Sex And Speeding? Ja Wohl!
Leave it to the Germans to have a problem with pre-emptive strikes, but hey, playing hide the bratwurst on the highway at 60 mph? No problem! Reuters reports a court in Cologne, Germany, recently fined a man who said he was diddling a blond hitchhiker when he ran his car off the road into a sign. But the act only cost him because he fled the scene, the news service says. He was convicted of hit and run and fined about $600 because, as a court representative said, "It's a situation lawmakers never thought about." The 23-year-old man also had to pay about $400 for the sign repairs. When asked, he did not know the woman's name, though she had left her clothes behind in his car.
Randumbs
According to the "Associated Press," Mitsubishi Motors tripled its profits during the fiscal year ending March 31 to $317 million. No word on how much of that is from premiums extorted from customers looking to buy EVO VIIIs.
In San Diego County, it's now a misdemeanor to even watch a street race and is punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, according to a report in the "San Diego Union-Tribune."
Scion: Do Big Things Come in Small Packages ?
No matter what you think of Toyota's outreach to the youth of America plan, you have to admit, at least one of the Scion-brand cars is just ugly enough that someone will think it's cool.
That'd be the xB. Together with the xA, the Scions are Toyota's latest shot to get back all the tuner freaks who abandoned the company when they abandoned the Corolla FX16 and anything remotely interesting under $15,000. So let's talk about the xA and xB they're offering-and both of them sticker right around $13,000 so you can spend a wad more making them fast and sleek, something neither one is straight out of the box.
First things first: These bitches is tiny. They have to be, to make the most from the puny 1.5-liter, 108-hp four-cylinder engine Toyota sticks under the hood. Even the bigger xB is only 155 inches long; you can park it next to a MINI and not look like a press release from the Guinness Book of World Records. But even in the teenier xA, adults can sit in the back seat, although you'd have to listen to them complain about eight inches away from your ears.
Back to the essentials. The engine is strictly a beginner's blueprint, just screaming out for turbos, superchargers or something even more exotic. Or maybe you can rip out the whole mess and transplant in a Celica GT-S motor? At only 2400 pounds, the Scions actually have a decent power-to-weight ratio, if gutless at low revs. But if you stick with the low-aspiration four, you'll choose a five-speed manual over the four-speed autobox, trust us. The four-speed slushbox has decent shifts and Grade Logic software to tailor its shifts to your driving, but you'll have to hide it behind ultra-deep window tint or face the barbs from your buddies. Either way, you'll top out over 30 mpg when there is as much as 37 mpg for the manual-boxed xA.
Handling is pretty uninspiring, but the basics are in hand to tune and firm it up as taut as Miss October if you want. The trailing-arm rear suspension gets an anti-roll bar in the back, and front struts are the order of the day up front. A beginner could start things down the right road with better tires, but wholesale swapping out of the coils and shocks wouldn't be a bad move for anyone interested in real cornering capability.