For some reason, after watching The Dark Knight, I feel like not watching a movie for a long time since I’m pretty sure the next movie I’d watch will be a big disappointment. That Batman movie just set the bar too high for any other film this year or next or even ever. That means I’m just posting this Transformers update for the heck of it. Just because it’s car related. I wasn’t too hot about the first movie too (save for those moments with Megan Fox). The cars were okay but Shia LeBouf was just too big of a douche that it ruined the movie.

Anyway, before this post becomes a real rant, let me get to my point. FiLM Grenade just posted this Tranformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen Characters Guide which gives us a pretty good lineup of the cars to expect in the next film. You got to love paparazzis.

Here’s the lineup:

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I knew they had to think things over. The SLR-thrashing SL 65 AMG Black Series has created a lot of buzz recently. But it seems that Merc parent company, Daimler, has taken a good look at how Merc’s flagship series - the S-class - a good hard look. Worldwide sales of the flagship fell 11.9 in the first half of this year. In the US, alone, where Merc normally considers a viable market, the S-Class sales dropped 23%.

Why should Daimler be worried? It’s because the S-Class is considered as one of Merc’s cash cows, responsible for bringing in 20-25% of pretax profits for the company. Across Merc’s fleet, only the C-Class enjoyed a rise in figures (up by nearly 39%).

Is this a sign that even those who can afford buying a luxury car such as the S-Class in the US are not considering buying car this time? Perhaps. Merc’s strategy to offset this is to ship their cars to China and Russia which have currently higher demands.

Source: Automotive News (subscription required)

Hello and welcome to our weekly Top Gear recap.

First up, answering the question, “Can a car ever be art?” And to answer that, they seamlessly tie-in their take on Alfa Romeos from last week’s show to this review of the Alfa Romeo 8c. I wonder how many times Clarkson has ever dubbed a car, “the best looking ever made.” But he does it here (again?). Typical Clarkson nitpicking for this one and yes, he concludes that this one is “fourteen feet of art.” And The Stig takes it around the track posting a 1:38.2 (very wet). Quite very slow.

For the news, there’s the typical skinny on Internet photos, the Fiat Panda Mamy, the now-lame Dacia Sandero quip. Oh and a guy complained that Jeremy clipped a double-white road line in last week’s episode. Geek! And a continuation of their war against signs.

Oh, and next up is the buck that stops all. Introducing it as the successor to the Datsun 120Y, Top Gear’s take on the Nissan GT-R! And not just a simple take - an epic race. Nissan GT-R versus Japan’s bullet train from Japan’s west coast to the east coast! As always the race is not without its twists and turns with a supposed intense finish with the GT-R weaving through a mountain pass. Very nice. But it was a drag that it ended up as a foot race.

Oh, I totally skipped the Stars in a Reasonably Priced car but they had Fiona Bruce and Kate Silverton (newscasters). Again, if you’re stateside and don’t get BBC 2, have the Intarwebs help you out.

The British International Motor Show’s just about a little over a week away. One of the attractions of the show is the Greener Driving Pavilion which will showcase green initiatives from automakers as a part of the whole save-the-earth through gas-sippers move.

The Lotus Elise has been known to be that agile sports car that could take on more massive cars in winding roads due to its lightweightedness that improves its handling. Its 1.8L engine isn’t really a gas-guzzler compared to other cars and the fact that the car’s light improves fuel efficiency.

Now, they’ve decided that they’d make the car even more fuel-efficient in the Lotus Eco Elise. In true Elise fashion, they just trimmed off some more weight out. They took a Lotus Elise S, put it on a treadmill to shave off 70.5 lbs, and called it Eco. This was done by swapping some of the body panels to sustainable hemp technical fibers. Au natural.

The carpets are even made from sisal, a renewable crop yet abrasives-resistant. The paint on this thing is totally water-based (eliminating solvent emissions into the atmosphere). You just have to wonder whether it will wash off though. A few geek-greening they did here was slapping on a solar panel to help charge the car battery. They also placed a shift light to help drivers achieve bang-on shifting to avoid unnecessary revving.

Source: RevMods

Whoops, left this out on the previous post. Anyway, moving pictures with a bit of sound makes up for the whole gearhead experience. If this is the closest an average guy can get, then so be it. Hey, Clarkson was all too impressed with the CLK 63 AMG. I wonder what his take on this will be.

It’s Sunday in UK again and Top Gear is about to air. But with that aside, we could still have a bit of Top Gear-related news. Speculations on the real identity of The Stig aside, here’s the tamed racing driver acting really tamed driving this lucky rich bloke around the track.

