Aston Martin Rapide: Hope and glory

Aston Martin, the Gaydon, England-based sports car manufacturer -- though they'll always be in Newport Pagnell in my mind -- has released near-production images of its upcoming Rapide super sedan, and it is a stunner.

The car, based on the DB9 coupe, will probably see the light of day in Geneva in March. The four-place, four-door coupe is entering a burgeoning class of high-end four-door spaceships, including the Porsche Panamera, the Audi A7 and the (proposed) Lamborghini Estoque and BMW 8-Series. Can Mercedes be far behind? My sources tell me they are not.

-- Dan Neil

Photos: Aston Martin

This vehicle may be hazardous to your health

Most people killed in accidents involving cars die the way you would expect -- smashing into another vehicle or other unyielding object while traveling on a public roadway. Those basic scenarios killed more than 41,000 people in the U.S. in 2007 and injured 2.5 million more.

But, as is often and depressingly the case with death and maiming, there's more. According to a new federal study, mishaps that involved cars but aren't classified as traffic accidents on public roads claimed the lives of more than 1,700 Americans in 2007 and injured an additional 841,000.

Not surprisingly, about two-thirds of those deaths and about 10% of the injuries are caused by what NHTSA calls "nontraffic crashes," a statistical category that includes wrecks on nonpublic roads and in parking garages; accidents involving pedestrians and bicyclists; and back-over incidents.

More intriguing is the breakdown of the various ways that vehicles kill and injure people in "noncrash incidents," which caused 588 deaths and 743,000 injuries in 2007.

Being crushed by a falling vehicle -- such as a car slipping off a jack during a DIY oil change -- was the leading cause of noncrash deaths. Unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning was No. 2. Other major threats included falling from vehicles, hypothermia (excessive cold) and hyperthermia (excessive heat).

On a lesser but arguably more gruesome scale, seven people were killed by exploding tires, five were strangled by windows, three died while locked in the trunk and two were scalded to death by overheated radiators.

The main reason the injury total for noncrash incidents is so much higher than for crashes is that it includes people who slammed their hands in a car door or were otherwise injured by a closing door (148,000), were injured unloading cargo or pushing a vehicle (88,000) or hurt themselves getting in or out of a vehicle (84,000).

NHTSA compiled the study only after being ordered to by Congress, and it's not hard to see why. Unlike highway crashes and other accidents on public roadways, information on the type of incidents tracked in this report is much harder to collect. After considering several approaches, the agency ultimately relied on a mixture of data gleaned from police reports, death certificates and hospital emergency room reports.

You can check out a two-page summary of the report's findings on the NHTSA website.

And, hey, let's be careful out there.

-- Martin Zimmerman

Logo credit: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Ford hybrid tax credit: Now you see it, now you don't

Tantalus was a figure in Greek mythology who, for his sins against the gods, was doomed to spend eternity standing in a pool of water below fruit-laden tree branches that moved away from his hand every time he tried to grab a piece of fruit, while every time he stooped for a drink the water receded below his lips.

Ford Motor Co. has recast that myth for modern times, with hybrid lovers in the role of the fallen demigod.

It seems that Ford scored big with its new 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid and 2010 Mercury Milan hybrid. They're so efficient -- at 39 mpg combined city/highway -- that the Internal Revenue Service has approved them for the highest possible level of tax credit for hybrid vehicles: $3,400. That's the same credit it gave to cars like the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic hybrid and a testament to what a huge leap the Blue Oval is taking in fuel economy.

The problem is that these miraculous testaments to American ingenuity aren't due to hit dealership lots until right around the time that tax credit expires, March 31, or perhaps slightly after that date. That means that environmentally conscious consumers, tempted by the sharp looks and gas-sipping ways of the new mid-sized sedans, will find themselves in the frustrating position of reaching out for that $3,400 tax credit, only to find that it's dropped to $1,700. Hocus-pocus.

That's due to the fact that the IRS program phases out the credits once a car maker surpasses a certain number of hybrid sales (60,000 to be exact). Toyota and Honda long ago broke that threshold, and their vehicles are no longer eligible for any credit at all. But Ford only ...

New car sales: As goes California...

