For me, the car above has some special significance. Way back in 1984, at the ripe old age of 17 I went to the World Sports Car 24 hour race at Mosport. For some reason, of all the incredible cars there that weekend this black BMW M1 stuck with me more than any other. Maybe it was the fact that it was a locally owned car, or maybe it was the high pitched wail the car made at speed. Either way, I never forgot it. Marcus Glarner never forgot it either.
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It seems like it’s been a long time since we’ve heard from Ashley Taws. Ontario race fans and their kids will recognize her as the popular pilot of the Barbie Car. Here in The Garage, our 13 year old racer still has one of Ashley’s fan cards in her room. Taws took Ontario grassroots open wheel racing to heights it had never seen with the successful partnership with Walmart and Barbie. Sadly, Miss Taws was a passenger in a serious road crash that caused sever injuries. A return to racing was short lived, as the ongoing pain prevented her from driving.

That is all in the past now. On Thursday, Ashley Taws announced a two pronged attack on the racing world. Not only will she be road racing in the Canadian Touring Car Championship Super Touring Series in a BMW E30, but Ashley will also tackle the Ontario Sportsman Series in a Dodge Charger. That’s right, the Barbie Car is going stock car racing! This is going to be great.

Press release after the break
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Legendary racer Hans Stuck has sustained serious injuries in the hardest crash of his long racing career. It seems that his BMW struck a car that was parked at the side of the track. Shades of Mario Andretti on Lakeshore Blvd. here in Toronto years ago.
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When you’ve worked in the car industry for a long time, you often get the feeling that you’ve seen it all. Every now and then though, you stumble across something new that defines description. Imagine going to buy a new car and the dealer wants all the usual info from you and then asks for you to leave a thumb print! That’s exactly what happened to Lorna from Lornamatic. She refused. They refused to sell her the car!

Now every dealer is working hard these days to combat the theft of new cars, many even going so far as to have security consultants that specialize in auto theft on staff. But thumb prints? Come on!
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Ah the Nurburgring, home of Hans and Sabine those masterful Ring leaders. Watch as wannabe ringmeisters flog their beetles, beemers, Simcas and god knows what else, with no safety equipment. Watch for the freak who gets tossed from his beetle who no doubt kept right on lapping.

This just proves that boys will be boys (unless they’re an Amish girl) regardless of where they live or what they drive. Keep your eyes peeled for the bus in the first display of smoky goodness.

After researching the possibilities offered by hydrogen since the 80’s, BMW is launching a production, hydrogen powered car to the public. The 2007 BMW Hydrogen 7 is based on the 760Li and apparently drives pretty much like the standard car. With a combined fuel range of 700 KM of fuel on board, the Hydrogen 7 seems set to deliver good mileage for a big sedan. Also, when operating on Hydrogen, the vehicle emits nothing more than clean water vapour.

The one thing that isn’t mentioned in the press release is a delivery network. I’m not sure about European stations, but I’ll bet that the North American fuel stations aren’t lining up to store hydrogen for the handful of cars that may show up. That said, as more manufacturers jump on the hydrogen bandwagon the supply issue should cease to be an issue. At that time, I wonder if they will be able to safely increase the size of the hydrogen tank and decrease the gasoline tank. Zero emissions, while performing like a normal vehicle seems like a pretty good deal to me!

Press release and lots of photos after the break
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Oh, to be rich at Christmas! Here in Ontario, most folks look forward to the Sears Christmas Wish book, or maybe even the Canadian Tire catalogue. Not so for 50 lucky Neiman Marcus customers who found their present in the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book that went on sale yesterday at noon. All 50 copies of the 500 HP Neiman Marcus Edition BMW M6 Convertible were sold within one minute and thirty two seconds! By my math, that is just a hair under 7 million bucks in a minute and a half. Just incredible.

BMW press release after the break

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Following up on it’s groundbreaking Carbon Roadster, TC Kline Racing has shown it’s newest in house creation, the Carbon Coupe. While details on the Coupe are sparse to date, the real thing has been spotted on track by those guys over at Axis of Oversteer.

The incredible Carbon Roadster weighed in at only 2680 lbs, with 346 hp and was capable of generating 1.06 g of grip. Add the torsional strength and aerodynamics of the coupe body and this car may just prove to be unbeatable.

Read last year’s press release for the Carbon Roadster after the break.

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It’s 1:30 in the morning on a dead end street. A sober 17 year old doesn’t see all the dead end signs and at only 70 kmh, he jumps the curb at the end of the road and plows into a light post and a car on the lot in front of BMW Canada. The Chevy Lumina the kid was driving had to be towed.

Now I get the stupidity of a teenager. I was a teenager and I remember crashing into things because I was going too fast. That was a rally driver wannabe on a winding, deserted road. BMW Canada and the adjacent dealership are very brightly lit and the road out front is almost 4 lanes wide. The court at the end of the street is gigantic. There are Dead End signs all the way down the road.

The kid was only travelling about 70 kmh which is about 43 mph for our American readers. How the hell does one lose control under these conditions? Obviously, the kid isn’t the brightest of bulbs, as his graduated license doesn’t allow him to be out driving after midnight without a fully licensed driver in the car. Even still, he wasn’t moving that fast for the area. He was clearly way over his head, or beyond the capabilities of the Lumina. Either way this kid needs help.

Poor driver training or stupid kid? I don’t have the answer, but I suspect that if we taught car control rather than just parallel parking, we’d have less of these daft incidents.

Source Durham Region News