This guy, who just won £5 M in a lottery was gracious enough to part away with £35,000 for a charity auction with three laps with The Stig as prize. Forget about chauffeur in crisp tuxedos. I’ll take a tamed racing driver in a white suit and a white helmet any time. And this guy did. He got driven around in a Santander GP car. Pretty impressive too as he drove hell-bent in high water (it was raining wet).

The Stig did so well that even Fernando Alonso was impressed by The Stig’s driving. Whether his remark that The Stig is ex-F1 should have any bearing on The Stig’s identity, we’ll just take with a grain of salt. The mystery’s part of it anyway.

Source and Image Credit: Top Gear

Remember when the ZR1 tried to run around the Nurburgring clocking a 7:40-ish lap? Too bad the YouTube gods weren’t too happy with it and the video’s long gone.

But here’s something new. Just last month, GM test driver Jim Mero released all hell from under the ZR1’s hood (possibly quite a lot of the 638 horses) and clocked a lap of 7:26.4 around the ‘Ring. That comfortably beats the Nissan GT-R’s lap time.

Just look at how desperate automakers are in selling their big vehicles. Chrysler has created a very attractive purchase option for the Dodge Ram. You can get one for the MSRP which you can pay at 0% financing good for 72 months. In a financial standpoint, this can actually be a good deal. Provided that you won’t be traveling as much to offset the gas consumption.

The Ram is offered in different engines depending on the trim level. The base model sports a 3.7L V6 capable of 215 hp. The next in line sports a E85 compatible 4.7L V8 dishing out 310 horses. There’s also the top-of-the-line equipped with the 5.7L HEMI. Too bad when you check out the power you get from a lot of displacement, you might consider the Ram a bit underpowered in the numbers.

Only a couple of regional dealers have rolled out this plan but we could expect that they push this offer nationwide. With US auto sales figures hitting a slump, and truck and SUV sales in freefall, acts of desperation are understandable.

Source: Automotive News (Subscription required)

It appears that despite Max Mosley’s reinstatement as head of the FIA, the Nazi S&M video scandal is far from dead. The FIA leadership has lost a lot of credibility because of this scandal and perhaps that’s why there’s this sort of “cleanup” with the women in the video coming out and trying to clarify things.

In a report by BBC, the women claim that there was no such thing as a Nazi theme in the video featuring Max Mosley having sado-masochistic activities with whips and supposed Nazi garbs. News about this video was first brought to public by British publication News of the World.

Now, the women are clarifying that the Nazi theme claim was, in so many words, preposterous. Here’s what one of the women said in court:

She told the court: “I am particularly appalled at the accusations that our scenarios had any Nazi connotation or overtones. No Nazi images, uniforms or material were used.”

Hmm… This just now raises the question on what kind of muscle the most powerful man in motorsports is flexing to bury this issue. It’s pretty hard to contest the words of the participants in the video though interpretation of what can really be seen in the video is still a different matter.

Source: BBC

And we’re here with everyone’s daily dose of British motoring journalism with the boys from Top Gear. I really have to admit that Sundays have now become a day to wait. I guess die hard gearheads really do need that weekly fix.

First up, Jeremy goes at length to review the Bentley Brooklands super coupe, which, in so many words, he labels as the super coupe for the old fogies… That is until, he nitpicks it (smoke and tire screams). Quite interesting take too, if you want to be nitty gritty with the details. Where else would you get interesting trivia that it takes 16 cowhides to cover the Brooklands’ interior with all the leather?

The news had a little bit about women racing drivers (A bit sexist for feminists, but hey, when would you expect political correctness from Clarkson?) and they also continued that ongoing series on stupid roadsigns.

Third section is a comeback of the Top Gear challenges. No epic races this time but more bollocks was definitely welcome. Producers gave the three a thousand pounds to spend on Alfa Romeos with which they have to accomplish several challenges: a trackday pitted against Porsches and Lambos, a photo calendar featuring their Alfas, Concourse competition (obsessive detailing) . Pointless to summarize the results here. This is Top Gear, so all the ambition end up as rubbish. Classic.

In the Stars in a Reasonably Priced Car segment, they featured BBC 3’s Gavin and Stacey’s Rob Bryden and James Corden. Not really well-known stateside and the laps were a bit shabby even made horrible by a wet track.

All in all, a fulfilling episode to quench that Top Gear thirst but an episode without The Stig? Boo…

And since most of the US population wouldn’t be able to get BBC Two, there’s always the intarwebs to help you out.