The American Man Gets a New Van - and F'd in the Can

Vans do lots of stuff. Or, at least, they carry lots of stuff. Stuff usually weighs a lot - tools, parts for other stuff, ladders to reach stuff up high. And, since the Eurostar and the Astro van met their doom, the van man has had to buy pickup trucks and camper shells.

With Ford killing off the Crown Victory Cop Killer, it means that anything big, like vans, with a V8 has to be replaced by something less big with smaller engines. A lot of car companies would get clever and base something on a Mustang. Instead, they're bringing the European Transit Connect to van-hungry Americans. But are repairmen, plumbers and deliverers or heavy stuff going to rush out to get this Eurovan?

Probably not. The Connect is Front-Wheel Drive (FWD). Even with a relatively-torquish, 1.8L Diesel, the idea of merging onto a freeway with a washing machine, compressors, socket wrenches and replacement washing machine motors on-board doesn't sound likely. Sure, the Europeans can carry their cheese, flowers and impressionist paintings around round-abouts and narrow city streets in Barcelona, Nice and Stafordshire - but the American van man needs rear-wheel drive and and triple-digit horsepower. In other words, if you see this van arockin' - actually, you just won't see this van doing much. Not anything that an HHR sedan delivery can't do while looking cooler.

So, as gas prices keep climbing, expect to pay much more for all your van-man needs, since he'll keep driving his pickup, waiting for someone to sell him a real, mid-size van.

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.

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

This Week in Gas Price History: California's paying less, Texas paying more, but we're all screwed

To be precise, we're screwed at a rate of 20 cents since last year, about buck since this week 2004. So, really, the long-term outlook for being able to guzzle as much gas as we want is probably on the decline. So, again, I gotta ask - how much is too much - remember this poll? Vote now!

Opinion Polls & Market Research

You Decide: Roush Silverado - coolest truck ever or gaughty redneck fantasty?

Roush is famous for the crazy stuff they do to Fords. And, their Roush F150 is damn sweet. Unlike the....let's say...'understated' mods you get when you score yourself a Saleen F150, the Roush is loud, growling, brightly colored and generally obnoxious. And it looks like Roush has applied the same winning formula to a possible truck. And, look at it, if they don't end up making it - someone else will. Would you drive a bright orange truck with what looks looks like a shaker hood? Would you want it in a quad cab?

My vote's 'hell yes'

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Driving the 2007 Escalade - Cool, wrong, really badly made

There's too many car reviews online - so we hate doing them. But when given the chance to jump behind the wheel of a 2007 Escalade - the ultimate SUV - I said 'what the hell, let's do it.'

It goes without saying that the Escalade is sexy as hell and ridiculously roomy. But, of course, so is the Tahoe, which costs half as much. While they no longer share a platform and 95% of the parts, the two trucks are still the same size. The Escalade has an unnecessarily bigger, V8 and, most importantly, the constantly adjusted, futuristic-magnetically-charged shocks.

At one point, the Cadillac man that came along for the ride insisted, with no hint of sarcasm, that I try to flip the Escalade and - since it wasn't mine - I was happy to give it a shot. It didn't take long for me to get the four-ton bastard up to 50 on a surface street and, bracing myself for rollover goodness, I yanked the wheel for a hard left (after all, Tony Soprano flipped his Escalade and walked away).

The king of bling just turned into the parking lot where I pointed and screeched sideways like a Camaro. Expensive computers told one side of the car to become stiffer to make up for...physics. The truck was unflippable.

So, drivability is impressive and who doesn't like 22inch chrome rims from the factory. Quality is another issue altogether. Bare in mind that the $77 grand on the Escalade's sticker can buy a slew of different luxury cars. Before even getting a close look at the Caddy, I could see the seam of the drivers' door was crooked, narrow on the top and much wider on the bottom. This was without looking very closely - it didn't occur to me to check the body on a new car - I usually reserve it for salvaged pieces of crap like that Buick Riviera I had.

Crooked doors, on a brand new, $80K Cadillac. Seriously? Inside, the plasticky feel of fake wood panels glued onto pickup dashboard panels is a bit better than it was on the old, pickup-based Caddies - but not much better. The second time I went to backup, the backup camera had stopped working. The time before, it had shown the rear bumper on the navigation screen, which was cool. I put the car into 'drive' and then 'reverse' again. Nothing, the camera toy had gone too. Again, this Escalade had 40 miles on it at the time.

I was done. The Bose, 5.1 Dolby sound system also sounded like crap. The guy tried to explain that every Escalade's sound settings were adjusted at the dealer when it was purchased. 'So, it just sounds crappy from the factory?'

Maybe we, as a society, need to find a new pimpmobile? Maybe better-made and with better gas mileage?

Everything you want, nothing you don't: New Chevy El Camnio coming?

Truth is, there's probably not one coming. But check out how easy GM's Aussie arm, Holden, makes it look. The Holden El Camino (not what it's really called) is everything you want (fast car) with nothing you don't (extra seats, floor, windows).

It's the perfect vehicle. Dump all your crap in the back and go harder. And this one's so damn sexy. And, with a chunky V8 under there, it's just as fast as the original with none of the 'gangs love stealing it' drawbacks.

You can read about all the boring details of this 411 horsepower, high-spec version of the Holden HSV Ute Maloo from Autoblog here.

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.