The small-but-wicked Fiat 500 Abarth

The name Abarth isn’t exactly a household name in the United States, but the brand is renown among enthusiasts in Europe. Abarth never built cars to challenge Ferrari or Maserati (or even BMW); instead, Abarth built parts to make commonly available Fiats go faster. By focusing on small cars, like the Fiat Topolino or the Fiat 600, Abarth earned a reputation and a nickname of “small but wicked.”

We’ll soon get a chance to experience that in the United States, with the launch of the Fiat 500 Abarth. We’ve driven the milder Fiat 500 Sport, which handles like a go-kart but suffers from a serious lack of power. The 500 Abarth will address that, coming to the U.S. market with 160 horsepower driving the front wheels. Abarth models will also get a track-tuned suspension, up-rated brakes, a stability control program that can be disabled for track use and sport seats with serious bolstering. All Abarth models come only with a five-speed manual transmission.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the 500 Abarth is its value. Dealer price gouging aside (and we’re sure there will be plenty), the 500 Abarth will sell for just under $23,000. To get the same level of stock horsepower from a Fiat 500 in Europe, you’d have to track down an Abarth 695 Tributo Ferrari edition, which would cost you in the neighborhood of $47,500.

We’re betting that the Fiat 500 Abarth will usurp the MINI Cooper as the best-handling front-driver. In fact, we’ll tell you this: if you want to fill your shelves with autocross trophies, buy a Fiat 500, drop the ride height and add stickier tires. Talent or not, we’re pretty sure that’s all you’ll need.

Bridgestone's airless tire concept. Image: Bridgestone

If you’re a car person with access to the internet, you’ve received images via email of a concept airless tire built by Michelin in the early ‘00s. Depending on which version of the e-mail you received (and we’ve seen dozens), the tire was either under development, awaiting production, or headed to a showroom near you in the coming months. While the idea was sound, the technology proved to be both expensive and impractical to develop further.

Michelin may have abandoned the idea, but Bridgestone hasn’t. The Japanese tire giant is showing a prototype of its design for an airless tire at the Tokyo Motor Show, and it’s actively pursuing development with the intent of bringing such a product to market. As you can see in the images, the concept is fairly simple: a series of directional spokes, made of thermoplastic resin, replace the air in a conventional tire. The tire wold be bonded to the wheel using some sort of fastening system, and at end of life all components would be recyclable.

Bridgestone's airless tire concept. Image: Bridgestone

Such a tire would have both advantages and drawbacks to conventional tires. Since punctures wouldn’t really matter (unless tread cords or tire spokes were damaged), the need for a spare tire or inflation kit is eliminated, saving both weight and space. As the tires require no air, the only potential maintenance would be an occasional visual inspection.

On the downside, the handling characteristics of such a tire are completely unknown, and it’s likely that airless tires would weigh more than conventional counterparts. Special wheels would be necessary, limiting the availability of aftermarket wheel options. Finally, it’s unlikely that “airless” tires could be produced as cheaply as conventional tires, adding to the cost of replacement.

We don’t think you’ll be seeing these on production cars any time soon. Still, we’ll admit to being fascinated by the technology, which could be the first significant advancement in the industry since the invention of the pneumatic tire. If we get a chance to drive a car on airless tires, you’ll be the first to know about it.

A 2008 Chrysler Town & Country. Image: Chrysler Group LLC

Dr. Charles Preston needed a minivan to deliver food to the homeless, but didn’t want to pay full retail price for a new one. While we’d never advocate buying a used rental car (since we know how they’re driven, and also how they’re maintained), that’s exactly what the good doctor did. Choosing a 2008 Chrysler Town & Country from a Thrifty Rental Car sales lot, the doctor didn’t bother to check if all the vehicle’s systems were functional.

Just over a year later, the minivan needed brakes, so Preston asked his local mechanic to check out why the windows wouldn’t fully lower as well. The mechanic quickly diagnosed the problem: $500,000 worth of cocaine, wrapped in purple cellophane, was blocking the window tracks.

