#New 2018 Buick Grand National

[noah44jacob]

2018 Buick Grand National Release Date, Price and Engine Rumor

2018 Buick Grand National Release Date, Price and Engine Rumor

[spinomatic_spintax no_refresh=1] 2018 Buick Grand National Release Date, Price and Engine Rumor

2018 Buick Grand National Release Date, Price and Engine Rumor – {After|Following|Right after|Soon after} the five years of holding out, new 2018 Buick Grand National is on the market. People may have remembered the old Regal from Buick which {includes|consists of|contains|involves}…

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2018 Buick Grand National Design, Engine And Price

New Post has been published on https://www.buicktrend.com/2018-buick-grand-national-design-engine-and-price-2/

2018 Buick Grand National Design, Engine And Price

2018 Buick Grand National Design, Engine And Price – We were waiting for the newest 2018 Buick Grand National for five-years when maker finally declared that creating of this is finished, so we are able to see it in the marketplace the coming year. Ever since the first product was newly designed in 2000 and therefore the new design was revealed 2009, people could be unable to see the new model until not. Is now exciting to see how just about the most attractive versions in the marketplace goes through aesthetic changes to be a lot more appealing and chic. This design is just as classy and eye-catching as older types, however with numerous boosts and information to really make it much more fascinating.

EXTERIOR

Looking externally, 2018 Buick Grand National is a classy and luxurious limousine, when we used to see underneath the label, Buick. Nevertheless, the old gridded grille is substituted for more efficient and contemporary trapezoidal chromatic 1, which stops with great Directed front side lighting. Under them are sizeable metallic protection and modest fog lighting fixtures. The back end is a lot more conventional, with the natural truck doorway and rear lights. Nonetheless, the complete vehicle is more curved and much better shaped in comparison to the old product, and consists of two versions, with two and several entry doors.

INTERIOR

Not only that the cabin in 2018 Buick Grand National shows an extensive and roomy area for 5 various travelers, but it is also tremendously outfitted interior which is not typical for this auto class. It provides thick red heavy leather on the seating and wooden parts about the entry doors and controls, with chromatic particulars on wheels and modernly designed dashboard. Regarding technology, you will find a Wireless Bluetooth interconnection, USB 2. 0 online connectivity, sound, and music system and a lot more.

ENGINE

You will find a couple of engine choices in new 2018 Buick Grand National, of course. You will discover a common version 2.-liter turbocharged fuel unit with 272 horsepower of power. The much stronger text turns into a 3.5-liter V6 design with 321 horsepower, but also for enthusiasts, there may be planned to be offered an exclusive Grand National engine that includes 3.6-liter V6 and incredible 400 strength. Associated with 8-velocity Hydra Matic transmission with specific shows and fuel economy this engine will likely be provided only within a limited version.

RELEASE DATE AND PRICE

While we stated, we have been waiting for 2018 Buick Grand National for an extended period, but we nevertheless could not say when it will likely be available on the market. As some rumors report, which could happen in the center of 2018, which claims they have not well prepared it yet. Nevertheless, the price could begin from $30,000 and will go around $40,000 with all of improvements and devices.

[optimabatteries]

Andrew Scott’s Pro-Touring 1987 Buick Grand National at OPTIMA’s 2018 Search for the Ultimate Street Car series stop at NOLA Motorsports Park in New Orleans, Louisiana. Learn more about the series at www.DriveOPTIMA.com Andrew’s 3.8 is now a 4.1 and he did all the work himself.

[beautifulklicks]

2018 Grand National Roadster Show Top 100 Winners:

1.  1929 Ford Roadster  James BobowskiOrange, California 

A historical influence was strong among the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster contenders, with James’ ’29 Model An as the most historical. The famous Eddie Dye roadster has been lost, found, parted out, and rotated through many owners and styles since the Ayala Brothers built it for Eddie almost 70 years ago. Jimmy White and his Circle City Hot Rods team restored the roadster, using many original parts, like the Whitey Clayton nose and hood, and reproducing others, like the belly pan and Crestliner wheel. The Evans Engineering Flathead, Cherry Orchid paint, Ford and Merc hubcaps, and Chris Plant’s recreated white pleated upholstery help bring 1952 into 2018.

2...1932 Ford Coupe  Bret Sukert Montesano, WA.

 This ’32 three-window got our attention as soon as we entered the Suede Palace. Bret’s ‘60s-style hot rod is built from an unmodified original steel body bought from well-known rodder Dick Page. Foss’s Hot Rods handled body and paint chores; Mitch Kim did all that ’striping. The suspension includes a dropped axle and transverse leafs in front and quarter ellipticals in back. The Chevy small-block is topped with a Weiand manifold and ’65-’66 GTO air cleaner. Interior elements include Mopar van seats, an N.O.S. Grant wheel, a restored Ha-Dees Stewart Warner blue face gauges (it took 50 gauges to get eight that matched). The coupe left the Suede Palace with the Best of Show award. 

3...1940 Ford Convertible Tony Miller San Pedro, 

CA Tony says that ’40 Fords don’t need any styling help, but he made an exception with this one by guillotining a standard coupe and adding a post-War-style top with quarter windows. At Don Dillard’s Highway 99 Hot Rods the hood and quarters were sectioned, front wheels moved forward, body channeled, doors stretched, trunk shortened, and many other mods were made, including a handmade ’40 Merc grille, ’39 trim, ’41 Stude taillights, and ‘40 Merc rear bumper. A Plymouth speedo and ’40 Ford instruments fill the dash facing Sid Chavers’ red leather interior. A 4V 289 Ford is tied to an AOD trans. The only unmodified parts are the front bumper, running boards, and headlight rings. 

4...1957 Ford Del Rio Ranch Wagon

Robert Florine Ventura, CA Growing up around wagons stirred Robert’s interest. He wanted a Ford because there is already an abundance of Chevys—plus he wanted a car he could put a shotgun motor in. Working with Steve Strope and crew at Pure Vision yielded this result. The profile was altered with a slanted B-pillar and 4 3/4-inch door stretch (with ’57 T-Bird handles) to improve proportions. An Art Morrison Enterprises chassis with C6 front suspension parts and Mike Meyer Racing rear torque arms, and JRI coilovers beef up the undercarriage. The engine is a Kaase Boss 9 with Borla 8-stack induction. The custom interior is matched in great taste by the Bridgewater Bronze and Avorio two-tone paint. 

5...1941 Buick

Clifford Mattis.Vacaville, 

CA Clifford and builder Marcos Garcia from Lucky 7 Customs have teamed up on many vehicles, but never a true custom—until now. A chopped top, handmade flush skirts, and taillights are just a few of the custom mods covering the Buick. The chassis combines a Mustang II frontend and a four-link rear, with air bags to drop the car. Power comes from a carbed Chevy 350 and 700R4 trans. One-off EVOD wheels (with simulated Caddy caps) roll with Coker Firestones. The vintage style interior features a Dennis Crook wheel, New Vintage USA gauges, and patterned cloth inserts in the leather upholstery. It took 20 spray-outs to get the perfect dark olive paint color, but the final result is stunning. Even More..RK Motors 

SOURCE: STREET RODDER 

AUTHOR: Tim Bernsau

[fokohow]

TOP 20: THE BEST VEHICLES FOR THE FAMILY IN 2020 ACCORDING TO PARENTS MAGAZINE

Once again this year, Parents magazine gets wet by naming its best choices of vehicles for the family. Unlike last year, however, the publication is expanding its list of recommended vehicles to 20 (instead of 10 in 2019). Indeed, the magazine’s list this year includes a few additional categories, with the utility segment making up the majority of the models listed, unsurprisingly.

The magazine also considered the safety assessments carried out by the American institute NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). What’s more, the ‘family’ angle of the top 20 requires a test with child seat expert Abbie Patterson. Patterson, owner of the Super Car Seat Geek company, has tested all types of child booster seats in more than 50 car models.

