Watch This Before You Buy the Mazda5

2015 Mazda5, image courtesy of Mazda

People ask me for car shopping advice all the time. One of the biggest questions I get asked is what car a person should purchase. The longer I work in the industry, the more I understand that there are pluses and minuses to any vehicle choice, and they go beyond factors that most people think about upfront.

Tesla Model S P85D Acceleration

Photo courtesy of Tesla Motors

Raphael Colantonio, a proud new owner of the Tesla Model S P85D, decided to show off his car to some friends. He also chose to have them video tape their experience as he accelerated quickly from a standstill. As you can see below, this man is a genius.

Apparently Daimler Does Have a Sense of Humor

Being an automotive writer has its perks, but reading boring press releases isn't one of them. There are some shining stars out there, automakers who have writers that know how to make their press releases entertaining and still informative (they're all British, for the most part).

How to Not Load a Trailer

This is how you don't load a truck onto a trailer. If you plan on driving any vehicle up some ramps and onto a trailer, there are a few considerations you must take into account. These people forgot a key critical point.

Snow Rally Crash

Crashing and rally racing just go hand-in-hand. There have been all kinds of crashes in the history of the sport, including cars hitting fans, cars hitting each other, and cars hitting trees. This time, however, the wreck is a car hitting a non-race vehicle.

Why You Should Always Tie Down Your Load

In many places it's illegal to drive around with anything in the back of a truck that isn't properly secured. As you can see from the completely horrifying video below, there's a good reason for that.

BMW Drivers are Jerks!

There have been plenty of jokes over the years about what jerks BMW drivers are. I worked in real estate back in the day, and I knew quite a few of the people in the profession considered owning a Bimmer to be a sign that you had truly arrived.

When Gangsters Run From the Cops

I've never advocated anyone running from the police. It's difficult to truly outrun law enforcement in modern times with helicopters, infrared cameras, and radios. You're outnumbered, outgunned, and ill-prepared to take on such a situation.

Truck Tire Rockets Mechanic Through the Air

We've seen all sorts of crazy Russian dashcam videos, but this is something completely unique. The following video also shows the hazards one can face when working on cars without taking the necessary precautions.

Cops Chase a Smart Fortwo

Truth is often stranger than fiction, and the video below of police in Houston, Texas chasing a suspect in a Smart Fortwo is excellent evidence.

The Flame-Shooting Corvette of Your Nightmares

C6 Corvettes are pretty potent machines, but they take well to certain modifications. One of the best things you can do to them is strap on a supercharger, which is exactly what this monstrous machine is packing under the hood.

Dangerous River Crossings

Image courtesy of Land Rover

River crossings can be pretty dangerous, especially if you don't know what you're doing. I've crossed countless rivers in vehicles, but fortunately none of those instances involved some reckless moron who doesn't understand the basic tenets of physics.

Minivan With a Helicopter Engine

This is just plain nuts: someone plopped a gas turbine engine from a helicopter into a minivan. The back window as deleted to make room for it, and it obviously can't run with the sliding doors closed. I've seen cars with jet engines, but this one is a first for me.

Crazy Videos Starring a Bear and a Biplane!

I've seen a lot of crazy videos recently, too many to share on here. I do want to give you all a taste for the insanity I've viewed by posting two that are especially interesting.
One is from GoPro a while ago. It shows the Werth Brothers from Indiana performing what they call a "tail grab." Basically, one brother speeds down a runway on a Honda motorcycle. The other flies inverted in a biplane mere feet from the ground. The one on the bike momentarily grabs the tail of the plane, sending it up (because it's inverted) toward the ground, before the plane goes speeding away from the Earth and certain doom. It's crazy and you have to see it (and the video's way short):

The other is of a guy on a mountain bike. I know it's technically not automotive-related, but the video is crazy since it shows a bear chasing after him. Many people are freaking out about how the guy narrowly escaped death, but the whole thing looks fishy. First off, a bear could easily outrun the guy on the bike. Second, the guy has the time to get off the bike and carry it over the fallen tree limb on the trail. And then the bear doesn't smell him less than a hundred feet away? Bears can smell things miles away, so it's fishy. Even more suspicious is the fact that the bear looks like CGI. Take a look for yourself and see what you think:

Can a Smart Fortwo Be Fast?

People dream of fast cars, or at least enthusiasts and people who have places to be do. Of all the cars sold in the United States, the Smart Fortwo is one that is definitely not considered to be peppy in the least. If you've ever driven one you know that they behave oddly, thanks to a highly unrefined transmission and a little one-liter three-cylinder engine that puts out a measly 70 horsepower.

THIS is Why You Should Pull Over When Drowsy

The above video is from an alleged drowsy driver in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. As you can see, the woman driving the Jeep is swerving around in her lane, sometimes crossing into the oncoming traffic and narrowly missing a crash, and sometimes swerving onto the shoulder.

Porsche 918 Spyder Burns While Fueling

Photo courtesy of Porsche

The latest fad in supercars is to let them burn to the ground. Really, it was a fashion that was started by Ferrari long ago, but others have been joining in lately, such as the prototype Acura NSX that burned at the Nurburgring.

Another GM Embarrassment from the Past

Photo courtesy of GM

I could write a whole book about the many GM embarrassments from the past, including the "brilliant" plan of making tires in-house, the Cadillac Cimmaron, killing off more car brands than (probably) any other company out there, etc. 

This is NOT How to Get Out of a Speeding Ticket!

Photo courtesy of Ford

Unless you are one of the lucky few, you know the dread of being pulled over by the police. Oftentimes it's for speeding, an infraction many are guilty of and few think about until it's too late. If you do happen to get pulled over by the police, there are of course things you should and should not do. For example, don't make any sudden moves, because the police never know if you are going for a weapon or not. You should be courteous to the officer, even if you felt you did nothing wrong, but that doesn't mean you have to be a complete doormat.

Blogging From A to Z Day 3: C is for Crashes

Image courtesy Volvo Cars

For the month of April I will be participating in the Blogging From A to Z Challenge. Learn more about the challenge by clicking here. Each day (except Sundays) I will be posting a theme based on each letter of the alphabet. This blog is covering automotive topics for the month. To read my other blog posts for the challenge, click here.

Crashing a vehicle can be an incredibly scary experience. Fortunately, I've never been in a serious car crash, but I've seen a few in person and many, many on video. Car crashes become even scarier when you are a parent and you realize that you have precious cargo on board, which is why I've made a conscious effort to purchase safer vehicles in the past several years.