In case you haven’t noticed, a brand new lane just opened up on our roads. This is not the result of any road widening exercise, but due to a group of motorists who have vacated the lane in question.
What new lane, you wonder? Is it some elusive, secret lane that will magically materialise when you flash your high beam three times in quick succession? Not really. If you found yourself travelling on the innermost lane, yet moving ahead more speedily and smoothly than the traffic in the supposedly faster outer lanes, bingo. It’s almost as if you were driving in a left-hand drive country, where the left lane is for overtaking. +Continue Reading
Maintaining a car is as tough as parenting a child. Especially with mounting fuel prices and other maintenance costs, things are getting tougher day by day. If you are in search of auto insurance for your vehicle, you are bound to find many in the way, by are they really cheap? Do they really provide you with what they promise? The truth is many companies which claim to provide you with a good service for a very cheap price, do not actually do what you say and you are simply tricked into a worthless deal. This doesn’t mean that cheap auto insurance is not available at all. +Continue Reading
For those of you who didn’t know, 2010’s Formula One season will see the “return” of Lotus to the grid after a 15-year absence. In all likelihood, the Lotus of 2010 will be quite different from the feisty team that started life as a car maker in t1~ late 1950s, an English outfit led by its legendary founder, Colin Chapman. In all, Lotus chalked up seven championships, 79 race wins and 107 pole positions.
In true Chapman tradition, Lotus formula race cars always tended to be unconventional. The Type 25 entered for the 1962 race was the first F1 car to have a stressed monocoque chassis. The Type 49 was the first racer whose engine also served as a structural component to the chassis. +Continue Reading
Honda’s first production petrolÂ-hybrid, the Insight, made its appearance here 10 years ago to motoring journalists and a small bunch of earth-loving folk. It was a mini celebrity of sorts. After all, few have seen an electric-petrol car in the metal, save for those who were at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show and saw the Honda J-VX concept.
This subcompact hatchback, which measures less than 4m long and weighs a scant 838kg, was the first Honda to feature its proprietary Integrated Motor Assist system. This is basically a clever electrical motor that adds 13bhp to the 70bhp produced by the 1-litre, 3-cylinder engine, and charges a series of commercial grade D-size nickel-metal hydride batteries behind the seats. +Continue Reading
It was extremely pleasant to drive, with more than adequate performance in city driving and a range of approximately 160km. Its only problem, like all pure electric vehicles, is that each re-fueling duration is six to eight hours, a far cry from the 10 minutes or so for a normal vehicle.
Despite great strides in battery technology, especially over the last three decades, the energy storage density of the best of its kind is still no match for the internal combustion engine’s liquid fuel. +Continue Reading
The Legacy has always been a key model in the Subaru family. Over the past 20 years, 3.6 million have been sold. Besides sheer numbers, it has also been instrumental in raising the overall image of the marque.
It was the Legacy RS that led Subaru’s foray into the World Rally Championship. Though a first-timer, the car did remarkably well and the lessons learnt were put to good use when Subaru came up with the Impreza WRX. The WRX is one of the most successful cars in the history of the WRC series. +Continue Reading