Finally, automotive columnist Rob Stumpf, took the wheel of the vehicles in the child seat test to evaluate braking, steering, acceleration and a host of other parameters.

Without further ado, here’s the list of the 20 best family vehicles for 2020 according to Parents magazine.

Minivans – Best Value: Kia Sedona

In the minivan segment, Kia Sedona takes home the honours with the best value for money because of its more affordable price in its basic livery. However, the magazine notes that it is not possible to secure three child seats in the second row in the least expensive model. The automatic transmission (from 6 to 8 gears since the 2019 model year) is good for smooth shifting.

Minivans – Best Green Choice: Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid

Chrysler’s representative in the ultra-family minivan segment is currently the only option (in the North American market) marketed with a charging cable. This rechargeable hybrid powertrain lowers average fuel consumption without penalizing performance, while the government rebate is not to be ignored here either. The Pacifica Hybrid will have to watch its back, as we already know that the next Toyota Sienna will be available with a hybrid powertrain.

Minivans – Best choice for large families: Honda Odyssey

Honda’s Odyssey is also an excellent choice, especially since the manufacturer has decided to offer its 10-speed automatic transmission on all trim levels. As reported in the magazine, the versatility of the Odyssey is unparalleled, as the minivan can accommodate up to six child seats at the same time. It’s also the most fun to drive.

Minivans – Best in all weather conditions: Toyota Sienna

Toyota’s Sienna retains its competitive edge once again this year with its optional all-wheel drive system. This increased traction is undoubtedly an asset when road conditions are more difficult, as is its powerful V6 engine, but the Sienna will have to count the Chrysler Pacifica among its direct rivals next year, the American manufacturer having already confirmed the arrival of a four-wheel drive version of its Pacifica.

Three-row SUV – Best Value: Volkswagen Atlas

When the German automaker launched the development of its three-row SUV, it clearly had North America as its target. The magazine was especially seduced by the affordable price of the SUV in its most accessible version.

Three-row SUV – Better Redesign: Toyota Highlander

The change of model for 2020 does him the greatest good, the former Highlander which had been in service since model year 2014. While the publication praises the new design, it’s also in terms of handling that the Toyota representative has improved, especially in terms of suspension. There’s also the availability of a hybrid version, which isn’t widely available in this group.

Three-row SUV – Best Choice for Large Families: Subaru Ascent

The Subaru Ascent joined the three-row seating party for SUVs about a year ago. Here, the fact that all the vehicle’s liveries are equipped with constant-drive all-wheel drive is meant to be an advantage over the rest of the pack, while the publication pointed out that there are 19 (!) cup holders on board.

Three-row SUV – Best Quiet Ride: Honda Pilot

The Honda Pilot looks almost Acura inside, not only because of its full equipment, but also because of its quiet ride. In fact, the Parents magazine article even goes so far as to compare the Pilot to the Honda Odyssey because the SUV is so comfortable. Unlike the minivan, however, the Pilot still offers the tandem of six- and nine-speed automatic transmissions. In this case, the older of the two (the six-speed one) isn’t necessarily a bad choice!

Three-row SUV – Best safety technologies: Nissan Pathfinder

Aging, the Nissan Pathfinder still seems capable of seducing a publication that mainly observes a vehicle’s family characteristics. Here, the safety systems are convincing, as is that horn blast heard after every drive where one of the rear doors has been opened before or while driving. This device reminds the driver that he or she may have a child – or even a pet – strapped to the rear.

Three-row SUV – Best Design: Mazda CX-9

Mazda is certainly not a brand with countless financial resources, but on the other hand, the design of the most recent seasons seems to appeal to the general public. In fact, despite its introduction in 2017, Mazda’s largest SUV has not aged a single wrinkle. The CX-9’s driving pleasure should not be forgotten either.

Two-row SUV – Best Quiet Ride: Buick Envision

The three-shield division has long been associated with the silence of its interior. The Buick Envision, assembled in China, is no exception to this rule thanks to the noise reduction system.

Parents magazine mentions the excellence of the 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbocharged engine mated to a nine-speed automatic transmission, but this mill is reserved for the more upscale versions. In the other trim levels, the driver has to deal with a naturally aspirated 2.5-litre 4-cylinder engine and a six-speed transmission only.

Two-row SUV – Best steering system: Chevrolet Equinox

It’s true that the Chevrolet Equinox comes with a reputation for being poorly assembled and less durable than average. But since its redesign for the 2018 model year, the compact SUV does much better in terms of driving experience, and even overall quality. Parents magazine found the Chevrolet’s steering to be particularly precise, while its powertrain is powerful enough.

Two-row SUV – Better space for child seats: Ford Edge

When it comes to space for child seats, the Ford Edge is second to none, according to the publication. This allows for three seats, a rarity in the two-row SUV segment. The Ford Edge is also one of the most comfortable.

Two-Row SUV – Best Redesign : GMC Terrain

Best redesign award for two-row SUVs goes… drum roll – at GMC Terrain! Oddly enough, the redesign was completed for the 2018 model year at the same time as the Chevrolet Equinox, but hey, it’s the magazine’s choice! The article also mentions the more comfortable suspension on the Denali model.

Two-Row SUV – Best Green Choice: Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid

Par les temps qui courent, il faut regarder du côté des VUS purement électriques pour sauver au niveau de la consommation. Mais, fort heureusement, les modèles hybrides ne sont plus aussi rares qu’à l’époque. Subaru fait d’ailleurs le pari que son deuxième Crosstrek Hybride connaisse un peu plus de succès que le premier qui faisait appel à une motorisation hybride conventionnelle. Avec un arrangement rechargeable, il est possible de rouler sur l’énergie du bloc de batteries, mais il ne faut malheureusement pas s’attendre à de grandes distances.

Two-Row SUV – Best choice for long trips: Subaru Forester

The Subaru manufacturer is often named on this list by Parents magazine. The Forester would be the ideal vehicle for expeditions, thanks to its standard all-wheel drive, roof rack and exemplary comfort. You could even add that the Forester’s fuel consumption has been very good for the past few years, a fact made possible by the adoption of a continuously variable transmission.

Sedans – Best Value for a Hybrid: Honda Accord Hybrid

In the arguments listed by Parents magazine, the Honda Accord Hybrid sedan doesn’t cost much more than the regular model, while trunk space is no longer handicapped by a battery stowed behind the rear seat. The Accord Hybrid is also not an unpleasant car to drive.

Sedans – Best in all weather conditions: Subaru Legacy

The manufacturer has made it its hobbyhorse: four-wheel drive guarantees superior traction in winter. The Nissan Altima has joined the Legacy’s direct rivals with an AWD system, but it’s not a permanent type like Subaru’s.

The redesign for 2020 has certainly helped in this case, the sedan can now be ordered with a more energetic 4-cylinder turbocharged flatbed engine.

Sedans – Best sports car: Nissan Maxima

This was its angle of attack when it was redesigned for the 1989 model year in North America. The Four Door Sports Car still stands out from its peers today because of its relatively dynamic driving dynamics. However, Toyota’s effort is worth mentioning with its Avalon XSE, a large sedan that is surprisingly fun to drive. In the United States, there’s also a TRD livery!

Sedans – Best Hybrid Sports Car: Toyota Camry Hybrid

Still, it’s surprising to see that the hybrid versions are now the sportiest in Toyota’s lineup. Even the Camry is no exception to this rule. The manufacturer continues to offer a V6 engine for the more conservative among us, but we have to admit that the hybrid leaning of the mid-size sedan is at least worth a try.

[perksofwifi]

Top Gear America Host Rob Corddry’s Car Guy Credentials

Top Gear America host Rob Corddry may be best known for his comedy and acting, but his car enthusiasm runs far beyond driving the latest exotics on the HBO hit show Ballers.

“In my experiences with cars at a young age,” Corddry said, “I made a choice to not get all bogged down in the details. And just get psyched about cars, in general. And yeah, I kind of know the different sizes of engines and I understand why, but I don’t bug myself with that. I’m not getting bogged down in it. I guess I kind of know what a Positraction differential is, but don’t test me on it.”

