Shit, Really? 22MPG Chevy Tahoe is L.A. Green Car of the Year

There were electric vehicles (EVs), there were hydrogen cars, even a hybrid Nissan Altima. But who takes home the green gold? An eight-cylinder truck that gets 22 MPG on the highway! Don't get us wrong. We like the Chevrolet Tahoe a lot! But green car it ain't. If you're going over 33mph - you're using all 5.3 liters of V8 the big-ass Chevy's got to offer. GM clearly bought themselves a meaningless award that kinda mocks the whole gas price nightmare L.A. is actually in.

Buck Pimps out an Enclave for the 'Urban CEO'. Sounds suspicious.

If you really run a tech company, rap record label, hell, even an insurance company - you're not driving a Buick. But what if you want to spend 10 thousand dollars less than the price of an Hummer H2 - about 45 grand? Well, Buick has a suggestion they're debuting at the SEMA show. Autoblog has the details, but here's what we know. It's an Enclave, which is actually the least-sad Buick since the 93 Riviera - lowered, on big wheels and with a glued-on ground treatment that makes it look like a C student's Porsche Cayenne! And that's not bad! The 45 grand is the price of an Enclave, plus, let's say airbags, bumpers, sideskirts and rims. Let's say 50K - but you can build your very own 'Urban CEO Enclave' (it was better than calling it The Street Pharmacist Special.

You Fricken kidding me? Jeep releases Jeep Brand House Paint!

It's not that we mind car brand branded stuff. I got a pair of Jeep jeans, they resist water (and beer) with some sort of Teflon-like beading action. Very cool, but even those were a gift. And I think I had one of those Jeep boom boxes, or at least really wanted one.

Now colors like Sahara brown will be available for your house - inside, outside, the basement, all of it. It's not that they're taking the time out of figuring out how to make the Commander even uglier to make paint. This is just part of Jeep's licensing drive. You can now buy clothes, toys, bikes even bed linens and 'grooming kits; that are Jeepafied - which usually means it's extra tough, or at least water resistant - or at least carry the logo. That's the first time we've ever said 'linens' here.

Next year, watch out for Jeep's own navigation system that also includes an MP3 player, a video player and is tough and cool looking. We're usually more cynical here, but that sounds kinda cool.

Jeep's so good at licensing, they've won an award from it from the companies that license their stuff association or whatever it's called (Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association (LIMA).

I've only seen this story on Chrysler's password-required blog, launched a month or two ago. It's not great.

To check out all the crazy Jeep crap you can ever possibly want to own, check out www.AllThingsJeep.com or www.JeepWorld.com

Hell Yeah! Jeep Wranglers back in the Army with a Pickup to Boot

You know we love Jeeps at Basic Transportation. I've even owned one. And now the cheapest and best 4x4 is going back to where it all started. War! Jeep has announced the J8, a reinforced, diesel version of the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. And, for extra awesome, they're even making a pickup version called the JT. (Jeep Truck, 'tard). So, a 2.8-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine that produces 158 hp and 295 lb.-ft. of torque - that's a cool truck you can down with!


No word if the J8 will be available for regular, none shot-at people, but hard to imagine they'd keep it from us. Finally, back to simple, agricultural basics for the Wrangler and the long-awaited Wrangler pickup - though not really as cool as the Gladiator.

Check out the full story pic gallery and J8 press release on Jalopnik here.

Pickup Spot: Expensive gas, now James Inhofe and Korea - are Trucks screwed?

First, a bit of poli-sci background. James Inhofe was, until just after the mid-terms, chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Because he doesn't beleive in global warming, American drivers have cheerfully been left alone when it came to cutting down on ice cap-melting V8s. And that was pretty good...for us, not the ice caps. Screw those.

Now, James, who compared Al Gore's whale hugging, tree kissing, flick to Hitler's Mein Kompf, is gone. And a democrat is taking his place. Good for the environment, bad for big, fat, fun trucks. Are trucks in trouble? Will we still be able to highlight the quality with which we f*ck using the immense size of our truck? We'll see.

