1987 Suzuki Samurai Crawler 1.6l Efi High Pinion Dana 44's on 2040-cars

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Automotive Grade Linux will be the backbone of your connected car

Creating a backend for a secure, reliable, and expandable infotainment system is costly and time consuming. The Linux Foundation, a non-profit organization, has set out to promote and advance the Linux operating system in commercial products. Automotive Grade Linux, or AGL, is a group within the Foundation that seeks to apply a Linux backend to a number of automotive applications in a variety of vehicles from various suppliers and manufacturers. AGL's goal is to create a common, unifying framework that allows developers and manufacturers to easily implement applications across platforms. Currently, the focus is on infotainment systems, but AGL has plans for instrument clusters, heads-up displays, and eventually active safety software. At CES, a display from Panasonic showed a completely digital and customizable dashboard that allows information and apps to be moved from the gauge cluster to the infotainment screen and back, all through the use of gesture and touch controls. Although the organization has been around for five years, it's really only been in the past three that the group has been working hand in hand with automakers and suppliers. The first two OEMs to participate, Toyota and Jaguar Land Rover, have since been joined by Mazda, Suzuki, Ford, and, as of this week, Daimler. The latter is important as until now most of AGL's partner's have been based in Japan or the US. Other partners include suppliers Denso, Renesas, Continental, Qualcomm, and Intel. AGL want's to supply roughly 80 percent of the backend, allowing partners to then finish and refine the Linux system for each individual application. Think of how the Android operating system is refined and customized for individual smartphones from Samsung, LG, and Motorola. While the final product looks different, developers can have an application that will work across all AGL systems. Because it is open source, anyone can use and develop for AGL. You can even go onto the group's website and download a copy right now. There is also a software development kit available that helps facilitate app creation on the platform. Vehicle development cycles take roughly five years, so there currently are no cars that run an AGL backbone available for consumers. AGL Executive Director Dan Cauchy says products should be hitting the market later this year, with even more coming in 2018. Right now, the industry is relatively fragmented when it comes to infotainment and related systems.

Junkyard Gem: 1996 Suzuki Swift SLOKYO DRIFT Edition

General Motors sold plenty of rebadged Suzukis over the decades in the United States, starting with the Chevy Sprint in 1985 and continuing with various Geo- and Chevrolet-badged machines into our current century. The one we remember best remains the fuel-sipping Metro, successor to the Sprint and available here through the 2001 model year. The Sprint and Metro were based on the Japanese-market Cultus, and Suzuki put its own badges on this car in the United States for the 1989 through 2001 model years. That was the Suzuki Swift, a car we know best today for its factory-hot-rod version, the Swift GT. Normally, I wouldn't bother to document an ordinary Canadian-built Swift found in a boneyard, but today's Colorado-found Junkyard Gem boasts some interesting custom touches that make it worth our attention. Get ready for… SLOKYO DRIFT! While countless American owners of Integras and Lancers and 240SXs went nuts with JDM-influenced car decor following the release of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift in 2006, drivers of the tiny and miserably underpowered Metro/Swift econo-commuters felt left out of the party. The owner of this car knew what to do, though: buy some stick-on mailbox letters and slap them on this Swift's hatch. Junkyard-acquired badges adorn every surface of the SLOKYO DRIFT Swift, because why not? It turns out that many Reddit regulars in Colorado spied this car on the street, and so you'll find many references to it on that site. Since any 24-year-old econobox with a manual transmission and a salvage title will be nearly impossible to sell, we can assume this car spent its last few years just one broken part away from The Crusher. Once it needed an expensive repair, it wasn't worth fixing. The original owner's manual and documentation remained in this Swift until the end. It appears that Colorado TV-advertising legend Dealin' Doug moved this iron off his Cherry Creek Dodge lot when it had a mere 5,920 miles on the clock, based on this "Phoney Monroney" I found in the glovebox. 168,925 hard miles later, here it is. At some point, it got totaled, put back together, and stamped with this REBUILT FROM SALVAGE lettering on the door jamb. We think of the Metro/Swift as a three-cylinder car, but many of the later versions got this 1.3-liter "big-block" four-banger under the hood. That's 70 raging horsepower right here. The 5-speed made it more efficient and fun to drive, but killed whatever resale value it may have had.

IIHS says these are the safest cars of 2013

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has revealed its annual list of Top Safety Picks, an award that highlights automobiles it says offer "superior crash protection." A new and still more significant award, the Top Safety Pick+ honor, is given to those vehicles that earn good ratings for occupant protection in four out of five areas of measure. And while some 117 vehicles were given the TSP seal of approval for 2013, just 13 passed muster for TSP+.
To be fair, IIHS only evaluated 29 vehicles with its new testing procedures for TSP+ (we'd expect that the number of qualified cars will rise substantially for 2014). Luxury and Near Luxury midsize cars were the first groups evaluated, followed by midsizers in the Moderately Priced Cars category - unsurprisingly, it's only midsize cars that you'll find among the class this year.
Only two luxury sedans made the list of 13 for 2013: the Acura TL and Volvo S60. The other 11 cars on the list included entries from domestic, Japanese and German car makers: Dodge Avenger, Chrysler 200, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord (sedan and coupe), Kia Optima (but not its close kin, the Hyundai Sonata, strangely), Nissan Altima, Subaru Legacy and Outback, Suzuki Kizashi and the Volkswagen Passat all made the grade.