I was glancing around the other night, in hopes of finding a concept car that would meet my profile. You know the rear wheel drive, lightweight, enthusiast’s car I love so much, and guess what happened to appear. Something to spring life back into my hopes. Something that I could drive sideways and all I have to do is suppress my urge to… vomit.

Nissan’s concept the “URGE”, has a lot going for it in my book but looks are not one of them. The silver and light blue offset by electric yellow is overwhelming to my senses and makes me almost want to cringe. Being the man that I am, I stuck with it and flipped to the specifications page that Nissan had.

The Urge is designed for the video game era. It is intended to come complete with an X-Box and the steering wheel is suppose to be converted into the controller so you can play your games. Wow, I could care less. If I’m going to play video games, I’d like to do it in the comfort of my own home with a cold beer to ease the pain every time I die.

Moving to the factors that really make me want one and that would be only because it would be filling my “Niche”. Nissan plans to equipped the car with a high revving, light weight engine, independent suspension, Brembo style brake like the ones found on the 350Z, and my favorite part, make it rear wheel drive. Yippie, life’s better sideways!

I hope they decide to produce the urge, I just hope the redesign the body so it doesn’t have gapping holes in the doors and tone it down a little. A round steering wheel would also be nice, as much as I like “Night Rider”, it doesn’t mean I want a steering wheel like KIT’s.

[Austin: I totally dig the concept. I like the look. I has very similar styling to the GT-R concept that was out a few years back.  It also think that they are on the right track with the IDEA. This is just a concept, but I think it is pretty cool. The colors are a tad bold even for a concept, but if they went to production with it, I think it would be a winner.  By production, I should mention that I mean removing all of the flare and making it a normal low end coupe.  I should also note that this concept was featured at the Detroit Auto Show in 2006, but it was worth bringing it back because it is one of the only small RWD concepts out there. ]

I’ve talked to a few people who own hybrid cars purchased right from the factory. Their main reason for the purchase is gas mileage. That is one reason to buy hybrid, but it may not be the best reason.The biggest and best reason to buy a Hybrid is emissions. Hybrids don’t run while stopped or even under hard accelerations in the city, this fact alone reduces emissions tremendously. If you own a Hybrid it should make you feel good to know that you are polluting this planet far less than 90% of the vehicles on the road today.

If you know me, you know I don’t like things that are slow and don’t preform. You’re probably thinking, “Why write the article, then?” (I know Austin is). Let me tell you my main reason why I would buy a hybrid. As much as I care about my children being able to breath in the near future, it has nothing to do with saving the planet. It has everything to do with torque, glorious torque! Torque is that thrust pushing you back in the seat that you feel when you leave from a dead stop. But first let me explain why I don’t think fuel economy is not a good reason to purchase a hybrid.The first reason is that they don’t actually get that much better fuel economy. Lets take an example of the Toyota Camry and Toyota Camry Hybrid. Both are excellent cars and Toyota is currently the leader in Hybrid vehicles. The LE model four cylinder Camry comes with a 2.4 L and costs $20,025. The 2.4 L has an output of 158 HP and 161 ft-lbs of torque. The fuel economy is 21 mpg city and 31 on the highway. Sounds pretty good in my book.

The Hybrid model comes with the same 2.4 L engine that has an lower output of 147 HP and 138 ft-lbs of torque but if you combine that with the 40 HP electric motor it has 187 hp and 202 ft-lbs of torque. The hybrid cost $25,200 and gets 33 mpg in the city and 34 mpg on the highway.Back to torque real quick. The only engine out there that could come up with that crazy torque number is a diesel and that much torque could tear the tire off just about anything or pull a house (not literally). Manty full sized pick-up trucks hardly produce that much torque. Pretty cool, eh?

So why wouldn’t I buy a hybrid because of fuel economy? If I average out the fuel economy for both Camries (or is it Camri?) [Austin: I think its Camrys] , it comes to 26 mpg for the LE and 33.5 mpg for the hybrid. The average driver puts 15,000 miles on his or her car annually. Now if i divide that by the average fuel econmy of both, I should get the amount of fuel each car would use over 15,000 miles. 576.9 Gallons for the LE and 447.8 Gallons for the hybrid, a difference of 129.1 Gal. If you multiply that by the rediculous cost of fuel, $3.25, you get $419.58 for the year. (I rounded up on the penny just like our “best friends” the oil companies.) That’s right it saves you only $420 a year in fuel. It would take you twelve years and three months to make up the difference in savings between the LE and Hybrid model. (Note: The LE is not even the base model Camry)

To sum it up, if you own a hybrid, brag to you friends about how you can pull a horse trailer because its has crazy amounts of torque or better yet, brag to them about how you’re doing your part to save the planet. Just don’t talk about all the gas money you save, because in the long run it just doesn’t work.

It is interesting to think that the Science Fiction movies that I loved as a child might soon be a reality in the automotive world, at least for Mercedes.

I remember Watching “The Flight of the Navigator” where a young man is taken ten years into the future by a spaceship. He ends up befriending the spaceship who happens to talk like PeeWee Herman… Anyway, rent the movie if I’ve interested you, but the ship in the movie is what interests me. I remember it changing shape at high speeds to something a little more aerodynamic and more like a giant silver football when stationary or at slow speeds. Well, apparently the luxury car maker Mercedes plans to do the same thing with a car.