Preston turned the stash over to police, who advised the doctor to get rid of the van, in case there were hidden tracking devices onboard. The man tried to exchange the Chrysler at the same Thrifty lot where he’d purchased it, but was offered some $4,000 less than his purchase price of a year earlier. As Autoblog and the Mercury News explain, once management at Thrifty Rental Car heard of its error, it was happy to exchange the van for a new (used) one. Good press, we suppose, trumps depreciation every time.

What’s the moral to this story? Be sure you check out any used car, from top to bottom, before you take delivery. If you’re buying from a rental car agency (and we wouldn’t), check it out twice.

The average driver doesn’t think much about the brakes on his car; in fact, most are likely to ignore the braking system until they hear the metallic squeal of wear indicators dragging on brake rotors. Modern braking systems on passenger cars are very good at what they do, within reasonable limits (such as slowing a car from 70 miles per hour, or working effectively with cold rotors and brake pads). Braking systems for race cars, on the other hand, must have much higher limits.

Nowhere is that more true than with Formula 1 racing. The ideal brake rotor would be light (since unsprung weight is the enemy of handling) and able to withstand the temperatures generated by slowing a car from 200 miles per hour to take a first-gear corner. Carbon fiber is used for F1 brake rotors, because it blends light weight with extreme temperature resistance.

So why don’t production cars use carbon-ceramic brake rotors? First, they’re absurdly expensive, with replacement rotors and brake pads costing as much as $5,000 per corner, versus less than $100 per corner for conventional brake pads and cast-iron rotors. Next, they don’t last as long as cast iron rotors, so carbon ceramic braking systems require more frequent maintenance. Finally, for optimum performance, carbon ceramic systems require heat, more than you’d get from driving at highway speeds.

There are production cars, like the Corvette ZR-1 and the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, that can be equipped with carbon ceramic brakes from the factory. When buying a new car of this caliber, it’s good to make certain you can afford the care and feeding, not just the car payment.

Whether you’re moving cross-country or relocating your vehicle to a buyer, CarTransportQuotes.Com is your answer. This new innovative company takes the pain out of shopping around for car and truck transportation by allowing you to use their site for quote comparison and browsing without contracts or fees. It’s a completely free and no-hassle way of shopping around online for a major move.  Use the site at your own pace and convenience. You will breathe a sigh of relief knowing your won’t have to sit on the telephone for 30 minutes with a barely comprehensible customer service agent. We give you the tools to help yourself and are there in case you have questions or need any guidance.

Their car shipping  quotes are incredibly fast and reliable; they’re good for their word. It’s a no-brainer really. This is a great site for those of us that just don’t have hours or days to devote to shopping around. It puts all of your options in one place and makes decision making easy. The transport services are solid and safe. The estimated time for shipment is right on the money so you won’t be left hanging.

No only is it simple to find the best quotes in no time at all on CarTransportQuotes.Com but we only offer carriers that are fully insured and dependable. It will give you a little peace of mind to know your favorite car is being given luxury treatment on its trip. Not a pushy sales effort like some companies, just the facts and the basics to get your wheels rolling on to their new destination. Give them a call if you’re planning to ship your car. Their expertise is comforting and the customer service is as easy as it gets!

A few months back, Malcolm and I were headed north on I-95 after a Southern Automotive Media Association meeting in Miami. We were driving at around 75 miles per hour, in a steady rain and moderate traffic, when the minivan next to us spun.

The whole thing happened too fast to be puckering; one minute, the van was alongside us, and the next the driver was looking out his windshield at the side of my car. No one was hurt, and the van suffered only minor damage. Traffic was slowing ahead, and the minivan driver most likely tapped his brakes. What caused the spin? My guess is bald tires on a wet road.