In the meantime, here's the latest in truckdom:

We've been looking forward to the H3T - based on the concept GM showed off like three years ago, before the H3 was even out (left). Now, it looks like we're getting closer to production. And the pictures just posted on AutoBlog (below) made our mouths fill with vomit, as dreams of our new Hummer H3T pickup fizzled away. Might as well just get a Ranger.



Jeep, meanwhile, also gave up its concept truck ambitions and settled for a bit of welding to chop down the Wrangler into a Wrangler with a pickup bed. Again, the concept - cool. The actual truck we'll be seeing soon? Well, you have to really like the front end of Wranglers (as I do) to give a crap. We've got high hopes for the extended cab. There's no room for stuff behind the seats in this one Plus, let's home a real-Jeep-style soft top is coming too. The convertible Dakotas are getting pretty old, we need a convertible truck! (SSR is not a truck)

Finally, check out what the Koreans are threatening us with now. No, it's not a brilliant white light being the last thing we all see before being vaporised. That's a different Korea. South Korea just plan to nuke America's truck industry. As opposed to Jeep and Hummer, this is the real demilitirized zone right here:

Instead of playing soldier, the concept sketches from Kia and Hyundai look like Titan-style pickups where you sit on leather watching big screens not playing G.I.Joe in a truck based on another truck based on a civilian version of an army truck.

The Dodge Nitro. How to feel:

How to feel about it?

I've seen the Nitro a bunch of times at car shows. On one hand, it can be customized and - on rims, with tints, a blackout grille, and TVs in the headrests - this thing will be alright. But so will anything. Aside from that, do Volvo-driving soccer moms really need another family truckster with 4x4? Let's be honest with ourselves. If you're serious about your 4x4ing, you won't be going for this Dodge. That'd be like taking your cousin to the big dance - deep down, you'll know you can't really do anything serious.

And so, briefly, don't spend 20K on this. And, whatever you do, don't spend close to 30 for the leathered out, 4x4 (link to 'price announced Autoblog story). Basic Transportation suggests something basic - like the Jeep Unlimited.

National Corvette Museum’s Commission Impossible
-The Corvette’s not just an expensive, shiny Viagra bottle – it’s an icon. But can the museum start another American revolution and put some hard cash in its pocket?

I'm not even sure why Kentucky needs a Corvette Museum. I suppose people with kids need to have a place to take them on Saturdays. They can look at all the Corvettes and marvel at what GM was once able to do. Today, Corvette is very separate from Chevrolet.

Where once, teenagers with posters of 'Vettes on their wall could at least buy Corvette's ugly cousins from Chevy lots, today, there's nothing that really shares in the go-fast-for-cheap bloodline. Nobody's going to buy a Cobalt because they like the Corvette.

However, that didn't stop one member of the Corvette museum's inner-sanctum, a GM exec, no less, from offering the museum money if it could convince 100 non-GM drivers to switch to a Chevy, Pontiac, Buick, Hummer, Cadillac, GMC or Saab.

Of course, it would probably take more than the $25,000 the guy's offering the museum to actually figure out how GM could do this.

There's not a lot of appeal in these marks for those who haven't already bought into the GM fantasy. However, if you prize comfort you've already got a Chevy SUV GMC, H2 or Caddy.

But maybe, you just want a shiny new car with two sunroofs without the burdensome pressure and inconvenience of having a job - in which case you've probably already got a Pontiac adorning your parents' driveway.

Perhaps, watching Frasier while reading books about wine and listening to world music in a Starbucks are all highly appealing to you - in which case - you still won't be running out to buy a Saab because, of course, you've already got one - in yellow.

The point is, there hasn't been a new reason to buy any of the brands the museum needs to get their money. Rumours have it that the money, so desperately needed by the Corvette Museum would go to build a life-size papier-mâché replica of the Corvette. It would have a working, papier-mâché engine and be made entirely from Corvette drivers' divorce papers.

Ford's done a wise thing by creating a halo car for the Mustang. High school kids trying to keep up the grades to get a V6 Couple can look up to the GT 500. Just think about how hard you'd pound those index cards. study guides and see-and-says if you knew that just one 'D' and you get a Malibu instead.

