CARNIVAL OF CARS: A Drive Around The Auto Blog Block for Saturday, June 9, 2007

Any week is a good week that includes news of a 600 horsepower Caddy CTS-V in the offing for 2009, as is reported at Motortrend.com, so let's hit the road and see what else we can find on this week's drive around the auto blog block. Would a 600 horse Blue Devil small-block be as exciting under the CTS-V hood as a 700 horsepower version of the same mill under the Z07 hood?  You can read the Motortrend.com report here, but I fully intend to  sample both at the earliest opportunity and report back to you right here!

If the Caddy doesn't do it for you, though, how about a 535 horse Audi RS4 Clubsport? 4Wheelsblog has lots of photos and promises more details as soon as they become available.

The Auto Prophet swears he was working on this, too, but Edmunds.com's Dan Carney got it first with a neat chart. Hmmmm, could this be the same Dan Carney who once raced Club Fords at Summit Point? By the way, Auto Prophet also took a look at the top 10 selling vehicles and their average fuel economy and found little evidence that consumers are yet serious about getting off the big cars.

Over at AutomoBlog, they're asking that eternally relevant question about whether your car really needs premium gas.  I say not giving a premium engine premium gas is like pouring Ripple into a champagne glass. But that's just me.

Now here's a real news flash - Winding Road reports a new study that found Honda Civic is the American teen's favorite new or used car! Who wudda thunk that? If somebody actually paid for that study, you think they'll pay me to do one on whether race car drivers like to go fast or just do it for the money?

Who said this? "Clueless in Canada and mired in a state of denial in Detroit, organized labor is pathologically out of touch - and out of time." If you guessed Peter DeLorenzo at Autoextremist, you're either a union oppo researcher or a well-informed automotive consumer who reads only the very best auto blogs. No, I'm sorry, you can't be both.

So, you've been wondering how on earth Chrysler could put the new Sebring and Dodge Nitro on the market? Leftlane News points to a Detroit News scoop on an internal memo from Bob Lee, head of powertrain engineering, that offers some thoughts on how it happened. Somehow I don't think the Cerebrus folks found this memo during their due diligence analyses.

The ever-wise Joe Sherlock offers this gem: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire." If you wonder what else Joe sees, check out The View Through the Windshield.

One more and we're back home: You had a Yugo. Now, there's Toyota's Aygo. The Truth About Cars' Martin Schwoerer has some thoughts about this Europe-only offering that probably gives us a look at where the Greenies want to take the rest of us, whether we want them to or not.

See ya next week!

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• Posted by: Mark Tapscott June 9, 2007, 4:43 AM
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