - Grouptyre/Kenway Tyres van SV03CZX

Here's our undercover agent "Codename JannieJumbo" cycling about maintaining his legend as an 'activist' within the so-called 'cycling community' in Aberdeen. This time, he gets taught a valuable lesson by the white van man driving the Grouptyre Van SV03CZX on Aberdeen's Great Western Road.

According to the Grouptyre website, they offer "an unrivalled delivery" service.



Woooh! Dramatic! "Unrivalled!"

That'll have left an impression on "Codename JannieJumbo" and that's for sure! Of course, the drivers of Aberdeen Cars know that the lesson which "Codename JannieJumbo" is being taught is all about priorities:
Cars have priority; Grouptyre/Kenway Tyres exist to service the needs of car drivers. So what's a cyclist doing on the road? He should be in the park, or on a cycletrack or something. And we bet he wasn't even wearing a helmet.

Review: More than a year with the Amazon Kindle

First off, let me repeat my standard Amazon disclaimer. I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you go to Amazon via some link of mine and buy anything from them within 24 hours, some of your purchase price goes to me (about 6% on average). It doesn't cost you any more to buy the item but instead of all the money going to some big faceless corporation in Seattle, some of it goes to a bike riding guy in Issaquah, WA. And by the way, everybody I know who works at Amazon has a face as well and if Amazon is big and successful it seems to have something to do with them being pretty damn smart.

But, I digress. Expect a lot of digressions ahead. For your first digression, you can read the review of the Kindle I wrote back in March of 2010. Everything I wrote there still holds true and if you read that I won't feel the need to repeat the things I've covered there.

I'm still totally happy with my Kindle. It's a handy damn piece of technology that just plain works. Yep, newer ones are out now that do a bit more stuff or do the existing things better. And yeah, the price has dropped. Right now, if I busted or lost my Kindle, I'd replace it with a Graphite 6" Kindle 3G+Wi-Fi. If I wanted to save a few bucks, I might get the version that's a bit cheaper because it displays ads on the screen-saver. You can read hundreds of reviews of the various flavors of the Kindles on the net but everything I'm going to mention in this review relates to stuff that I've done with my older Kindle.

The first thing to understand about a Kindle is that it makes it super easy to carry a lot of virtual books with you. Going on vacation or a bike tour or headed to the coffee shop or the dentist's office? Bring a Kindle an you can have the latest 1000 page best seller, some essays from Emerson, a pulp stories from the 1950s, the book from a South African novelist that won't see print in the US for another 6 months...you get the idea. Of course Amazon's store makes it really easy to buy stuff for the Kindle but you can also load up on free books from sites like http://mnybks.net/ or http://m.gutenberg.org/.

The Kindle can make reading both more private (if you want) or more public (if you want). On the subway, reading your Kindle, nobody knows if you're reading Gibbon's Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire or the latest story of teen vampires from Stephanie Meyer. But, if you're one of those people (like me) who likes to share interesting lines you find in a book or jot down notes, the Kindle total has that aspect of reading down. Not only can you highlight text and jot notes, but you can share those notes and highlights via Twitter. Again, this is something you can do, but you don't have to do. But via Twitter I've learned of new writers, found new books and generally broadened my reading experience.

Here's an example. I'm a fan of William Gibson and I follow him on Twitter. He goes silent when he's working on a new book, but once the manuscript is in the hands of the publisher or he's out on a book tour he's out there tweeting away. So I knew when Zero History was coming out last fall and I pre-ordered it on my Kindle and it appeared magically there (because we're living in the freakin future, folks). And I completely enjoyed it and tweeted out some excerpts and maybe some folks followed those links and bought some more copies of Bill's book. Good for Bill. BTW, it's a damn good book.

At various times William Gibson raved about the novels of Lauren Beukes and while her paper novels at the time were not for sale in the US, I was able to get the Kindle versions for less than $5 each and I was blown away by her way with a story. BTW, Lauren recently won the Arthur C. Clarke award for Science Fiction for her novel Zoo City, so I guess I wasn't the only one blown away.

Of course I've found some duds in my Kindle reading but another neat thing with the Kindle is that you can download samples from most books to get a feel for them. Also, many authors are releasing their out-of-print backstock titles on the Kindle for free or at low prices to help drum up demand for their newer titles. And small, indie authors are publishing straight to the Kindle. Some of these books are very good and about 70% of the sale price goes to the author. I took a $3 chance on indie author Ray Doty and bought Out of the Black. For the price of a cup of fancy coffee I got a great thriller and Ray made a couple of bucks.