He may not be a walking automotive encyclopedia, but it doesn’t stop him from drooling over cars and talking about them any chance he gets.

“I’m so glad that I’ve talked about cars in enough interviews that the Top Gear America producers, I assume, they picked that up,” Corddry said. “I also did a couple car-based little video pieces with some journalists. And so, they’re not, it’s definitely not, they’re kind of deep cuts, I think, in terms of interviews. But you know, these guys have their ears out for that kind of thing.”

But Corddry believes he speaks for Everyman, whose dream job would be to work for Top Gear.

“I was a big fan of Top Gear, the original,” he added. “And I said, ‘Look, I’m not that guy (on the show). I’m none of those guys. I’m an enthusiast. I’m, if anything else, the audience.’ You know what I mean? And they were like, ‘That’s perfect. That’s all we want.’

“What I love about the original is the interaction between the three hosts. The audience, they like cars, but also, they’re there to see the interaction. They’re there to see us smile and get all excited. And drive, and potentially embarrass ourselves.”

He may sell himself short for a laugh, but Corddry is no stranger to both good and bad cars, having owned plenty of each.

“It’s not even worth talking about those cars,” he said. We kept pushing, though, because cars that bad always have stories. He eventually relented.

“A 1975 Ford Pinto wagon that didn’t have any floorboards. But it had the fake wood paneling,” he begins. “A yellow Honda Civic hatchback, I taught myself how to drive a stick on that one. So there was the value, there. I had a 1970 mid-year Ford Falcon. And it was kind of a piece of shit. It wasn’t like, when you think of a Ford Falcon, you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s great.’ It was a grandma car. It was my grandmother’s car, and it continued to be my grandmother’s car.”

These days, he’s far more interested in the cars he drove on TV than the classics, good or bad.

“You know, I was on Ballers, and I got to drive some pretty awesome cars on that show. And one of them was that stupid electric BMW i8. Which, actually, I don’t think I wish I could buy that, but I would love a Shelby. I would like to buy an M2, because I just want to know what all the fuss is about that. And I drove a 12-cylinder Aston Martin DBS Superleggera. That car’s insane. I mean it’s like, it’s way too heavy to drive, but it’s fun. It’s super fun, and beautiful. So there’s that.”

Although he’s a bit undecided on new cars to buy, he does have his eye on a particular classic.

“An ’87 Grand National GNX is my dream car, but I am in the market right now for a, probably ’86 or ’87, Buick Regal T-Type. Because, largely because of Dax [Shepard], he was like, ‘You shouldn’t get a Grand National. You should get a T-Type.’”

While he searches for his dream classic, he’s happy with his daily driver.

“I drive a Porsche, it’s a 2018 Porsche 911 [Carrera] S, which is my favorite car, ever.”

View this post on Instagram

Ever pinch yourself because you must be dreaming and it turns out to be real but you realize you were dozing off a little AND YOU’RE DRIVING?! Then you tell yourself that you shouldn’t drive for long stretches but remember the reason you pinched yourself and forget everything else? This is like that… MOTORTREND has announced the all-new Top Gear America hosts: Dax Shepard, Rob Corddry, and Jethro Bovingdon! Streaming Spring 2020 exclusively on MotorTrend. Subscribe now ????http://bit.ly/2qEFn3Z #TopGearAmerica #MotorTrend

A post shared by Rob Corddry (@rob_corddry) on Dec 3, 2019 at 4:28pm PST

His garage may be getting significantly fuller, now that he’s on Top Gear America with Dax Shepard—at least if his kids have any say in it. It seems as though working with Dax is more impressive than getting the TGA gig in the first place.

“It’s my kids that are more excited,” he said. “When they found out, they knew who Dax was, but that all of a sudden he’s married to Kristen Bell? Well, that changed everything for them. Now I’m sure they want me to buy like 10 cars, whereas before they were like, ‘I hate your Porsche.’ You know? And so they’re like, ‘Oh, just tell Dax to give her a message.’ And I’m like, ‘Uh, I don’t know if we’re going to do that yet, but we’ll see.’”

Whether it impresses Corddry’s kids or not, Top Gear America will debut in the Spring of 2020 starring Corddry, Dax Shepard, and Jethro Bovingdon—and it’ll be available exclusively on the MotorTrend app.

Stream TOP GEAR AMERICA starting Spring 2020 on the MotorTrend App. In the meantime, subscribe now to get the deal of the year.

The post Top Gear America Host Rob Corddry’s Car Guy Credentials appeared first on MotorTrend.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/top-gear-america-host-rob-corddrys-car-guy-credentials/ visto antes em https://www.motortrend.com

[noah44jacob]

2018 Buick Grand National Release Date, Price and Engine Rumor - After the five years of holding out, new 2018 Buick Grand National is on the market. People may have remembered the old Regal from Buick which includes unique features and performance

[superautoreviews]

2018 Buick Grand National Interior, Price, Engine

2018 Buick Grand National Interior, Price, Engine

2018 Buick Grand National Interior, Price, Engine – Buick allegedly had intends to restore the Grand National and high-performance GNX sedan being a 2018 design soon after his long sleep at night for practically 30 many years. Possibly there is certainly an excessive amount of nonsense available, as well as conjecture about GM’s strategies in recent years. However, our places assume that General…

[caveartfair]

Sculptor Augusta Savage’s Towering Impact on the Harlem Renaissance

Augusta Savage, Portrait Head of John Henry, c. 1940. Photograph © 2018 Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.

Augusta Savage with her sculpture Realization, 1938. Photo by Andrew Herman. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.

When I was in elementary school in the early 1990s, I would occasionally beg my mother for money to buy a book from the Scholastic Books circular. One year, I asked for a title called Great Women In the Struggle, the second volume in the “Book of Black Heroes” series. Its purple cover featured black-and-white pictures of iconic black women like Fannie Lou Hamer, Sojourner Truth, Judith Jamison, and many others from all sorts of disciplines and walks of life. Only a short passage was devoted to each figure, and while that wasn’t enough to dig into the meat of their lives, it was a start—a spark of inspiration—especially given the dearth of black children’s books at the time. (According to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, books created by black authors and illustrators comprised between 1 and 4 percent of all children’s books published between 1990 and 1995.)

Among the women included in that book was the sculptor, educator, and community organizer Augusta Savage. Although the text on the page was brief, the picture of the beautiful black woman standing next to her larger-than-life sculpture made an impression on my eight-year-old self.

Augusta Savage, Gamin, c. 1930. Courtesy of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, Florida.

Today, as a curator, I seek to increase equity and visibility for marginalized cultural producers. But back then, I had no inkling of the advocacy and curatorial work that lay ahead of me as an adult or the full breadth of Savage’s contributions to the black art and artists in the 20th century. Her impact on the social and cultural milieu of the arts communities of her era and her pursuit of equity along gender and racial lines have had long-lasting implications on American art history.

Throughout her life, Savage championed black artists, making space for their work in America and on the world stage, and fighting for it to be valued just as much as that of white peers. Recently, I have relished seeing her name and work celebrated. The most significant project championing the artist’s legacy is the traveling exhibition “Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman,” curated by art historian Jeffreen Hayes at the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville, Florida, through April 7th. (A version of the show will open at the New-York Historical Society on May 3rd, and will subsequently appear at the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University in Philadelphia and the Dixon Gallery & Gardens in Memphis, Tennessee.)

“Renaissance Woman” is the first exhibition focused on the full weight of Savage’s venerable career. Born in 1892 in Green Cove Springs, Florida, as a child, the artist fashioned figures from the region’s distinctive red clay dirt. Savage’s family did not support her artmaking, but she persisted. After graduating from the State Normal College for Colored Students (now Florida A&M University) in Tallahassee, in 1921, she made her way to New York City. Savage had come to New York to study at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, but there is no doubt that the city’s emergence as a bustling hub of black culture had its draw.

Augusta Savage, Portrait of a Baby, 1942. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.

Augusta Savage, Laborer, 1934. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.

