99.5 Vw Jetta Tdi Gls Leather Int. on 2040-cars

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New VW Beetle Convertible ad needs no disguise

Convertibles make you do funny things. Ask someone if they'd drive a hardtop in near freezing temperatures with all the windows down and they might not even answer, thinking the question so ridiculous. Give that same person a convertible they love and you might just have to ask them to please put the top up even when snow is on the ground.
That guy has to take precautions to enjoy his proclivities, and as this new ad for the Volkswagen Beetle Convertible shows, not everyone understands. Have a watch below, and note that there's just one woman in the minute-long spot, and she's nowhere near the car. Seriously, why didn't VW run this commercial during the Super Bowl?

Tanner Foust drifts Rockstar Passat around US Cycling TT course

The USA Cycling Time Trials take place on Saturday in Chattanooga, TN. That's also where Volkswagen has its US headquarters. So in honor of the event, VW decided to have a little fun involving Tanner Foust and a 900-horsepower Rockstar Drift car. That's a 900-hp Passat, by the way. Pro cyclist Tim Johnson rides along with Foust, showing him the intricacies of the cycling TT course. But of course, with a 900-hp drift car at his disposal, Foust makes use of roundabouts and turnaround points to do what he does best. We won't spoil the rest of the short, minute-and-fifteen-second video posted above. But if you like smoky drifts from super-modified midsize sedans, this clip is for you.

In wake of Volkswagen scandal, cheating may actually get easier

The three crises that rollicked the auto industry in recent months – a rising death toll related to the General Motors ignition-switch defect, the Jeep Cherokee hack and now the Volkswagen cheating scandal – all have one thing in common. Outsiders discovered the problems. In the new matter of Volkswagen rigging millions of cars to outsmart emissions tests, researchers at West Virginia University and the International Council on Clean Transportation first spotted irregularities. In the hacking of a Jeep Cherokee, it was independent cyber-security researchers Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller who found and reported cellular vulnerabilities that allowed them to control a car from halfway across the country. And lest we forget in the case of General Motors, it was a Mississippi mechanic and Florida engineer who first made connections between non-deploying airbags and faulty GM ignition switches that had been altered over time. They worked on behalf of Brooke Melton, a 29-year-old Georgia woman killed in a Chevy Cobalt. "That argument is built on a whole string of trusts, and now it is clear that we should absolutely not be trusting." - Kyle Wiens Amid the Volkswagen scandal, the role these independent third parties played in unearthing life-threatening problems is important to highlight, not only because it shines a light on the ethical indifference corporations paid to life-and-death problems of their creation. The role of the independents is noteworthy because, just as their contributions never been more relevant in protecting the driving public, they could soon be barred from the automotive landscape. Since May, a little-known but critically important process has been playing out before an office within the Library of Congress, which will soon decide whether independent researchers and mechanics can continue to access vehicle software or whether that software, which runs dozens of vehicle components, is protected by copyright law. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes measures taken to circumvent security devices that protect copyrighted works. When the DMCA was signed into law in 1998, it was intended to protect the likes of movies from being pirated and companies from ripping off software. At the time, few had a clue that some 17 years later cars would essentially be mobile software platforms run by millions of lines of code that potentially fall under the law's jurisdiction.