As one of the world's vibrating poles of all things automotive, California has been at the front of many of the industry's biggest trends for decades. And as a nearly $2 trillion economy, the Golden State also has long been a bellwether for economic trends.

So the rest of the automotive nation better take note: If you thought last year was bad, just wait until you catch up to California.

According to new figures released by the California New Car Dealers Assn. today, we took it in the proverbial pants out here on the Pacific Rim.

But before we get to that, a pop quiz: What are the two brands of cars that actually had increased sales last year? Answer after the jump.

While nationwide auto sales fell 18% in 2008, California was down 23%, with 1,447,460 cars and light trucks sold. The difference between last year's sales and those in 2007 -- a delta of 443,570 vehicles -- is more than the total number of cars sold in most states. One in every nine cars sold in the nation was sold here.

The Stig: Masked mysterioso and man-machine behind the wheel, or some bloke named Collins?

Ordinarily, I do not step out from behind my granite frieze of God-like automotive authority, but on this matter of the Stig –- the strange anonymous superman who does the test-driving for the worldwide smash hit “Top Gear” TV show –- I actually know something. Recently, it was revealed in the British tabloid the Daily Telegraph that the man in the white Nomex was none other than Ben Collins, a reasonably successful British racing driver and stunt driver in the Bond films. This week, the Daily Mail reports that the Stig is not one person but a squad of eight hot-shoes whose particular skills are chosen for the occasion. In one instance, the Mail alleges, the show used a professional snowmobile driver to pull off a dangerous stunt jumping a snowmobile off a ski jump. And no, it wasn’t Todd Palin.

Well, as some of our readers might remember, I was an early favorite to be cast in the American version of "Top Gear" last year, a presumption that expired the very moment I opened my mouth on camera. I was immediately booted off the show but not before spending some quality time with Jeremy Clarkson, Andy Wilman and other "Top Gear" worthies. I begged them not to tell me who the Stig was -– because I didn’t want to know –- but I was told anyway.

So, here’s what I know: Yes, Ben Collins is a regular Stig. Yes, there is more than one Stig, as avid watchers of the show might have figured, seeing as how his height varies from show to show. And if the show should ever, ever come to America, Collins is interested in doing the U.S. show because he wants to drive in NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Then again, who knows? Maybe I am the Stig ... heh heh heh....

-- Dan Neil

Photo: BBC

Aston Martin debuts LMP1 cars: 50 years of aesthetic decline

Oh, this is going to be big. To commemorate the Aston Martin company’s only overall win at Le Mans in 1959 –- and to help sell a bunch of dirty-hot sports cars in the process -– the automaker will go for the overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. Though this was an open secret in racing circles, this week the company released images of the Lola-chassis’ed LMP1 cars with traditional orange-and-blue Gulf Oil livery. Very shagadelic. The LMP1 cars –- P1 cars, for short -– will be powered by the same V12 engine that was under the hood of Aston’s GT1-winning cars for the last two years. To focus maximum “energy” (read: money) on the P1 effort, Aston will not field a works team to defend the GT1 title.

The P1 works program sets up a high-stakes showdown between the gasoline-powered Aston Martins and diesel-powered entries from Peugeot and Audi. For those just getting, shall we say, up to speed: The Audi R10 TDI diesels are undefeated in three years at Le Mans. In 2007 and 2008, Peugeot fielded smoking-hot diesel-powered P1 cars of its own, which were quicker per lap than the Audis, but ultimately met with bad luck. The success of diesel racing cars has been held up as an example of the performance possibilities of more environmentally friendly technology. However, the race organizers have been under pressure to minimize, by rule, the inherent mileage advantage of diesel engines. The new rules come into force this year.

And so the shootout with the gas-powered Aston Martins takes on symbolic, even political overtones, as the classic high-revving performance of gasoline competes against the long-legged endurance of diesel.

"Racing has been, and still is, at the heart of Aston Martin," said Ulrich Bez, Aston Martin's chief executive. "Our cars today are subtle, elegant and handcrafted, but they still have the genes for competition.... We will put all our heart and skill behind this project to demonstrate the essence of Aston Martin: power, beauty and soul."

