News From the Auto Industry

BMW 3-Series/Z4 Repair Manual - on sale from $12.00
Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT
302 Autos à vendre
MAZDA Protegé 5 2003 manuelle 106 000 km tout équipée climatiseur blanche garantie prolongée 8 pneus neufs très propre 11 500$ négociable. Tél.:548-7173 590-0752. MAZDA Protegé LX 2002 manuelle 83 000 km climatiseur démarreur 4 pneus dhiver sur jantes très bon état 9 500$. Tél.:548-8932 pagette:541-5745. MERCURY Cougar 2002 2.5 litres 94 000 km manuelle cd tout équipée excellente condition. Tél.:480-1471. MERCURY Mystique LS 1998 2.5 couleur or 122 000 km 4 portes tout équipée très propre 3 800$. Tél.:550-1287. NISSAN Altima …

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST
BMW Welt getting ready for its first visitors
We?re getting closer, there are about 60 days left until the new BMW delivery center, BMW Welt, will open its doors. The Welt will serve customers from Europe as well as people across the ocean. The BMW European Delivery cars will be …

Chevrolet Vans, 1987-97 - on sale from $17.98
Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Which leads us to the introduction of the MG TF, a revised version of the MG-F, and a vehicle much closer to U.S.-spec. than its predecessor. Whether it will make it over here or not is unknown, but the possibility is closer than ever before. I’m betting on 2003, despite a slight softening in the sports car market. That will pass as the economy improves, and the MG name is surprisingly well-known in the U.S.

Side airbags, which the auto maker earlier had said would remain standard only on Cadillac and Saab, now will remain on both of those nameplates as well as the Buick Park Avenue and Oldsmobile Aurora and Silhoutte.

Yes, MG Rover must partner with a major OEM to replace its aging 25 and 45 models (the 75 is nearly new) if it sticks with conventional design and assembly methods, but talks are underway about doing just that. If they fail, well there are always new approaches. And I have a sneaking suspicion Lola is investigating chassis built from flat sheets of honeycomb aluminum to replace conventional unit body structures (and their cost).

Then there’s BMW, which reportedly earns 9% on everything it builds. Now free of Rover, the German car maker is concentrating on its core products, though it kept the new Mini for itself. Even though haven’t driven it yet, from all reports it’s a front-drive BMW. That’s a very good thing. And who knows how much extra money the Bavarians are raking in from selling their powertrains, electrics, and other components to Ford for use in the new Range Rover.

Which leads us to the introduction of the MG TF, a revised version of the MG-F, and a vehicle much closer to U.S.-spec. than its predecessor. Whether it will make it over here or not is unknown, but the possibility is closer than ever before. I’m betting on 2003, despite a slight softening in the sports car market. That will pass as the economy improves, and the MG name is surprisingly well-known in the U.S.

Side airbags, which the auto maker earlier had said would remain standard only on Cadillac and Saab, now will remain on both of those nameplates as well as the Buick Park Avenue and Oldsmobile Aurora and Silhoutte.

Yes, MG Rover must partner with a major OEM to replace its aging 25 and 45 models (the 75 is nearly new) if it sticks with conventional design and assembly methods, but talks are underway about doing just that. If they fail, well there are always new approaches. And I have a sneaking suspicion Lola is investigating chassis built from flat sheets of honeycomb aluminum to replace conventional unit body structures (and their cost).

Which brings me to MG Rover. What is strange is that MG Rover is still alive, and planning for the future. Who’d have thought it possible? Of course, you can survive when you buy the company for $10 and don’t have to carry all of the giant-size debts on your books, or when the departing owner lends you $500-million to take this albatross from around its neck. But MG Rover’s leadership also has been canny. It tied up with Lola Cars, a British race car manufacturer, and signed Peter Stevens-best known for his work with Lotus, McLaren, and the BMW and Audi sports car racing teams-to head the design department. Literally within weeks they showed high-performance versions of their current lineup, complete with handsome aerodynamic and styling tweaks from the talented Mr. Stevens.

And re-entering the U.S. market is on MG Rover’s To Do list. Some of you may recall the MG-F sports car on Chapman-Arup Engineering’s stand at the 2001 SAE Congress in Detroit, and the survey forms each person who stopped by were asked to fill out. Sure, there would need to be changes to the car to sell it here, but at least they were investigating the possibility.

