1976 Firebird Esprit on 2040-cars

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Watch as Hot Rod goes from El Paso to LA the hard way

There are few things simultaneously more romantic and idiotic than taking a road trip in a beaten-down heap of a car. Trust us. We know. David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan of Hot Rod Magazine fame recently undertook an epic trip from El Paso, Texas to Los Angeles with the express goal of doing so for under $1,500, including the purchase price of a vehicle, food, lodging, repairs and, most importantly, fuel. With this in mind, the duo settled on a 1972 Pontiac Catalina for a lofty $650. Hilarity ensues.
Realizing that no one actually wants a Catalina sulking around the shop, Freiburger and Finnegan put the car up for auction on eBay Motors the instant they had the title in hand. By the time they rolled into Hot Rod HQ, the vehicle sold for a little over $500.
The video is part of a new series called Roadkill that should document similar adventures. Keep your eyes peeled for more calamity-soaked clips in the near future. In the meantime, hit the jump to check it out yourself.

Baseball team to dress like Trans Am, complete with screaming chicken

Come to think of it, the Screaming Chicken actually sounds like the name of a minor league baseball team. Well, it isn't, but the famous logo of the same name that graced the hood of the 1970s Pontiac Trans Am will at least be making it to a baseball uniform this summer. The Lansing Lugnuts, a Single-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, will be rocking these special uniforms to honor the late Burt Reynolds and his film Smokey and the Bandit. By default, it will also be honoring the car the movie made famous: the 1977 Trans Am painted black with gold trim and, of course, the screaming chicken on the hood. This is a pretty good history of the emblem. So why the Lugnuts and Burt Reynolds? Although he claimed to be born in Georgia for much of his career, he admitted in a 2015 autobiography that he was in fact born in Lansing, Mich. After a few years, his family settled in Florida. Not exactly hometown hero stuff, but minor league baseball promotions have been made of more tenuous connections. The Burt Reynolds tribute night will be July 20, and if you want to get a screaming chicken jersey for yourself (I mean, wouldn't they be perfect for a cars and coffee?), the game-used jerseys will be auctioned off for charity after the game.

GM Recalling Another 2.7 Million Vehicles In Five Separate Campaigns

The recalls keep rolling in from General Motors, evidently keen to avoid repeating the mistakes of the ignition-switch debacle and clean house. This time they're all coming at once, with five separate recalls announced together covering approximately 2.7 million vehicles. The largest of the five actions involves over 2.4 million units of the previous-generation Chevrolet Malibu and Malibu Maxx, Pontiac G6 and Saturn Aura in order to fix brake light wiring harness, which have been found to be susceptible to corrosion. The recall is separate from the 56k Aura sedans which GM recently recalled over faulty shift cables, not to mention the previous massive recall of 1.3 million vehicles – some of them the same models – but appears to have resulted from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation that started with the G6 almost a year ago. The second-largest campaign involves the 2014 Chevy Malibu, specifically those fitted with GM's 2.5-liter engine and stop/start system, approximately 140,000 examples of which has been found to have problematic brakes. The issue does not appear to be connected to the recall of 8k Malibu and Buick LaCrosse sedans (also involving brake woes) which we reported upon last week. Four crashes have been reported in such models, but GM admits it's not yet clear if the problem was a contributing factor in the accidents. A further 112k Corvette models from the 2005-2007 model years are being called in for problems with their low-beam headlamps resulting from a flexing relay control circuit wire that's not meant to bend. GM says it is "aware of several hundred complaints" about this issue, but notes that there have been no reports of related accidents. In addition, over 19k examples of Cadillac CTS from the 2013 and 2014 model years are being recalled over windshield wipers that might not work after a jump start. Finally, GM is also bringing in 477 examples of its 2014 Chevy Silverado, Tahoe and GMC Sierra (though not the Yukon) to fix a problem with a tie rod in its steering rack. As ever, all recall repairs will be performed free of charge, and GM is now estimating that recall-related actions this quarter will result in an estimated $200-million charge against its second-quarter earnings. Read the full announcement from GM below for further details.