used-car listings
Storming Normandy in a World War II Jeep – Rum Buggy Heads to Dead Man’s Corner – Car and Driver
Strategically situated astride Nationale 13, then as today the main highway connecting Cherbourg’s ferry docks with the rest of Normandy, Sainte-Mre-glise found itself ablaze in the chaotic predawn hours of D-Day. Real Screaming Eagles fell in and around the village square, where German troops were overseeing the dousing of a terribly timed house fire. A slaughter of Americans ensued. One 101st survivor, John Steele, famously snagged his parachute on the church spire as bullets zinged around him. Today, a uniformed dummy replica of Steele is still up there as a permanent monument. (Steele was shot in the foot and captured two hours later but eventually escaped. He died in 1969.)
We find modern Sainte-Mre-glise, population still just a couple thousand, in the throes of a street party. Throngs pack the square, along with kiddy rides, stalls selling grilled sausages and beer, and a stage on which the American Legion Band of Holland, Michigan, is ripping through
Stars and Stripes Forever . Strings of American, British, and French flags and the 101st’s screaming-eagle mascot overhang the streets. Somebody walks past waving Old Glory on a pole.
America is being loved by foreigners—no common sight, these days. But everyone in the crowd is speaking in French, something that is probably Dutch, or with a Cockney accent. The village tourist office has only six American signatures in its guest book from the past few days.
But there are jeeps aplenty: ambulance jeeps, radio jeeps, yellow airfield jeeps, glider-born jeeps draped in camouflage netting and fitted with .50-caliber machine guns (so much for the pre-event warnings about snippy French police cracking down on deactivated weapons), steel-plated attack jeeps, gull-gray U.S. Navy jeeps, and amphibious jeeps that look like fishing skiffs on wheels.
Knapsacks, bedrolls, ammo crates, rifles, pots and pans, rope, radio cables, digging tools, medic bags, road signs to Berlin, and war booty such as German helmets are strapped, draped, lashed, and hung with precise haphazardness by owners eager to create an authentically bedraggled look. Some jeeps are flying American flags with the 48 stars of the time.
By far the most macabre jeep accessory is the wire cutter, a five-foot vertical steel bar notched and sharpened at the top. Shortly after D-Day, combat engineers welded them to front bumpers as a hastily improvised countermeasure to the steel twine that German units were stringing across trails to decapitate the crews in speeding jeeps.
_______________________________________________________________ ___________________ _______________________________________________________________ ___________________ After sharing a supermarket checkout line with a few Panzer troops, we follow out of town the thimble-shaped stone cairns marking the
Voie de la Libert , the 900-mile “liberty road” that today commemorates the Allied path of advance from Normandy to Belgium.
A 65-year-old jeep has delightfully direct, iron-levering-steel controls. You start it not with the key—accurately restored jeeps don’t even have keys—but with a foot button on the transmission tunnel (or with a sharp wrist-flick using the supplied crank). The spaghetti-thin steering wheel tugs and shivers with each road disturbance; the hydraulic, unboosted brake pedal is like stepping on a football.
The spindly shifter clicks into its three forward gears with a short, fingertip push and military precision. Two floor levers shift the transfer case from two-wheel drive to four and from four-high into low gear. There are no front hub locks to free the wheels of axle drag, so our mileage never exceeds the mid-teens. Germans loved capturing jeeps but complained bitterly about their fuel appetite.
We point Rum Buggy toward nearby Dead Man’s Corner, a scene of vicious D-Day fighting and originally called “Dead Man in a Tank Corner” for the knocked-out Sherman tank that served as its crew’s coffin for days after the battle. A restored Sherman tank is parked near the same spot, having just clank-clanked up the road.
At Dead Man’s, we find a small museum and another 101st unit, dug into the same hillside as their role models were 65 years ago and having their pictures snapped by tourists. Looking up from his freshly excavated foxhole, nine-year reenactor veteran Robert Parton of West Sussex, England, says he and his 50 or so cohorts will spend the next three days guarding Dead Man’s. Not surprisingly, neither Parton’s wife nor his three kids are present. “Taking the wife to Spain in August,” he explains.
Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/09q3/storming_normandy_in_a_world_war_ii_jeep-feature/rum_buggy_heads_to_dead_man_27s_corner_page_3
Is Volvo Next? As Ford Ponders Its Next Moves, Swedish Automaker’s Fate Hangs In the Balance
The Volvo XC60 is the company’s newest crossover.
Pick your rumor. In today’s chaotic climate, it seems there’s some buzz on the Web about everything. Occasionally, the rumors turn out to be true, like the talks between General Motors and Chrysler. Indeed, the one thing that seems certain is that there’ll be significant consolidation in the cash-strapped auto industry over the next few years.
