after two weeks of walking here in LA, it’s a little surreal to suddenly have a car to drive. sometimes i miss having to walk everywhere because there are so many little details along the way to appreciate. many beautiful classic cars park on these roads and it’s certainly hard to appreciate them when you’re going 35 miles per hour. but who am i kidding? having a car makes life a lot easier and we no longer need to walk 40 minutes home with a full load of groceries because now it’s just a six minute drive with no sweating.

and now we can finally buy liquids!

Subaru has announced their withdrawal from the World Rally Championship after over 20 years due to economic hardship. Subaru joins the likes of Toyota, Mitsubishi, Peugeot, Lancia, Audi, Skoda and Hyundai, all having ceased involvement with WRC for one reason or another as the sport has grown and become ever more restrictive throughout the years.

what a sad day :(

held annually, the Race of Champions is an event that pits drivers from different motorsports against each other to claim glory for themselves and the countries that they represent. the Nations’ Cup typically has two drivers from each country (usual entrants include Germany, France, Great Britain, USA, and a few Scandinavian nations) that compete against each other to demonstrate their superiority.

so enter the 2008 Race of Champions, Nations’ Cup, round two: Autosport Great Britain vs. USA.

HEAT 1 – Jenson Button (Formula 1) vs. Carl Edwards (NASCAR):
Edwards goes straight into the barriers in turn one, loses by 10 seconds.

HEAT 2 – Andy Priaulx (World Touring Car Championship) vs. Tanner Foust (Formula Drift):
Foust stalls his Focus WRC three times before finally stuttering off the line, loses by 12 seconds.

useless! bring back Travis Pastrana!

ten things i’d prefer to an American car (in no particular order):

- chronic bronchitis
- a 12 month subscription to Cat Fancy
- holes in my pants
- an Apple computer
- bed bugs
- R. Kelly trapped in my closet
- a Reliant Robin with one wheel missing
- calluses on my face
- six back-to-back screenings of Kill Bill
- shag pile carpeting in any amount

dumpsters are great because rich people are dumb. case in point, i found a perfectly good lower grille from a 2006-2008 Volkswagen Rabbit/Golf GTI at a posh building near downtown Los Angeles. how perfectly good? how does bubble wrap fresh from the manufacturer sound to you? mmm!

so if you know someone who’s got a current generation GTI, kick his lower grille in and link him to my auction page. thanks!

this is the plateless silver Tesla Roadster i spotted parked next to a crappy building in Los Angeles a couple of nights ago. it’s certainly not my rarest automotive sighting (i’ve stood between two Alpina Z8′s and, on another occasion, saw two Bugatti Veyrons at the same dealership) but it’s arguably the most significant. to many, the Tesla marks the beginning of the end for sports cars as we know it and is proof that efficiency and performance are not mutually exclusive. it’s a sign of greater things to come and standing briefly in its presence was a strange and wonderful experience for me.

oh yeah, the beep you hear at the 0:04 mark is a text message from my old roommate: “steal that shit it’s silent no one will know it’s gone”

i don’t mean to be a jerk about it, but i really hope the United States Congress chooses NOT to bail out GM, Ford, and Chrysler. most of their domestic cars are horrible and the ones that are slightly better are just rebadged crap boxes for the European market. i say let them suffer.