2003 Toyota Avalon Xl on 2040-cars

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Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.

Toyota and Suzuki partner up on autonomy with capital alliance

TOKYO — Toyota and Suzuki will take small equity stakes in each other, the Japanese car makers said on Wednesday, as they seek to develop newer technologies and meet sweeping changes upending the global auto industry. The tie-up is the latest example of automakers chasing scale to manage costs and boost development. Automakers — especially smaller ones like Suzuki — are struggling to meet the breakneck growth of an industry transformed by the rise of electric vehicles (EVs), ride-hailing and autonomous driving. Toyota will pay around 96 billion yen ($908 million) for a 4.94% stake in Suzuki, while Suzuki will acquire in the market around 48 billion yen ($454 million) worth of shares in Toyota. That is equivalent to 0.2% of Toyota's shares as of Wednesday's closing price, before the announcement. The companies said in a joint statement they intended to overcome challenges facing the industry by "building and deepening cooperative relationships in new fields while continuing to be competitors". They said they would strengthen technologies and products in which each of them specialize in. The firms had said in 2016 they were exploring a partnership, citing technological challenges and the need to keep up with industry consolidation. Earlier this year they said they would produce EVs and compact cars for each other. Automakers around the globe have been joining forces to slash development and manufacturing costs of new technology. Ford and Volkswagen have said they will spend billions of dollars to jointly develop electric and self-driving vehicles. Shares of Toyota and Suzuki closed little changed before the announcement. TOYOTA'S ORBIT The deal brings Suzuki firmly into Toyota' orbit, alongside Daihatsu, Hino Motors, Subaru, Mazda and Yamaha. Rival Nissan has an alliance with France's Renault, although that has been shaken following the ouster of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn, and with Mitsubishi Motors. Honda has a tie-up with General Motors. Toyota has been looking to expand scale in next-generation technology and said this year it would offer free access to patents for EV motors and power control units. It believes that move would help it cut by as much as half the outlays for expanded electric and hybrid vehicle components in the United States, China and Japan. Supplying rivals would greatly expand the scale of production for hardware.

Watch this cement truck roll into Toyota minivan from driver's point of view

If you've been having an easy day and haven't received your daily dose of unmitigated terror, then this video is for you. Dr. Guan Zhu, a Texas A&M professor, caught the above view on his dashcam in College Station, TX, as a cement truck ran a red light, lost control and rolled into his Toyota Sienna minivan.
Although he received only minor injuries, Dr. Zhu says that he blacked out during the accident. The truck driver also avoided serious injuries, and the Sienna took the hit rather well too. Scroll down to watch the footage and report from KBTX. Hopefully, this is as close anyone else ever gets to a terrifying event of this nature.