While it would later be codified as the Harlem Renaissance, at the time, the black luminaries living and working uptown called themselves the New Negro Movement, a term coined by philosopher and educator Dr. Alain Leroy Locke. Underscoring the vital cultural movement was the desire to represent African-American life through the fine arts, literature, music, and whatever other creative means were available. Against this backdrop, Savage excelled in her coursework at the Cooper Union, completing the four-year art program in just three.

Savage was awarded a prestigious scholarship to the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts in Paris in 1923. This accomplishment should have meant a summer studying sculpture in France—however, upon discovering that she was the sole black woman of the 100 selected students, the all-white, all-male American selection committee rescinded her offer. The incident became a major scandal, reported in New York Amsterdam News, the New York Times, the Negro World, and many other notable newspapers.

Savage did not allow the racist slight to go unanswered; she responded with a searing open letter published in the New York World:

“I hear so many complaints to the effect that Negroes do not take advantage of the educational opportunities offered them. Well, one of the reasons why more of my race do not go in for higher education is that as soon as one of us gets his head above the crowd there are millions of feet ready to crush it back again to that dead level of commonplace thus creating a racial deadline of culture in our Republic. For how am I to compete with other American artists if I am not to be given the same opportunity?”

Augusta Savage with Ernestine Rose, Roberta Bosley Hubert, and her sculpture James Weldon Johnson, 1939. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.

The Fontainebleau incident showed that Savage was formidable and eloquent. For a woman of color to stand up and speak at that time was more than unusual, it was revolutionary. This was a formative moment for Savage, one that moved her toward arts-based activism for the black community.

Thrust into a new kind of renown, the artist was commissioned to create busts for the likes of sociologist and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, Jamaican-born Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey, and NAACP leader and orator William Pickens Sr., among others. Although her artistic status was on the rise, to make ends meet, Savage labored as a domestic worker and a steam laundress while continuing to cultivate her studio practice.

In 1929, Savage was awarded a Rosenwald fellowship to study in Paris for her sculpture Gamin, well-known today for its expressiveness. In Paris, she studied at the feet of masters, exhibited at the Grand Palais and other prestigious venues, and worked with the countless talented people from across the black world who had also made their way to the City of Lights, then the center of the art world. During her time abroad, Savage received another Rosenwald fellowship, as well as funds from the Carnegie Foundation and community members in New York and elsewhere. With this support, Savage was able to travel to Belgium, France, and Germany, where she studied sculpture in the region’s cathedrals and museums.

Augusta Savage, Gwendolyn Savage, 1934–35. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.

Savage returned to New York in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression. Determined to share what she had learned in Europe, the artist opened the Savage Studio of Arts and Craft, where she offered free or pay-as-you-go drafting, painting, printmaking, and sculpture courses to Harlemites. In 1937, in partnership with the federally funded Works Projects Administration, Savage formed and directed the Harlem Community Art Center, using the Savage Studio as a model for its programming. Under Savage’s leadership, some 1,500 members of the community were able to receive free art instruction in the institution’s first 16 months alone. Among Savage’s students and colleagues are figures now canonized in the annals of African-American art history: William Artis, Romare Bearden, Robert Blackburn, Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, and many others.

William Artis, A Mother’s Love, 1963. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.

Romare Bearden, Reclining Nude, 1979. Art © Romare Bearden Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

Jacob Lawrence, The Card Game, 1953. © 2017 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

In 1939, the World’s Fair commissioned Savage to create what is now one of her most famous works. The Harp, also known as Lift Every Voice And Sing, was inspired by the Negro National Anthem written by brothers James Weldon and John Rosamond Johnson. Though now lost, The Harp featured black singers rendered as the strings of the instrument, the sound board and the arm of the harp formed by the hand of God.

Due to financial constraints, Savage primarily worked in plaster; she simply could not afford to cast her works in bronze, as was the standard for serious sculptors of the day. Accordingly, the majority of her works, including The Harp, have been lost to history. This presented a considerable challenge to the curators of “Renaissance Woman.”

Augusta Savage viewing two of her sculptures, Susie Q and Truckin, 1939. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.

Augusta Savage, The Diving Boy, c. 1939. Courtesy of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, Florida.

As Hayes explained, to supplement the exhibition, she “filled it out with works by some of [Savage’s] well-known students.” Yet another challenge was to keep Savage central to the presentation. “It would be very easy to fill the gallery with Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden,” she said. So in addition to Savage’s work and that of her students and peers, Hayes included archival materials, such as Savage’s letters around the Fountainbleu incident.

Contextualizing Savage’s sculpture practice within her community-organizing and education work creates a fuller picture of her contributions to the Harlem Renaissance and black arts communities as a whole. The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, which features essays by scholars including Kirsten Pai Buick and Bridget R. Cooks, illuminates Savage’s life and work in a contemporary moment when black women—and non-white artists generally—continue to struggle against discriminatory practices in the art world and beyond. (A study released this past March shows that even today, 85 percent of artists in American museum collections are white, and 87 percent are men.) The work of balancing the histories of gender and race-based discrimination is yet to be behind us. We can look back on Augusta Savage’s work as an example of how we might forge a path toward true equality.

from Artsy News

[automotiveamerican]

UPDATE: Brand New Buick Grand Nationals Found! - Josh Mortensen @BarnFinds

UPDATE: Brand New Buick Grand Nationals Found! – Josh Mortensen @BarnFinds

UPDATE – Barn Finds first featured these cars when they were found back in 2017. Then they were listed on eBay in 2018 and got bid up to $200k! Well, they showed up again this year at a Barret-Jackson auction where they only got bid up to $67,100… What?! It was a no reserve auction too. How did this happen??? Read more here

[savetopnow]

2018-03-14 14 CAR now

CAR

Auto Spies

Dealers Reportedly Refusing New Accord Shipments Because It Isn't Selling

California Goes Rogue And Refuses To Standardize Fuel Economy Standards With The Nation

Toyota Chief Engineer Says You Won't See A Turbo 86 Because It Requires Too Much Work

Chinese Built Jeep Grand Commander Caught Testing In The US - Will One Be In Your Driveway Soon?

Volkswagen Adjusts Output By Idling Passat Assembly And Increasing Atlas Production

Autoblog

Waymo video shows you what it's like to ride in a truly driverless car

Lego Mack Anthem semi-truck kit wants to haul away our money

Cadillac president Johan de Nysschen expands on brand's future

The Dolphin hand-built wooden car with Datsun mechanicals is for sale

McLaren granted trademark for ‘McLaren GT,’ but is it even a car?

Car Throttle

There's A 104-Day Supply Of Honda Accords, Because They're Not Selling

A RWD Lamborghini Aventador Won't Happen, Because It'd Be Too Much To Handle

Watch A Range Rover Sport Belt Up A Mountain Pass Faster Than A Ferrari

Mazda's New Petrol Engine "Has Potential" For EV-Rivalling Emissions

Top Gear Is Now An Actual Car Show, Which Has Me Worried

Electrek

Tesla Semi electric truck spotted all the way in St-Louis at a Supercharger station

Panasonic starts producing battery cells for electric cars at new factory in China

Green Deals: 16-pack Philips A19 60W LED Light Bulbs $21.50, more

Electric car startup spun out of Faraday Future ‘EVelozcity’ claims to have raised $1 billion

Cora is an electric ‘sky Uber drone’ from Google’s Larry Page and Sebastian Thrun, 2021 New Zealand launch plan

Inside EVs

UPDATED: February 2018 Plug-In Electric Vehicle Sales Report Card

5 States Most Impacted By Recent Tesla Supercharger Price Increase

Electrify America To Install 2,800 Workplace Chargers, Plus 2,000 Fast Chargers

VW Group – 16 EV Production Sites, $24 Billion Battery Investment

Royal Enfield Makes Electrifying Announcement

Jalopnik

The Ferrari F40 Is Not Stopped By Your Pitiful Snow

Trump's 'Space Force' Idea Sounds Kind Of Stupid But It's Been Around Forever

Here's Everything You Need To See From The Geneva Motor Show

Aliens Are Still Probably Real And Here's Another UFO Video From The Navy To Prove It

Comment Of The Day: Now That's Rare Edition

Motortrend

The 592-HP 2018 BMW M5 is MotoGP’s New Official Pace Car

Mercedes-Benz Now Sells the 300SL Gullwing’s Plaid Upholstery

Top BMW Designer Talks M8 Gran Coupe, Future Styling Direction

2018 Lexus RC Coupe Adds Black Line Special Edition

Watch the Range Rover Sport SVR Tackle Tianmen Road’s 99 Turns

Reddit Cars

$7000 Sleeper Honda Insight vs Z06, GT-R, and Huracan Performante.

