It's the week ending November 6, and we've browsed our favorite automotive blogs all week long to gather the highlights from each.
SEMA is not quite over, and many blogs are still highlighting the highly modified vehicles on display there. Leave it to Jalopnik to highlight the highly modified booth babes, in their gallery of SEMA car girls. And that's all I'm going to say about that.
We caught the guys from Left Lane News in North Hall as they were leaving the Kia booth having just photographed the trio of customized Souls. Click to read more details on Kia's GoGear.com Safety Car, baby blue Antenna car, and Buck Wild Sinister car. Sadly, no Hamsters inside.
We think the new Chevy Camaro was the hands-down star of this year's SEMA Show, but if you want to see more vehicles from other manufacturers, you can check out this gallery of tuner cars from the folks at Motor Trend.
The Los Angeles Auto Show kicks off the new auto show season in just a few weeks, and we're already seeing the first of the press releases sharing bit about what we'll be seeing there. The Detroit Bureau has a report on "Youthmobiles circa 2030" with a projection of vehiches from the design studios for Audi, GM, Honda, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota. Reaching 21 years into the future these interpretations envision what young drivers -- raised with cell phones, online communities and webcams -- will want.
If you're a fan of anything Porsche, then you'll want to see the new lightweight Boxster Spyder when it is unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show. If you can't wait a few more weeks to see it in person, then check out this video at AutoBlog. It's promised to be "agile, powerful, open and efficient" with a 0-60 mph time of 4.6 seconds and combined 25.3 mpg. We're drooling already!
One of the main reasons automakers want to reduce weight is because it's a great way to increase MPG numbers. In this week's edition of Greenlings, AutoblogGreen explains how reducing a vehicle's weight helps its efficiency.
Would you buy this car? Well, according to TheCarGurus summary of Fiat's upcoming business plan for Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep, you might be able to within a few years.
The Car Connection has some good news: According to early estimates of traffic fatalities for the first half of this year, overall fatalities are down about seven percent versus the same period last year. Apparently, even adjusting for the fact that people are driving a lot less, the fatality rate is showing a pronounced decline -- at a record-low 1.15 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT), versus 1.23 in the first half of 2008.
The issue of how to stop a runaway Toyota, er, car, remains a hot topic, but Consumer Reports is the only outlet which has taken vehicles out onto a track to test braking strategies under unintended acceleration. Their most recent story includes video that shares emergency braking techniques and shows that pumping the brakes could be one of the worst methods. Again, the best advice is to put the car into Neutral. Make a note of it.
We found this photo of an artistic scene inscribed in the dirt on the back of a Peugeot at Automopedia, and they found it at reddit. In the interest of followng proper copyright etiquette, we'd like to credit the photographer, but can't find the necessary info. Whoever you are, thanks for sharing!
And with that fun little tidbit to make you go rent some Godzilla films, we thank you for joining us for this week's autoMedia.com CARnival! Have you got something of interest you want us to include in a future carnival? Then fill out our online form so we can be notified of your interesting entry to our weekly blog CAR-nival. Check back next week for another installment--until then, have a great weekend!
Brandy Schaffels, autoMedia.com contributing editor