Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Pictures Part II: Giant's Dispair

Greetings Tuned lovers, Wallio back at ya with more pictures.
This weekend Rebel and I attended the 106th Giant's Dispair Hillclimb. It was incredible. We saw awesome cars set some blistering times and we got to hang out with now 8 time winner Darrell Danko, who was gracious enough to shoot the shit with us, despite breaking 6 of the 7 cars he had entered! And people say I'm brutal on equipment! Rebel also got to pick the brains of some participants who had third gen Camaros. I fear what sick ideas are in his Southern brain now.
Well that's it for now, not much of a post today as I'm busy getting ready for Super Chevy. Fear not as I will be posting live from the track through all five days!



Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Pictures Part I

Some housekeeping work here. I realized I never posted any pictures we've taken from filming and whatnot, despite my having a rather large collection of them. That changes today. Here are the pictures we took while walking around the junkyard filming Episode 1. They belong to Hollywood, so don't copy them or anything, because he'll beat me if you do......

















More picture type posts to follow.

Episode Two is (Un)Watchable, and You Know, Like Other Stuff


Ok, so Tuned Episode 2 is up and running. This episode is a heads-up battle between Hollywood and me, and  it has a script, a plot, and some semi-aggresive driving (by one of us anyway). Watch as we test and compare our Daily Drivers: a very retro 2006 Chevy HHR for Hollywood, and a "gangsta" (according to Hollywood) 1989 Cadillac Fleetwood for me. Which will be faster? Which will be more practical? Which will our independent judge prefer? Watch and find out!

Now onto some news Bugatti are trying to take the record for "most useless special editions of the same car" away from Pagani by releasing a White Gold version of the Veryon which apparantly is made out of white gold .(Ringing) Hang on, getting  call on my cell here. Yes, hello? What's that? The SSC Ultimate Aero II is faster, better looking and half the price? Ok, thank you, bye now. (Click) Now where were we?

The big news, however, is that the US Government is trying to pass legislation that would make all car companies have an average of 56mpg for their cars, more than double the current CAFE standards, by 2025. Now this doesn't mean in ten years time all cars will be doing 56mpg, but it would mean that a brand's entire car line would have to average out to 56mpg. So if Dodge keeps building the Viper which does 8mpg, they'll have to have a car that does about 80mpg to balance it out. Europe already does this, although their standard is less than 56mpg, but thats why Aston Martin released its stupid compact car.

Now Detroit says they can easily meet theses standards and faster than 2025 to boot, so why don't they? They say, correctly in my opinion, that the cars won't sell. Think about this for a second and it starts to make sense. These new cars will be smaller, and lighter due to sheer nessity, and will have less power and since options are heavy, less stuff in them. Plus since the car companies will have to retool to build these microcars, they will be no cost savings due to better mpg since the consumer will have to pay more up front. Interesting. Regardless in a short time frame new cars will be getting much better milage than currently. Wonder if that'll drop prices on used guzzlers? Hope so.

Finally, I see we passed 1000 hits. I simply cannot believe this. When Rebel, Hollywood and I started this blog, we honested never imagined we'd get 10 hits, much less 1000. So thank you for reading, and stick with us.