In your mind, which car has the most friendly/helpful/pleasant followers/fanbase?

New Toyota Supra Engineer: Sorry We Took So Long To Bring This Thing Back

The Genesis G90 Is a $75,000 Hyundai Luxury Sedan

I got handed the keys to a $25k SSR yesterday because I watch Doug Demuro. Except the one he drove didn't leave him stranded...

Sunday Times Driving

Video: Sinkhole swallows car on street in Rome

What should you do if you record a car crash on your dash cam?

Man smashes SUV windows with sledgehammer after hit-and-run

Calls of ageism as Porsche garage tells To The Manor Born star Peter Bowles: You’re too old for courtesy car

Me and My Motor: Amanda Wakeley, fashion designer

The Car Connection

Buick dropping its own name, 2018 Audi SQ5, VW TDIs await their fate: What’s New @ The Car Connection

2019 Volvo XC40 rated at 26 mpg, tops among pint-size luxury crossover SUVs

Buick to drop its own name from future cars

With hybrid cars, automakers look to blend their pitches (and prices) to sell more

2018 Fiat 500e

The CarGurus Blog

Top Headlines From March 3 – 9

Geneva motor show: Five great cars, five years on

The 10 Most Popular Used Cars in the UK

Top Headlines From February 24 – March 2

Half Price Hot Hatch: Renaultsport Clio 200

The Torque Report

VW will produce electric vehicles in 16 locations by 2022

Buick is giving away free Wi-Fi for March Madness fans

2018 Lexus RC F Sport Black Line Edition revealed

2019 Toyota RAV4 to debut at the New York Auto Show

Polestar 1 pre-orders start in 18 countries

The Truth About Cars

Meet the Parents: Who Knew the Jeep Wrangler Was Human?

Toyota Teases the 2019 RAV4’s Manlier Silhouette

Video: Google’s Waymo Exhibits the Total Lack of Excitement Inside Driverless Cars

Paranoid of the Government? BMW’s Got Your Back

Tesla Talks on Track, China Says, Despite Musk’s Trade Rant

[actutrends]

Comma.ai launches Comma Two, a $999 kit that imbues cars with assisted driving features

Two years ago, analysts predicted that upwards of 10 million self-driving cars would hit the road by 2020. They weren’t the only ones — in 2015 and 2016, respectively, The Guardian and Business Insider proclaimed that people would become “permanent backseat driver[s],” riding in fully autonomous cars from 2020 “without needing any interaction from [drivers].”

Fast forward to today. Despite assurances that as many as 8 million driverless cars will be added to the road in 2025, even operations like that of Alphabet’s Waymo have yet to expand beyond selected metros. The reasons are regulatory as well as technological in nature, but expense plays a role. Conservative estimates peg the cost of outfitting cars at between $100,000 to 250,000 per car.

So why not go the do-it-yourself route? That’s the question George Hotz posed five years ago — he’s the American hacker best known for developing exploits that targeted Apple’s iOS operating system and reverse-engineering Sony’s PlayStation 3. In September 2015, Hotz founded Comma.ai with the goal of developing a semi-automated system — OpenPilot — that would improve cars’ visual perception and electromechanical motor control. Unlike most full-stack solutions in testing, it’s intended to replace OEM advanced driver-assistance systems, effectively imbuing cars with self-driving capabilities.

For the first time in its history, Comma.ai has an official presence at the Consumer Electronics Show. The company this week invited members of the press (including VentureBeat) to test-drive the latest version of its system — and to show off the Comma Two.

OpenPilot

OpenPilot’s development had a bit of a rocky start. The first version’s reveal in a Bloomberg article and video prompted a cease-and-desist letter from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which accused Comma.ai of testing a self-driving car in the state without a license. Subsequently, OpenPilot was packaged into a shippable device dubbed the Comma One, which again ran afoul of the authorities because of noncompliance with U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. Under pressure from the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration, Comma One was canceled, and Comma.ai open-sourced OpenPilot on GitHub.

Much has changed. In the roughly three years since Comma.ai made OpenPilot available to the public, over 1,500 users have racked up more than 14 million autonomous miles collectively, half of which were driven autonomously. (That’s up from 10 million miles as of May 2019.) Moreover, they’ve forked the GitHub repository over 2,300 times, adding features like automatic lane change and support for older Tesla, Chrysler, and Jeep models.

Comma Two

Comma.ai previously sold the Eon Devkit, a self-contained and windshield-mounted modified OnePlus phone. It started at $599, and once OpenPilot was installed to it, it automatically recognized car models by analyzing CAN network traffic. (The presence of certain CAN messages and their lengths is an indication of the model year, car brand, car model, and trim.) Companion devices dubbed the Panda and Giraffe plugged into cars’ OBD-II ports to track RPMs, MPG, cornering G-force, battery life, and more, and to provide access to the communication buses and enable the Eon to interface with the car.

The Comma Two replaces the Eon, but it retains all of the Eon’s features and then some. That said, it ditches the Panda for a single-cord solution, and it’s slightly pricier at $1,000 (though it’s available on a payment plan through Affirm).

The first batch of 300 units are available for purchase today. They’ll begin shipping later in the month, Hotz says.

The Comma Two is powered via OBD-C as opposed to by battery, which Hotz says was a top complaint among current Eon owners, and it has a larger mount as well as a custom fan-based hardware cooling solution. Like the Eon, which used a camera to recognize drivers’ faces and decelerate if it detected those drivers were distracted, the Comma Two performs facial recognition. In point of fact, it’s in improved in that it leverages two infrared sensors as opposed to an RGB sensor, enabling it to work during nighttime.

Other highlights include front and back cameras, as well as a fourth CAN bus to connect the OBD-II port and a low-power mode that automatically shuts off the Comma Two after three days to save car battery.

The Eon was equipped with cellular service and a SIM card supplied by Comma.ai. Data was unlimited (though capped to 512Kbps), and users could spring for Comma Prime if they so chose, a $24 per month service that enables remote access (via T-Mobile) from anywhere and online storage of 14 days’ worth of drive data (compared with the standard three days). The Comma Two also taps cellular for connectivity and plays nicely with new and existing Comma Prime subscriptions, and it comes with a year’s worth of storage.

By default, OpenPilot uploads driving data in real time from the road-facing camera, CAN, GPS, inertial measurement unit, magnetometer, thermal sensors, and operating system to Comma.ai’s servers for machine learning training and development purposes. Much of this data can be accessed locally through the Comma Connect app for iOS and Android or through Explorer, an online dashboard of recent drives from which disengagements (i.e., instances when a driver took control from OpenPilot) can be annotated to help improve the system.

From within the app, Comma Two owners can remotely wake up the Comma Two and snap a picture from either the front- or rear-facing cameras. Additionally, they’re able to switch among multiple units on the fly and to view their real-time geographic locations.