The General Takes a Golden-Yellow Shower....of Innovation

- GM are taking the lead as ethanol fuel innovators. Can hybrids leave us alone now?

I’m sick of hearing about hybrids. The super-dorky Prius and even GM’s new hybrid trucks. The electric motor in a hybrid only does the work at very low speeds and in reverse. Meanwhile, the added weight of the batteries, power control unit, planetary gear, generator and electric motor itself means you’re carrying a lot more junk in the trunk on the highway (and at highway speeds). Neither the Chevy nor GMC websites will reveal the weight difference between a standard and a hybrid Silverado - but it’s sure to be tremendous. Little hybrid cars are perfect for city centers where driving under 10 miles per hour is normal. Big trucks are meant for the highways, the backroads and the wild frontiers of the suburbs and the sub-suburbs. This means that a hybrid truck will rarely find itself running on electricity - especially if you’re one of those crazy critters that put stuff in the back. Sure, there’s traffic out there and you’ll sit in it with zero-emission smugness - but the added weight of hybrids, says a Ford dealer whose name we won’t reveal, means that the Escape Hybrid gets worse gas mileage overall than the 4-banger version.

General Motors is making yellow the new green with corn-powered cars! Just when I was getting cynical, GM launched their big E85 push with a nifty show truck (above) and partnerships with Shell and VeraSun Energy Corp! Ethanol is set to quickly become the new choice of performance-hungry tree huggers. GM’s already got a heart-warming website touting its benefits with tons of corny puns (stalk car racing game) and occasional free t-shirts. Corn, of course, has a few problems of its own. The corn used for ethanol is genetically modified and the government subsidises corn farmers - but, compared to hybrids which are a bit of a scam, corn’s great! We won’t ever need a war to get more cord and reducing our reliance on foreign oil will give America new political leverage (one day). Not only is corn great but GM is showing some surprising leadership by encouraging more ethanol stations (just in Chicago for now) and raising awareness.

There’s something inherently American about corn and ethanol’s performance-enhancing qualities and inherent patriotism should signal the eventual demise of deceptive, hugely overpriced and always wimpy hybrids. Compared to your standard, friendly Vortec V8 running E85 - the stuff under the hood of a Prius is more washing machine than car - and any performance mods are out of the question. General Motors might be onto a winner! With the 2007 Tahoe updates announced for the now great-looking 2007 Avalanche - it’s a good time to be touting why we shouldn’t feel guilty about driving the big truck - which, when costing only three grand more than a hybrid Accord - is looking better and better. Let’s hope it doesn’t end with a corny website and a couple dozen ethanol pumps in Illinois.

GM: Designing Disaster
-The Camaro Concept will be one of the last deck chairs General Motors gets to rearrange before submerging.
-Looking at the last decade, it's clear GM let themselves forget who really pays those pensions.


It’s proving an impossible task to look over any media coverage of Detroit’s North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) without seeing a picture of the Camaro concept on the cover or splash page. On the heels of bankruptcy rumors and frenzied industry pessimism, the stakes had never been higher for the one of the show’s legendary unveilings.


Those unable to make it to the show had to watch GM’s webcast of the unveiling, along with its baffling prelude. Only true car fiends were able to endure watching a high-school marching band doing their thing for five minutes before we could catch glimpse of the upcoming keeper of the famous pony car flame. And really, after seeing the concept which would hope to save GM, a marching band seems an appropriate introduction. The concept design is gaudy, obnoxious and without direction. Like the efforts of teenaged nerds dressed in white uniforms with big, brass buttons, the lines of the Camaro concept make a valiant effort to grasp for coolness and find it out of reach.


Online rumors already swirl around General Motors' Chairman and CEO, Rick Wagoner demanding a redesign of the concept car’s exterior in the 11th hour running up to the NAIAS - to make the car’s style "less retro" and more of an ‘interpretation’ of the unforgettable 60's Camaros. And that may very possibly be the problem. In recent years GM has almost has consistently failed to deliver the kinds of designs Americans have come to demand from their American car. While trucks have maintained the neutral stance that always made Chevy the choice of government agencies, GM cars in the last ten years have been renowned for their confusing design and polarizing looks. The ‘stretchy’ body-panel cladding of the Grand Prix and the rental-like ambivalence of late nineties’ Buicks came to replace the determined, function-driven designs of old-school GM staples.


