JEEP BRAND BEER?

Modern advertising has conditioned us to associate a wide array of strange images with beer in a can. The Rocky Mountains, silver bullets, Clydesdale horses and blue ribbons all do their best to peddle cheap brew, but Chinese drinkers now have a new mascot for their favorite cold one. Hubei Jeep Brewery Corporation has turned out a new light beer featuring everyone’s favorite off road machine. The logo even features a Jeep silhouette, complete with the brand’s iconic/trademarked seven-slat grille. What does Jeep Beer taste like? Fresh mountain streams? Muddy hill sides? Licking a Chrysler interior? No one is saying for certain.
Hubei Jeep Brewery Corporation has completely adopted the Jeep brand as an emblem of rugged manliness, and the company even went so far as to giveaway a Jeep Compass to the highest-selling distributor. The winner managed to move 60,000 liters of suds to take home the prize. Don’t get us wrong. Beer and vehicles go together about as well as fenders and telephone poles, but we’re just curious enough about the notion of Jeep Beer to want a bottle or three. Besides, you can’t argue with a tag line like, “JUST FOR MAN.”

LOCK YOUR DOORS JEEP OWNERS

It’s not stereos, air bags, mufflers or any of other weird things that thieves sometimes target. This time it’s whole doors. Jeep doors.  Police say thieves are targeting Jeep doors, with eight reported thefts in the Reno, Nevada area during January alone, the Associated Press reports. Officers say the thefts occur at night, and suspects are taking both metal and soft doors. Doors on models like the Jeep Wrangler are meant to be easy to detach, one of the fun elements of the go-anywhere vehicles. Authorities say it’s a new crime wave that has been reported across the country, with Jeep Wranglers a popular target. Officials say the stolen doors are then sold online, according to AP. Police say Jeep owners can buy locking devices for less than $50. They also suggest that people who live in high-crime areas remove the doors from the vehicle.

Latest reason for teen crashes? Peer pressure

A new study from the water-is-still-wet research department has found that teens may have been the victims of peer pressure just before a crash. The studies were crafted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia andState Farm. The first study surveyed 198 teens and found that those who were more likely to have friends pile into a vehicle with them were also apt to call themselves “thrill seekers.” Those teens also said they didn’t want their parents to set rules or keep an eye on their comings and goings. In addition, they were less likely to perceive the risks associated with driving in general.  The second study, meanwhile, analyzed information from 677 teens who were involved in serious crashes while behind the wheel. As it turns out, both male and female drivers were more likely to be distracted just before the incident, with 71 percent of males saying they were distracted by their passengers. The study found 47 percent of female teens admitted the same. The study also found teen males with passengers were six times more likely to perform an illegal maneuver and twice as likely to drive aggressively before a crash compared to their counterparts driving alone. While it’s no secret that teens with passengers are more likely get into an incident, the two studies help shed some light on why that is.

Long Test Drive Turns Into a Getaway Car

A Ravenna, Ohio man told a car dealership he needed longer than usual for his test drive but didn’t say he planned to use it to commit burglaries. Police said Christopher Tackett, 28, drove the borrowed car to two houses in the township and burglarized them Tuesday afternoon. Police said he was caught in the act at the second house. “The homeowner came home and walked in on the guy carrying a safe to the door where other items were all stacked up,” said Police Chief Dennis Oliver. “The owner said something like, ‘Who are you?’ and the guy said, ‘I’m the guy who just got caught.'” Police said Tackett waited while the homeowner called police and surrendered when police arrived. “I guess he figured the dealership had his license so he knew he was caught,” said Oliver. “We found more stolen items in the car and tracked them back to another nearby home. We contacted the owner, who did not even know that this home had been burglarized.” Oliver said Tackett went to the Auto Site car dealership and said he liked the car, but wanted his mechanic to check it out before he bought it. The salesman agreed and allowed Tackett to drive off. “We put this one in our ‘Just when you think you’ve seen everything’ file,” said Oliver. Tackett is in the Portage County Jail on $100,000 bond, charged with two counts of burglary and one count of possessing criminal tools. Oliver said other police departments in the area are investigating to determine if Tackett should be charged with other burglaries.

