Rpmgo.com – Read the latest auto news and opinions, see the coolest cars – Part 183

Yes my friends, the title is correct. Five TV’s Fifth Gear auto show, one of the few rivals of the mammoth Top Gear from BBC2 might get canceled, at least according to UK newspaper the Daily Mail, which claims that low audience and ratings numbers are forcing executives to put the show off the air and decline it a new season, which was supposed to start in the following months.

It seems that it has all started with Vicki Butler-Henderson which was fired, and the producers saw fit to cancel the show altogether. While it isn’t official, two of the presenters of the show, Jonny Smith and Tiff Needell declined to comment on the matter, saying that nothing is certain for now, via their Twitter accounts.

“I know five is a bit short on budgets and I know they’re looking at all things but I haven’t been told anything officially yet,” said Needell on his account. While Jonny revealed that: “To answer all the tweets about Fifth Gear ending – I don’t know who the Daily Mail talked to, but nothing is official. TV is a fickle world. FG is always compared to the big-budget epic movie monster that is TG. It can’t and won’t ever be TG. FG was always more, well, grass roots. To be completely honest, it could be time for a fresh car TV show recipe. Right now I’m enjoying Industrial Junkie & motor journalism tho!”

What do you think about this matter? Drop a comment below, and while you’re adding Jonny or Tiff to your follow list, don’t forget our own account, in order to stay informed with all of the latest news.

As you all know, Toyota and Subaru, two of the most popular Japanese carmakers have joined together for the development of a powerful rear-wheel drive coupe model. Toyota’s version, the FT-86 has already been revealed ahead of its Tokyo Motor Show debut, but nothing concrete was heard about Subaru’s version, except a few sketches.

Now, we can see a spy-video of the testing that the prototype of the coupe has been doing around the famous Nurburgring circuit. Bear in mind that this is a test mule, so the production-ready models will sport different designs. Take a look, hear that Subaru boxer engine and leave a comment with your thoughts on Toyota and Subaru’s coupe concept.

Well this is certainly something, it seems that a Sidney driver at the wheel of a Holden Commodore decided that racing through the night would be a good way to pass the time. And it sure was until he lost control, hit a stop sign and spun out of control.

But up until now, it’s like your every standard crash. What’s interesting is that he then hit a ramp-like earth hill which projected the performance sedan over a 2 meter fence and onto a single storey house in the suburbs of Sidney, Australia. It is also reported that the crash sent many debris to other roofs and projected the traffic sign over 120 meters down the road.

Police, in their infinite wisdom, say that speed and alcohol might have resulted in the crash, but they say that there are statements pointing to the fact that the driver of the Holden, alongside one passenger, were racing another vehicle.

While the crash may seem terrifying, it’s good to know that the two occupants of the car as well as the resident of the house, a young family with a three month old daughter, escaped unharmed and are out of danger, but with one hell of a story to tell.

“I have been to some pretty bad accidents, but this is genuinely a different and strange accident,” said Blacktown Police Local Area Command Inspector Adrian Grech. “To have an accident which starts 90m away and actually gets a vehicle airborne, there would have been substantial speed involved. We have had a report of another vehicle which was following behind (the car) but no one can say the vehicles were next to each other.”

Overall, it just serves to remember the fact that you might want to keep your speed in compliance with local limits and take your car to a professional track if you want to experience what it can do.

As you all know, the SEMA show is approaching with fast steps, starting this week in Las Vegas and showcasing the best of the best in aftermarket performance parts for almost every car imaginable. As always, Chrysler’s Mopar division will bring plenty of interesting concepts and performance packages for the models made by the American brand.

One of the most interesting ones will be the new Dodge Challenger 1320, named after the 1,320 feet that a classic quarter-mile drag strip covers. It will basically be a road-legal drag car, based on the Drag Pak Challenger race car. Powered by Mopar’s special 426 cubic-inch HEMI V8 engine, which outputs 556 HP with a big 540 lb-ft of torque, you can be sure that this Challenger will fly from the stop lights, leaving the others in its dust.

Other technical details included the rear-wheel drive transmission, which consists of a six-speed manual gearbox that includes a custom Dynatrac rear housing and special Dana 60 internals from Mopar and an ARB locking differential. In order to handle the extra power, a four-corner adjustable coil-over suspension kit from Mopar has been added.

The outside is also quite interesting, sporting a non-metallic yellow pain and matte black graphics, with Mopar police wheels fitted to a set of Nitto street legal drag tires. You can also admire the hood scoop made of carbon fiber, the front spoiler and the grille panel, as well as the interior which has been stripped out to reduce weight and sees the addition of two racing seats from the Dodge Viper model.

What do you think about this model? Will amateur drag racers be attracted by it? Don’t be shy to drop a comment below.

