2005 Pontiac Sunfire on 2040-cars

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Driving the Kia K5 and Mini Cooper JCW GP, plus an interview with Jimmy Chin | Autoblog Podcast #637

In this week's Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder and News Editor Joel Stocksdale. They veer off right away into talking about their dream project garages. Next up is news, including some info on the next Nissan Z car, the Honda Fit being discontinued in the U.S., new Mercedes-Benz EQS details, and some talk about the new, electric GMC Hummer being adapted for the military. Then they talk about driving the new Kia K5 sedan and the Mini Cooper JCW GP, before they opine about the 1966 Pontiac GTO. Autoblog Senior Producer Chris McGraw interviews Oscar-winning filmmaker Jimmy Chin about his collaboration with Ford for the Bronco reveal, and more. Finally, our editors help a listener in the U.K. pick a used vehicle in the "Spend My Money" segment. Autoblog Podcast #637 Get The Podcast iTunes – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown Some thoughts on project cars News Nissan suggests the next-generation Z won't be electrified at launch Fit Is Gone! Honda drops subcompact hatch in U.S. Mercedes-Benz announces the electric EQS will offer over 435 miles of range GMC's electric Hummer could someday serve alongside the Humvee in the U.S. Army Driving the 2021 Kia K5 Driving the 2020 Mini Cooper JCW GP 1966 Pontiac GTO: Love it or hate it? We talk Ford Bronco and other adventures with Oscar-winning filmmaker Jimmy Chin Spend My Money Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on iTunes Related Video:

Porsche Syberia RS rally car is what you make when you need a Hummer that's fast

Some history: The Porsche 911's first-ever race was the 1965 Monte Carlo rally, entered because Porsche's PR man at the time wanted to show how much the future icon could do. A year later, Porsche began selling an optional rally kit for the 911 that included Recaro seats, a roll bar, and adjustable Koni dampers. Porsche produced factory rally racers until the early 1970s, winning Monte Carlo three times in a row before letting privateers carry the torch so the factory could focus on campaigning in the East Africa Safari. After years of painful lessons, when Porsche took its brand-new 1978 911 SC to the safari, the 3.0-liter flat-six coupe was hours away from winning the race before damaging the suspension, demoting the car to second place. Porsche fans wanted their own replicas, and finding the new 911 to be an affordable option, the SC — built from 1978 to 1983 — went from denoting "Super Carrera" to "Safari Car."   Porsche took a big step up in with the 953 rally car. Built to win the 1984 Paris-Dakar, which it did, the 953 introduced the four-wheel-drive system Porsche would evolve for the 959 in 1985 and the 964-series 911 in 1989, as well as the now-unforgettable 911-based Rothmans livery. All of this is what's fueling today's 911 Safari Car revival around the world. Almost all of today's builds start with the so-called G Model 911s, produced from 1973 to 1989, usually focusing on the SC and the Carrera that ran from 1984 until 1989.  Fast forward to 2007 when a mysterious crew organized the TransSyberia Rally, a "sports-touring" event that stretched 4,500 miles from Moscow to the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar. Of the 34 vehicles that entered, 25 were Porsche's purpose-built Cayenne S Transsyberia Edition.  Put this all in a pot and you have the beginnings of the car that brings us here, the Syberia RS. It's said that a German fellow by the name of Kai Burkhard wanted to buy a Humvee, but the low top speed, around 50 miles per hour, put him off. So instead, he imported a 1986 911 "in collector condition" from Japan with the idea of rebuilding it to provide almost all the off-road fun he could have had in the H1. Burkhard tapped the Tailor Made department at German suspension designer H&R, and the two set to work creating a build like the 953 Dakar winner.  This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The owner's been mum on most of the details including engine revisions.

GM knew about fatal Chevy ignition problem decade before recall

Well, this is not good for General Motors. Following a report last week that GM was recalling 778,000 Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 compacts over concerns that the ignition could switch out of the "run" position without warning, USA Today reports that the Detroit-based behemoth knew about the issue, which affected 2005 to 2007 Cobalts (the Cobalt shown above and in the gallery is from 2010) and 2007 Pontiac G5s, all the way back in 2004.
The information comes from a deposition in a civil lawsuit against GM, obtained by USA Today, which claims that a GM engineer experienced the issue while the then-new model was undergoing testing. The issue was "solved" when a technical service bulletin was issued in 2005, informing dealers to install a snap-on key cover on the cars of customers who complained about the issue. According to the Cobalt's program engineering manager, Gary Altman, the cover was an "improvement, it was not a fix to the issue."
The case where the depositions were made was from 2010, and involved Brooke Melton, a 29-year-old pediatric nurse in Georgia who was killed on her birthday. At the time, police claimed she was going too fast on a wet, rural road, although it later came out through the black box that her car's ignition had come out of the "run" position at least three seconds before the accident (the max amount of time a black box records before a wreck), disabling her airbags, power steering and anti-lock brakes. According to USA Today, police said Melton was "traveling too fast for the roadway conditions," although it's impossible to know if she'd have been in the wreck, which injured the occupants of another vehicle, had her 2005 Chevy not shut off. GM settled the Melton family's case, although the details remain confidential.