Archive for July 26th, 2008

At last report, the Beertech BMW 318i was leading the race, and a bunch of other Bavarians were close behind. Now that the dust has settled and all the cars are back in the pits getting pounded into shape for tomorrow, we find the BMWs have been shoved aside by a rotary: the Team She… »

newVideoPlayer(”/lemonsonboardspin.flv”, 494, 410,””); If this on-board footage from Team Schumacher Taxi Service’s Toyota is any indication, the “Chemical Ali” punishment of a certain black-flagged Mustang was certainly effective. Apparently the dizzying aroma causes you to lose control and spin into unsuspecting racers. In this case, the victim was one of my personal favorites on… »

Some of you may have thought that my Chemical Ali punishment was on the harsh side, but I’m actually the nice judge in the good-cop/bad-cop team we have going. LeMons Supreme Court Justice Loverman has devised a punishment he calls the “Diabetic Discipline,” and it goes something like this: We take some bribe money and… »

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, Chevrolet, GM

The man in charge of hybrid powertrain development at GM Larry Nitz has confirmed that the E-Flex team has made the decision to switch engines for the range extender in the upcoming Chevy Volt. The original concept was to use a turbocharged 1.0L three cylinder engine to drive the… »

We’re a few hours into the 24 Hours of LeMons South, and the lap leader is a team that had a really good story during the Bullshit Inspection phase… so good, in fact, that we dinged them just a single lap. We gave out a one-lap BS Penalty when we knew a team had cheated… »

One of the things that sets the 24 Hours of LeMons apart from other races is the system of penalties for on-track misbehavior; you pass on a yellow or run someone into a tire wall, you get black-flagged straight to the punishment area. Once there, you can spin the Wheel of Misfortune to get your… »

newVideoPlayer(”/KITTTransforms_gawker.flv”, 506, 423,””); Somewhere between “Morphing” and “Transforming” is the very Team America-ish “Valmorphanization.” That’s the term we feel best using to describe what KITT’s doing in this one minute clip from the new Knight Rider TV show premiering September 24th on NBC. As you’d expect, KITT is apparently fitted with a current Ford… »

Now that I’ve replaced my judge’s wig for my Doctor Of Automotive Journalism hat (i.e., my Black Metal V8olvo baseball cap), it’s time to take a breather from punishing miscreants and start watching some racing. After the first hour, the early leader is- as we expected- one of the E30 BMWs we didn’t hammer hard… »

newVideoPlayer(”/lemonsSCstart.flv”, 494, 290,””);After the teams filed onto the track behind the Dodge Challenger SRT8 pace car (driven by our very own judges) the green flag waved and the race began! Early favorites are the E30 BMWs, as the Honorable Judge Murilee claims he was well bribed letting them all off too easy. Keep checking for… »

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, SMART

Smart currently has an electric version of its little ForTwo runabout… um, running about in Europe known as the Smart ed. Using a a sodium-nickel-chloride (commonly called a Zebra) battery, the 41 horse electric motor has plenty of power to move the vehicle around, and urban performance is actually said to be… »