We presented the new 2010 Renault Megane RS model at the end of last week, revealing that it will deliver 250 HP and 340 Nm out of its 2-liter engine, but now the French company has revealed a video with its Formula 1 pilot Romain Grosjean taking the new Megan RS onto the Green Hell which is the Nurburgring circuit.

Watch as he throws the Renault’s newest hot hatch onto the tarmac and showcases the power that the new Megane can deliver. Enjoy and don’t forget to drop a comment or to subscribe to our Twitter account to stay in touch with all of the latest news.

Audi has been trying very hard these days to revealed that it presents users with exclusive things. The newest endeavor is a Dark Line version of spec and trim for its A3, A5 and TT models, which offers, besides the custom black paint, many other trinkets to have fun with.

In order to draw attention to it, the German company has released a new animated ad in which the three models are revealed. Enjoy and share your thoughts in the comment section below the article.

Viral marketing campaigns are a double-edged sword in advertising as if they are played out right, will guarantee a huge awareness for the product or brand which it promotes. But if it isn’t well made and targets the wrong type of consumers, then it will completely fail.

Such is the case with a marketing campaign devised by Saatchi & Saatchi for Toyota’s new Matrix model, which will soon be launched in the United States. The Japanese company started sending out emails to people in its database under various names on behalf of British football/soccer hooligans, which threatened their “victims” with coming to their houses and stalking them.

“Pick one of our maniacs to mess with their heads for five straight days while you sit back and watch it all go down,” revealed the campaign to users.

While most of the people took it in a good mood, Amber Duick became terrified of the man who was emailing her, the fictional hooligan Sebastian Bowler, which caused her to sleep with a machete beneath her bed (!). She is now suing Toyota for $10 million in compensation, saying that the campaign made her unable to work.

“Amber mate! Coming 2 Los Angeles. Gonna lay low at your place for a bit till it all blows over,” one email read, which also contained a link to a fake MySpace page for Bowler which revealed pictures of a pitbull and a blurry photo of many hooligans.

Now the suit will be handled by the Los Angeles Supreme Court, but Toyota is already claiming that Duick freely signed up her email address for marketing campaigns, so it can’t be blamed. “The person who made this claim specifically opted in, granting her permission to receive campaign emails and other communications from Toyota,” a spokesman told ABC News. Duick’s lawyers, on the other hand, reveal that she didn’t know she would be put through such traumatic stress.

Now this whole thing seems to have gotten very much out of control. I usually don’t sign up for any such things, so perhaps the woman should have refrained from doing so, and, when confronted with such emails, to inform the proper authorities. Also, the fact that she slept with a machete under her bed might serve as a warning to her state of mind. What do you think? Drop a comment below or reply to us via our Twitter account.

“Honor thy elders” is the motto under which Mercedes-Benz has released a new website dedicated to the classic models it has produced over the years. From the racing cars which made history in Formula 1 to the limousines which transported many heads of state, the new website features many sections, like Museum, Archives and collections or Classic magazines, which are dedicated to them.

Michael Bock, the manager of the Mercedes-Benz Museum and human resources director revealed that this new website will allow people to get in touch with the heritage of the German carmaker and even offer the possibility to book tickets to the real Mercedes Museum, in order to see all of those models in real life.

For those of you stuck with only viewing the website, you’ll have over 80,000 pages filled with pictures and details about the models to keep you entertained. Besides that, iPhone and iPod touch owners can also download a special game called Mercedes-Benz Quartets, which has already seen many downloads from MB fans. Take a look at the website and come back to share your thoughts.

Well this isn’t really a surprise, but sales analysis company Jato Dynamics has revealed that the best selling car in Europe during the month of September was the Volkswagen Golf hatchback, with 59,552 units sold. What’s more interesting is that two other hatchbacks also occupy the next two steps, with the runner up being the Ford Fiesta with 51,291, and on third the Opel Corsa model, with 38,497 cars sold.

The company also revealed that it has recorded a growth in the car market, largely due to various government running incentives similar to the Cash for Clunkers one, in which people could trade in their old vehicles for vouchers which could be used to buy new ones. A lot of people have chosen smaller cars which are better suited for city life.

But as most of these government programs are coming to an end, analysts say that another fall of the market might be expected until the end of the year.

You may be one of the best drivers the world has ever seen, teaching Michael Schumacher or Sebastien Loeb when they were kids how to handle a steering wheel, but once you get drunk, none of that expertise can help you.

Such is the case with this bloke right here, a Russian according to the watermark on it, which decided to take his Ford Mondeo in a parking lot after having one too many drinks. The result? One of the funniest drunk driver videos ever. The guy storms into the back of a parked car, and then backs up into a few steel pillars which, ironically, were intended to prevent parking in that area. After a few “professional moves” the guy leaves a lot of his Mondeo there and drives out of there. No details on what happened to him were revealed, so just enjoy the video below. For more news, you might consider following us on Twitter or subscribing to our site via RSS or e-mail, with more details in the column to the right of the article.