Compatibility

OpenPilot isn’t compatible with every car under the sun. It only works with these models and model years:

Acura ILX (2016-2018) and RDX (2016-2018)

Buick Regal (2018)

Chevrolet Malibu (2017)

Volt (2017-2018)

Cadillac ATS (2018) and Pacifica (2017-2018)

GMC Acadia Denali (2018)

Holden Astra (2018)

Honda Accord (2016-2019), Civic (2017-2019), Civic Hatchback (2017-2019), CR-V (2015-2019), CR-V Hybrid (2017-2019), Fit (2018), Odyssey (2018-2019), Passport (2019), Pilot (2016-2019), and Ridgeline (2017-2019)

Hyundai Elantra (2017-2019), Genesis (2018), and Santa Fe (2019)

Jeep Grand Cherokee (2016-2019)

Kia Optima (2019), Sorento (2018), and Stinger (2018)

Lexus RX Hybrid (2016-2019) and ES Hybrid (2019)

Subaru Crosstek (2018) and Impreza (2019)

Toyota Avalon (2016-2018), Camry (2018-2019), C-HR (2017-2019), Corolla (2017-2020), Corolla Hatchback (2019), Highlander (2017-2018), Highlander Hybrid (2018), Prius (2017-2019), Prius Prime (2017-2020), Rav4 (2016-2019), Rav4 Hybrid (2017-2018), and Sienna (2018)

Equally critically, OpenPilot isn’t capable of fully autonomous driving on all road types in all conditions. It can currently handle lane centering on roads without clear marking thanks to machine learning algorithms trained with user data, and it can maintain a safe follow distance and drive in stop-and-go traffic without supervision.

But it’s complicated. On all supported cars, OpenPilot’s automated lane centering and lane keep assist replace the stock systems. Only on specific supported cars does the system’s adaptive cruise control and forward collision warning slot in for default, however, and on no model does OpenPilot take over things like auto high-beam, blind spot warning, and side collision warning.

Driving experience

So how’s the driving experience with the Comma Two? “Smooth sailing” sums it up. OpenPilot indeed maintains its lane position even when the markings aren’t obvious — or aren’t visible. In a construction site with cones on either side and on an unpaved road without dividing lines, we watched OpenPilot deftly keep centered and maintain a comfortable following distance from the car in front of it.

It doesn’t much matter whether the road ahead is straight or severely curved. OpenPilot used to scrape OpenStreetMap for road curvature and traffic data, but it doesn’t any longer — now, it’s smart enough to calculate the trajectory in real time and to ensure it doesn’t speed along that trajectory too violently.

In this respect, OpenPilot is akin to Nissan’s ProPilot Assist, Volvo’s Pilot Assist, and GM’s Super Cruise, the last of which is one of the few systems that offers hands-free driving thanks to an eye-monitoring infrared camera. But in contrast to Super Cruise, which only engages on about 130,000 miles of U.S. and Canadian highway that GM has mapped, OpenPilot theoretically works anywhere there’s a discernible road.

OpenPilot can change lanes automatically, but it requires signaling from drivers before it does so — they have to first switch on a turn signal and nudge the steering wheel in the direction they’d like to go. It smoothly merging while keeping pace with the traffic ahead in our brief experience. But Hotz noted that OpenPilot won’t prevent lane changes when cars are to the immediate left or right, in the Comma Two’s blind spot.

Of course, Comma Two and OpenPilot can’t anticipate every situation. An SUV rear-ended a hatchback during our driving demo, forcing Hotz — who was behind the wheel — to tap the brake and disengage the system. And OpenPilot doesn’t handle things like red lights or stop signs — at least not yet.

Safety

Whether OpenPilot can be considered truly safe is a semantics question, in part. The driverless car industry lacks an agreed-upon metric for safety — Noah Zych, head of system safety at Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, told Wired in an interview that miles traveled isn’t a particularly insightful measure without context like location. Derek Kan, U.S. secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation, echoed that sentiment in remarks at a conference two years ago.

Companies like Intel’s Mobileye and Nvidia have proposed mathematical models that aim to codify good habits like giving other cars the right of way. Essentially, they’re decision-making policies in a motion-planning stack that monitor unsafe actions by analyzing real-time sensor data.

Comma.ai has a safety model of its own, which Hotz said involves several forms of regression testing. Commits aren’t merged to the OpenPilot codebase before they’ve met the test suite’s muster.

This aside, Comma.ai problematically hasn’t committed to regularly publishing any sort of statistics beyond miles driven, like disengagements or accidents. California’s Department of Motor Vehicles mandates that all companies testing autonomous cars report disengagements, but because Comma.ai doesn’t have a permit to test cars, it’s exempt from this requirement.

Hotz for his part asserts that the infrared sensors in Comma Two will improve safety substantially, as will the onboarding video customers are required to watch before they launch OpenPilot for the first time. On the subject of the former, a warning appears on the Comma Two’s screen if a driver diverts their eyes from the road for four seconds, and after six seconds, OpenPilot disengages and begins to slow down. (Unclicking the driver-side seat belt or opening the car door also disengages the system.)

For what it’s worth, we encountered only one disengagement — Hotz’s stop to avoid the accident — over roughly 7 miles and 25 minutes of driving  “We pushed on nuance [with this latest version of OpenPilot],” said Hotz. “Intersections have no lane lines — it’s unclear where you should go. [OpenPilot] follows the path that the human would follow.”

Backend improvements

On the backend side of the OpenPilot equation, new is a simulation environment called the Small Offset Simulator that loads in real-world routes and simulates deviations of them. “You can’t just take a lot of data and train a model to mimic the data, because that model doesn’t realize that if it takes action, the world will change,” said Hotz. “The only way to really do that is to build a simulator.”

Using a technique called projected geometry and generative adversarial networks (GANs), or two-part AI models comprising generators that synthesize data samples and discriminators that attempt to distinguish between the synthesized samples and real data, the simulator redraws scenes meters to the left or right or with curvature and other perturbations. Hotz said that the models within the Small Offset Simulator are now training on 200,000 minutes of driving data collected by Eon users.

It’s similar — but not quite the same — as the simulation environments deployed internally by Uber, Waymo, and others. GM’s Cruise, for instance, leverages a replay approach that involves extracting real-world sensor data, playing it back against the car’s software, and comparing the performance with human-labeled ground truth data. Cruise also engages in planning simulation, which lets the company’s data scientists create up to hundreds of thousands of variations of a scenario by tweaking variables like the speed of oncoming cars and the space between them.

Future developments

Going forward, Comma.ai plans to release new hardware on roughly a yearly cadence — Hotz believes its business model of selling devices at profit and eating the cost of software development is sustainable. (Comma.ai has raised $8.1 million in venture capital to date across two funding rounds, the most recent of which closed in April 2018.) As for OpenPilot, achieving a better end-to-end driving experience remains an acute area of focus for the engineering team.

“What we want to do is move away from [lead car following] and move to an end-to-end longitudinal [model],” he said. “One of the problems we as a company have trying to convey is, when it works well, you don’t even notice it. Our company mission is to solve self-driving cars while shipping intermediaries.”

But Comma.ai isn’t discouraging rivals from cloning its hardware and piggybacking off of OpenPilot. In fact, Hotz encourages it, just as he encourages those with proprietary solutions to compete with Comma.ai.

One such challenger — former Yahoo CTO John Hayes’ Ghost Locomotion — emerged from stealth last November promising an aftermarket self-driving kit to retrofit existing cars. Another — Cambridge, U.K.-based Wayve — claims its driverless cars self-improve by learning from safety driver interventions. Mobileye doesn’t sell a consumer product, but like Comma.ai, its driverless tech leans on cameras for autonomous decision-making. And then there’s Tesla, which recently release a preview of an active guidance system (Navigate on Autopilot) that navigates a car from a highway on-ramp to off-ramp, including interchanges and making lane changes.

Hotz is unconcerned. “Mobileye is the Windows [of autonomous driving] that’s going to do Microsoft-style business development deals with big companies, Tesla’s the Mac that’s going to ship sexy hardware to consumers, and we’re the Linux,” he said. “Everybody should use us for whatever they want.”

The post Comma.ai launches Comma Two, a $999 kit that imbues cars with assisted driving features appeared first on Actu Trends.

[itsworn]

This 1971 Gremlin Runs Easy 8s on a Turbo Small-Block Chevy

Bill Moss’ Chevy-powered 1971 Gremlin embraces the ethos of maximum power and minimum bling.

