95 Dodge Ram 2500 Clnr Than 99 01 02 on 2040-cars

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eGarage interviews a couple with 65 Vipers

Owning multiple vehicles can be a hassle worth enjoying if you're willing to spend the time and the money required to acquire and maintain them. But when it's hard to make ends meet while underused valuable hunks of metal, plastic and rubber sit happily taking up garage space, journeys into the depths of other people's well-developed automotive obsessions will either bring you and your cars closer together, or compel you to sell them off before you become one of those fanatics. A recent video by eGarage is one of those journeys, and it's not for the faint of heart: D'Ann and Wayne Rauh own 65 Dodge and SRT Vipers in a collection of automobiles that exceeds 100.
We're not sure if the couple has developed heat-resistant calves from stepping over Viper door sills made burning-hot by side-exhaust pipes, but we wouldn't be surprised if they did. We did learn that their obsession with the no-holds-barred sports car started in 2006 with a trip to a dealership to buy just one Viper, which goes to show how innocently car obsessions can start. But the Rauhs seem to be doing just fine - perhaps better - 64 more Vipers later.
Watch the video below for the full story and to see what eGarage claims is the world's largest Viper collection.

Ford, Chrysler and Mazda expand scope of Takata airbag recalls

The scope of the Takata airbag inflator recall is ballooning once again across the United States. Where Honda has elected to take its driver-side airbag campaign nationwide, Chrysler Group and Ford have now announced expanded regional actions to cover some passenger-side airbag inflators. Mazda is adding more regions, as well. For Chrysler Group, the campaign covers the inflators on 149,150 examples of the 2003-model-year Ram 1500, 2500 and 3500 pickups. The recall is limited to vehicles sold or ever registered in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and the territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Saipan, and the Virgin Islands. The company will begin notifying affected customers on January 19. According to Chrysler's announcement of the action, the passenger side inflators in these trucks "are of a type that is not used in any of the other vehicles affected by Chrysler Group's regional field action." The automaker says that it's not aware of any actual failures or accidents in these pickups and even claims there are no "observed failures in laboratory testing of its airbag modules." The company is continuing to study the problem, though. Ford is taking a similar step by issuing a recall of inflators for 38,500 examples of the 2004-2005 Ranger and 2005-2006 Ford GT. The campaign only affects vehicles originally sold or ever registered in Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Certain zip codes of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Guam, Saipan and American Samoa are also covered. There's already precedent for passenger-side airbags to be covered under the Takata inflator recall. When many automakers announced campaigns in June, BMW, Chrysler, Ford, Honda, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota all included that side in some of their repairs. Subaru subsequently did, as well. In addition, Mazda is expanding the scope of its recall to add Florida, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Saipan, Guam, American Samoa, US Virgin Islands, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas to the affected areas. The company estimates that it has a total of 86,773 vehicles in need of repair. Mazda is also teaming with Toyota to begin independent testing of the Takata inflators. Scroll down to read all of the automakers' announcements of these newly expanded recalls. Statement: Air-Bag Inflators December 3, 2014 , Auburn Hills, Mich.

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.