Damox's Car Blog

I realize I missed a few "Car of the Day" entries, but there was a good excuse (technical difficulties, or my dog ate my computer, whichever you'll believe).

Today's car of the day is the Alfa Romeo Spider. Despite being an Italian roadster, the Spider has become an icon of the American cinema. It is one of the most famous movie cars of all time, starring with Dustin Hoffman in the 1968 hit "The Graduate."

A lot of people do not know that the Spider was never mentioned in the book that the movie was based on. Charles Webb wrote the novel in 1962, before Alfa Romeo was making the spider. I believe the book referred to the car as a "foreign sports car." Another detail that was changed: Benjamin (Hoffman) sells the car after he moves to Berkeley to track down Elaine in the book, using planes and buses to get around the rest of the way. In the movie, the car is key in helping Ben race around California, tracking down Elaine and then tracking her down again before running out of gas and running to the chapel where she was getting married.

The Alfa Romeo Spider is the perfect example of a "cool" car. There were many cars at the time that could go faster, and there were much cheaper cars, but the Spider had something special that just made everyone look cool when they drove one.
Alfa Romeo Spider Cars and Parts For Sale @ The Car Swap Meet

In an effort to keep this blog fresher than that t-shirt you've been wearing for the past 4 days, I've decided to do an unoriginally-named segment called: Car of the Day.
Today's car is the Acura Legend.
The Acura Legend was among the first cars to carry the Acura name, which I'm sure we all know is the luxury version of Honda. It was powered by a V6 engine, which was big for a car of its size. I know a lot of tuners who love the Legend as a base car for their projects, because it was made to take quite a bit of power. Check out the link below for more information.
Acura Legend Cars and Parts Information

General Motors will be slashing prices on many new cars today in an attempt to grab back some market share from Asian automakers like Toyota and Honda. These price slashes will not be part of any special deals, such as the employee pricing sale they had this past summer. Instead, these are changes to the MSRP of the various lines of GM cars. This forces salesmen to focus on quality and reliability, rather than pushing sales. Will this strategy work? Not likely, in my opinion. I think these are the final death throes of a doomed company, destined to be bought out by stronger Japanese competitors.
GM Slashing Prices

Here's an interesting site for any mechanical nuts out there. This company develops and licenses unique internal combustion engines. Their engines are lighter than conventional convention engines, and they run on multiple type of fuel. They also have fewer moving parts, which would theoretically make them last longer without repairs. They also produce massive amounts of torque at low RPMs, which means a transmission is not required for some applications. Obviously, a car is not one of them. So why does no one know about the Axial Vector Engine Corporation? Well, it appears they are very small right now, as their website looks very unprofessional. It's so simple, even an idiot like me could have designed it (I didn't, I swear). They are a publicly traded company, so you can do your own research before deciding if this is the corporation of the future.
AxialVector

A Chinese automaker will be entering the US market in 2008, spelling more bad news for GM, Ford, and other car makers already in the US market. Geely, which may or may not be pronounced the same as that dreadful movie starring Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, has been around for 10 years, and is certainly one of the fastest growing car companies in the world. They should be competing with economy brands like Kia and Hyundai. Both of those Korean companies have shown remarkable improvement in their car lines in the past couple years, after being known for far inferior products for the previous decade.
Chinese Auto Manufacturer Geely to Enter the U.S. Market in 2008: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

The Challenger is coming, the Challenger is coming! The Dodge Challenger, which is expected in dealer showrooms in 2007 or 2008, is just one more addition to the modern muscle car revival. More pictures of the Dodge Challenger concept car were released today, and I've got to say this is my favorite muscle car remake yet. The GTO and Charger are completely different than their ancestors, but I can actually see a strong resemblance between the new Challenger and the Challenger of old. It's even a 2-door coupe, which I thought was the only way a muscle car should be, but apparently the designers of the GTO and Charger disagreed. Oh well, what do I know? Expect to see some very limited special editions of the Challenger, including some with very powerful modern Hemi engines. If it's not a Corvette-beater, it's not worth building.
More Dodge Challenger images (UPDATED with new pictures) | Leftlane News - Car News For Enthusiasts