Automakers are generally honored to receive top rankings in a survey. The Herr’s and Frau’s at VW though, may be retreating to the bunker after they have received the dishonorable distinction of having the Beetle tagged as the most recalled car in 2007.

Brake light problems have resulted in Volkswagen recalling 1,000,000 units of the Volkswagen Beetle from 2001 to 2007 model years making it the most recalled vehicle model over the past 12 months.
Continue reading →

The 430 Ferrari Scuderia was officially unveiled, to much fanfare, by Michael Schumacher at the IAA Motor Show in Frankfurt back in September.

Ferrari was quick to point out that its fastest production car ever showed great achievement in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. But before those who want to green the auto industry worldwide start wearing red, they better think again if they feel Ferrari will ever go the hybrid route.
Continue reading →

It is apparently the largest sporting penalty ever handed down against a team. 100 million dollars!
I don’t care if it is McLaren, that’s a big chunk of change and it’s gotta hurt.

For those who haven’t been following things, let’s condense it a bit. Disgruntled, ex Ferrari engineer, Nigel Stepney provided now suspended McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan with a 780 page document. Call it “How to build a Ferrari F1 car”. Mister Mike claimed he didn’t use any of the info, but eventually it came out that he had passed some key info on to test driver Pedro De La Rosa. Pedro in turn shot those little secret gems to reigning World Champion Fernando Alonso. De La Rosa and Alonso have received impunity for their cooperation, but there doesn’t seem to be any info on what will happen to Stepney and Coughlan. Suffice it to say that Mr. Dennis is not impressed.

Continue reading →

Since getting the new camera, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the wonder that is Flickr and in the process I’ve come across some pretty incredible photographers. Today I found Jim Culp of ProRallyPix. Jim’s got an incredible body of work, spanning 4 decades and ranging from road racing to rally and vintage footage.

The shot above is a Ferrari 512 S shared by Ignazio Giunti and Arturo Merzario in the 1970 Nurburgring 1000 race.

You can see more of Jim’s work on his Flickr page or ProRallyPix.com

At last year’s VARAC festival, I saw Ron Kieley’s Ferrari Dino race car for the first time. In fact, it was the first time I’d ever seen any Dino race car. This year, I had the opportunity to meet Ron and learn bit more about his baby.
Continue reading →

Amidst all the wondering about Michael Schumacher’s future, who would have thought that he would become a road car tester? Well, it makes sense. Buy one of Maranello’s newest steeds and know that your new Johnson extension was tuned based on recommendations of Ferrari’s best son.

Autocar caught the great one lapping the Nurburgring in a new Ferrari 599 GTB and has posted a bunch of images.

Between working in the car industry and working on The Garage, I’ve been lucky enough to meet some pretty cool people. One of the most recent is artist Paul Chenard. He lives in the east end of Canada and so doesn’t have instant access to the automotive memorabilia centers here in the center of the universe. Never one to turn down a visit to an automotive toy store or two, I offered to help spread the word around Toronto. Paul sent me a bit of a care package to help me along the way and it arrived just in time for Easter in The Garage.

Photos (especially my feeble ones) don’t convey how great these images look. Paul has done a wonderful job and has some mad creative talents that may just move his name into the forefront of automotive art. Paul’s latest project has been a series of images celebrating Phil Hill’s achievements with Ferrari. The limited number of these is currently in the hands of the American Champion waiting to be signed. Once signed, they will be available through Race Legends.
Continue reading →

Spring 2007 seems to be the season of the big budget promo video. We’ve had high end shorts from Ferrari/Shell, Red Bull F1 and now Audi is getting in on the action with a pair of shorts for the upcoming A8 supercar.

Shot over 6 days in Mexico with 1050 extras, the films cover Audi’s motorsports heritage from each of the past 7 decades. Shot in HD by veteran camerman Ian Foster, this promises to be a great ride. The spots will debut in Germany on April 6th during the first airing of Will Smith’s I Robot on the RTL Channel.

Full story from Audi after the break
Continue reading →

Comedian Eddie Griffin is the latest in a growing line of no talent dweebs to write off a Ferrari Enzo. It seems that Griffin was practicing for a charity race to promote a movie he’s working on called Redline, when he lost it and wiped the front end off the car.

Said Griffin: “Undercover Brother’s good at karate and all the rest of that, but the brother can’t drive,”
Continue reading →

When it was announced that the Uber Champion F1 driver would stay with Ferrari as Jean Todt’s underling, was there any doubt that this would be a temporary role? For a while it began to look like Mikey would in fact replace the little Frenchman at the top of the Ferrari F1 ladder.

Given the return on money involved in owning an F1 team, is it any wonder that Herr Schumacher might be looking for something grander than managing someone else’s team? Even if it is Ferrari, it will always belong to someone else. For that reason, today’s rumour makes sense.
Continue reading →