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Roadkill pits every project car against each other

The guys behind Motor Trend's monthly Roadkill series have collected nine of their favorite project cars from their videos and pitted them against each other in a battle royale to determine a winner. It's 44 minutes long, but it's completely worth the investment of time.
The cars run the gamut from a 1973 Chevrolet Ramp Truck, a 1975 AMC Pacer and a legitimately impressive 1967 Chevy Camaro, and they are pitted against each other to see which is the fastest around an autocross course. The drivers include Roadkill's two hosts and Motor Trend's Johnny Lieberman and Carlos Lago. It's reminiscent of the best episodes of Top Gear and worth a watch.
So it's the weekend - the perfect time to relax. Grab your preferred beverage, get comfortable and enjoy 44 minutes of some seriously ratty but utterly cool project cars as they are throttled within an inch of their lives (or past it). Scroll down to check out the video.

Dodge Dart Mopar '13 special edition recalled over airbag woes

Dodge is only building 500 examples of the black-and-blue Mopar '13 Dart, but the majority of them are now being recalled. Part of the Mopar upgrade included replacing the stock seat skins in the Dart with black and blue Katzkin leather, but the seat-mounted side airbags were reinstalled improperly during the upfitting process, which could affect the performance of the front seat side airbags.
According to the official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration bulletin, a total of 374 Mopar '13 cars are being recalled due to side airbags that might not deploy in a side-impact collision. There have been no reports of the airbags not going off, but Chrysler will still need to reinstall the bags to ensure proper deployment. The recall notice is posted below, which gives information for Mopar '13 owners to contact Chrysler and NHTSA.

Hypermiling a Ram 1500 EcoDiesel to 38.1 mpg

You never quite know what Wayne Gerdes has up his sleeve. The man who coined the term hypermiling is always looking for adventurous ways to prove that anyone – even you... yes, you – can eke out more miles per gallon just by changing the way you drive. Saying that is easy. Proving it by going on outlandish cross-country drives is hard. But for Gerdes and his team of fuel economy fiends over at CleanMPG, hard is half the fun. Our latest adventure appeared, at first glance, to be nearly impossible. Which is why we always answer the phone when Gerdes calls. He likes to take journalists along on his drives, not only to try teach us how to hypermile but also to prove that we can be taught. The first time I 'helped' him and his team was when we got over 30 miles per gallon in a 2011 Ford F-150 XLT with the EcoBoost 3.5-liter V6. The EPA rated that truck with at just 16 mpg in the city and 22 on the highway. So, we'll count that trip as a success. Next up was a cross-country drive last fall in a trio of Audi TDI vehicles to prove that you don't need to drive extra slow to beat the EPA numbers. In fact, we made it from Los Angeles to New York City in just over 46 hours, cramped but not cranky. We had once again proven that how you drive is hugely important to your fuel usage. Our latest adventure appeared, at first glance, to be nearly impossible. The EPA says that the Ram 1500 EcoDiesel we would be driving gets just 22 combined mpg (19 city and 27 highway). Gerdes' idea was to drive it as far north from Houston, TX towards Detroit, MI as we could go on one tank. The day before we left, our itinerary got an extra stop. Instead of taking one of the official Shell Eco-marathon prototype vehicles to Detroit, it was decided to bring the winning diesel-powered prototype from the just-finished event to The Henry Ford Museum, where it had been arranged the car would be displayed. The winning car was built by a small team (just four students) from Sullivan High School in Sullivan, IN, who managed to beat a number of college teams with a score of 1,899.32 mpg. That target would be a bit out of reach for the Ram, but could we get 1,000 miles from the tank? Since the truck has a 26 gallon tank (officially, anyway), that would mean the EPA says we could only go 702 miles, assuming all highway driving. Could we make up 300 miles with careful driving? That spells both challenge and fun.