Etc : Car News And Reviews

Hot dog! Oscar Mayer has announced a Twitter contest in which the winner will get the chance to ride in the 2014 Oscar Mayer Wienermobile for a day. Simply tweet why you should be selected to ride in Oscar Mayer’s famous roadway sausage and include the hashtag #TWEET2LEASE.

Aston Martin first started building cars in 1914 when founders Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford began putting together cars to race along nearby Aston Hill. Since then, Aston Martin has been known for building some of the most beautiful sports cars in the world, including the timeless DB5 made famous in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger and the current V8 Vantage, DB9, and Rapide S models.

The inaugural Red Bull Frozen Rush event took place on the snowy mountainside of Maine’s Sunday River resort. With eight 900 horsepower Pro4 trucks competing on a figure-eight course with a steep climb, lots of snow, and even a cross-over jump, the racing was intense, to say the least.

Shelby American is celebrating 50 years since the Shelby Cobra first entered the FIA Racing world with a limited edition Continuation Cobra called the CSX7000 Shelby 289 FIA Cobra. Only 50 of these vehicles will be offered for sale, each painted in Viking Blue with Arctic White FIA stripes and roundels, a black interior, and special billet anniversary badges.

While games like Forza and Gran Turismo do their best to capture the realism of racing, the game we are truly looking forward to in this genre has to be Project CARS. The images and gameplay video we’ve seen from this upcoming video game are just mind-boggling.

When MINI announced they were entering the grueling Dakar rally, we were skeptical about the little car’s ability to keep up over sand, dirt and mountaintops. But color us impressed: MINI has not only won the cars category, but has taken the top three spots.

Renault will be entering five classic Renault 8 Gordinis in the 17th Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique beginning on January 24, 2014. The event is only open to cars that participated in the Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo between 1955 and 1980.

If you find yourself stuck in the snow, you know that even the best winter tires or chains aren’t necessarily going to bail you out of the deepest banks. Enter Track N Go, a modification kit that lets you turn everyday pickup trucks into snow-eating tanks in less than 15 minutes.

TaxTheRich takes us on another unexpected ride in a supercar – this time tearing through grass and dirt of the countryside with the classic Jaguar XJ220. While the car now 20 years old, it still comes close to today’s top supercar standards, with a 542hp 3.5-liter V6, a sub 4.0 0-to-60 time, and a top speed of 213.1mph.

If you’re patient and can wait until the end of 2014, you’ll probably be able to pick up a production 2015 Ford Mustang GT for under $40,000. But one lucky bidder managed to score the very first production Mustang GT for a whopping $300,000 at auction.

While today we can enjoy Chevy’s impressive C7 generation Corvettes, let’s take a ride back to 30 years in the past to see how Chevy was pimping their then brand new C4 ‘Vette. This amusingly-dated commercial serves as both a time capsule and reminder of just how much automotive design and technology have evolved in the past three decades.

Chevrolet recently unveiled its stunning 2015 Corvette Z06, and they have also announced the Corvette C7.R race car, which shares a lot of technology with the street version. The two ‘Vettes share engineering and components, including chassis architecture, engine technologies and aerodynamic strategies.

We were recently provided the opportunity to speak with Ford about their partnerships and programs related to future energy technologies and the infrastructure required to support those technologies in our cities and towns and along our roadways. 

We’re looking forward to seeing Kia’s GT4 Stinger Concept at this year’s Detroit Auto Show, but Kia isn’t waiting until next week to unveil all of its new technology. Instead, they are showing off their new User-Centered Driver (UCD) concept controls at this week’s International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Behold: this car is the officially recognized Guinness World Record holder as the world’s smallest roadworthy vehicle and it’s going up for auction in Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale sale on January 12-19, 2014. Built by Austin Coulson, the vehicle has federally-approved safety glass for the windshield, fully functioning windshield wipers, and DOT-approved headlights, tail lights and turn indicators.