Earth Day 2013

For today's tree-hugging holiday, I've compiled a list of new cars, all of which are supposed to be 2013's Top 10 Best Cars for the Environment.

10. Lincoln MKZ Hybrid

9.   Toyota Avalon Hybrid

8.   Honda Fit EV

7.   VW Jetta Hybrid

6.   Ford C-Max Energi

5.   Toyota Prius Plug-in

4.   Chevy Volt

3.   Ford Focus Electric

2.   Tesla Model S

1.   Nissan Leaf

Now, see how bored you are after glancing through that? That's why I blog about interesting cars and other motoring related topics, not this sort of thing.

Happy Eco-mentalist Day.

Hennessey Venom GT

Well, the new Hennessey Venom GT is the fastest production car... in the world.

It has 1244 bhp. Take a look.
Here you can see the GT setting the world record time for 0-300 km/h at 13.18 seconds.



As of now, the Hennessey Venom GT is the fastest car that you can buy, with a top speed of 267.8 mph. It beats the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, which held the previous world record at 265.7 mph. The interesting thing is that the real top speed of the production Veyron is only 258. Bugatti limits the top speed of all their hypercars. 

Hennessey made sure that they pointed this out before beating the previous record anyway.

Until recently, Bugatti held the claim to "Fastest Production Car", but the reality is that the Veyrons that are available to the public - defined as a production car - only go 258 mph. So the Veyron that broke all of the previous production car speed records wasn't actually a production car at all.

You can actually buy a Hennessey Venom GT identical to the one used above, which goes almost 10 mph faster than the Veyron you'll find at your local Bugatti dealer.

I have only one real problem with Hennessey though, and that is that they don't make their own cars. The Venom GT is just a Lotus with tweaked and tuned performance bits. Hennessey does this with plenty of other cars too. They'll take things like a Camaro, a Mustang, or an M3, and just make it insane. It's really cool, but they aren't a "car-maker". Hennessey, takes perfectly good cakes and puts the icing on. Still, you have to wonder what kind of cake they could make on their own. That's only a minor qualm though. I like Hennessey's icing.

Bugatti, alternatively, is backed by Volkswagen, and they make their cars from the beginning. The Veyron is not a tuned up Lotus.

You see what I'm saying here. It just feels better when you have a car that was born to be a hypercar. It was purpose built to be crazy fast. It was not born as an average Lotus Exige, that underwent a procedure later in life and received the ability to perform. 

Comparing the Veyron to the Venom GT is like comparing Superman to Spiderman. The Veyron was born with superpowers on another planet. The Venom GT was a nerdy, journalist that was bitten by a spider, and later received superpowers.


I have to say I always preferred Spiderman though. He was kind of the underdog. You have to like the Hennessey Venom GT for the same reason.

Well done on the new records Hennessey.







This whole argument about "fastest production car" will probably start back up in September, when Bugatti reveals the new 1600 hp Veyron. If Bugatti doesn't limit the top speed to the new one, Superman will be bulletproof.

Car Brand Slogans: A Review

Below is a listing of some slogans that were recently used by automotive companies, along with a little nugget of truth about each. Being in marketing, I study these kind of things, and I thought it'd be entertaining for you all to have a glimpse into the mind of a genius.

BMW: “BMW. The Ultimate Driving Machine.”
Audi: “Keeping ahead through technology.”
You have to enjoy the fact that your grammar check will grab you for both of these ads and tell you "nein, your sentence is nicht gut." These slogans are about the same: very assertive, very German, not bad, but not very memorable.

Mercedes-Benz: “Unlike any other.”
Mercedes-Benz is deeply involved in so many different things related to automotive manufacturing; one could really say that they are “unlike any other.” This one is alright.

Alfa Romeo: “Alfa Romeo. Beauty is not enough.”
This slogan is good because it is accurate, not ridiculous boasting or just making up nonsense like most slogans. Alfa really does make truly beautiful cars, so this works. I also love Alfa Romeo so I'm totally biased here.

Ford: “Built Ford Tough”
Effective. You have to admit, it works. My only problem with this is that Ford writes its ads as if their target is car-buying Neanderthals.

Dodge: “Dodge. Grab life by the horns.”
Not great. This ad slogan was written exclusively for high school football coaches.

Chevrolet: “Chevy: an American revolution.”
You can’t really point out a problem with this slogan, but then, you couldn’t repeat it to me two minutes from now either, could you?

Volkswagen: “Relieves gas pains.”
This is a great plan from VW’s marketers – have your customers associate your brand with flatulence.

Toyota: “The car in front is a Toyota.”
            “Toyota. Moving forward.”
When you read the old ad campaign, “The car in front is a Toyota”, you just think - if there is a Toyota in front of me, the accelerator is stuck. Then you read the new, slightly better slogan: “Toyota. Moving forward.” – you still think - of course its moving forward, it can’t stop either.

Saturn: “Saturn. Like always. Like never before.”
A part of this slogan is accurate; like always, your Saturn will be absolute rubbish. Like never before… no it will be embarrassing, like it always was.

(I have enlarged their logo image here so that you can marvel at this absolutely wonderful masterpiece artwork that is the Saturn logo.)

If you have a favorite slogan not seen here, or if I have offended your most beloved car maker in some way, post below in the comment box. I might enjoy reading your submissions.