Ugh, in cases such as these, I am a bit ashamed because I’m Romanian. I am forced to share the “lovely” Bucharest traffic with individuals such as the guy above who scraped together enough money to go to Germany and buy a second hand convertible Ford Escort from the 1980s, all because he wanted to impress the ladies back home with his fancy ride.

But it seems that before going out in the evening with his “harem” he needed to dry his socks, and because he had a some business around the city, what better way to dry them than to fold down the soft top on his ride, hand a piece of string from one side of the back seat to the other, and put them on it with a couple of cloth-hangers.

It’s always nice to see the ingenuity of our people put to good use, especially when it comes to cars. Knowing our people, it’s only a matter of time before something else of this caliber appears.

Renault has just detailed its newest entry into the hot hatchback market: the Megane RS, straight from its performance division Renault Sport. Based on the new generation of the Megane, this performance model will be powered by a 2-liter 16-valve engine which develops 250 HP at 5,500 rpm and a maximum torque of 340 Nm at 3,300 rpm. This unit will take the Megane RS from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 6,1 seconds, to a top speed of 250 km/h (155 mph), all with a medium fuel average of 8.4 liter/100 km (28 mpg).

Among the many new things is the fact that you can choose which type of chassis you want in the car, either a Sport or a Cup one, with the former being designed for day to day use with occasional races, and the latter only for track use, being fitted with a limited slip differential.

On the outside, the the RS bodykit is represented by a new front spoiler with a bigger air vent, a Formula 1-inspired front lip complete with LED daytime running lights, and on the back with an angular exhaust built into the rear bumper. The Sport Yellow paint job further highlights the nature of this hot hatch alongside the 19-inch Steev wheels.

On the inside, the strong colors persist, as the yellow is present in the background of the dials, in the stitches on wheel and on the Recaro sport seats. Various aluminum inserts are also present, including on the pedals for the driver.

In terms of technology, the Megane RS can certainly flaunt quite a lot of interesting systems, including the Renault Sport Dynamic Management, which incorporates all of the driver aides, like the ESP, ASR or traction control, which can all be turned on, off or into sport mode, depending on the requirements of the driver. The RS Monitor will present all of the data from the engine, from turbo pressure to oil temperature, current power and torque levels or even the G forces the car is experiencing.

Overall, the new Renault Megane RS is definitely looking great, hopefully we’ll get a chance to test it out in the future and tell you just how this pocket rocket fairs. Until then, enjoy the gallery below.

Photo Gallery: 2010 Renault Megane RS

In yet another interesting study, it seems that men are driven by their testosterone levels to buy fast sport cars. The report was made by the Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business in Montreal, Canada, which took 39 men and made them drive two cars on two different roads, charting their levels of testosterone.

The first road was a completely open one, with minimum traffic, while the other was a crowded one, and the first car was a convertible Porsche 911, while the second one was a 16-year-old Toyota Camry. The researchers found that when driving the convertible Porsche in the crowded area, where women were more likely to see them in the sports car, the men experienced a rush in testosterone they also experienced the rush while driving the Porsche in the less crowded road. Needless to say, driving the old Camry didn’t give anyone any rushes in the level of the hormone.

“In other words, just put a guy in a Porsche, and his testosterone levels shoot up, whether people watch or not,” said marketing professor Gad Saad, the lead researcher on the study. “It’s literally the peacock’s tail. It’s the human version. It’s saying, ‘all you pretenders out there — you couldn’t be driving this Aston Martin — you couldn’t even rent it.’”

But don’t go thinking that if you drive a sports car, your libido (or mojo) will increase, as the car will just relay your social status.

While Mini has certainly brought a lot of innovation and popularity to cars, its marketing campaigns have also set new standards for innovation and, sometimes, for their hilarity. This new ad promoting the extended motor protection the brand offers for their models is definitely one of the most amusing ones.

Enjoy the video below and make sure you watch it until the end, it is definitely worth it.

Perhaps in a state of boredom and with nothing to do, Japanese car company Nissan decided to conduct an international study in order to see just what are the most popular songs with the ladies in countries like the UK, France or Italy.

The study saw 1,766 women chart their favorite tracks they often find themselves humming or downright singing while driving their car. The results weren’t that shocking, with the famous Hotel California track from The Eagles claiming top spot. Runner up was Tracy Chapman with her song Fast Car, claiming third was Enjoy the Silence from Depeche Mode, while the number four spot was occupied by Rolling Stones’ Jumping Jack Flash. The fifth most popular driving song for women was Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer.

Overall, a lot of these songs I often myself humming from time to time. Which are your favorite tracks for when you drive? Leave your own top 5 in the comment box below.

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