The truck platform became the bread and butta of the product offerings and continued the downward spiral of design confusion. Pointless lumpyness and garbage can plastic misplaced on vehicles like the the early Avalanche assured that the conservative buyer on the lookout for his or her next grocery getter would be looking to Japanese rivals. They might stop to contemplate why a refrigerator built into the Pontiac Aztec’s center console should entice them to spend over $30K on the IHOP-shaped crossover, now relegated to the Edsel club (will be highly collectable for misguided, future, rich people). Meanwhile, Chevy badge heros like the Monte Carlo managed to miss all the marks buyers look for in a GT coupe, let alone the Monte. Front wheel drive and Lumina-derived re-design of the 1995 Monte Carlo assured that the drama and bad-ass cache of previous (83-88) MCs was replaced by a two-door rental car with low self-esteem and a 3.8L. It was barely able to capitalize on the NASCAR tie-in, let alone the pedigree of Monte Carlos of the previous 25 years.


Platform sharing seems to dictate everything the General shoves onto dealer lots, with SUVs leading the pack of near-identical platform-shared derivatives. Chevy, GMC and Cadillac are still stamping their name and bolting-on slightly varying front clips to the rapidly ageing Tahoe/Suburban. The new bodystyle for Suburban clones offers a bit of hope for the platform’s skin problems but we can be assured that the re-design will spread to GMC and Caddy with damn-near no differences in the exterior (and GM plug-in luxury on the inside).


GM also seemed to use the nineties to forget a crucial reason Americans had always made room for a Chevy or an Oldsmobile in their driveways. Car shoppers, especially in snowless states were being left with no option but to look elsewhere if they were in the market for an inexpensive, rear-wheel drive car with decent power - the former calling card of Chevrolet. Unfortunately for GM’s financial situation, this also included police departments that were now forced to opt for the historically inferior Ford Crown Victoria, with its less powerful and less-reliable engine and infamous safety problems. The Crown Victoria’s design faults have been conclusively linked to at least 18 police office and state trooper deaths . But it was now the only game in town and the only alternative to the smallish, front-wheel drive Impala which GM was trying to foist on law enforcement after they killed the Caprice in 1996. Even after an aggressive marketing campaign by Chevy, the 2000 Impala, another warmed-over Lumina never got mainstream take-up by departments counting on V8 power on the interstates. Cab companies were also left with no choice - and GM knew better than to attempt an Impala Taxi package.


Thus, the Camaro Concept, even when its distant relative hits showrooms in 2009, is unlikely to turn the confusion around. Camaro people will definitely snatch up whatever is on offer. And it's also likely that Camaro's reputation for being America's deadliest car will be resurrected too. But - just as marching bands do crap-all for winning the game - this thing will do little for regaining decayed market share for a car-maker that forgot about the car buyer.


As dozens of truck-platform products loose momentum - post $3.00/gallon - GM, their pensions burden and all, will only continue to struggle. With the only other GM concept introduced at the 2006 NAIAS being the Buick Enclave crossover, it’s clear that lessons aren’t being learned as thousands of GM workers continue to loose their jobs.

Getting back to basics doesn’t have to mean ‘re-interpreting’60s’models but refocusing on making the relatively simple, never slow and always affordable cars we associate with General Motors. Certain GM dreams will never come true. A new Buick will never appeal to consumers under 50 until they offer something as single-minded and inspiring as any sixties' Riviera (without ‘re-interpreting’ it), still popular with under 30s today. Other GM aspirations are more realistic, like maybe making a Malibu into a car people would buy even if a Mazda 626 wasn’t more expensive. The success of the now-dwindling H2 proved that dropping truly different bodies onto an off-the-shelf platform can deliver success instead of consumers using their budget to decide which brand's Tahoe they'll drive.

But the bigger lesson has to be that GM will always be shoppers’ first stop for red-blooded, big 'o rear-wheel drive cars. Now’s the last chance to stop shoving these good people toward Ford and Chrysler showrooms.