Reading on the Kindle is great. Battery life is terrific and I hear the battery life is about twice as good on the new ones. The new screen is supposed to be even crisper but the screen on my Kindle is a joy to read on even in full daylight. Another advantage of the Kindle is that you can pick a comfortable font size, so if you want all your books can be large print books. The Kindle doesn't have a backlight and while reading lights are available, I sometimes use a headlamp. More often for night reading, I actually usually use the Kindle software on my ARCHOS 32. There is also free Kindle software for iPhones, iPads, Droids, PCs and what have you. The neat thing is that the software keeps your place in whatever you're reading, no matter what device you are on. Whenever I switch between devices, Amazon keeps track of where I am. (And yes, that is kind of creepy!)

While the Kindle is, first and foremost, a book reader, there are some handy apps and services you can access via the "experimental" web browser. My 3G Kindle has free wireless connection to the internet and yes, it's really free. I've paid for my Kindle and I've paid for books I've bought, but I've never had to pay anything to access the net via my Kindle. And that's a really handy thing.

Here are a few useful Kindle sites:

http://www.kindletwit.com/ -- This site lets me browse and post to Twitter via my Kindle.

http://kindlefish.t15.org/kfishdx.html -- This site uses Google to translate between various languages.

http://maps.google.com/m/directions -- A simple link to the Google Directions.

There are also some handy applications and games available for the Kindle, costing anywhere from $1 to $3. I've found Notepad, Easy Calculator and Calendar Pro to be worthwhile and both Christine and I are hooked on the word game Panda Poet.

In the year-plus that I've had my Kindle, it's gone with me on various bike trips, tours to the backwoods and trips to Portland. When Christine and I went to Lopez Island last fall, our Kindles went with us. The Kindles have held up fine and are still going strong.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

PDRM DAPAT 10 BUAH PROTON INSPIRA

Pihak Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM) menerima 10 buah unit kereta Proton Inspira 1.8 versi manual dari Proton Holdings Sdn Bhd. Kunci replika diserahkan sendiri oleh Pengarah Eksekutif Proton iaitu Datuk Seri Haji Syed Zainal. Lepas ni lagi senang Polis nak kejar kereta-kereta laju dekat highway kan... Hehehe...

Motorcycle maintenance and useful tools #3

                       TOOL, METAL EPOXY REPAIR PUTTY, DEVCON



                      



FasMetal™ 10 HVAC Repair

Tested and proven, as used by proffessionals worldwide.

High strength, aluminium filled epoxy for bonding, patching, filling and sealing.

Used for repairing large and small holes in aluminium and other metal castings; building up metal surfaces, sealing leaks in pipes and tanks, sealing, filling, bonding similar and disimilar metals plus much more!

Aluminum-filled epoxy adhesive conveniently packaged in a 6 1/2 oz (184g) tube with a second tube containing hardener. Enough to do more than just one small job!

• Bonds to aluminum and other metals, ceramics, woods, concrete or glass  


• Repairs coils in compressors  


• Hardens to a rigid bond that can be ground, drilled or tapped  


• Fills voids or porosity in aluminum castings

This is not a cheap product to just get the job done. It is industrial strength and is used by proffessionals worldwide.

Do it once, do it right!



Available through Trojan Classic Motorcycles. info@trojanclassics.com

 

Part number: TLS0034

Stokes Croft -it looks differently abnormal

As someone pointed out on our coverage of Picton Lane: The croft is never normal, not by the standards of the rest of society. On the streets fest day, it's just differently abnormal, in a way that didn't make the national press.

There are police outside the supermarket, but they are wearing flowers, not helmets and riot gear.

There are no minicabs in the ASL by the Canteen. Instead someone cycling with a trailer texts ahead.

In Kings Square, people play giant chess, while in the grass area, people drink red-stripe beer and consume ganga-weed. The police opt not to start another riot, and leave them alone. Lessons have been learned.

By the PRSC HQ, people in hi-viz tops, both commercial and home made, walk up and down the bike lane.

No, nobody could say Stokes Croft was normal. Differently abnormal.

What could I do with $369 per month?. . .

News item: The average that a U.S. family spent on gas in April, 2011 was $369 (quoted in the Oakland Tribune, which cited AAA Oil Price Information Service)

Now let’s see--$369 per month x 12 months = $4,428 per year. That amount of money would pay for a 15 year loan at 4% interest (as of May 26, 2011 the Wells Fargo 15 year loan rate is 3.75%) worth $49,200!!! In other words you could pay for an entire Chevy Volt plus tax just for the cost of the average U.S. expenditure on gas.

Oh, yes, there is the cost of charging the car. $369 at $4 per gallon and the U.S. average of 20 miles per gallon is 1,845 miles per month. At 2 cents per mile (the cost of charging from midnight to 7 am at 6 cents per kilowatt hour) that comes to $36.90 for electricity. Subtracting that brings the value down to a mere $44,000, still enough to buy a Volt.

