One more item from the fall rally was a live demonstration of TracVision. While you may not know the name it's the brand that delivers satellite television to SUVs and other vehicles like RVs and boats. The device fit relatively flat to the test vehicle's roof and despite the image of a blank screen here, the picture was as crisp as any home system. This would be the ultimate tailgating set-up. With DriectTV's football package you could just tailgate at the local park and still have

After reading this amusing column on one writer's first car I was wondering what our readers had as their first rides. I had a dark tan, or "mocha," Ford Probe. Surprisingly no pictures exist with said car, so to the right is a sampling of the goodness I was cruising in. It was not the most attractive car on earth but had a lot of room for a coupe and was a great vehicle to hit the beach after school. It even had a sunroof. Of course the car was also plagued by electrical problems and bur

A new survey found more car buyers were concerned with the cupholders in a new vehicle than with the gas mileage.

Now you too can give roadway snarls the finger while flying overhead in your very own AirScooter II, the Ultralight Recreational Vehicle with vertical takeoff and landing abilities, handlebar controls, and a high level of in-flight stability. The engine, custom made for this ASII application, produces 65-hp at 4,200 rpm, and weighs less 90 pounds. According the AS website the URV can hit 55 knots, which seems really fast to me, and costs about $50,000, which seems like a total bargain con

The diesel-electric people-movin' hybrid will be a joint venture featuring the efforts of the Chinese bus maker Sunwin, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC), and the General himself. The one bus initially manufactured will be put to the test in the Michelin Challenge Bidendum, an annual competition for alternative-fuel vehicles and summit for alterna-fuel experts usually held in Europe or California. 17,000 buses operate in Shanghai, each traveling 155 miles per day. GM thinks they c

Not that anyone cares anymore, but there are some high-quality photos of what seems to be a production version of the new Hummer H3 over at www.h3source.com. The photos were taken in Miami way back in May during focus group testing (mustachioed dudes with semi-mullets being the obvious audience), but they have just recently appeared on the information superhighway commonly called the World Wide Web. You can even see the Chevy Colorado-sourced five cyl

Actually, yeah, it is. However, this is absolutely not the reason Hyundai is gunning for a post-2007 US-market hybrid launch. Rather they're doing it because Toyota has been so overwhelmingly successful in their own hybrid endeavor. And whatever Toyota can do, Hyundai can do it for slightly less money, at least that's been the plan so far. The automaker aims to roll out gas-electric 'brids in Korea by the end of 2006, although they've already given 50 Click hybrids to the South K

To be plain, the SRX and LR3 have different purposes in life. The SRX is all about putting the sport back into Sport Utility Vehicle, and LR3 about providing the utility. The SRX is not roomy or cheap, but when optioned out it's well-equipped, agile, and actually fun to drive. This makes sense, since it's 1500 pounds lighter than the LR3 and built on a sports sedan chassis. The LR3 is a vast improvement over the Discovery, but it still feels "like a brick on wheels." It can cart you and y

Car and Driver spent 14 months and 40,000 miles with a Mini Cooper S, driving the British racing Green sparkplug with enthusiasm through all seasons and recording its failures and successes along the way. Minis are equipped with computerized service programs that tell their owners when they need attention, and the test car's service message only popped up twice over 40K miles, once at about 13K and again at 30K, both times yielding no-charge oil changes and inspections. Some cracked trim

Some might say that like Sammy Hagar's career, the M5 has already peaked. Due to BMW's insistence on a gizmo-heavy future, each M5 model, despite gaining power, seems to offer a more diluted driving experience. The new BMW M5's story, like the story of many performance cars, seems to focus on the numbers associated with the engine, because, if I may generalize, people, especially car people, love to toss numbers around. What they're tossing around with the M5: 507-hp, V10,  8250-rpm