1960 Pontiac Bonneville Bubble Hardtop on 2040-cars

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This massive 'Knight Rider' KITT model costs over $1,400

A new model of the famed Pontiac Firebird from the 1980s TV show Knight Rider is here, and it's massive. The shadowy flight into the dangerous world of this subscription-based kit by DeAgostini will result in a car that measures nearly two feet long, cost more than $1,400, and take you over two years to complete. For years, subscription-based model kits have been a tradition for hobbyists in Europe and Asia. Should you sign on, each week you'll receive a package in the mail that includes a few parts for the model and some literature on the subject. Usually there are additional collectibles and accessories, like a display case. The DeAgostini KITT kit, for example, begins with the hood for the first issue. The asymmetric bulged and scooped body panel comes with a several smaller body pieces and a small screwdriver. Issue two comes with the front fascia, KITT's red scanner light, and three of the six driving lights. Issue three gives you a tire, wheel and brake components for one of the four corners. And so it goes. When all is said and done, you'll receive 110 such packages over a span of so many weeks. In other words it'll take two years and one-and-a-half months to complete the black, 1:8 scale Pontiac. There are some discounted prices for the first few issues to get you hooked, but once you get settled in the regular price for each issue is ˆ10.99 ($13.36 USD). Here's a preview the 16-page pamphlet that accompanies the first issue. By the end, you should have a pretty comprehensive compendium of the Knight Rider series as well. The issues are available on newsstands, but subscribers get additional gifts — two 1:43 scale models, one of KITT and one of his nemesis KARR. And for an additional ˆ1.00 per issue, you'll receive an acrylic display case. As for the Knight Industries Two Thousand itself, the car appears to be incredibly detailed. As depicted on the DeAgostini website, the hood, doors, trunk and T-top roof panels all open. The red scanner lights up, the rear license plate rotates for three options, and there even seems to be a watch that commands the model to speak some of KITT's catch phrases. Knight Rider — or Supercar as it was called in Italy — told the episodic story of a former police officer, Michael Knight, who fought crime with his A.I.-powered car. As such, the TV car and the the model have a heavily computerized (by 1980s standards) dashboard and yoke steering wheel.

GM knew about fatal Chevy ignition problem decade before recall

Well, this is not good for General Motors. Following a report last week that GM was recalling 778,000 Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 compacts over concerns that the ignition could switch out of the "run" position without warning, USA Today reports that the Detroit-based behemoth knew about the issue, which affected 2005 to 2007 Cobalts (the Cobalt shown above and in the gallery is from 2010) and 2007 Pontiac G5s, all the way back in 2004.
The information comes from a deposition in a civil lawsuit against GM, obtained by USA Today, which claims that a GM engineer experienced the issue while the then-new model was undergoing testing. The issue was "solved" when a technical service bulletin was issued in 2005, informing dealers to install a snap-on key cover on the cars of customers who complained about the issue. According to the Cobalt's program engineering manager, Gary Altman, the cover was an "improvement, it was not a fix to the issue."
The case where the depositions were made was from 2010, and involved Brooke Melton, a 29-year-old pediatric nurse in Georgia who was killed on her birthday. At the time, police claimed she was going too fast on a wet, rural road, although it later came out through the black box that her car's ignition had come out of the "run" position at least three seconds before the accident (the max amount of time a black box records before a wreck), disabling her airbags, power steering and anti-lock brakes. According to USA Today, police said Melton was "traveling too fast for the roadway conditions," although it's impossible to know if she'd have been in the wreck, which injured the occupants of another vehicle, had her 2005 Chevy not shut off. GM settled the Melton family's case, although the details remain confidential.

What car brand should come back?

Congratulations, wishful thinker! You've been granted one wish by the automotive genie or wizard or leprechaun or whoever has been gifted with that magical ability. You get to pick one expired, retired or fired automotive brand and resurrect it from its heavenly peace! But which one? That's a tough decision and not one to be made lightly. As we know from car history, the landscape is littered with failed brands that just didn't have what it took to cut it in the dog-eat-dog world of vehicle design, engineering and marketing. So many to choose from! Because I am not a car historian, I'll leave it to a real expert to present a complete list of history's automotive misses from which you can choose, if you're a stickler about that sort of thing. And since I'm most familiar with post-World War II cars and brands, that's what I'm going to stick to (although Maxwell, Cord and some others could make strong arguments). So, with the parameters established, let's get started, shall we? Hudson: I admit, I really don't know a lot about Hudson, except that stock car drivers apparently did pretty well with them back in the day, and Paul Newman played one in the first Cars movie. But really, isn't that enough to warrant consideration? Frankly, I think the Paul Newman connection is reason enough. What other actor who drove race cars was cooler? James Dean? Steve McQueen? James Garner? Paul Walker? But, I digress. That's a story for another day. Plymouth: As the scion of a Dodge family (my grandfather had a Dodge truck, and my mom had not one, but two Dodge Darts – the rear-wheel-drive ones with slant sixes in them, not the other one they don't make any more), I tend to think of Plymouth as the "poor man's Dodge." But then you have to consider the many Hemi-powered muscle cars sold under the Plymouth brand, such as the Road Runner, the GTX, the Barracuda, and so on. Was there a more affordable muscle car than Plymouth? When you place it in the context of "affordable muscle," Plymouth makes a pretty strong argument for reanimation. Oldsmobile: When I was a teenager, all the cool kids had Oldsmobile Cutlasses, the downsized ones that came out in 1978. At one point, the Olds Cutlass was the hottest selling car in the land, if you can believe that. Then everybody started buying Honda Civics and Accords and Toyota Corollas and Camrys, and you know the rest. But going back farther, there's the 442 – perhaps Olds' finest hour when it came to muscle cars.