1996 Pontiac Firebird Formula - True Ws6/ram Air W/t-tops & 6 Speed on 2040-cars

Auto blog

6 car mashups that God never intended

In the 2000s, the musical mashup genre saw a peak of popularity with releases like The Grey Album from Danger Mouse that mixed The Beatles and Jay-Z. UK artist James Pursey from Carwow decided to take the same concept of shoehorning two disparate things together but applied the concept to cars. Your opinion on the results will vary with your sense of humor. These creations are either some funny pieces of abstract art or absolute monstrosities that prove good design should be left alone. Likely the best of the bunch is the Lambotomic (pictured above), which combines a Lamborghini Miura and an Ariel Atom. Granted, the Ariel is little more than a skeleton to begin with, and the outcome looks like a slightly stretched Atom with the new nose and tail from one of the most beautiful vehicles ever. This could actually work. Though, not all of the mashups are quite so pleasant. The Porschiac WW RS (pictured right) is absolutely disgusting. It combines a Pontiac Aztek, which isn't a beauty queen to start with, and a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Obviously, the 911 is an iconic shape in autonobolia, but that can't save it from the horror of the Aztek. Pursey fits the its nose, wheel, wing, roll cage and stripes onto the Pontiac. The outcome: A design that will show up in your nightmares. Check out the gallery for the rest of the mashups, including the Humi (a Humvee and a Mini), Aston Smartin (Aston Martin and Smart), Rangerini (Range Rover and Lamborghini Aventador) and the Mazdafenda (Mazda MX-5 Miata and Land Rover Defender). They might not all be beautiful (or even pretty), but it's fun to imagine these oddball creations actually driving down the road. Featured Gallery Car Mashups News Source: CarwowImage Credit: James Pursey Design/Style Humor Lamborghini Pontiac Porsche ariel atom lamborghini miura pontiac aztek mashup

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.

Junkyard Gem: 1986 Pontiac Sunbird Sedan

The J-Body platform was a giant seller for GM, staying in production from the first 1981 Chevrolet Cavalier all the way through that final 2005 Pontiac Sunfire. Outside of North America, Opels and Daewoos and Isuzus and Holdens and Vauxhalls and even Toyotas flew the J flag, and better than ten million rolled out of showrooms during that quarter-century. In the United States, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Buick, and Cadillac each sold J-Bodies. Of those, the Pontiac Sunbird often had the sportiest image, more cavalier than even the Cavalier Z24. I've documented a discarded Sunbird Turbo in the past, and now here's a bread-and-butter Sunbird sedan from the same era. The Sunbird name began its life in 1976 on the Pontiac-badged version of the rear-wheel-drive Buick Skyhawk, itself based on the Chevy Vega. The first J-Body Pontiacs had J2000 badges, then 2000 badges, then 2000 Sunbird badges, until finally the pure non-2000 Sunbird appeared for the 1985 model year. I remain disappointed that the 2000 name didn't survive into our current century, because we could have had a 2000 Pontiac 2000, or just the "2000 2000" for short. The base engine in the '86 Sunbird was this SOHC 1.8-liter four of Brazilian origin, rated at 84 horsepower. Originally developed by Opel in the late 1970s, this engine family went into cars built all across the sprawling GM empire. 84 horsepower doesn't sound like much— and it wasn't much, even by 1986 standards— but at least the original buyer of this car had the smarts to get the five-speed manual transmission. This car weighed just 2,336 pounds, a good 500 pounds lighter than the current Chevy Sonic, so performance with the manual transmission was tolerable. The '86 Sunbird's interior was much nicer than those in its Cavalier siblings, though nowhere near the Cadillac Cimarron's reading on the Plush-O-Meter. An AM/FM/cassette stereo with auto reverse was serious audio hardware in a cheap car during the middle 1980s, when even a scratchy factory AM-only radio cost the equivalent of several hundred 2020 bucks. The price tag of this car started at $7,495, or about $17,500 in 2020 dollars. The cheapest possible Cavalier sedan went for $6,888 in 1986, but a zero-option base '86 Cavalier would make you think you'd been transported to the Soviet Union every time you slunk into its harsh confines. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.