2005 Audi A4 Cabriolet Convertible 2-door 1.8l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Weekly Recap: Car-pedestrian crashes remained elevated in 2014

The death of American Horror Story: Freak Show star Ben Woolf served as a reminder this week that car crashes involving pedestrians remain a problem, and a new study issued on Thursday reinforced that the situation isn't really getting better. The Governors Highway Safety Association found a slight decline, 2.8 percent, in the number of pedestrian deaths in the first six months of 2014. Fatalities dropped from 2,141 to 2,125 compared with the same period in 2013, though the association says it's a statistical wash when factoring in undercounting. Deaths are still 15-percent higher than in 2009. "The number of deaths remains relatively high and is cause for concern," wrote Allan Williams, who compiled the report and is the former chief scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. This is the first look at data from last year, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will issue its full-year results later. The GHSA found some progress on the roadways, as 24 states and the District of Columbia reported drops in pedestrian deaths. In some states, the problem isn't even a problem at all: Nebraska and Wyoming reported one fatality apiece, though large population centers in urban areas are where most accidents occur. "This is a clearly a good news, bad news scenario," Jonathan Adkins, GHSA executive director, said in a statement. "While we're encouraged that pedestrian fatalities haven't increased over the past two years, progress has been slow." Other News & Notes Cadillac previews CT6 during Oscars Cadillac previewed its upcoming flagship sedan, the CT6, in commercials that aired Sunday during the Oscars. As expected, the creased sedan carries on Cadillac's recent design language, and the car in the commercial looks like a larger version of the CTS and ATS sedans. The CT6 will be revealed this spring at the New York Auto Show and launch late this year. It will be assembled at General Motors' Detroit-Hamtramck factory on a rear-wheel-drive chassis, and the CT6 is the first car to use Cadillac's revised alpha-numeric naming scheme. The commercials also kicked off Cadillac's "Dare Greatly" campaign, which is the first with its new advertising agency, Publicis Worldwide. Honda unexpectedly changes CEOs Honda unexpectedly announced this week that it will change CEOs. Current chief Takanobu Ito will step down in June and be replaced by company veteran Takahiro Hachigo.

AMS Alpha 10 Audi R8 First Drive [w/video]

Horsepower is a relative number. Compared to the 1,500 hp in the last AMS car we drove, the face-melting Alpha 12 GT-R, 900 seems pretty tame. But by any rational standard that's a crazy amount of power, the kind that's hard to grasp in practical terms. When AMS Performance called us and offered a test in the 921-hp Alpha 10 Audi R8, saying yes was easy. Figuring out how to demonstrate that much thrust was the tricky part. Our solution was to head to the drag strip. What better way to show off the wicked alterations wrought by AMS president Martin Musial and his team than a video showing the car do the Star Trek warp speed effect through the quarter mile? AMS has a history of building quick drag strip cars, like the aforementioned GT-R and a series of Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions. Vice president Arne Toman even owns the world's fastest Hearse. We should have taken the broken scoreboard at Milan Dragway as an omen. Wiped out by a lightning strike, both displays have since been replaced. Before our test both Musial and Toman explained that the Alpha 10 R8 wasn't built with drag racing in mind. But, being good sports, both met us at the track in southeast Michigan, unloaded the R8 from its trailer, and let us run through the timing lights over and over. The best time that day was 11.0 seconds at 136 mph, uncorrected. One of the many amazing things about the Alpha 10 Audi R8 is that it's essentially a bolt-on system. That's fast, but not what you'd expect for 786 horsepower at the wheels. And, honestly, we're not disappointed. First, a 4,200-rpm rev limiter was set too low to launch on the sticky drag strip. Put another way, that drag strip time is almost a street start. For what it's worth, Musial and Toman didn't seem concerned about the numbers. Like we said, they present the Alpha 10 as an all-around performance car, and we believe them. Now, if you go to AMS with the drag strip in mind, Musial and his staff can program whatever launch rpm you desire. (You're on your own for clutch replacements.) A reflash of the engine controller is part of the Alpha 10 package. Drop off a stock R8 V10 at AMS (or any of its 70-plus dealers), and they'll pull out the suitcase-shaped muffler that sits behind the engine. A pair of turbochargers, small mufflers, and two heat exchangers attach to the stock exhaust system mounts, while a giant water-to-air intercooler sits on top of the engine.

2016 Audi TT [w/video]

What came first, the metrosexual or the Audi TT? While it was close, the descriptor-turned-epithet preceded the 1995 concept car by one year. However, they were both notable cultural evolutions and they happened to work together perfectly. Hugh Grant, playing the cad Will Freeman in the 2002 film About a Boy, could not have chosen a better example of character than his silver TT.
A decade later, the original TT was still important enough that when rumors of the third-generation coupe began to surface in late 2012, the most exciting fantasy was that the 2014 coupe might "recapture some of the distinctiveness and impact" of a 16-year-old car (the TT came to market in 1998). Even speculation by dedicated Audi observers thought the brand would do something novel, even if not mimicry. The obvious takeaway: no one was going to be lighting any candles for the departed second generation. All of that is why when the first leaked image slipped onto the Internet, people began to get suspicious. When the third generation took the stage at the Geneva Motor Show, we could almost hear the digital deflation over the Ethernet, our poll results notwithstanding.
Yet it's still the TT, and in spite of having seen its interior and virtual cockpit and clocked its specs, we couldn't judge it before heading to Marbella, Spain to drive it. What we found out was while it's better than the second generation, it's still very much a TT.