Novelist C. S. Lewis once wrote, “You never know what you can do until you try, and very few try unless they have to.” When Bill Moss was repeatedly beat in heads-up street races back in the late ’80s by a warmed-over ’87 Buick Grand National, his arm was begrudgingly twisted to try something new. At the time he was running a naturally aspirated ’80 Chevy Monza powered by an Olds 350, and the idea of getting his ass handed to him on a platter by a V6 had a sobering effect. That unsavory experience ignited his inquisitive spark, and it led to the purchase of an ’87 Buick Grand National.

As with most vehicular acquisitions when there is a family to consider, those usually come with some strings. “I told my wife Dawn we could buy the car and make it a family hot rod to enjoy,” he explains. Since the whole turbo thing was new to him, he started doing mods to the Buick with off-the-shelf parts and quickly had it running in the 12s. As part of the purchase deal, it also saw frequent use as daily transportation for the wife, until it was stolen.

That setback led to a similar replacement: an ’86 Grand National which would point him in a completely different direction personally and professionally. Not designated as a daily driver from the outset, the ’86 went under the knife right away and it quickly surpassed its predecessor in terms of performance. At the time he had also started his own repair business, so that gave him the space and means to further develop the car. As a result, he was all-in and fully immersed into the whole turbo scene to the point that by the mid ’90s he was getting Grand Nationals from across the country to have engine work done. Over the years his Buick evolved into a solid 10-second car—and then boredom set in.

That monotony was the manifestation of wanting to try something new again, something off the beaten path much like the Buick had been years before. That offbeat candidate was just down the street parked at the transmission shop. It was a ’71 AMC Gremlin that had been mildly massaged into a bracket racer by the shop owner. Moss was hot for the car but the guy didn’t want to cut it loose. He explains, “I wanted to buy it and put a Grand National motor in it.” It was, at some point, detuned and given to the guy’s son to get his feet wet with some bracket racing, but that arrangement didn’t last very long. Moss recalls, “He rang me up because his son had gotten into some trouble in school so he sold the car out from underneath him.”

When he rolled the Gremlin into his shop, it was running a Chevy 350 with a two-barrel and a Turbo 350 transmission. It did have a Ford 9-inch rear already in place but beyond that it was fairly stock. While the original plan was to drop a Buick mill in, he points out, “I ended up turbocharging the 350 first. I just changed the intake manifold and fabricated a single turbo kit for it and ran it through a 4-barrel 750 Holley. It was pretty fast and I drove the hell out of it on the street. It was low boost, right around 10 pounds, but it made power and it was running in the high 11s. I added a 100 shot of nitrous to it and ran that for about one year and then broke it.” He went back to the seller a year later and bought a 400 Chevy small-block and dropped that into the Gremlin. “It was nothing crazy,” he notes. “It was running 11:1 compression. I bought it for 500 bucks and dropped that in. I put twin Caterpillar turbos and ran that for about six months and blew it up really bad. The only thing I could save was the intake manifold.”

While he was still running that combination, on the engine stand in the shop was a 383 stroker that he was building for the Buick. Moss notes, “I had a twin-turbo 383 built around a stock 350 block and Dart Iron Eagle 230 heads ready to drop into the Grand National and change it over to a Chevy, but I ended up putting that into the Gremlin. I was still running the Caterpillar turbos and it was nothing really crazy, but it was a consistent low 10-second car and was still very good on the street. I ran that combination for about 10 years before I even changed anything.”

During that time he also had the novel idea of doing some flying mile runs with the Gremlin. For that attempt he swapped out the Turbo 350 with a Turbo 400 mated to a Gear Vendors overdrive unit and a set of 2.73:1 gears. Aero aids consisted of a homemade air dam screwed to the front bumper and a pair of roof rails. His maiden outing was at the Maxton Mile held at the Laurinburg-Maxton Airport in North Carolina in 2011, where he received his certification with successive passes up to 175 mph.

The brackets for the supports for the wing that Moss installed for the flying mile runs are still in place and will see some use again in the near future when tries to take the Gremlin past the 250 mph mark.

Impetus for change often comes from the strangest of places and in late 2011 at a show in Wildwood, NJ, that push was egged on by a bunch of import guys. When asked, he states, “I was on the boardwalk and a couple of Honda kids were talking crap. They asked how fast it goes and I told them it was in the low 10s. They told me, that’s it? My buddy’s Honda goes faster than that. That pissed me off so I decided to make it go faster.” That was accomplished with the installation of 70mm turbos, a FAST EFI system, and two water-to-air intercoolers. That pushed the times down into the low 9-second range, but he points out, “I couldn’t handle the car, it was all over the place.” The culprit was a bent rear that needed to be swapped. With that replacement he also took the opportunity to install a set of Caltracs traction bars and split mono-leaf springs, which made a huge difference. That allowed the car to properly hook up and it was reflected in the times when it started running consistent high 8-second passes.

The front bumper on the Gremlin isn’t pristine and shows plenty of battle damage over the years. Visible along the edge of the bumper are the screw holes where the front air dam mounts to when he has attempted the flying mile runs.

As a result of that increase in power, in 2012, he decided to give the flying mile another go at the Ohio Mile in Wilmington, OH. With the huge bump in performance, he was able to push the Gremlin to the 202-mph mark, which was then followed up with a 207.940-mph pass. Two more trips back to the Ohio Mile in subsequent years didn’t give him the result that he was after as a result of a combination of too much downforce added by a wing mounted on the rear hatch, and severe cross winds during both events.

The large pipe mounted where the fuel filler once resided is the exhaust tip for when he runs the Gremlin on the street. This pipe was a flea market purchase that he believes was once used in the medical field but looked perfect as an exhaust exit. Moss and his sons fabricated the two chrome pieces mounted on the right of the exhaust. The inspiration for these came from watching some of the build-off shows on TV.

Along the way, a few things broke and in preparation for a Super Chevy event Moss decided to refresh things a bit, which included the installation of a different cam. He says, “I picked up about 300 horses with that cam. I had the car dynoed and it was putting out 1,320 horses at the wheels.” That bump in power dipped him down into the low 8-second range but it also created massive wheel stands. At one event in 2016, with his son Brian behind the wheel, the car caught too much air, came down hard, bent the oil pan, and broke the oil pump pick-up, which eventually grenaded the motor. As with the previous engine swap, there was already a 406 Dart Little M-based mill on the stand under construction, which is the current combo in the car. The heads, cam, and lifters were scavenged from the damaged motor and installed in this new combination.

Once it was buttoned up and dropped in, Moss spent many hours with his buddy Dale Cherry at Injection Connection in Horsham, PA maximizing the tune on the dyno. This new mill bumped the Gremlin’s rear wheel horsepower to 1,430. That down time to replace the motor was probably a blessing because that year Moss flew under the radar with an 8.50 cert cage as he dipped well below that threshold with a best quarter-mile run of 7.90 at 176.44 mph. In the beginning of 2018, he gutted the interior and fabricated a 7.50 cert cage in preparation for the next Gremlin chapter: increasing output to the 2,000 horsepower mark at the crank and making another attempt at the flying mile with a goal of eclipsing the 250-mph mark.

The stuffed animals on the dash are purchases made over the years at the Wildwood, NJ car show. Moss’ sons have placed them there so he has never removed them for fear of bad luck.

Looking back at the road traveled, Moss reflects, “It’s a real street car. It’s all steel. It has all stock front suspension and for what it is, it makes a lot of power, and it’s not phony power because it backs it up with e.t.s. You can’t go that fast without that kind of power.” It has also been a journey that he has traveled with his sons, Billy, Brian, and Kyle. All three have embraced the art of fabrication and have started creating their own unique rides, one of which we will be bringing to the pages of Car Craft in an upcoming issue.