Oh, yes again, that doesn't even count the $7500 tax credit. Plus the money you can get by selling your old car--somebody may still be foolish enough to want one of those leafblowers. How about taking all that cash and putting up some solar panels--that will save you money too!

And people still say electric cars are too expensive?!

(Now there is a catch to this: The Volt can only go about 35 miles per day on electricity, unless you have a way to charge it during the day. Otherwise 30 days per month x 35 miles per day equals 1050 miles per month--quite a bit less than the 1,845 miles mentioned above. I suggest that you buy one Volt and one Leaf if you do go more than 1,050 miles per month.)

Stokes Croft: the street fest

People say to us "did you nip over to the Stokes Croft streetfest on your day off from driving a van round the city"

We reply "Those of us who work in the Bristol sex-trade supply chain don't consider Saturdays a rest day -we were making deliveries on the Croft as usual." People who were there would have seen us. Question is, who were we?

The white van FG80741, outside the Polish Shop? Possibly.

The car KF03DXT in the bike lane near the now-famous Tesco express (not open at the time this photo was taken), and opposite the equally famous Telepathic Heights (more on that another day)?

The car LB57TXG in the bike path outside Slix? Perhaps.

Slix wasn't that busy, while Rita's was closed. While many of the bars and cafes were overflowing, the availability of low-cost, raw-in-the-middle yet burned on the outside BBQ-d beefburgers on sale on the street corners meant that the two main fast food establishments had competition -competition who won on cooking ability, cost and freshness.

Or were we the car X258CBR with the disabled sticker and the hazard lights on, the wingmirrors flipped back, on the double yellows?

The answer is: that's something we can't disclose. Once people recognise the official Bristol Traffic van, our coverage quality will degrade to even worse than it currently is.

BMW M3 by Vorsteiner

Here's a new wide-body tuning kit for the not-so-new-anymore BMW E92 M3 by American tuner Vorsteiner.

The M3 gets dialed up to 620 bhp (462 kW / 629 PS) and is named the "Canday Cane" due to its red and white color scheme.

That power upgrade comes courtesy of the AA E9X M3 Supercharger Stage II kit as well as the titanium exhaust system supplied by Vorsteiner.

Carbon-fiber body panels fitted to the M3 here include the GTRS3 wide-body kit, a vented bonnet and boot lid.

Wheels are the 20-inch V-309 forged rims wrapped in Michelin PS2 Sport Tires - 285/25/20 and 325/25/20, front and back, respectively.

There's also a KW coil-over kit for the suspension and a Brembo GTR brake system.

Maxing it at Millbrook again

IT was somewhere near Milton Keynes that my right foot finally, after 13 hours of near constant-driving, began to throb.

The easiest and quickest way to get from the Millbrook Proving Ground, where I've just spent another day speed-dating cars, to the bit of the north west I call home is to head up the M1. Unfortunately, a nasty accident meant it was shut, so my photographer and I ended up snakng through the nation's favourite New Town instead, through what must be the world's longest traffic jam. But I didn't care, because it ended a day of motoring moments I'll never forget.

In true Life On Cars tradition, there'll be full road tests of each of the 15 cars I tested appearing on here in the coming weeks but for now I can tell you that:

• I've finally found an electric car I like, after driving the remarkably unremarkable Citroen C-Zero.

• The car everyone was itching to get a go in wasn't a Bentley or a Jag, but a Vauxhall. After finding out what the VXR8 (pictured) feels like under full throttle, I now know why.

• The Audi A1 is one of the year's big surprises, but probably not for the reasons you might expect.

• Suzuki could have a hit on its hands with its first ever big saloon, the intruiging Kazashi.

• I don't understand why there aren't more Infinitis out there, after I discovered the G37 Convertible is not only a cosseted cruiser, but surprisingly good fun to drive.

• Peugeot, the people who brought you the cracking RC Z last year, are still on a roll. The 508 is a motorway machine par excellence.

• I think, after much searching, I've found the true successor to the slightly loopy Bond Bug of the Seventies.

• The Citroen DS3 Racing, which is one of my favourite cars of last year fitted with an enormous turbocharger, an absolute blast to drive. So much so that one of the other journalists crashed it.

But the real star of the day, unbelievably, was the Rover 200 I'd used to get there. Sure, it doesn't have the polish, the precision or the punch of any of the new cars I drove but it didn't complain once, munching up hundreds of motorway miles quietly and comfortably.

