London Calling
The most feared machine in London is not a dentist's drill-yes, they have them and running water, too, despite evidence to the contrary. Said machine is the ubiquitous city taxi, ready to take a foot off at the ankle if you should step into roundabout traffic just a fraction of a second too soon. Now the famed tall-roof London taxi is coming to America, where no doubt some East L.A. outfit is sizing them up for lowrider competition. London Taxis North America, Inc. (LTNA) says it will start importing the British-made sedans and has already sold a handful in big cities like Detroit, Boston and L.A. To get them in through customs easily, the importers did two things: first they federalized them for safety and emissions and installed Ford diesel engines in them, and second, they applied for student visas. Two models are being offered: the "Civilized Taxi," designed for the commercial taxi market; and the "London Executive Sedan," designed for private livery markets and British Girls Gone Wild! video shoots. The Ford turbodiesel gets 24mpg in the city, 28 highway; the interior provides enough room for five adults. Check out www.LTNA.com before you run and get Danny DeVito out of cold storage.
Power: Quality Getting Better
Japan's automakers still build the most reliable cars and trucks, according to the latest J.D. Power survey of three-year quality. "Duh," you say? What you don't know is that American car companies have passed the European brands, though they're still not in the same quality area code as Toyota and Honda. Power's Vehicle Dependability Study, the one that tracks consumer complaints over three years, put Lexus at the top of all brands, with only 163 problems reported per 100 vehicles after three years of ownership. Falling fast: Mercedes-Benz, which ranked 25th and had about twice as many problems as the average Lexus. General Motors scored above average, Ford slipped somewhat and in last place was Kia, with more than 500 problems for every car surveyed.
Accomplishment & Tragedy
Subaru Rally Team USA's Mark Lovell and his co-driver Roger Freeman finished first overall in the SCCA ProRally class during June's running of the 2003 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in their WRX (see page 144). It's just the sort of accomplishment everyone at Subaru and everyone on the team could cherish.
But two weeks later, at the Oregon Trail SCCA ProRally, both Lovell, 43, and Freeman, 52, were killed when their car hit a tree moments into the first special stage of the event. Lovell and Freeman had been rallying together for 20 years with significant success, including the 2001 Overall Drivers Championship for 2001. Both British subjects, Lovell is survived by his wife Julie, and sons, Oliver and Thomas, while Freeman leaves his wife Alison, daughter Becky, and son John, behind.
In the close-knit world of rallying, this tragedy is a deeply felt one. Our heart goes out to everyone at Subaru, its Rally Team and the rallying community at large. We will, as we hope everyone will, strive to remember these two men for the full lives they led.
High Octane USA and High Octane 2New Zealanders are pretty much Australians with speech impediments. They also, obviously, are fairly well nuts for cars.
The High Octane series is produced by New Zealanders and has a distinctly Kiwi flavoring. They like masturbation jokes and aren't afraid to include them, along with some gratuitous cussing in their DVDs. They also like goofy humor, but it would be better if their humor included something funny.
The High Octane USA DVD was shot primarily in California and includes a look at the Import Auto Salon and, more obsessively, a lot of looks at the breasts of women at the IAS. There are also some mostly yawn-worthy shots of track day at Willow Springs that includes some decent drifting. By far, the highlight is a comparison between a Ferrari F355 and a Dodge Viper GT-S that includes the Viper going clean off a mountain road and down a 100-foot cliff. It's so unexpected, you have to back up the DVD to make sure that what you saw really happened.
High Octane 2 takes place completely in New Zealand and dang if we can understand a third of what they're saying. Still there's some Skyline racing that's worthwhile and a New Zealand bikini contest in which no one entered.
These are two-hour DVDs with about 30 minutes of decent and worthwhile footage in each of them. We found ourselves using the fast forward button almost as frequently as we hit the pause switch for the bikini contests. Each of the DVDs is $19.95 through 247Motoring.com.