Pick your rumor. In today’s chaotic climate, it seems there’s some buzz on the Web about everything. Occasionally, the rumors turn out to be true, like the talks between General Motors and Chrysler. Indeed, the one thing that seems certain is that there’ll be significant consolidation in the cash-strapped auto industry over the next few years.So there was little surprise when Ford Motor Co. sold off the bulk of its stake in Mazda, the resurgent Japanese automaker, earlier this month, confirming ongoing reports that had started swirling in Japan weeks earlier. What remains to be seen is whether the ailing American automaker will also validate rumors concerning the fate of its equally troubled Swedish subsidiary, Volvo.Since coming onboard at Ford, two years ago, CEO Alan Mulally has made it clear he’ll consider every possibility when it comes to turning around the struggling American automaker. He’s already sold off all the other overseas brands that, along with Volvo, made up the once-promising Premier Automotive Group. So, might Mulally abandon Ford’s last foreign forays in a bid to raise some much-needed cash for the company’s core North American brands?For the moment, at least, company officials say that’s not in the cards. But, then again, they don’t entirely rule out such speculation.Whether Ford might want to sell off Volvo “is a valid question,” acknowledges Steve Odell, the Scandinavian maker’s new CEO. But he quickly adds that, “No one [from Ford headquarters] said, ‘Go get it ready for sale.’ The bigger question is whether we’re going to survive. I’d like the answer to be yes, and that has to be wrapped around product or it’s just words.”To that effect, Odell insists his only mandate is to “get it fixed.”For their part, several senior BMW officials, asking not to be identified by name, said they were perplexed by the rumors linking the German company to Volvo. “It is not something we are seeking,” asserted one.Several well-placed industry analysts agree. Noting that such rumors first surfaced more than a year ago, Jim Hall, founder of 2953 Analytics, in Birmingham, Michigan, said that even if Volvo were for sale, he didn’t see BMW as the likely buyer. For one thing, he notes that the German marque is in the midst of an internal reorganization that would make a major acquisition difficult to handle, at least right now. And Hall points to the devastating problems that followed its last major purchase, of the British Rover Group, which cost BMW billions and left it gun-shy about acquisitions.Hall said he wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Ford decided to sell its subsidiary because Mulally and his top lieutenants are “obsessed with polishing the Ford Blue Oval,” but in the current global economic environment, he doesn’t see any likely buyers waiting in the wings.
2009 Hyundai Sonata and 2008 Chevrolet Malibu More Fuel-Efficient than Toyota Camry and Honda Accord – Car News – Auto Reviews – Car and Driver
The and have long been the benchmarks when it comes to fuel-efficient mid-size sedans, but a pair of newcomers have knocked these stalwarts off their perches—the updated
and all-new are the segment’s gasoline teetotalers.
Both the and Malibu claim fuel economy ratings of 22 mpg in city driving and 32 mpg on the highway. The Sonata does so with a 175-hp, 2.4-liter inline-four-cylinder engine and a five-speed automatic transmission. The Malibu uses a 164-hp, 2.4-liter inline-four and a segment-first six-speed automatic tranny to get the job done. That is comparable to the
’s 23/31 mpg in city/highway driving with its 177-hp, 2.5-liter inline-four under the hood and its continuously variable transmission (we are using automatic transmissions for this comparison as it is the transmission of choice for the majority of U.S. buyers).
Trailing the trio are the Accord and Camry, both with 21/31 mpg figures with their 2.4-liter inline-fours. The least efficient in this field: the
with a 2.3-liter I-4 gets only 20/28 mpg. That’s similar to the Sonata with a 3.3-liter V-6, which nets 19/29 mpg as it pumps out 249 horsepower, and the Accord with a 268-hp, 3.5-liter V-6.
Before anyone complains we’re comparing apples and oranges since the Accord has grown into a full-size sedan, we must point out the Sonata also meets the EPA large-car classification based on its 122 cubic feet of interior volume—more than the 120 cubic feet in the Accord. The others are in the 112–116-cubic-foot range; and are classified as true mid-sizers.
It appears consumers are starting to get the message. GM can’t build Malibus fast enough, and Hyundai says the Sonata is raking in conquest sales: for every defector from the brand, it is adding 2.2 new customers.
In terms of overall fleet efficiency, Honda still reigns supreme in 2007 with an average of 22.9 mpg, with Toyota down one tick at 22.8 mpg, and Hyundai right behind at 22.7 mpg. There is a bit of a gap after that, with Volkswagen at 21.4 mpg and Nissan at 20.6 mpg; both are above the industry average of 20.2 mpg. Below that mark are GM at 19.4 mpg and Ford at 18.7 mpg, according to the EPA’s 2007 annual report.
Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/news/car/08q2/2009_hyundai_sonata_and_2008_chevrolet_malibu_more_fuel-efficient_than_toyota_camry_and_honda_accord-car_news