Mercedes calls it the SilverFlow. The idea is to use billions of microscopic metallic particles which are variable but can be changed into different configurations using a electro-magnetics. Essentially, you could have a streamline car for cruising down the freeway and a compact car for the city.

The only foreseeable problem with this is a child with a magnet. I can see it now, my brand new SilverFlow melting away into a 1-ton heap of liquid metal around the poor child. Another problem is large tanker trucks of Liquid Nitrogen with combination of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh well, I’m sure Mercedes will work out the kinks.

Besides, if the name SilverFlow doesn’t catch-on they could always try the name T-1000. Oh wait, that might not go over well with Marketing.

This is a pretty sweet setup in this 2006 Subaru WRX STI. It has a compound system with a turbocharger, and a supercharger created by Forced Air Technologies

Allen: It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut and let Austin ask the questions (I hate being the camera man). I love the fact that the supercharger kicks off when the turbo is under boost to eliminate any parasitic drain from the engine. It is a good feat of engineering and testiment to modern technology. I go into all sorts of techno-bable on this suject but Austin would just delete them from the post. Keep up the good work F.A.T.!

Allen: I figured I would write a post about the suspension set-up in my 240sx. Suspension modification is one of those things that if done incorrectly can make your car handle worse. I spent several month researching on what I wanted to do. I chose the Whiteline suspension kit which can be purchased at www.pdm-racing.com (these guys are awesome! I’ve ordered other things from them than just my kit.).

The reason I chose this kit was because it had been tried and tested on the 240sx (S13). It comes with lowering springs, adjustable sway-bars, and full polyurethane bushings. It is very labor intensive to replace all of the bushing on a 240sx or any car for that matter. It took me 11 hours with a lift, press and torch because some of the bushings could not be pressed out and had to be removed using a torch. I also put KYB AGX adjustable struts on the car with the springs.

After installing all the components, and aligning the car to the specifications that Whiteline gave, it handled awesome. The ride quality is stiff though and not terribly comfortable for daily driving, still I like it. I adjusted the front struts (4-way adjustable) to the #3 setting which is stiffer than stock and the rears (8 way adjustable) to #5 which is also stiffer than stock.

The sway bars were both set to the stiffest setting. The alignment specs after lowering were 0 degrees of Toe front and rear, -2.0 degrees of camber in the rear, and -1.5 degrees of camber in the front. The rear was -1.o degrees of camber past the Whiteline spec but the fronts were right on. Apparently, Nissan had some camber problems in the rear of the early 240sx which I latter found out. I bought adjustable upper control arms to correct the problem and put the spec at -1.0 degrees of camber.

How did it handle? It has a pretty decent oversteer and is fairly predictable. The only problem was this is my daily driver and in the rain it likes to get overly sideways. I adjusted the rear sway-bar down to a softer setting and that seemed to help with the oversteer and made it more street-able.

With all of the parts added up it came close to $1300. Understand that was 3 years ago and I did all of the installation. Expect to pay almost twice that if you have someone else do the install.

Was it worth it? Yes, yes it was. I love driving my 240sx but it does get a little stiff for the daily commute. Just don’t ask my wife if it was worth it, she’ll likely tell you No. If you have to ask someone else, you can ask Austin.

LOS ANGELES / NEW YORK – Chevrolet fuel cell electric vehicles will be seen on the streets and driveways of Los Angeles, New York City and Washington D.C., beginning today, in the largest market test ever of its kind.

Customers in suburban Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C. will begin driving more than 100 Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell electric vehicles as part of a comprehensive deployment plan dubbed “Project Driveway.” It constitutes the first large-scale market test of fuel cell electric vehicles anywhere.

A variety of drivers – from regular families to celebrities – will have free use of an Equinox Fuel Cell electric vehicle and the hydrogen fuel it needs to make electricity onboard. The average family will get one of the vehicles for three months and be required to report their experience to Chevrolet.

These will be interesting cars in the way that they are using hydrogen to generate the electricity needed to power the vehicle. GM did a similar test where they leased the Saturn EV1, with the actual largest market test of this kind, in the late 90’s. GM is playing this one a little bit different in that they are only allowing families to have the cars for 90 days, so don’t expect to see “Who Killed the Electric Car…Twice” any time soon.

Audi is launching its TDI initiative on the North American market. As early as next year, Audi will be putting the cleanest diesel engine in the world into production in the USA virtually in parallel to its launch in Europe: the 3.0 TDI with ultra-low emission system will initially be available for the Audi Q7, and later for the new Audi A4 too. Audi has been expanding steadily in the USA for many years now, and sees the market as holding high potential for its cutting-edge TDI engines. The low-sulphur fuel required for the engines’ operation was introduced throughout the country a year ago, paving the way for the initiative to begin.

According to calculations by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States could save 1.4 million barrels of crude oil every day if just one third of all passenger cars and light-duty commercial vehicles were equipped with up-to-date diesel engines.

The new 3.0L TDI engine will produce a respectable 240 bhp and a whopping 405 ft-lbs of torque. The nice thing about it is that it will also comply with California emissions standard. So that equals a good amount of power for what is estimated to consume 35% less fuel than the national average in the US.

I really like the idea of diesels in general. I am a strong supporter of less fuel consumption and more power any day. I am excited to see what the reality of this product will look like.

(images courtesy of Audi)