Seven Motor Sports

Toyota has instructed U.S. dealerships to suspend sales of eight car and truck models with accelerators that stick.



The company said last week that it is recalling 2.3 million of the affected models, in which the gas pedal can stay depressed or return to quickly to idle - the latest in a string of quality problems that have bedeviled the Japanese automaker.

After announcing the largest auto recall in US history last fall to fix sudden acceleration problems, Toyota late Thursday announced an additional Toyota Recall List 2010 of some 2.3 million vehicles. The announcement was made after ABC News told the Japanese automaker that it was going to air a report about more Toyota sudden-acceleration problems.

Ah yeah, this could be fun. Fun? About one truck biz buying a chunk of another truck biz? How the Hell could that be fun? Look at the picture above. That is one of the Kamaz trucks racing in the Paris-Dakar race. For the uninitiated, Paris-Dakar is about as out there as you can get. Most of the normal off road stuff applies. Rocks, sand, dunes the size of skyscrapers, navigational hazards, cliffs, that sort of thing. But the Paris-Dakar also features such novelties as guerilla factions armed with AKs (abducted and killed two competitors in the mid-80s) and the occasional mine field.

Good news: the Volkswagen Scirocco, VW’s new hatchback-like coupe, will arrive in Europe in August. In Europe, the VW Scirocco will be offered initially with two petrol engines, the 1.4-liter TSI that combines a supercharger and turbocharger developing 160Hp and the Golf GTI’s turbocharged 200Hp 2.0-liter TFSI. Shortly after the Scirocco’s engine range will be enhanced with the addition of a supercharged 122Hp 1.4-liter TSI petrol unit and a 140Hp 1.4-liter turbo diesel. Depending on the powertrain

, the Scirocco???s average fuel consumption ranges from 5.4 to 7.7 litres per 100km (30.6 to 43.6 MPG).

In 1966, a BMW Hurricane turned upside-down Germany's car scene. "Use a serial chassis, serial technology and serial components to built an exclusive double-seated sports car which should be as low-cost and high-tech as possible" the BMW representative Werner Bönschtold the 'Meisterschule of Karosserie- und Fahrzeugbau' in Kaiserslautern, Germany. BMW urgently needed a 2-seated sports coupé at this time. Bönsch just had to supply the material which was way cheaper than employing BMW's own engineers. In case the car should turnout to be apt for serial production he could still buy it afterwards.