Indeed, your basic, run-of-the-mill C6 blasts from 0-100 km/h in 4.2 seconds; add on the Z51 Performance Package and you shave off a tenth of a second for 0-100 km/h acceleration. And this 'Vette covers the quarter-mile in 12.6 seconds at a speed of 183 km/h. Welcome to "oh, wow" territory.
Power to the chickens
On a wet day in May, I found myself in Sindelfingen, Germany, racing around a test track in a Mercedes-Benz powered by refined chicken droppings.
As I came down from the first of two high banks at DaimlerChrysler's proving grounds, Rudolf Maly steered the conversation to the 15 million tonnes of chicken droppings piling up each year in the United States.
"It is a very big problem," said the research director of power train fuels at DaimlerChrysler. "It is just waste. You cannot use it even for fertilizer. But you can use if for fuel."
The fuel, called SunDiesel, powered the Mercedes-Benz diesel E 220 sedan I was piloting at 160 km/h under cold, grey skies. Maly pointed out that 15 million tonnes of chicken poop could be turned into millions of litres of SunDiesel through a complicated and new refining process. SunDiesel, Maly said, is absolutely "the cleanest fuel available."
I loved Maly's story. I was riveted as he compared SunDiesel to the best conventional diesel fuel sold under strict European regulations. SunDiesel reduces hydrocarbons by 90 per cent, carbon dioxide (CO2) by 90 per cent and particulates by 30 per cent. That's good. Best of all, SunDiesel is essentially CO2 neutral; it does not noticeably contribute to global warming as a greenhouse gas.
How? The CO2 generated during engine combustion was originally extracted from the atmosphere when the source biomass -- plants -- was growing. SunDiesel could easily be synthesized from chicken waste, which as biomass is essentially digested feed grain. And SunDiesel doesn't stink like a barnyard, nor does it have that oily stench that fills your nostrils at truck stops.
When we took a break on the track, I popped the lid on the fuel tank and took a long, deep sniff. It smelled mildly like paint thinner.
"This is a designer fuel," said Maly, who did not mask his excitement about the prospects for SunDiesel, a joint venture between DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen. "It's a synthetic we can create from waste. We can use that waste. And the best thing is, it can be mixed in any proportions with our standard, our normal, diesel fuel. So this gives us a chance for transition to cleaner fuels."
It did not hinder performance, either. On the track, I pushed the E-Class hard, despite the drizzle. The car was car quick, with a 0-100 km/h time in the nine to 10-second range. At high speeds it was even better, much like any E-Class running down the Autobahn with an old-fashioned, stink-pot diesel under the hood.
"The main argument is there is a lot of waste available and what are we to do with it," Maly said. "Well, we can turn it into SunDiesel."
When I drove the car, I was struck by how elegantly simple SunDiesel is as a partial solution to environmental pollution caused by cars. I remain struck by how little progress we have since made on the SunDiesel front.
The deal's the thing
When I heard Mississauga restaurateur Chris Soupourmas paid only about $40,000 for a new 2004 Acura 3.5RL with a $55,800 sticker price, I knew there was a good story there.
Soupourmas felt he had gotten the deal of a lifetime. It certainly was a good one. Soupourmas benefited from a massive $10,000 rebate from Acura, as well an additional $3,464 dealer discount combined with a $1,101.96 break on the taxes for a total savings of $15,483.60 off the original $55,800 MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price).
But in today's cutthroat automotive marketplace, such bargains have become more the rule than the exception. A number of factors have made cash-back giveaways and cut-rate financing deals an apparently permanent part of the new-car-buying landscape.
Those factors include a stronger Canadian dollar that allows importers to be creative with pricing, as well as a larger supply of automotive products than there is demand from consumers, the need for big car companies to keep factories humming to maintain cash flow and a glut of new models creating an ultra-competitive market situation. This perfect storm of factors benefits consumers: Happy new year.
As for me, as you can see it's a tough job and I'm glad to be the somebody who has to do it.
