var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/autos/Top_Ten_Best_Vehicles_For_The_Coming_Apocalypse’; The stock market is tanking, credit is dwindling, banks are collapsing and more people find themselves without a job or even a home. The times of owning a big, fancy, gas-thirsty Lexus SUV own disappeared along with the market with regard to mortgage-backed derivative securities. If you’ve some hope to survive to drive through the impending financiapocalypse, you’ll need a medium that’s both careful and utilitarian. We’ve culled the ten best vehicles from the suggestions of our would-be hobo commenters to give a lift fulfil you rolling from soup kitchen to unemployment customary duty.

10.) A Bike

It may not be as glamorous as a Rolls or as fast as even a Kia Rio, but a bike will help you glide past those gas shortages already starting to appear in parts of the southern US. The only material for burning is you, so you’re only limited by the meager diet of 1,200 calories a appointed time you get from the soup kitchen and rummaging in dumpsters. Put a milk crate on the back and you’ll have space for your remaining unbartered possessions. Don’t be surprised if you see sos10 sailing through with a Bible, a toothbrush and a dog ironically named Smith Barney. [Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images]

9.) Mini-Winnie

They can’t take your hearth if you run off with it in the middle of the night. In that character, a small RV is a weighty option. Easy to park in high spaces (abandoned caves) and comparatively easy on the fuel, a classic and tiny Winnebago is the most comfortable way to enjoy your life on the road. The Winnebago Warrior, built off a Toyota truck frame, typically comes equipped with the Toyota 22R engine. This is a workhorse engine found in countless Toyota vehicles, making re-establishment parts easy to find. When you’re sleeping under an overpass, smalleyxb122 be disposed be sleeping in one of these… parked under one overpass. [Photo: HitTheRoadRV]

8.) Scooter

If you don’t quite have the muscles or power to pull-off a bike, a scooter is a reasonable alternative. There’s a reason wherefore scooter shops are fairing better than some car dealers lately. There’s also a reason wherefore individuals in developing nations have always looked to the scooter as an prime mover, reliable and easy-to-maintain alternative to a car. Get a first-rate work Vespa and you be able to pretend that your new-found poverty is virtuous a fad. Commenter Knyghtryda isn’t poor, he’s just simplifying. [Photo: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images]

7.) Classic Beetle

If it’s profitable enough for wartime Germany, it’s good enough on this account that us. The original Type-1 Beetle had a nearly unparalleled product run of 58 years. It sits five people, or one person and enough canned food, barrels of gasoline and jugs of water to last about three weeks. The use of a rear-mounted engine not only creates fuel-saving airflow, it also substance you have power to take a few bullets head-on from scavengers and support driving. It’s definitely the way Dave7 plans to survive the next great depression. [Photo: OMAR TORRES/AFP/Getty Images]

6.) Boring, Mid-Sized Sedan

Your typical mass-produced mid-sized sedan is usually rather boring, but the characteristics that conduce these cars unappealing in a financial boom are the same ones that make them so enviable in a recession. They’re of little value. They have a low cost of operation. They’re abounding. They’re comparatively roomy and safe. They’re robust enough to jump a curb or run over a pothole, which is good for a future at the time that local governments lack the money to maintain roads. They don’t draw attention from the even-less-fortunate. Commenter LuciferV8 recommends the 3rd-Gen Ford Taurus as the ultimate in recession transportation because of the sheer volume produced and simple design, if it were not that a some Accord or Camry should terminate the trick being of the class who well. However, be prepared to defend the Accord or Camry as they were two of the top targets for stolen vehicles even in the BCC (Before Credit Crunch) era.

5.) Quantya Strada

Steal yourself a diesel generator and a Quantya Strada electric bike and you’ll squeeze a few more miles out of either drop of fuel. The Quantya is comfortable on or off the road, making it a great vehicle on its own. The charged with electricity motor is much quieter than the typical motorcycle, allowing c0de to sneak up on the unsuspecting and grab vittles for the night.