TECH NOTES Who: Bill Moss What: 1971 AMC Gremlin Where: Southampton, PA

Engine/Induction/Transmission: The Gremlin is on its fourth engine since Moss purchased it back in the mid ’90s. The foundation for the current setup is a Dart SBC Iron Eagle block with an Eagle 4330 steel crankshaft, Eagle H-Beam connecting rods, JE forged 9.5:1 pistons, and a Comp Cams custom ground solid lifter camshaft. On the top end there is a set of Dart Iron Eagle 230 heads that have been slightly ported on the exhaust side. Induction is handled by an ACCEL fuel injection intake, FAST EZ-EFI 2.0 fuel injection, 105mm Accufab throttle body, Motorcraft 160 lb/hr fuel injectors, and a pair of 76mm Precision Turbo turbochargers running at 30 lbs of boost. Shifting comes via a Powerglide transmission with a Neal Chance 3,400 stall speed converter. On the exhaust side, Moss fabricated a set of 1 7/8 headers. For street use the exhaust exits via the centrally located pipe at the rear.

Electronics: Spark management in the engine bay is handled by an MSD distributor, MSD crank trigger, MSD HVC II coil, and 8.5 mm MSD spark plug wires. With the installation of the new cage in ’18, Moss moved all the electronic hardware in the interior to a panel on the passengers side door opening. Mounted is the MSD Programmable Digital-7 Plus ignition controller and the FAST XFI 2.0 ECU.

Rearend: Chassis/Suspension: Tucked in the back is a Ford 9-inch rear with 3.50:1 gears and 31-spline Moser rear axles. Up front, the suspension is stock AMC with Viking double adjustable shocks. At the rear Caltracs traction bars, split mono-leaf springs, and double adjustable Viking shocks complement the Ford rear.

Brakes: After a run where the parachute failed to open, the stock AMC brakes were upgraded at all four corners with the addition of Wilwood 6-piston calipers and 11.75-inch rotors up front, and Wilwood 4-piston units with 10-inch rotors at the rear.

Wheels/Tires: At one point Moss drove and raced the Gremlin on stamped steel wheels and hubcaps. Those have given way to Weld Racing wheels. Up front they measure 15X4 and are wrapped in 26×7.50-15LT Mickey Thompson Sportsman tires. At the rear they measure 15×10 and wear 29.5/10.5R15 Mickey Thompson Pro Drag radial tires.

Paint/Body: The body on the Gremlin is all steel. The rear wheel openings were already modified when Moss acquired the car and have been widened further by him along with the installation of a set of mini tubs. The car is painted in what he describes as Maaco Yellow. It was already sprayed in that shade when he took possession of it, but it originally rolled off the assembly line painted in Surfside Turquoise, a ’71 AMC color.

Interior: There are some vestiges of the original Gremlin interior still in place like the dash and door panels, however, Moss has recently installed a 7.50 cert cage in the car, and it also has a Kirkey full containment seat installed. This was a requirement as part of the certification process for his flying mile license. Other additions include a Pilot steering wheel, Simpson racing belts, and a Hurst shifter.

The post This 1971 Gremlin Runs Easy 8s on a Turbo Small-Block Chevy appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network https://www.hotrod.com/articles/gremlin-runs-easy-8s-turbo-small-block-chevy/ via IFTTT

[superautoreviews]

2018 Buick Grand National Interior, Price, Engine

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2018 Buick Grand National Interior, Price, Engine

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2018 Buick Grand National Interior, Price, Engine – Buick allegedly had intends to restore the Grand National and high-performance GNX sedan being a 2018 design soon after his long sleep at night for practically 30 many years. Possibly there is certainly an excessive amount of nonsense available, as well as conjecture about GM’s strategies in recent years. However, our places assume that General Motors will, in fact, bring back this renowned automobile.

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Based on some leaked information and facts, the 2018 Buick Grand National may come as several door sedans and two-doorway coupe, and also will be constructed on GM’s Alpha Foundation which nowadays is utilized from the 2016 Chevrolet Camaro, 2014 Cadillac CTS, and ATS sedans. In reality, General Motors has reportedly sent in his patent for the U.S. Patent and Hallmark Office. Needless to say, this provides you with outside air for Buick supporter on the market.

2018 Buick Grand National Price

This plan undertaken by General Motors to improve its sales later on, with the recent Buick Regal models use GM’s Epsilon II program having a top engine layout. Moreover, as you may know, given that 2011 Buick Regal might become a rebadged model from the 2018 Opel Insignia and much better referred to as Vauxhall type of Insignia within Britain industry, which seems to be much less desirable from the marketplace.

2018 Buick Grand National Design and Specs

2018 Buick Grand National GNX

With regards to design, the 2018 Buick Grand National is anticipated to adopt an imposing as well as other design when compared to the recent Regal design, because of GM’s Alpha Foundation with back end-tire push format. It might be a bit encouraged with the other three General Motors types which utilize the same program, including the sixth era 2018 Chevy Camaro, 2018 Cadillac CTS and 2018 ATS. Even so, of course, the original Buick inhale will still be there, although the auto makes use of GM’s new design.

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2018 Buick Grand National Engine

2018 Buick Grand National Engine

As for the engine possibilities, the following technology vehicle is going to be presented in 3 several engine options whenever it hit the North American marketplace and will likely be borrowed from the existing Cadillac ATS. The 1st choice is a turbocharged 2.-liter inline 4-cylinder engine efficient at making a minimum of 272 horsepower at 5,500 rpm and 295 lb-ft of torque at 3,000-5,500 rpm. If consumers are not happy, they may trust funds at the second alternative that accompanies a by the original means-aspirated 3.6-liter V6 engine which is professed to spew out 321 horsepower at 6,800 rpm and 274 lb-feet of torque at 4,800 rpm.

2018 Buick Grand National Interior

Recall, the past engine solution is only readily available for the top-performance of 2018 Regal GNX sedan. Buick said that they will give you a freshly-designed 3.6-liter two-turbo V6 engine, that is allegedly capable of crank out more than 400 hp and 350 lb-ft of torque. However, three transmission options are offered, such as a six-rate auto, six-rate guidebook, and 8-10-velocity auto Hydra-Matic gearbox.

Release Date and Price of 2018 Buick Grand National

2018 Buick Grand National Concept

Referring to release date, the 2018 Buick Grand National will likely be unveiled from the US market at the end of 2017, then a GNX variant shortly soon after. The price label for that foundation model is anticipated to start close to $29,000, while the high-performance GNX design might be listed close to $42,500. This new model will allegedly be developed at GM’s Lansing Grand River Set up grow in Michigan, as it doesn’t use the different Alpha program like the Camaro, CTS, and ATS.

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"1987 Buick Grand National parked since 1991 up for auction with 74 miles on it" via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/2QhZMTt

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New Post has been published on http://fastmusclecar.com/best-muscle-cars/buy-fast-furious-1970-dodge-charger-and-1987-buick-grand-national/

Buy Fast & Furious 1970 Dodge Charger and 1987 Buick Grand National

Fans of the Fast and Most Upset, sorry ‘Fast & Furious‘ movie franchise will have a chance to buy two of the vehicles from the 2009 release in the form of Dom’s Dodge Charger and Buick GNX. Both are being auctioned on August 25, 2018 at gwsauctions.com in Agoura Hills, California.

The 1970 Dodge Charger which started life as a 1969 model, has a non-functional BDS supercharger unit, 440ci. V8 with 430HP, a rebuilt 727 automatic transmission, full roll cage and fuel cell, Wilwood front discs. the car has a studio number of ‘Charger #1.8’ and comes with a certificate of authenticity from Universal Pictures and a full Colorado title. Link to the listing here.

The other vehicle is a 1987 Buick Grand National ‘Wheelie Car’ built for the opening desert hijacking scene and name due to the lifting rams and hydraulic mounts in the backseat area. A turbocharged V6 with 245hp and 0-60 times of less than 5 seconds. one of eight built for filming. The full listing here.

The auction also focuses on other vehicles from TV and movie which you can check on their website.

More Muscle Cars For Sale – http://fastmusclecar.com/muscle-car-for-sale/