I'd set off from Southport at 4.30am, snaked through traffic for hours on end in Bedfordshire and covered more than 400 miles, but when I finally rolled up at 11 'o' clock last night I was unruffled, relaxed and full of praise for the Rover. On a day where I'd had all sorts of shiny new cars at my disposal, it was a comfy cruiser which impressed endlessly.

Not bad for a car that cost £300.

We're Not Raising Grass

My grandson recently ordered and received a shipment of chickens to raise. Watching them learn to survive less than 24 hours after kicking their way out of the egg is pretty amazing. We improve their chances for success by making feed and water available but they have the intuition necessary to find it and begin to eat and drink. They are aggressive right out of the box, and have an instinct that makes their success almost guaranteed. Humans aren't that way. We need help.
This point between Mother's Day and Father's Day is a good time to remember those present and past who have helped to mold us into the people we are today. In our sometimes convoluted world of the modern family, the parenting roles being played can be peculiar at best but the results seem to work out okay, as long as every kid has a fully engaged family of some kind.
If you fly at passenger jet altitude for a couple of hours across our heartland and gaze upon the farmland below, you are soon filled with awe of the vastness of this country and the fact that for every little city and town and village below, there are families trying very hard to do the right thing by their kids and to carry on the tradition that their parents and grandparents started before them.
The fact that kids don't come with an operators manual (Marilyn would tell me that men wouldn't read it if they did), together with the reality that Mom and Dad come from different family histories, cements my theory that the family is the very fabric that holds this country and more especially rural America and rural communities together.
That's why most of the strong families stay strong. It was the way they were brought up. Mom and Dad or a parent and an aunt or uncle or grandparent became very involved in a child's life to ensure that the "instincts" of God, and family, and hard work were implanted into the next generation.
Chances are you had someone involved in your welfare as a child or you couldn't be reading this. You were educated. You were the most important thing going on in someone's life at one time. I recall the remembrance of Harmon Killebrew, Hall of Fame slugger for the Minnesota Twins, when he explained that his dad had taken him and his brother into their yard to play baseball and his mom came to the door to scold his dad, "You guys are tearing up the yard by playing baseball out there all the time." Killebrew's dad replied, "We're not raising grass, we're raising boys."
It's exactly that kind of thinking that has made rural America great. Every community has their share of solid families, setting an example for all to follow. The example is being set by the moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and schools and youth program coaches, and scouting programs and pastors and servicemen past and present and the list goes on forever.
That's why this time of year is so important when we honor mothers and fathers on their special days and sometimes on Memorial Day if they've already left us. We also take the time to hold up our fallen soldiers who are responsible for our freedom. They for sure understood community as it relates to family. They served, some died, but all of them longed to return home to add to the family and community and to continue to set an example.
Our fabric needs continual care, everyone's experiences need to be intertwined to make the fabric strong. It's appropriate that we should pause and celebrate and honor our parents, our soldiers, our graduates and get the family together for an occasional picnic. It keeps the threads of our fabric tightly woven. We're not raising grass

Ride with me - to beat MND UPDATE

Many thanks to Gordon for volunteering his Ferrari 348 Spider for the MND fundraising. We now have 20 cars to choose from.

We had a spectacular day with a great spread of interesting cars and raised £700 for MND

Separation Principles?

As part of our distasteful work researching what's important to cyclists (I know, but somebody's got to do it), we came across this diagram from some Danish manual on cycle infrastructure:

Now, you can see the trap they've fallen into there. They've actually regarded cycling as something to promote, something to facilitate. And so they've ended up with stuff like this nonsense on Copenhagen Cycle Chic.

If only they'd adopted the UK model, then they could have the proper sort of car-priority infrastucture we enjoyed by the Drivers of Aberdeen Cars.

Monaco GP 1975

756

 acrylic on paper 8x12" sold

start of the Monaco Grand Prix 1975

Lauda Ferrari

Jarier and Petterson

Porsche Panamera Stingray GTR by TOPCAR

TopCar has released the first details about their new styling package for the Porsche Panamera.

Dubbed the Stringray GTR, the body kit features new bumpers, widened fenders and modified doors. Additionally, there's a new hood, extended side skirts, an aggressive diffuser and a massive rear wing. The GTR kit was created to satisfy client's requests for more aggressive and "charismatic" styling compared to the original Stingray kit.

Besides the styling enhancements, customers can order a bespoke interior and two performance packages for the Panamera Turbo. The first option enables the twin-turbo 4.8-liter V8 to produce over 600 hp (447 kW / 453 hp) thanks to a new intake manifold, a high-flow air filter and a sports exhaust system. Turning things up a notch, there's also a 700 hp (522 kW / 710 PS) package which has more "sophisticated" modifications.

Regardless of the options, the styling package is priced from €45,000 ($63,500) and production will be limited to 25 units.