Earlier, GM had said only Cadillac, Saab and three other models would have antilock brakes as a standard feature on 2003 models.

This year it’s campaigning a Pontiac Sunfire, which will compete in the Hot Rod and Quick classes of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) and Import Drag Racing Circuit (IDRC) respectively. It also will run a more heavily modified Chevrolet Cavalier in the NHRA Modified and IDRC Outlaw classes.

Head (ported, support added)

Ferrea–valves

WHAT’S STOCK?

Once the design was complete, the project management team took over to ensure all of the Product Part Approval Process (PPAP) procedures were in place. The tooling was ordered and production systems arrived exactly as scheduled at both GM and General Dynamics facilities.

Head (ported, support added)

Ferrea–valves

WHAT’S STOCK?

Slate: What Are We Searching For?
What Are We Searching For? The answers to today’s crossword, Jewish baseball players, testicular comfort, and the right way to pronounce “Reuters.” By Josh Levin Searching for stuff on the Web is typically a one-man job. Punch in your query, hit enter, and your computer hands over a list of the most relevant results. But searching doesn’t have to be solitary. As we’re typing away in our little vacuums, Google is collecting and storing what we write. Want to see what other people are curious about? Download the Google Toolbar, start typing, and you’ll see a list of suggested queries: similar terms that other users often search for. For tech researchers, this is an incomparable tool for figuring out how and why we use search engines. For me, it’s the makings of an endlessly fun parlor game that offers answers to mankind’s enduring mysteries. What do we think about when we think about Tom Cruise? What are the most frequently mispronounced words in the English language? And when people write “my balls,” what word usually comes next? The idea of search suggestions has been around since at least 2004, when a software engineer named Kevin Gibbs built a simple application called Google Suggest as a personal project. Two years ago, the company integrated Suggest into the Google Toolbar. This year, the idea has gone mainstream: Search for something at Ask.com or Yahoo.com and you’ll be greeted by a dropdown suggestion window. How does Suggest work? Type the letter “p” into the Google Toolbar (or the Google Suggest homepage) and a small box billows down. In the top half is your search history?up to 10 recent search terms that start with “p.” Below that is a list of 10 “p” phrases that Google thinks you might want to search for. The toolbar’s 10 proposed searches: paris hilton, photobucket, paypal, pc world, pokemon, pizza hut, people search, post office, passport, people. Add an “i” and the list instantly changes: pizza hut, piczo, pirate bay, picasa, pictures, pink, pirates, pimp my profile, pirates of the caribbean. On the most basic level, search suggestions are a boon for lazy typists. Punching in a long phrase is for suckers: If you want to Google “washington post,” type “was,” tap the down arrow a few times, and hit Enter. The dropdown box is also a subtle reminder that the more specific the query, the better the results. Search for “dog” and odds are you won’t find what you’re looking for. Type “dog” into Google Toolbar, and the options in the dropdown window?dog breeds, dog names, dog the bounty hunter, dogpile.com?will help you find your way. Google doesn’t reveal its search algorithms, but the company’s engineers confirm that what we’re looking at in the toolbar is, essentially, a list of the 10 most popular queries that start with a given prefix. (It’s unclear what time period the suggestions are culled during, but a spokesman says they’re generated from “recent [search] activity.”) A suggestion-enabled search is like an instant popularity contest. Just type in a couple of letters, and you’ve got access to oodles of data on what your fellow Web surfers are hunting for. The obvious first question: How popular am I? We’ve all self-Googled to see where we fall on the results page. Suggestions offer a whole new playing field for Web-based vanity. Type in “josh lev” and Google’s ninth suggestion is “josh levin slate.” The people have spoken! Alas, the people are slightly more interested in “josh levine tmz.” Still, I’m one up on my Slate colleague Jack Shafer, whose name doesn’t appear when you type “jack sh.” Yes, he ranks below “jack shit.” There’s also plenty of fodder for non-narcissists. The most-searched-for Paul? Some guy named Paul Sculfor, followed by Paul McCartney. Mary Kay edges out Maryland and Mary Poppins; Jane Norman is more popular than Jane Austen, Jane Fonda, or Jane Goodall. What do people want to know