Top Gear Review

You may have seen the American Top Gear on History but you probably haven't seen the original.  The British Top Gear is much better in content and humor.  The hosts seem to have better opinions and better senses of humor.  The British version also has better challenges. The only thing that I think is better on the American show is the variety of vehicles tested.  It seems like the British only review 1000hp supercars or extremely expensive roadsters while the American review a variety of vehicles at different price levels. Below is part 1 and 2 of my favorite British episode, the $1000 police car.

Enjoy and share your opinions.

Chevy Volt

Chrevolet, like most American car manufactures, is facing a fiscal crisis.  However, the Chevy Volt could keep them afloat.  If you have heard of this car at all you know that it is an electric car but you may not know that it also has a gasoline powered generator and a gasoline engine.  The car is recharged  on a standard 120v outlet. The Volt can cruise around town on all electric power or it can use its generator and engine to get a maximum range of 370 miles.  The generator gets the equivalent of 93 mpg and the engine gets 37 mpg.  In these 'green' days the efficiency of this car makes the 40 grand price tag very  reasonable in my opinion.  If the Volt lives up to these numbers then it could be a sign of better days for the folks at Chevrolet.

Ford's New Ecoboost V6

In the past Ford had many negative nicknames due to the quality of their vehicles.  Recently, due to the automotive bailout of GMC, Ford has emerged as the American auto leader.  They have recently unveiled a new engine for the Taurus, Flex, F-150, Lincoln MKS and MKT called the ecoboost.  This engine has very good gas milage, but it is also turbocharged.  All the proposed models get 160 HP with the f-150 getting 400 foot pounds of torque and the others getting around 350.  This new engine could be the end of GMC if they cannot create a more fuel efficient engine that can also be easily modified for heavy duty use.