1987 Samurai, Sport Utility 2-door 1.3l, Hard Top on 2040-cars

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Car-crazy 5-year-old boy writes automakers for treasures, gets big response

Part of the beauty of children is that they can find worth in something adults might deem unworthy or overlook entirely. Five-year-old Patch Hurty didn't see garbage or a broken piece of a car when he spotted a Ford badge lying on the side of a road. He saw an artifact, a souvenir, a start to a collection he could only dream of. Ezra Dyer of Popular Mechanics tells the story of Patch and his quest to turn that one lost badge into a museum of manufacturer logos. According to the article, Hurty is a car fanatic through and through, even using car names as a way of learning to read. After finding the Ford badge near his Connecticut home, he and his mom put together a plan to reach out to dozens of automakers, confessing his love of things on four wheels. In each letter, Patch assembled a picture of himself standing next to one of the cars, and a penny to pay for whatever he hoped was sent his way. The response was unexpectedly and overwhelmingly positive. Of the more than 50 letters he sent out, including to obscure or defunct companies such as Bugatti, Suzuki, and Saturn, a majority responded with warm notes and some type of souvenir. Two of the coolest responses came from Lincoln and Bentley. Lincoln sent a sketch of a Continental (all car lovers enjoy drawing cars, right?), and Bentley sent a wheel center cap. How awesome is that? The story reminds us of something that can easily be lost in all of the negativity involved with the auto industry: Everybody is in this because of a common infatuation with automobiles. For more details on the souvenirs Patch received and accompanying photos, read the rest of the story. Related Video: News Source: Popular Mechanics Read This Bentley Bugatti Ford Lincoln Saturn Suzuki

Funning around with ZF's Smart, Advanced Urban Vehicles

ZF has a lot of experience building various electric vehicle parts, including transmissions, but it doesn't put them all together into one cute little package that often. The ZF Advanced Urban Vehicle changes that, and shows what the company can do when it takes bits and pieces of its admittedly cool tech and throws them all into the shell of an old Suzuki Swift. We got to control the all-electric beast at an event in Germany this summer, using nothing but a connected iPad. There were three headline technologies on the AUV (also called the Smart Urban Vehicle): the remote control Smart Parking Assist function, the all-electric rear-axle drive electric Twist Beam (eTB), and the PreVision Cloud Assist. PreVision Cloud Assist ZF had a short track set up for us to try out the PreVision Cloud Assist. The first time around the track, nothing was different. It's not supposed to be. The trick with Cloud Assist is that the car saves real-world driver interactions into its memory and, with the addition of GPS coordinates, starts to learn how to drive the route. Go to work the same way every day? If you're being assisted by a cloud, then all you have to do is steer. The car learns how fast it can take a turn and when it needs to slow down, with the idea here is to let the car move when it can, increasing the efficiency and range of an EV. You're still in charge in case of traffic ahead, but in open road circumstances, you won't need to touch the brakes or the gas. Just the steering wheel. On my second time around the demo track (which had data from other drivers who had tested the car earlier in the day), I kept my feet off the pedals, and the darn thing worked. It slowed me down when necessary to make a curve, but kept me at a brisk pace that felt a bit too fast but was in fact totally appropriate. Electric Twist Beam There's another bit of cool tech hidden near the front wheels. The car uses a MacPherson strut that was modified to offer a wider steering angle, up to 75 degrees, to be exact. ZF calls this the electric Twist Beam (eTB), and it gives the car an incredibly tight turning radius, about 6.5 meters. An axle like this could go into an EV or an ICE vehicle, but it makes a lot of sense in an electric car since it does have a major problem: it can't be powered. No worries, thought ZF engineers, who made the little SUV rear-wheel-drive by adding two electric motors.

Suzuki sallies forth with new C-segment crossover with fishy S-Cross Concept

It's not what we'd call attractive, really, but at least the new S-Cross Concept is something fresh from Suzuki. Introduced to the world at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, Suzuki says the pale green machine previews its upcoming production C-segment crossover.
We hope some of its fishier elements - according to Suzie, the specially created Crystal Green Metallic body color evokes "nature in the city and the city in nature", whatever that means - remain in the conceptual pond, but either way, it's good to see that the Japanese automaker hasn't lost its will to compete in a heated segment of the market. In fact, Suzuki promises that the S-Cross "will be the first in an ambitious program of annual European model launches which Suzuki will be starting in 2013. "
What are the chances we'll see a production version of this crossover concept in the U.S.? Your Magic 8 Ball is as good as ours... In any case, feel free to peruse the press release below.