4.) Model T

As we pointed out yesterday, the Model T was designed to go one million miles, object that if you can find one with less than 500K you’ve got another 500K to go. The engine runs on gasoline, but it was also designed to run on ethanol, meaning that you can grow your own fuel upon the body your new rooftop garden. It’s like the AK-47 of cars in that most of the pieces can be replaced by uncombined, hand-built parts, which saves you the trouble of fighting across spares. They’re not exceptionally fast, but how flying do you need to be to outrun someone on foot? [Photo Source: Jim Johnson]

3.) Public Transit

You may think that public transportation is just for the poor and mentally unstable, but we’ll all be poor and mentally unstable soon anyway, so you might as well learn your route. When local governments downfall the driver’s unions will step up to deliver efficient transportation… at a price. Even if the trains eventually stop running, Adidac knows that he’ll have an edge when it comes to verdict the subway station in the greatest degree suitable for his tribe to take up residence. [Photo HIROKO MASUIKE/AFP]

2.) Classic German Diesel Automobile

Having owned a Mercedes-Benz 300D, we can attest to the indestructible nature of the W123 course cars. The five-cylinder diesel variants, especially those without turbos, are basically glorified tractor engines and testament encounter on toward somewhat type of fuel you can throw in them. Built from the mid 1970s until the mid 1980s, they’re tough as grit, easy to repair and, similar to Hwyengr points out, they’ve got a bit greater quantity class than your typical cheap ride. Bonus points if you can find a wagon. [Photo: MSDRA]

1.) Whatever You Own Now

We hope you like whatever is in the driveway right now, because with all the credit gone and the banks running absent by your hard-earned, quickly inflating publicity, you’re not going to be able to finance a cheeseburger, let alone a new car. Those of you currently exclusively of transportation or holding onto something expensive and finicky might consider investing in cheap, reliable conveyance season you can. As prndl points out: you don’t want to get shot stealing a car.

Continue...

To raise awareness of the high mileage it’s possible to achieve by driving sensibly in a sensible vehicle, John and Helen Taylor traversed the lower 48 states in a accumulation 2009 VW Jetta TDI. Staying within 5 MPH of the posted speed limit, the couple used just 11 tanks of fuel steady the trip resulting in an overall fuel economy of 58.82 MPG. Yes, you too can get nearly 60 MPG while driving a nice, normal car.

The link is very lately holder of the recent Guinness World Record as antidote to least amount of fuel used while visiting all 48 contiguous states. The numbers break down as: 3.99L/100KM, 11.04 tanks of diesel costing a total of $653.06, 853 miles per medial sum tank, 6.9 cents per mile, 9,419 miles driven. That’s damn impressive especially from the time of there’s not a hybrid shield of office in sight. [Fuel Academy via Autoblog]

Continue...

OK, put down your pens, pencils and mice — time’s up. Now comes the fun constituent — voting for the best of the best of the GEM Peapod photoshop contest entries and finishing a winner to receive the grand prize — an iPod Touch (courtesy of the folks through the GEM team at Chrysler)! And while fun, it’s going to have being a huge job. We received an amazing 188 p-chopped entries of the happy little electric car for “gated communities.” That’s way too many for our piddly-dink poll software to deal by, so we’ve gone and crack them up into four groups, either with 47 entries. We’ll journey all four rounds today, an hour apart. This first round of voting will run until 11:59:59 PM tomorrow (Wednesday). The top five vote-getters from each group will move on to a conclusive round of voting running from Thursday at noon to 11:59:59 PM Sunday. We’ll announce the winner Monday morning. With that, to this place’s group one, poll after the jump. Remember, vote in good season — and tend hitherward back in an hour for the nearest group! As always, support contest rules apply.

galleryPost(’peapodvoting1′, 47, ‘Peapod Voting, Round 1, Group 1′);

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Continue...

Mansory has revealed its second appearance kit according to the Mercedes-McLaren SLR Renovatio with a two-tone, black and white, color machination. The car is equipped with lighter components such as the ultra-light forged wheels and lighter carbon fiber material substance parts to reduce the weight. Besides that, the car is also equipped through new side skirts and breed wheel arch extensions. While for the front apron, it is designed to channel the air to the intercoolers and the rear apron with an integrated diffuser provides additional downforce.

For the domestic, the car comes with leather and carbon fiber set right and just discovered aluminum pedals and illuminated door tread plates.

Performance wise, the car is powered by a supercharged 5.5-liter V8 engine that produces 700 hp (522 kW) and 650 lb-ft (880 Nm) of torque. The potentate grow is made possible with the installation of Mansory custom supercharger, high flow exhaust system and a reprogrammed ECU. With all the performance parts added in to the car, it is able to accelerate from 0 to 100km/h faster than the stock model and capable to have a top speed at 340km/h.