Years ago, most states required annual vehicle inspections to certify that cars were safe to drive. Thanks to apathy, budget cuts or the idea that requiring repairs would put an “unfair financial burden” on drivers with limited income, annual inspections have largely been eliminated. The result is that many cars on the road today aren’t safe at 35 miles per hour, let alone double or triple that. Scope the tires of cars in a shopping mall parking lot, and you’ll see what I mean.

Motor Authority and AutoExpress report that a German company, ProContour, has developed a tire scanner, designed to spot unsafe tire tread depth. The scanner uses a series of high speed cameras and lasers to record and measure tread depth, at speeds up to 75 miles per hour. Tires that show wear to 1.6 millimeters, over the central 75 percent of the tread, would trigger an alarm at a nearby police checkpoint. Drivers would then be stopped and issued warnings or fines.

There’s no plans yet to implement them on this side of the pond, but officials in the U.K are currently debating the benefits and drawbacks of installing the $67,000 scanners. While the scanners have the potential of increasing road safety, they also have the ability to generate revenue for local governments. As with speed cameras, we suspect the technology will be more about money than about safety.

I’m working on a driving presentation for a local auto dealer, and I remembered these two videos (one from Top Gear, and one inspired by Top Gear) that explain the basics of understeer and oversteer far better than any fifteen-minute, physics based lecture. In a nutshell, when your car understeers, you see the tree that kills you. When you have oversteer, you don’t see it: hence, oversteer (at least according to Richard Hammond) is preferable.

In the real world, especially with modern stability control systems, things aren’t quite this simple. In fact, it’s quite difficult to get cars to do either with modern techno-nannies onboard, especially when some manufacturers (Volkswagen, for example) don’t allow you to fully disable their stability control programs. Other automakers (GM and Chrysler, for example) allow partial or even full defeat of stability control systems for track driving.

The simplest way to counter understeer is to do less of what you’re doing (like turning the steering wheel) to let your front tires regain traction. Excluding a mechanical failure or road condition like oil or ice, oversteer is almost always caused by driver error. Enter a turn too hot, lose your nerve and lift off the throttle (or worse, hit the brakes) and chances are you’ll experience the joys of lift-throttle oversteer. Drive a rear-wheel-drive car and get on the power too early, and you’ll get to experience throttle-on oversteer. Both are easily corrected (and plenty entertaining) in the right environment, which is why we’re big fans of driving schools and high performance driving events (HPDEs). Enjoy the videos below, and hit up the NASA website to see when the next scheduled HPDE in your area is.

Seven and eight speed gearboxes are the way of the future, since they offer up a blend of both performance and fuel economy simply not possible with five and six speed transmissions. Porsche is the first manufacturer to release a seven-speed manual transmission, and adding the seventh gear allows the automaker greater flexibility in improving the new 911’s performance while meeting ever-tightening U.S. and E.U. fuel economy requirements.

The seven speed pattern is your typical “double H” of a six-speed, with another “half H” added to accommodate the seventh gear (which is located to the right of fifth gear). Gears one through six are close-ratio, designed to maximize acceleration, while the seventh gear is essentially a tall overdrive, designed to reduce engine speeds at high vehicle speeds. In other words, only one to six will be used when driving in a spirited manner (since top speed is achieved in sixth gear), while seventh gear will be used exclusively on the highway (or faster secondary roads) to boost fuel economy.

Porsche’s PDK dual-clutch automatic is also now a seven-speed, with the same “overdrive” feature as the seven speed manual gearbox. As with most dual-clutch manumatics, the PDK will serve up the fastest lap times, since it executes gear changes much faster (and smoother) than a human being can. The trade off is the man-machine interface, and I’ve never driven a shiftable automatic (including Porsche’s PDK) that I prefer over a manual transmission for sheer entertainment value. Props to Porsche for offering customers the ability to choose, instead of just jumping on the flappy-paddle-shift bandwagon.

Source: You Tube via Left Lane News