Kirk Seaman - Autoblog

Admit it: If you're a car enthusiast, you've daydreamed about living in another era, one when the cars were more stylish, faster, or more compelling to drive. For some of you, it might be the pre-war era, when motoring was still new and going for a drive was an adventure, rather than a traffic-plagued chore. For others, it might be the 1950's, when tailfins and chrome reigned supreme. And others might fantasize about the days when muscle cars ruled the Earth, when gas was cheap and smog control

It sounds like something straight out of George Orwell’s 1984: Government vans, equipped with full-body X-ray scanning machines, have been deployed on the streets of our cities, monitoring an unwitting populace for signs of illegal activity. You could simply be going about your daily activities, not even doing something that should invite the suspicions of the authorities, but it doesn&rsquo

Picture this: You're out on the road, driving in mixed traffic with your choice of drivers to follow. One is a gray-haired senior puttering along in the right lane and the other is a fresh-faced teenager moving briskly in the left lane. Statistically speaking, which driver is safer to follow? The older driver with the slower reflexes, poorer vision, and cautious driving style, or the younger drive

Students at Virginia Tech University have succeeded in breaking down another barrier for the disabled: Building a vehicle that allows the blind to drive. Virginia Tech's Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory developed a driver-assist system that uses laser range finders, an instant voice-command interface and a host of other cutting-edge technologies to guide blind drivers as they steer, brake and ac

Maybe you've already seen it on YouTube: it looks like the love child of a pedal car and a rowing scull with four grinning people aboard, pumping away at giant levers, sliding back and forth on their seats as they ride through a series of rural and urban settings. They call it the HumanCar "FM-4," for "Fully Manual-4 people," the culmination of an idea that first came to its creator, Charley Green

Call it a love affair that began prenatally. I was born mere hours after my mom finished helping my dad install a Hurst floor shifter in his ’55 Chevy. Later, I remember at the age of four asking Dad why he pushed on the pedal every time he moved the lever between the bucket seats of our ’68 VW dune buggy. “That’s the clutch,” he told me. “I have to do that ever

Costa del Sol, Spain -- There was no sign of sol on the costa as I nosed the quartz-gray Audi A8 past the guard house of the Finca Cortesin hotel onto the rain-slicked traffic roundabout and headed toward the autoroute. The long, smooth roadway that connected the hotel to the autoroute was the perfect place to get better acquainted with the A8's 372-hp, 4.2-liter V-8 and its 328 lb-ft of torque. L

For many, the new-car smell is a bonus that comes with buying a new vehicle — an olfactory reward to enjoy each time the owner slides behind the wheel. That smell, however, also could make them — and their passengers — sick. That's because the plastics and textiles used in vehicle interiors contain a number of harmful chemicals, including antimony, bromine, chlorine, and lead. Re