Over the years here in The Garage, we’ve been lucky to have become friends with a number of people who have been rather involved with the sport of underground cross country rallying. In each case, these folks choose to race German cars exclusively. With one rather notorious exception, the brand of choice is always Porsche. Why? Because they run like a tank. In fact, it seems to be a pretty common joke amongst the Porsche drivers that whenever they see an Italian sports car on the route it is broken down on the side of the road or sitting atop a flatbed.
It should come as no surprise then that JD Power’s latest dependability study names Porsche as the number one brand for vehicle reliability. The JD Power rankings are perhaps the most important quality reports for a car manufacturer in the US market, obviously the largest market in the world. The irony is that the consumers who know this best are the ones who actually use their Porsches for what they were meant for: driving fast!
As an aside, even that rather notorious exception now has a Porsche racing under the team colors!
{ 0 comments }
Those who were around when General Motors began using their very first generation Heads Up Display will recall that many people called it the way of the future. Fighter jet technology being used to make driving safer. The reality was that it wasn’t as good as many hoped it would be and many drivers hated the system. I recall driving a Caddy of some sort that had it and I thought it was rather useless.
Fast forward 25 years or so and GM is still working on visual technology. Now however, the tech has grown in leaps and bounds and looks seriously cool. Engineers are working on an augmented reality windshield that uses a series of cameras to highlight road signs, the edge of the road and even animals. The system even has the ability to display GPS details in the driver’s line of sight. I’m a bit skeptical about the use of external cameras as the ones I’ve seen used for lane departure type systems seem to be baffled by snow and rain drops. If they can find a way to make the cameras work in bad weather, this might indeed revolutionize driver safety in poor visibility.
GM Video after the break via Mashable
[click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
A couple of weeks ago we showed you a nicely produced propaganda piece from Corvette Racing that was more or less developed to justify their existence to the naysayers. Today, we have the first of 12 videos following the team through the 2010 racing season. This one is equally well produced and actually has a bit more meat to it.
As teams are getting ready for qualifying at the 12 Hours of Sebring today, you can be sure that the Vette people have the cameras rolling non-stop. It will be very interesting to see how the Vette’s perform in GT2 this weekend against the beefed up competition.
Episode 1 after the break
[click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
I have to admit that I am not much of a game geek. In fact, we bought the kids a PS3 for Christmas this year and I still haven’t played a single game! That’s because I am patiently waiting for the release of Grand Tourismo 5, which promises to be the best car game ever created. The graphics and car dynamics have gotten so realistic that it just has to be incredible.
The latest I’ve heard from the geeks at the local EBgames is that GT5 is supposed to hit the shelves next week. It has been a while without any fresh buzz, so the folks at Sony have released another trailer for the game. This time we see some of the night time action. I’m not too into the street racing bits, but the DTM cars and NASCAR cars look pretty realistic.
Check out the trailer after the break
[click to continue…]
{ 2 comments }
Things I like today
March 17, 2010Just a few things I’ve noticed today that turned my crank:
Ok, so call me color blind (which I am) but this combo is just too cool! Years ago, friend of The Garage, Racer Nika, had this cool Suzuki Swift GT with 5 spoke wheels that were dayglo orange. I coveted them for our rally car. [...]