1957 Dodge Coronet - Triple Paint Red/white, Original, 2-door, Maxwedge on 2040-cars

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Vin Diesel's Fast 8 Charger has fake jet power, sounds mean

With filming for Fast 8, the eighth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, well underway, we've gotten some sneak peeks into the actors' vehicles. Dominic Toretto, played by Vin Diesel, will once again get behind the wheel of a Dodge Charger. The Charger, which was revealed as Toretto's ride in Iceland, has been heavily modified and even features a jet turbine. Sadly, the turbine is purely cosmetic, but the sound from the car's V8 is glorious. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The videos, which were posted to Jadatoys Instagram account, capture the Charger's incredible sound when it starts, revs, and idles. While the V8 sounds amazing, there's no word on what engine lurks behind the Charger's hood. The previous vehicles from Furious 7 featured 500-horsepower V8 crate engines from General Motors, which may make another appearance in the upcoming film. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Despite being a prop, Fast 8's film crew will surely find a way to bring the turbine to life in the movie that, according to Diesel, will come out on April 14, 2017. If the movie is anything like previous ones, it should have over-the-top action and an incredible selection of cars. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Star Wars Stormtrooper Dodge Charger | Beauty-Roll

Old Dodge vans are big in Japan

One of the great things about Japan and its car culture is that it plays host to some of the most unusual and unique vehicle trends in the world. Whether it's neon-clad Lamborghinis or luxury sedans with insane negative camber, the country always seems to have something new up its sleeve. One of the most surprising trends is track-ready, full-size Dodge vans called Dajibans, and the video above presents a great look at these absurd machines. This isn't the first time we've covered these racing Dodge vans, but it's a subculture too awesome not to merit a second look. For one thing, just as American fans of Japanese cars here like to use JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) parts on their cars, the owners of these Dodges like to use American parts. Many of the vans feature Little Tree air fresheners inside and even have Spectre air filters on the intakes. Who would've thought there would be a market for Autozone's bread and butter auto accessories? Plus, these vans get some other impressive mods. Notice that some vans that appear to have stock metal bumpers, but they're actually fiberglass replicas in the original shape and given a chrome-like paint job. The video's host, an Australian drift fanatic named Alexi who lives in Japan and runs website called Noriyaro.com, gets some great onboard footage, too. One of the vans he rides along in is powered by a generally stock 318 Dodge V8, and still has the original automatic transmission and column shifter. Impressively, the driver manages to manually shift it without grabbing the wrong gear, and even rev matches the shifts. Alexi explains that the driver can catch neutral in-between gears three and two, so there's a brief moment where he can blip the throttle. There's even more information in the video, and it's all fantastic fun to watch. If you decide you haven't seen enough of Dajibans, you can also check out our previous post on it, which is more polished and provides some history and context to the trend. Related Video: News Source: Noriyaro via YouTube Auto News Dodge Minivan/Van Performance Videos JDM trends

IIHS says these are the safest cars of 2013

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has revealed its annual list of Top Safety Picks, an award that highlights automobiles it says offer "superior crash protection." A new and still more significant award, the Top Safety Pick+ honor, is given to those vehicles that earn good ratings for occupant protection in four out of five areas of measure. And while some 117 vehicles were given the TSP seal of approval for 2013, just 13 passed muster for TSP+.
To be fair, IIHS only evaluated 29 vehicles with its new testing procedures for TSP+ (we'd expect that the number of qualified cars will rise substantially for 2014). Luxury and Near Luxury midsize cars were the first groups evaluated, followed by midsizers in the Moderately Priced Cars category - unsurprisingly, it's only midsize cars that you'll find among the class this year.
Only two luxury sedans made the list of 13 for 2013: the Acura TL and Volvo S60. The other 11 cars on the list included entries from domestic, Japanese and German car makers: Dodge Avenger, Chrysler 200, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord (sedan and coupe), Kia Optima (but not its close kin, the Hyundai Sonata, strangely), Nissan Altima, Subaru Legacy and Outback, Suzuki Kizashi and the Volkswagen Passat all made the grade.