Speaking of Bez, a few years ago I had the pleasure of being taken around a racetrack in the right seat of Aston Martin’s Le Mans-winning DBR1 (pictured) with Bez at the controls. Bez is a skilled driver and the DBR1 -– a race car of half-century vintage -– scared the hell out of me. It is also one of the most beautiful competition cars ever made, in the same class as the Ferrari 250 Testarossa, Jaguar D Type and first-generation Bentley Speed 8.

So, compare and discuss? If pretty were speed, the old car would leave the new car for dead.

-- Dan Neil

Photos: Aston Martin, astonmartins.com

Checkered fate: Honda S2000, Cadillac XLR go buh-bye

In “Big Yellow Taxi,” Joni Mitchell wrote: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Socrates said the same thing but was a miserable singer. In any event, the days of wistful remembrance are here for the Cadillac XLR and Honda S2000 -– and you can bet other pricey niche products are slouching toward the gallows too (Lexus SC430 mebbe?).

General Motors revealed this week that it would lay off 154 workers at the Bowling Green, Ky., factory where the XLR is produced alongside its chassis-mate, the Chevrolet Corvette. The XLR was always an unlikely story. Born of Cadillac’s Art and Science design vocabulary as first iterated on the Evoq concept car (1999), the XLR was a super halo for the brand, and its strange and ambitious shape looked like absolutely nothing else on the road -– “a malevolent crystal grown in zero gravity,” is how I described the car in 2003. Under the provocative sheetmetal was a Corvette chassis, with transverse leaf spring rear suspension and a de-tuned Corvette motor. It was also GM’s technology spear point: The XLR was the first car in the world to use the Delphi’s magnetorrheic suspension, which varies shock rates in real time. In terms of sales you could credit the Escalade or the CTS with Cadillac’s resurrection, but the brand’s styling always gravitated toward the XLR.

Well, that was fun. Cadillac sold only 1,250 XLRs in 2008 (for between $80,000 to $100,000, give or take a few thousand) and considering the sorry state of things, a redesign of the aging roadster was apparently out of the question. Goodnight, sweet prince.

Ditto Honda’s S2000, a fantastic, minimalistic roadster that -– with its bonkers-with-rpm 2.2-liter, 240-hp four cylinder -– felt like throwing a saddle on a bumblebee. The car received a brush-up for the 2004 model year, and a hard-edged, weaponized track version (the CR) in 2008, but the sales just weren’t there. Honda says it sold just 2,538 units in 2008 (at or above $34,000), adding to a respectable U.S. total of some 65,000 units since 1998.

With the retirement of the S2000, Honda’s commitment to adrenaline is very much in doubt. The next-generation NSX –- a mid-engine exoticar -– has been spiked and Honda notoriously pulled out of Formula 1 last year. So what will go fast and wear the flying H? A Fit Type R? Oh, what troubled times we live in.

And speaking of big yellow taxis …. Auto-parts maker Checker of Kalamazoo, Mich., maker of the unforgettable Checker Marathon taxi cab, sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this month. The company ceased production of taxi cabs in 1982, but there has never been -– nor will there ever be -– a better taxi. As someone who hung out in New York in the early 1980s, I can tell you the sins possible in the jump seats of a Checker Marathon would stagger the imagination.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

-- Dan Neil

Photos: GM, Honda, Flickr

Cold War for car buffs

Got a bad case of auto-related Cold War nostalgia? The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has the cure.

As part of a new exhibit called Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures, LACMA is temporarily displaying three automotive artifacts that are sure to bring back memories of a time when capitalism and communism were going toe-to-toe around the globe.

The cars, a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle, a 1956 BMW Isetta and a 1972 East German Trabant will be on view through Feb. 8 in the museum entrance area.

For autophiles and ideologues of a certain age, nothing says “dictatorship of the proletariat” quite like a Trabant. Millions of these drab sedans were made between the late ‘50s and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the car’s lack of pizazz and performance (not to mention the years-long wait to get one) came to symbolize for many the shortcomings of state-run industry — a useful lesson, perhaps, for the Big Three as they look to Washington for help.

According to some sources, the Trabant name is derived from the Latin word for “companion,” although it is also the German word for “satellite.” (Either way, it recalls the name of the first successful satellite, which was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957 and dubbed “Sputnik,” Russian for “fellow traveler.”) More prosaically, "traben" is also the German verb for "trot."