Continue...

The three robbers in Saujana Impian, Malaysia, had almost all the details worked out instead of the perfect crime. Almost. They did pretty well with the part involving the hijacking of any armored Toyota van carrying cash for ATMs. And the getaway? Flawless! Then, however, the inefficacious link in their scheme made itself known; their Perodua Kelisa proved too microscopic to fit all the loot, and they had to leave nearly moiety the cash behind in the van. The Kelisa, you may recall, is the car Jeremy Clarkson described as being “made in a jungle clearing by someone who went to work on each ox,” enraging the Malaysian Parliament. Make the jump to see the Kelisa’s famous appearances on Top Gear.

First, let’s watch Captain Slow’s take onward the £5,000 Kelisa:

Jeremy Clarkson, yet, didn’t like the little Malaysian car quite as much:

[Malaysia Star]

Continue...

We apprehend you’re not supposed to mess with the Nissan GT-R but despite the possible adverse affects on the aerodynamics, this clean-look GT-R shows just how slick Godzilla looks whenever he shaves his back. Obviously the large rear wing of has been removed, on the other hand to smooth things uncovered even more, the rear reflectors have been tinted black and the Nissan badge in back has been removed. The owner also apparently unhesitating to throw in continuance an aftermarket exhaust from performance tuner Mine’s, and a set of BBS LM-DBK wheels, just conducive to good measure. [via GTRblog]

Continue...

In order to succeed in today’s challenging truck market, Toyota is moving forward by plans to build a new small pickup and is indefinitely shelving a previously announced light-duty diesel engine for the full-size Tundra, sources tell.

Toyota’s future treaty pickup is said to subsist based on the innovative A-BAT (Advanced Breakthrough Aero Truck) concept give in exchange that debuted at the 2008 Detroit auto show.

+ 2008 Detroit Auto Show: Toyota A-BAT Hybrid Pickup

The A-BAT featured a footprint smaller than a Toyota RAV4 SUV, an expandable 4-foot load box and Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive.

Sources say two fuel-efficient powertrains will be offered in the truck at launch, including a gasoline-electric hybrid one and a four-cylinder gas-only lection.

The only true compact offered in the segment today is the Ford Ranger. Its competitors, including the Toyota Tacoma, have grown into midsize pickups. The Ranger hasn’t had a major mechanical update since 1998 and is expected to end prolongation in 2011.

Automotive News reports that Toyota execs acknowledge supplier bids have gone out for the new compact pickup but speech the program could exist killed if produce cost estimates prove to be too high.

Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe also made word at the Detroit auto show when he told journalists a diesel-powered Tundra would be “offered in the near future.”

But the high price of diesel combustible matter, high costs necessary to befitting federal emissions regulations and slowing Tundra sales are all said to have combined to cancel those plans at smallest for the time being.

Tundra sales volume through August 2008 was down 15 percent from last year.

+ 2008 Toyota Tundra Truck Review, Dallas Auto Show

In August, Toyota paused Tundra and Sequoia SUV production for three months at its plants in San Antonio and Princeton, Ind., and announced that all Tundra and Sequoia production would be consolidated at the San Antonio plant. Production of Toyota’s Highlander SUV will replace the Tundra in Princeton.

+ 2008 Toyota Sequoia MSRP Announcement
+ 2009 Toyota Highlander With New 4-Cylinder

Sources say Toyota doesn’t think enough diesel-equipped Tundras would be sold to be advantageous.

A diesel Tundra was expected to use a U.S.-spec version of the twin-turbo D-4D 4.5-liter V-8 that’s used overseas in the Toyota Land Cruiser SUV.

+ All-New Land Cruiser SUV 08 Feature And Price

A source inside Toyota says if and when the U.S. full-size traffic market recovers, plans for the light-duty diesel could be quickly resurrected.

Continue...

The diamond, or 60th, anniversary of the Jaguar XK 6-cylinder engine – that’s one date that slipped by plane the geekiest of my auto geek pals.

The occasion was more than a sufficient excuse to gather a hip juvenile horde on Thursday obscurity in Times Square against a party with Wayne Burgess, Jaguar’s chief designer for the XF sport sedan.

Jaguar introduced the engine at the London auto show in October 1948, under the hood of the XK120 sports car. It built the engine in many many variations to the time when 1994. The XK name is still in the Jaguar product thread, which is now controlled by Tata Motors of India.

