A Cool Volvo? Thanks Galpin for your Custom C30

If you were at the L.A. Autoshow - you were probably dissappointed. A lot of the same old without many debuts. Generally, a lot of plastic, already-available cars for close to $30K. It left us wanting a restored Chevy Malibu and one of those eight dollar Margaritas they were peddling in the convention center.

But, if you'd stopped by the Galpin booth next to the Garage Envy Ford GT display, you saw something you have never seen before. A customised / hot-rodded Volvo. And not just any safety-obsessed Ikea couch on wheels - but the C30.

Shocking the world with a radical use of flat paint (like the Lexus, flat black, FiveAxis concept but not). This thing was purple, had a Galpiny white racing stripe and massive, color-matched purple wheels with white walls. So, what it looked like was a lead sled from the 50s but on a cutting edge Volvo hatchback. The car appears in Galpin's 2008 calendar but it's still in the Basic Transportation official car - so we're not sure which month. A hatchback that looks fast but not 'import scene fast'? Awesome! What do you think about the fast and furious C30? Comment at will!

It's Coming! Dodge Challenger starts getting made! Cooler than Camaro? You decide!

All the car blogs are letting you know that Dodge is ready to auction off the first three, production Challengers! That means the tooling's done and we're ready for the oldest-looking, new muscle car yet! Meanwhile, Chevy is so close to the Camaro that they're already showing you the Convertible version at Frankfurt.

But only Basic Transportation lets you tell me which one you'd go test drive, haggle over, finance and drive to work!

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Volvo gets an extra 4 1/4 mpg from the C30 with simple tweaks - why are they alone?

Fuel cells, hybrid drives and thousands of batteries. There's lots at the Frankfurt show to show off car companies as whale kissing, tree hugging, environmental freaks. Lots and lots of technology we might see in like ten years to help save the planet and help you score with hippie chicks.

For the moment, Volvo has decided to keep it real and, as Autoblog points out, simple as hell with the C30 Efficiency - a 1.6L Diesel Volvo that, by the way, already gets better gas mileage than Google's Prius Fleet (none-plug-in).

Tweaks (listed in another Autoblog post here) to the gears, undercarriage, even oil and tires and wheels and viola - 9 g/km (grams per kilometer you drive in it) less CO2 AND, AND, wait for it, AND 4.25 mpg more! That's savings you can take to the money bank and you can shit on Prius drivers, since - the new mileage I used a calculated, so I assume Basic Transportation - Car and Truck and Electric Vehicle (why not) blog brought it to you first. Click on title to see Autoblog's C30 Efficiency image gallery (not exciting, but efficient).

VW GTI Convertible (I mean, Cabrio) - Make it, Make it, Make it!

Notice, we haven't even mentioned Frankfurt because that stuff only effects super rich people looking for a 1million euro Lamborghini etc. At Basic Transportation - we're pretty much about basic transportation. Which means, when a cool spin on a groovy hatchback comes along - we're gonna flag it up!

Remember the 80s GTI Cabrio, that somehow was all 'fun in the sun' without any of the girliness? Like the Miata, the Vdub was just too fast and fun to be a chick car. And so, we're taking a stand right now. If VW makes a GTI Cabrio again, it'll be too awesome to be for girls! (they already got the Beatle and the EOS.

Build it!

Hatchback Sales are Way Up. Uh....yay!

Here's a couple examples of hatchbacks that don't suck; The VW GTI, which exists and is great and the Dodge Hornet, which may or may not be getting made or not made in China or America, some say.

And, of course, there's the Fiat 500 which I hyped up so big a couple days ago that I don't feel the need to talk about it anymore.

Either way, according to the L.A. Times, which uses fancy 'sta-tis-tics', sales of hatchbacks were way up in July 07 while overall car sales were down. This could simply mean that the economy is crumpling a little faster than it seems and that the only cars people feel they can afford are small and cheap - The Nissan Versa is on the list of big winners...but then so is the not-at-all-cheap Mini. So it's not the crumbling economy. It must be that some people are seeing the up side of having something relatively roomy that's not too expensive and, of course, gets ridiculous gas mileage. We're talking in the 30mpg range for most of these rear-window-wipered bastards!

So maybe, slowly, the image of the 80s hatchback is slowly going away...slowly. The Dodge Omni, pictured above, is, unquestionably, the hatchback that ruined the word 'hatchback' for all cars with a hatched back the same way hitler ruined that little mustache for everyone. It was a horrendous piece of car crap but did help get Chrysler saved by Congress. It was also Motor Trend's 1978 Car of the Year - which just proves Motor Trend is bullshit. Let's root for cars like the GTI and the Mini to make hatchbacks not suck.

A Chinese Chevy: How can You Lose?

If You're Under 25, you must be a DJ!

'Young people. With their music and their long hair. Get a damn job, you useless bastards!' That's just about how GM executives talk, we'd assume. Executive people are about the age to have teenage kids and who's more in touch with youth than their parents!

So, in a desperate, desperate death spasm of attempted coolness, Chevy has just shown off some shiny, new, teeny, tiny concept cars at the New York Auto Show. Needless to say, with how New York feels about cars - debuting very small and very slow rides simply must be done in walking capital of the United States.

But wait! It's not that all three of these little bastards might make it to production. Instead, like any good dad, Chevrolet has provided us with choice! Even you can go to http://www.vote4chevrolet.com/ and vote for the Beat, Groove or Trax as the concept you hate least. Also notice how they all have DJing related names, for that extra bit of small car funk.

Apparently, spinning some mad, phat vinyl is what all young people do all the time. They are the same exact people that, apparently, just crave the very hell out of tiny little cars. Witness this closeup of an orange Toyota Aygo, from last year's Paris show - with the hydraulic-powered rear(that's something we can all enjoy) that comes out on to reveal two turntables and a microphone. So play that funky music! (as long as you're not very tall)

Eewwww. First open source car looks like diarhea

Yeah, so we've been off the air for a while. But now, the 'Common', created by everyone - a little ugly bit at a time - just jolted Basic Transportation back to life. Created through 'open source' where a community shares innovations and troubleshoots together to create something - usually an operating system - this thing is part of what Netherlands Society for Nature and Environment is calling the OScar project. Look at it and tell me everyone involved isn't high as all hell.

Yeah, We're Half Way There.

My man, Bob, at Cars Cars Cars says the Volvo C30 won't be out until 2008 or 9. I say, that's crap. Why would you still care in two years? When Mini wanted to make a longer Mini, for no reason at all, they just did it. And yet, shopping the ass-end of a S40 takes 3 years? By then, Focuses will fly, Scions will turn into robots and Minis will come with about twelve doors, including four as the rear hatch.

All I'm saying is, if you have a cool car, just make it already. This is the only Volvo that doesn't look lame, almost ever (I do like the 544 from the 60s). And, come to think of it, that's a cool Volvo hatchback that's already out. With less than 100 horsepower but tons of coolness, you won't beat the 544 - and, for around 5 grand, you're probably better off. The C30 looks good in the pictures, but in real life it's as pretentious and vaguely effeminate as any Volvo.