1999 Chrysler Polo Green Sebring Jxi Convertible With Blk Cloth Top on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Time to catch up with Jay Leno's Garage, including his Lamborghini Espada restoration

If you're already jealous of the time, effort and money that Jay Leno can devote to his massive car collection, prepare to get a little greener with envy with this latest video from Jay Leno's Garage. Instead of the usual format of discussing a model for about ten minutes and then taking it out for a test drive, this week Leno gives viewers on a tour of over a dozen projects concurrently happening in his stable. The breadth of the vehicles shown and the things being done to them run the entire span of the automotive hobby. At the same time, Jay's shop is working on just a simple restoration of his 1969 Lamborghini Espada (pictured), and at the other side of the building, the team is rebuilding a wood-bodied 1914 Detroit Electric from scratch. He eventually plans to slot a more modern electric drivetrain into it. If bikes are more your interest, there's a freshly completed Brough Superior just waiting for a ride, and if American models are your thing, a Ford Bronco is getting a Coyote V8 installed into it. You have some very specific tastes if you can't watch this clip and start wishing at least one of these vehicles could be in your own garage. Other than the personal projects his mechanics are working on in the shop, Jay gets to have them all, plus plenty more.

The problem with how automakers confront hacking threats

More than anyone, Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller are responsible for alerting Americans to the hacking perils awaiting them in their modern-day cars. In 2013, the pair of cyber-security researchers followed in the footsteps of academics at the University of Cal-San Diego and University of Washington, demonstrating it was possible to hack and control cars. Last summer, their research established which vehicles contained inherent security weaknesses. In recent weeks, their latest findings have underscored the far-reaching danger of automotive security breaches. From the comfort of his Pittsburgh home, Valasek exploited a flaw in the cellular connection of a Jeep Cherokee and commandeered control as Miller drove along a St. Louis highway. Remote access. No prior tampering with the vehicle. An industry's nightmare. As a result of their work, FCA US recalled 1.4 million cars, improving safety for millions of motorists. For now, Valasek and Miller are at the forefront of their profession. In a few months, they could be out of jobs. Rather than embrace the skills of software and security experts in confronting the unforeseen downside of connectivity in cars, automakers have been doing their best to stifle independent cyber-security research. Lost in the analysis of the Jeep Cherokee vulnerabilities is the possibility this could be the last study of its kind. In September or October, the U.S. Copyright Office will issue a key ruling that could prevent third-party researchers like Valasek and Miller from accessing the components they need to conduct experiments on vehicles. Researchers have asked for an exemption in the Digital Millennial Copyright Act that would preserve their right to analyze cars, but automakers have opposed that exemption, claiming the software that runs almost every conceivable vehicle function is proprietary. Further, their attorneys have argued the complexity of the software has evolved to a point where safety and security risks arise when third parties start monkeying with the code. Their message on cyber security is, as it has been for years, that they know their products better than anyone else and that it's dangerous for others to meddle with them. But in precise terms, the Jeep Cherokee problems show this is not the case. Valasek and Miller discovered the problem, a security hole in the Sprint cellular connection to the UConnect infotainment system, not industry insiders.

10 automakers shack up in Detroit hotel to talk Takata airbags

Since Takata has decided not to take the lead concerning potential issues with its airbag inflators, the automakers have. Perhaps that's unsurprising, since it's the automakers, not Takata, that will take a beating on the dealership floor if consumers decide its models are a health hazards. The Detroit News reports that Toyota, Honda, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Mazda, BMW, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Subaru met in a hotel conference room near the Detroit Metropolitan Airport last week to sort out a way to understand the technical issues involved. So far, faulty airbag inflators have been ruled the cause of five deaths and 50 injuries around the world, but neither Takata nor investigators understands exactly why the inflators are malfunctioning. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently asked Takata to issue a national recall, Takata declined, citing a minuscule failure rate and the fact that it's still investigating the issue. Toyota and Honda then made an industry-wide appeal for "a coordinated, comprehensive testing program" that would pinpoint the problem inflators and get them replaced, and that's what the Detroit meeting was about. Numerous issues, however, will make this a long row to hoe: simply getting the parts to replace the nearly 20 million inflators in cars recalled around the world so far - even working with other suppliers - will take a years, but more importantly, no one knows if the replacement inflators currently being installed will suffer the same issue. Answers will hopefully come quickly with Takata, the ten automakers and NHTSA all independently investigating the problem.