STUDY SAYS WOMEN ARE BETTER AT PARKING

The verdict is in, at least in the United Kingdom: Women are better car parkers than men. A parking lot company in the U.K. called National Car Parks conducted a month-long study in which it evaluated how men and women park. The group covertly studied 2,500 drivers in parking lots and built what it calls a “parking coefficient” to measure things like technique, accuracy and time taken to find a spot and park in it. Out of a maximum score of 20, the study found that women have a parking coefficient of 13.4; the men came in a bit lower at 12.3. The study found that men were beset by behavioral setbacks like missing parking spots due to driving too fast through the lot. Women scored better at following speed limits (92% of them did versus just 64% of men) and taking time to find the correct approach angle to a parking spot (77% women, 53% men). Men were, however, better in a few areas like being able to pull into a position and park after the first try: Only 29% of men in the group repositioned their car for another try, while 56% of the women needed multiple shots to get the final position. This explains why men have problems parking in the center of the space. In the study, 53% of women parked centrally on their first attempt, but only 25% of men were able to do that. “Parking is our business, so we carried out the research to see how well people park their cars. As an interesting by-product of the research, we’ve also found out that there’s a difference in parking skills between the sexes, although perhaps not the way most people expected,” Jo Cooper, NCP’s female chief executive, said in a press release.

eBay Find of the Day: Barack Obama’s 2005 Chrysler 300C

History has yet to voice its opinion on the legacy of President Barack Obama, but one enterprising eBay seller is already looking to cash in on one very big piece of Obama memorabilia. A 2005 Chrysler 300C that allegedly belonged to the Commander In Chief (back when he was an Illinois senator) has hit eBay Motors. As you may recall, Obama sent the big V8 sedan packing in favor of a Ford Escape Hybrid when he began his campaign for the presidency. The 300C currently has 20,800 miles. Obama is said to have put 19,000 of those on the clock himself between 2004 and 2007. With so few miles and a healthy 5.7-liter V8 under the hood, this is likely the nicest 300C you’ll ever lay eyes on, but the buyer wants a pretty penny for the machine. Right now, the vehicle has a starting bid of $1 million. Not surprisingly, even though the seller says he’s got the paperwork to prove the vehicle’s provenance, no one has stepped up with the coin. As of the time of writing, the auction has less than a day left on the clock.

CA bank robber foiled by vanity plates bearing own name

There’s no such thing as the perfect crime, but some criminals are clearly more perfect than others. According to UT San Diego, a man wearing latex gloves and sunglasses recently strolled into a Chase Bank in San Diego, pointed a gun at a teller and began demanding money. The teller wisely obliged, handing over $2,920 in cash before the robber took to his vehicle and fled in a white Ford Expedition. Onlookers were quick to jot down the vehicle’s vanity license plate, which read ALMDUDE. It didn’t take police long to track down the vehicle’s owner, 27-year-old Robert Alm.  While we’re not surprised to hear of a their using their own vehicle to flee a crime scene, using one with vanity plates proudly proclaiming the thief’s name is something new. Alm has since been booked on suspicion of robbery.

J.D. Power: More car buyers base purchases on brand reputation than ratings and reviews

Reputation is everything, according to a new survey by J.D. Power and Associates. The 2012 Avoider Study found that 43 percent of buyers who steer clear of a particular model due to quality concerns do so merely because of common knowledge. Ratings and reviews – our stock in trade – were cited by 38 percent, while previous ownership of a model caused scorn in only 14 percent of respondents.  “The fact that so many new-vehicle buyers may be basing their opinions about quality and reliability on pre-conceived [sic] notions, rather than concrete information or data, demonstrates how important it is for automakers to promote the quality and reliability of their models,” said Jon Osborn, research director at J.D. Power and Associates, in what reads like a nakedly self-serving press release. Other interesting data from the survey included an all-time high for xenophobia, with respondents who avoided import models because of their origin rising to 14 percent, the highest in the nine years of the study. Buyers avoiding domestics for the same reason dropped to six percent, the lowest in the study’s history. The most influential reason for purchasing a specific model in 2012 was fuel economy, trumping reliability, “the deal,” and exterior styling, which were tops in 2010.