A biweekly roundup of automotive news, good, bad and just plain weird: Corvette chops roof off Z06The Corvette Z06 is a track-only special, a hardcore, race-bred, brutally punishing machine that exists only to kick Porsches in the groin and shake its owner's fillings out.
And now you can get one without a roof, for sunny, top-down cruising. Say what? The new 'Vette Z06 convertible still looks the part, and still cranks out some eye-watering numbers. Its supercharged V-8 engine bellows in anger as it spins up to 625 horsepower, and power gets to the ground through a seven-speed manual or an eight-speed automatic. Scratch that, power doesn't get to the ground, it just vaporizes the tires.
However, turning a coupe into a convertible is always a compromise, no? What was once a specialized track scalpel suddenly becomes an overcooked pasta noodle for the Hawaiian shirt and medallion crowd.
Not here though. Like the regular 'Vette, the new Z06 is so stiff in the chassis, no extra bracing is needed to retain that ontrack performance - curb weights for coupe and convertible are essentially the same. The folding roof is just a great way to enjoy that American V-8 thunder when you're not clipping apexes. Better make the Hawaiian shirt a Nomex one.
Lexus boldly goes where everybody else is Launching at this week's New York International Auto Show, Lexus is finally entering the lucrative and ubiquitous compact crossover market. Their machine is called the NX, and it will come with the first turbocharged engine Lexus has ever made.
Lexus quite famously created the luxury crossover with its RX line of vehicles, and it's thus somewhat puzzling why it's so late to the party here. Compact crossovers are a burgeoning sales segment, especially in Canada, and taking the fight to trucklets like the BMW X1 and Audi Q5 just makes sense.
What does not make sense to some folks is the way the intensely angry, aggressively angular styling of something like the IS350 F Sport sedan translates to a RAV4-sized crossover. Good heavens - don't lean on it, or you might cut yourself.
Power comes from a 2.0-litre four cylinder turbocharged engine putting out an undisclosed amount of horsepower, and there'll also be a hybrid version, the NX300h, en route. Inside, you can find more Lexus firsts, like a heretofore unseen wireless charging tray for smartphones.
Styling aside, there's every chance this little rocket-pod could actually be really good to drive. The zippy IS sedan shocked more than a few drivers used to Lexus's position as a very conservative brand, and the rumours about the upcoming V-8-powered version have got everyone all hot and bothered.
If the NX is going to elbow its way into a sales segment already crowded with popular choices, it's going to have to stand out for more than its styling.
Stay tuned.
Jeep concepts bow in Moab, Utah While other concept cars might be pushed on stage by handlers where they can spin on a welllit dais, Jeep does things a little differently. As usual, they're releasing their concepts into the wild, doing nine full days of rough roads and rock crawling over the Easter weekend.
This is a 12-year tradition for Jeep, who obviously knows their fanbase all too well. But, where last year was a bit of a tease with stuff like the Forward Control concept which you couldn't actually buy, this new batch of specially prepped Jeeps are more down to Earth.
Take, for instance, the Wrangler Level Red (great name), which is less a concept than a fully built two-door. It gets crate Dana axles, a lower rockcrawling gear, and minor intake and exhaust power bumps. In short, it's the sort of thing you could build yourself through the Mopar accessories catalogue.
The treatment also extends to the Cherokee, where the best-looking ride is probably the Dakar. For a crossover, this thing looks the business, with jacked-up suspension, 33-inch tires, full armour plating along the belly, and cut down bumpers for better angle of attack. Now that's the kind of compact crossover you can love.
Tesla involved in lemonslinging match California's Lemon Law is an odd piece of legislation: essentially, it's supposed to provide protection for customers if they buy a new car and find that it has to go into the shop constantly.
However, legal wranglers are occasionally able to use the law as a loophole to return cars they didn't actually want - or couldn't afford - by claiming problems, or even affecting sabotage.
Currently, Tesla is embroiled in an Internet war of words with one Model S owner who's trying to return his car under the law. Their response to a suit brought against the company went up on the Tesla blog site last week.
Aside from listing all the accolades the Model S has won from just about everybody, Tesla notes the above-and-beyond efforts of its service team to rectify the two issues mentioned in the suit: namely, malfunctioning door handles and a fuse that keeps blowing.
They also insinuate some improper legal rulefollowing, and note that when engineers applied no-tamper tape to the fuse - hey presto - the issue vanished. Their position: our car is perfectly fine, and there's something fishy here, especially with a lawyer nicknamed the "Lemon Law King" involved.
Vince Megna, the lawyer in question, has fired back, accusing Tesla of taking the "big corporation approach" to discredit the owner, rather than dealing with a problematic car. He points out recent recalls across the entire industry, and wonders why it's so impossible that Tesla might have produced one car that wasn't up to snuff.
Black and white? Hardly. When I drove a Tesla Model S last year, it was lovely and wonderful - and the rear door handles were malfunctioning. While there's something suspicious about the way no-tamper tape suddenly "cured" the fuse issue, it's not completely unbelievable that the car could have had a glitch or two, especially in these days of ever more complex automobiles.
However, the problem is more simple than that. Rather than posting up on blogs, Tesla should simply have bought back the car, quietly squashed the nuisance claim, refurbished the Model S (whether or not the claims were valid) and sold it on to one of the hundreds of people who are lined up around the block to buy one of these cars.
It's not a case of the customer always being right, it's a case where in a mud-slinging match, even the party that's in the right gets dirty.
Watch this space for all the best and worst of automotive news, or submit your own auto oddities to [email protected].
