An Interesting Week For Cars

I haven't blogged about cars in a while. Suddenly, after no news, five stories come up in a day. Most of them were pretty good. I love it when articles talk about new cars and energy-efficient cars and HOT cars; most of these did.

First off, Road and Track talks did a story about the Dodge EV, which is every step in the right direction for what I want in a car; not the least of which is that the body is good looking. Remember the Lots Elise? The same guy designed the car. They want to use the same light-weight material to make it. The Elise weighs just shy of 2000 lbs, which gives it some quickness with a relatively small engine. Also, as the "EV" part suggests, it is fully electric. Just awesome. The drawback? It will probably be expensive for a while, just like the Elise.

Second, and equally cool (if not more-so for the design), the Honda FC Sport. It looks awesome and it is a fuel cell vehicle.

Another quick note is that Mini is releasing an electric Cooper. The Mini Cooper is already a fantastic car, what with it being light and fuel efficient and nimble.

One of the main points that we haven't seen before (in my opinion) is that a sports car can be both ecologically good and still look good. It's a trend in the right direction. I just pray that my car will hold out until these types of cars are widely available.

Finally, and this is of note just because I really like these cars, Nissan is releasing the next version of the 350 Z; the 370 Z. It's faster. It's better designed. It's just as hot. It's probably as inefficient as the 350 Z, though. Of note, however, is that Nissan has introduced a rev-matching component that could replace the heel-and-toe rev-matching requirement for all of you performance drivers out there. I rev-match while coasting, so I'm less efficient than I would be using heel-and-toe. However, I have big feet and I don't have the right pedals.

Update: This site talks about some changes to the 370 Z, including aluminum door panels, a shorter length, VVEL, etc., which would initially make it seem like it gets better gas mileage than the 350 Z. But, the site also talks about how its fuel economy is rated at 18/26. Bummer.