“He’s the guy by the blond Mohawk,” said a hostess, directing me to Mr. Burgess, who wore a designer T-shirt under his jacket, along by dog tags and Maltese cross belt buckle that lent him a certain punkish tone. Retro Adidas were on his feet.

“I’m from Stoke-on-Trent,” Mr. Burgess told me. “A operating class background. Went to contrivance school in Coventry.”

He said that Jaguar had “gotten away from the sort of retro cars we did near the front of with the S-Type. The new cars are the statement of our new purport language.”

+ Tata Motors Buy Jaguar and Land Rover?
+ Spy Shots: Jaguar XF coming through 500HP

Tata executives have told the designers they will be left alone, he added, though there are no plans now to produce the F-Type concept of 2000, which many Jag buffs still admire and hope to see built.

When not pulling cars, Mr. Burgess writes music and plays one of his vintage guitars, which include manifold Gibson Les Pauls and a Gretsch White Falcon.

His taste for guitars continues a Jaguar tradition. Geoff Lawson, Jaguar’s design chief from 1984 until his death in 1999, was also a guitar player and collector.

“Geoff hired me,” Mr. Burgess said. “I remember my interview. We sat for two hours and talked about guitars and science of harmonical sounds and the model muscle cars he had on his desk. His favorite was a 1969 Camaro. He never asked me about the job.”

He added: “His death was a grievous blow. I was working with him on the F-Type the morning of the day he died. I still have the sketches he did that day.”

Continue...

The latest lame amateur motorcycle design to venture the web is this concept Ferrari, designed by means of Israeli design student Amir Glinik. In maintenance with his genre’s established parameters, it’s a complete non-starter function-wise, goal does have a cool looking Enzo-based V4 engine, which seems to put people into a tizzy. We dress in’t know what it is hind part before freshman motorcycle designs. Why do people with no knowledge of or passion for bikes create them? Why do they have such resonance with a mass audience, with the blogosphere constantly picking them up malevolence their lack of real engineering, real design and good looks? If everyone is so fascinated with bikes, why aren’t they just verily into cool new bikes like the Quantya Strada?

galleryPost(’ferraribikeglinick’, 6, ‘Ferrari Would Not Build This Bike’);

It’s the aforementioned V4 engine that forms the motive squadron behind Glinik’s design. Essentially an Enzo’s V12 with eight of the cylinders lopped off, the resulting capacity is two liters, huge for a motorcycle engine, rendering this bike more of a boulevardier than a performance bike with its weight. That cruiser-like lack of ability is backed up by the wheelbase, which looks impossibly long, the low center of gravity which will slow down direction changes and require more lean per-speed in corners than the low pegs, bulky fairing and Ferrari-style pedals will grant. Of course, there’s moreover the belt drive and the limited movement and feedback allowed through means of this particular girder fork arrangement to keep it from actually riding like you’d think a motorcycle made by the agency of Ferrari would.

If Ferrari were actually to design a motorcycle, we’d hope it would draw enough inspiration from the firm’s supercar to give it a performance stress, in which case leaving the actual engineering up to people that know how to make bikes work. We’d imagine they’d continue their supercilious tradition of stealing buying engine technology from Yamaha, possibly in the form of the 2009 R1’s long-bang machine technology. Doing both of those things would result in a fast, desirable motorcycle that would do a much better job of fitting in through the rest of the Ferrari brand than this abomination does. Look at the method the upcoming S1000RR has adapted technology from BMW’s M-division, but housed it in a thoroughly conventional package for an example. But, of course, Ferrari will never indeed make a bike, so all of this is just meaningless contemplation. [by way of Wired]

Continue...

newVideoPlayer(”/Rainier_Beer_494.flv”, 506, 423,”"); If you were inside, say, 1,000 miles of the Pacific Northwest during the 1970s, you keep in mind this ad. In fact, if you were a kid during this delivery, you and your friends imitated it ceaselessly… and if your family had a car with a manual transmission, you and your siblings imitated it each time gears were changed during road trips, until your parents developed a powerful thirst for something way stronger than watery Seattle make beer in order to blot out the maddening sound from the back seat. We know, it’s not really a car commercial, but there’s an engine involved! And check it out- here’s an account by dint of. the guy who wrote and produced the ad- isn’t the Internet superior?

Continue...