about Tom Cruise? The top two suggestions are “tom cruise movies” and “tom cruise height.” Katie Holmes doesn’t show up until the third entry, Oprah the sixth. Scientology doesn’t appear at all. Without Google, there would be no singalongs. No matter what you search for?”big” or “smile” or “kiss”?Suggest will think that you’re in the market for song lyrics. Type in the name of any band, and requests for lyrics come up before anything else. Once you start looking for them, unexpected suggestions start popping up everywhere. Like most nerds, I spend a fair bit of time looking up the players on my fantasy baseball team. My searches are typically focused on things like statistics and injuries. Google, however, won’t stop suggesting that I want to look up the player’s “wife” or “girlfriend.” Sure, you’d expect that for pin-ups like Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. But Ryan Klesko, Ryan Theriot, and Mark Derosa? Really? Another strange baseball-related trend: There seem to be a bunch of searchers who wishfully append the word “Jewish” onto the names of vaguely Jewish-sounding athletes. Sorry, fellow Semites?Lance Berkman and Josh Phelps are not members of the tribe. Google Toolbar also led me to the unsurprising discovery that people cheat on the New York Times crossword puzzle. I learned this fact while cheating on the New York Times crossword puzzle. Bedeviled by 48-Down, I began to type in the clue. I only got as far as “godfrey’s w” before Google filled in the rest: “Godfrey’s Woman in My Man Godfrey.” When I punched in “canada’s bat” the same thing happened?the scofflaws before me had already inquired about “Canada’s Battle of Fort _____, 1866.” After a couple of months of serendipitous delights, I decided to use Suggest to conduct a serious study of human behavior. Google Toolbar makes it easy to practice armchair sociology?just conjure the first half of any question or statement, and Google fills in the back end. Want to know what questions are flummoxing mankind? Type in “is it true that.” The fourth suggestion: “is it true that if you don’t use it you lose it.” The fifth: “is it true that ciara is a man.” Enter “how bad is” to figure out everything the English-speaking world thinks might not be OK: smoking, followed by global warming, soda, marijuana, and McDonald’s. The Google Toolbar can also be a handy tool for teasing out sexual politics. Strip out the movie and song titles, and these are the top searches that begin with “my girlfriend is”: a bitch, pregnant, crazy, hot, fat, depressed, getting fat. Compare with the top results for “my boyfriend is”: an asshole, an alcoholic, depressed, mean, married, hot. For what it’s worth, “my mom is” combines the worst of both: hot, a bitch, crazy, amazing, mean, my hero, depressed, pregnant, an alcoholic. Human relations look blissful, though, compared with the piteous list of searches that start with “my dog is”: sick, limping, throwing up, constipated, not eating, shaking, coughing, vomiting, and eating grass. At least the last one is “my dog is cuter than your dog.” Sometimes we turn to search engines when we have nowhere else to go for counsel. To wit, Google Suggest overflows with pregnancy anxiety. The top two results for “how do you know”: how do you know if your pregnant, how do you know if you are pregnant. (In sixth place is “how do you know if you are in love.”) A search for “can I eat” reveals the items that pregnant women fear the most: feta cheese, sushi, honey, mayonnaise, prawns, lobster, peanut butter, shrimp, and tuna. Google does take a bit of fun out of the suggestion game with its version of the Hays Code. Searching for “my balls” is fine. (No 1 answer: “my balls hurt.”) “My penis,” though, returns no suggestions. Same thing for “boobs,” “hardcore,” “porno,” and, well, you get the idea. Google also appears to have removed its suggestions for “blacks are”–a disturbing list that a blogger captured in 2005. I’m sure the scrubbing helps, but through the lens of Google Suggest, mankind doesn’t come off as evil or prurient. Rather, Suggest creates an endearing portrait of a throng of befuddled seekers. Perhaps my favorite find is the list of suggestions generated by a search for “how do you pronounce”: siobhan, nguyen, sudoku, reuters, yeats, goethe, cannes, porsche, ubuntu. That’s the best list of frequently mangled words that I’ve ever seen. It’s also a helpful reminder that when we search, we are not alone. There are a million other doofuses who can’t say sudoku either.

Mon, 6 Aug 2007 19:27:10 EDT
BMW/Oschersleben 24 hr news/Qualifying
Superbike News: Final qualifying on Friday was blighted by drizzle and overcast conditions, but generally the track was never either fully dry or wet,