G54: Troy Trepanier Builds a Double-Brown ?54 Buick with German Guts

We?re getting good at sniffing out AMG engines under hoods where they weren?t originally installed. Witness yesterday?s pair of Mechatronik-fettled Benz classics and this latest Rad Ride by Troy Trepanier, a ?54 Buick with G55 AMG running gear. G54, as it?s called, was finished about a week ago and is making its public debut here [...]

Michael Duane Bliss Kurt Thomas Busch Kyle Thomas Busch Jeffrey Tyler Burton

Video: Watch Brazilian police intentionally ram car into plane during takeoff

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Brazilian police prepare to ram plane with car

Yesterday, we got to see the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto V, and today we have video of one of the missions. But wait just a second - this isn't a video game, it's real life.

An in-car video camera has captured footage of two unnamed Brazilian police officers going after some bad guys on a remote runway, Cops-style. One officer can be seen firing a machine gun, just before the driver rams the wing of a plane in an effort to prevent it from taking off.

According to the Associated Press, a Brazilian federal police spokesman indicates that the pilot and four others were arrested, but nobody was hurt in the takedown. The video does appear to show plenty of contraband electronics that were seized from the alleged smugglers, however.

Click past the jump to see the brief but action-packed footage.

Continue reading Watch Brazilian police intentionally ram car into plane during takeoff

Watch Brazilian police intentionally ram car into plane during takeoff originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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David Lee Blaney Michael Duane Bliss Kurt Thomas Busch Kyle Thomas Busch

Official: Honda prices 2012 Ridgeline Sport from $29,995*

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2012 Honda Ridgeline Sport

We knew Honda's load-lugging curiosity, the Ridgeline pickup, was getting a modest refresh for the 2012 model year, and we even knew there was a new Sport model waiting in the wings. But now we have more details - including pricing.

For 2012, the Ridgeline range starts at $29,250* for the entry-level RT model and zooms all the way to $37,180* for the top-shelf RTL with navigation. The sweet spot, however, might just be the new Sport model shown above. At $29,995* it's only $749 more than the base RT, yet includes such visual niceties as 18-inch alloys (the base RT rolls on 17-inch steelies), blacked-out honeycomb grille and matching light bezels, as well as fog lamps and tinted rear windows. Inside, there's a leather-wrap wheel with audio controls, an aux input on the stereo and floor mats. (*All Ridgeline models are subject to a $810 delivery charge).

Range-wide changes for 2012 include a new front grille and various small aero improvements that help net the genre-straddling pickup a revised fuel economy rating of 15 city and 21 highway, an increase of 1 mpg on the interstate. The rest of the range remains basically unchanged, including the 3.5-liter V6 that offers 250 horsepower and 247 pound-feet of torque and its trademark in-bed trunk.

Despite consistently slow sales, Honda recently pledged that the Ridgeline still has a future. While we haven't seen or heard anything official out of the Japanese automaker about a successor, it has been rumored that the new-for-2012 CR-V could spawn a light-duty pickup variant at some point down the road, an interesting idea about which we won't hold our breath.

Continue reading Honda prices 2012 Ridgeline Sport from $29,995*

Honda prices 2012 Ridgeline Sport from $29,995* originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 04 Nov 2011 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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David Carl Allison Gregory Jack Biffle David Lee Blaney Michael Duane Bliss

Simoncelli crash a ?freak accident?

MotoGP world champions Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi do not think anything could have been done to prevent Marco Simoncelli's fatal accident in the Malaysian Grand Prix. Simoncelli died from injuries suffered when he veered into the path of Rossi and Colin Edwards during a crash on lap two at Sepang. Amid suggestions that a quirk of the Bridgestone tyres' characteristics caught Simoncelli out and caused his bike's unusual trajectory in the crash, Stoner insisted that the incident was just an unfortunate one-off and not tyre-related.

Bruce Kessler Nicolas Kiesa Leo Kinnunen Danny Kladis

Volvo weight increase for China

The Volvo C30 has had 20kg added to its base weight for this weekend's World Touring Car Championship round at Tianma. Robert Dahlgren's fastest lap for the Polestar Racing-run car at Suzuka last time out means that the C30 has been made heavier under the compensation weight rules, designed to balance the performance of the field. The championship-leading Chevrolet Cruze remains the reference car and stays at +40kg for China while the BMW 320TC is level with the Volvo on +20kg and the SEAT Leon 1.6T runs at +10kg

Damon Hill Graham Hill Phil Hill Peter Hirt

Michael joins McLaren for final races

Sam Michael will join McLaren for the final two races of the season after he was given permission to start work for the Woking-based outfit by former employers Williams, AUTOSPORT can reveal. The Australian left Williams at the end of September after a lengthy spell as its technical director, having agreed a deal to join McLaren as its sporting director. At the time it was unclear how long Michael would have to spend on 'gardening leave', while he served out the terms of his old contract

José Froilán González Oscar González Aldo Gordini Horace Gould

2011 NNS O?Reilly Auto Parts Challenge First Practice Session Speeds

2011 NNS Elliott Sadler in Car - Photo Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCARElliott Sadler, with a lap speed of 186.845 mph, was the fastest during the first NNS O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway. Second fastest with a lap speed of 185.593 mph, was Clint Bowyer, followed by Sam Hornish Jr. (185.350 mph)...more»

Fred Gamble Howden Ganley Frank Gardner Billy Garrett

2011 NSCS AAA Texas 500 First Practice Session Speeds

Greg Biffle - Photo Credit: John Harrelson/Getty ImagesGreg Biffle, with a lap speed of 193.327 mph, was the quickest during the first NSCS AAA Texas 500 practice session at Texas Motor Speedway. Biffle’s fellow Roush Fenway Racing teammate, Carl Edwards, was second fastest with a lap speed of 193.043 mph, and was followed by Tony...more»

Paco Godia Carel Godin de Beaufort Christian Goethals Paul Goldsmith

Taking Roadkill Off the Menu: How to Stem Road Carnage (Plus a Venison Tartare Recipe!)

What’s being done to curb increasingly common?and tasty?road carnage? There are roadkill calendars, roadkill cookbooks, roadkill Christmas cards, and, certainly there are roadkill jokes. But it?s not all fun and punch lines: Roadkill has become the subject of serious scientific inquiry. Even as overall vehicle crashes have gone down, what the FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) [...]

Christian Goethals Paul Goldsmith José Froilán González Oscar González