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Repo man pays off elderly couple's car just in time for Thanksgiving

Repo men get bad raps for a good reason; no one likes having their car taken away. At least one guy in the repossession game proved folks in his profession aren't all bad when he helped an elderly couple hold on to their wheels right before Thanksgiving. According to the Belleville News-Democrat, unexpected bills and the rising cost of prescription medications pushed Stanford and Patty Kipping's fixed income to the breaking point. Unable to keep up with the $95 dollar a month payment on their 1998 Buick, they fell into arrears and the bank sent a repo man out to their home in Red Bud, Illinois to reclaim the car. Jim Ford, co-owner of Illini Recovery Inc., hooked up the old Buick and dragged it away, but later that night his conscience caught up with him. "When I got home that night, I said to myself, 'They are a real nice elderly couple. I gotta do something. I can't just take their car,'" Ford told the News-Democrat. Ford did do something, something surprisingly humane. He set up a GoFundMe and, within just a few short hours, he raised more than $3,500 dollars. This was enough money to pay off the Kipping's loan with a little left over for some maintenance. Ford and a friend then hooked the car back up and towed it back to the Kipping's home. Ford presented the couple with their trusty Buick, and threw in a thousand dollars in an envelope and a frozen turkey for Thanksgiving. "It was a miracle come true," Patty told the paper. "We didn't know what we were going to do." "I got up this morning and I looked up at the sun and I said, 'I hope we get our car back,'" added Stanford. "It's just unbelievable."Related Video: News Source: Belleville News-Democrat Auto News Weird Car News Buick repossession repo man

Movie Review: Black Air: The Buick Grand National Documentary

As Buick currently claws and scratches its way back into relevance to compete against luxury brands like Lexus and Acura, it's hard to believe that not too long ago, the brand had a car that was mentioned in the same breath as Corvette, Lamborghini and Ferrari. That car? None other than the Buick Grand National. All black with a turbocharged V6 and some of the quickest acceleration of its time, the Grand National, in today's standards, is along the lines of a 2013 Shelby GT500 with both cars essentially being a working man's supercar.
The last Grand National rolled off the assembly line in Flint, MI on December 11, 1987, and to mark the silver anniversary of that somber occasion, Black Air is a documentary of the Grand National from the perspective of the enthusiast, the collector, the media and even from those at General Motors responsible for creating such a sinister legend. Like the car itself, Andrew Filippone Jr. shoots the documentary in a raw fashion, and it definitely helps to show why a low-volume muscle car from the 1980s is still the object of obsession for many automotive enthusiasts to this day.

Buick tops in Consumer Reports' annual brand rankings

Buick is the first US-based automotive brand to crack the top 10 in Consumer Reports magazine's annual brand report cards. US automakers also placed three vehicles on the magazine's list of "top picks" for vehicles, the first time that's happened in 17 years. The rankings were unveiled Tuesday in the magazine's annual auto issue. Buick placed seventh in the brand rankings. But the brand rankings and top picks still were dominated by Japanese and German manufacturers, with Lexus, Mazda, Toyota, Audi and Subaru taking the top five brand spots. The magazine calculates each brand's overall score with a composite of its vehicles' road-test scores and reliability scores for each model in its annual survey of subscribers. It's the third year for the brand rankings. Porsche placed just ahead of Buick at number six, while Honda, Kia and BMW rounded out the top 10 brands. Mercedes-Benz, Acura and Infiniti all suffered precipitous declines in their rankings due to unreliable new models or poor road test scores. Mercedes fell out of the top 10 to 21st, while Acura dropped from number two to 11 with an unimpressive test of the new RLX sedan, the magazine said. In the model rankings, the top overall finisher was California-based Tesla's Model S electric car, for the second year in a row. The Model S, which cost the magazine $89,650, finished first due to its performance and technical innovations, the magazine said. Buick's Regal midsize car beat the BMW 328i as the top sports sedan, and the Chevrolet Impala was named the top large car. The model rankings show Consumer Reports' favorite among the 270 vehicles its team has recently tested. The rankings are closely watched in the auto industry, since shoppers consistently cite Consumer Reports as a main source of car-buying advice. Other top picks included the Subaru Impreza in the compact car category, Subaru Legacy in midsize cars, Toyota Prius as the best green car, Audi A6 luxury car, Subaru Forester small SUV, Toyota Highlander midsize SUV and the Honda Odyssey minivan. Japanese vehicles won six of 10 top pick categories, but that was the smallest number in the 19-year history of Consumer Reports top picks. "For years domestic automakers built lower-priced and lower-quality alternatives to imports, but those days are behind us," said Jake Fisher, the magazine's director of automotive testing. But other U.S.-based automakers still had problems.