Often referred to as the Trabi, the car’s design changed little over the years. East Germans would keep them for decades and, according to Wikipedia, used Trabis were often worth more than new ones because they were available right away.

Classic car buffs may be more interested in the Isetta, a little runabout produced by BMW in the 1950s and early 1960s. “Powered” by a one-cylinder, 13-horsepower modified motorcycle engine, the Isetta bears little resemblance to the high-performance machines BMW is known for today.

Based on an Italian design, the Isetta was an odd-looking egg — in fact, Germans called the car “the rolling egg” because of its ovoid shape.

The VW Beetle needs no introduction, of course. More than 24 million were built over three decades, and a Bug with a “Stop the War” bumper sticker is enough to induce flashbacks in some folks who survived the ‘60s. And lest anyone think that constancy of design (or lack of imagination) was a strictly Marxist-Leninist construct, its worth noting that the Beetle’s basic motif changed even less than the Trabant’s over the years.

The Beetle and the Isetta, by the way, are on loan from the Petersen Automotive Museum. The Trabant is owned by local artist Richard Jackson.

The Art of Two Germanys exhibit, which features around 300 paintings, sculptures, photographs and other artworks, runs through April 19. More information on the exhibit and several related programs is available at the LACMA website.

-- Martin Zimmerman

Photos: Top: BMW Isetta (left) and Volkswagen Beetle (right); bottom: Trabant

Photo credit: LACMA

SSC's plug-in supercar would need the mother of all plugs

With billions in taxpayer moolah floating around to encourage the development of next-generation plug-in hybrids and electric cars, the public needs to be wary of claims of too-good-to-be-true technologies, magic batteries, cars powered by pollen, dandruff, zoo poo, whatever. At a minimum, we should keep a calculator on hand.

Consider, for example, a claim made by Shelby SuperCars, a Washington-based outfit (not affiliated with famed performance-car designer Carroll Shelby) that announced last week that it would build a revolutionary electric vehicle called the Ultimate Aero EV "that will set a new standard in the electric car industry –- one of 10-minute recharges, super horsepower and ranges up to 200 miles."

Thanks to SSC's "Nanotechnology Lithium-Ion" battery pack (buzzwords, anyone?), the car is "rechargeable in 10 minutes on a standard 110-volt outlet and has a 150-200 miles range on a single charge," according to the company's press release.

That sounds amazing, doesn't it? And more that that, completely freaking impossible.

Gluteus Maxximus: A study in power-to-weight ratios

The makers of something called the Maxximus G-Force, which appears to be a heavily modified version of the British-made Ultima GTR supercar, have captured three world records for street-legal cars: 0-60 mph (2.134 seconds); 0-100 mph (4.451 seconds); and the mother of all supercar metrics, the 0-100-0 mph mark of 8.861 seconds. These records were set in October at my old stomping grounds, Rockingham Raceway in North Carolina. Maxximus Industries will unveil the car to the crab-puff-eating press on Feb. 11, at L.A.'s Peninsula Hotel.

For some lust-inducing footage, go here. 

Great. Lovely. We've been down this road before (Vector, Mosler, SSC, etc.), and it's always fun when some wild colonial boy decides to stuff obscene amounts of pony into a lightweight racing chassis and hang a license plate on it.

But the back story, hinted at in the press release, is even more, well, intriguing. Apparently, philanthropist, businessman and entrepreneur David Bruce McMahan got into the Maxximus project when he met the car's designer/test driver, Marlon Kirby, while the latter was working as a chauffeur.

McMahan and Kirby got into a casual conversation while Kirby was driving McMahan from the private airport where he had just parked his jet. McMahan -- a former hot-rodder from Southern California who had moved on from cars to planes -- was so impressed with Kirby that he decided to back Kirby's dream of building a monstrous record-breaking car with an engine producing over 1,600 hp.

"That was the initial thing that impressed me," McMahan said in a phone interview. "The original P-51 Mustangs with Rolls-Royce Merlin inline 12-cylinders only produced about 1,500 hp."

What came next was four years and a blue streak of money. "Let's say I wasn't price-sensitive," McMahan says.