World’s Cheapest New Car the Tata Nano Coming To U.S.

It may not be a hit in India, but that sorry fact is not going to stop Tata from barreling forward with plans to import the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, into the U.S.

A new, no-frills Nano will come to the U.S. within three years, Tata boss Ratan Tata tells Automotive News.

“The U.S. is a very enticing market,” Tata said in an interview. “We are redesigning the Nano for both Europe and the U.S.”

It may only cost around $3,500 in India, but it’s going to cost a lot more in the U.S. — about three times as much. Even at $10,000, it would still be the cheapest car in the U.S.

It would go from no frills to a few frills. The engine will grow and it could have power steering and traction control, the News says. The engine has only two cylinders at present, and produces a whopping 37 horsepower.

The Nano was created for India after Tata says he saw an entire family crowded on motorcycles. The Nano has four seats. Even though there was huge interest when it was introduced, the Nano’s quality came into question after highly publicized photos of them catching fire started getting passed around.

Carjacking suspect does doughnuts before fleeing, crashing

Adding insult to injury, a 30-year-old Hollywood man not only is accused of stealing a woman’s car on Tuesday but he did doughnuts in front of her before speeding away and crashing, Hollywood Police said.

Damian Gingerich found Shayla Marie Briggs’ car idling outside the Lalani Grocery at 2412 Taylor Street, around 6:33 p.m., and he got in. Briggs ran outside to find Gingerich smiling, revving the engine and driving the car in circles on the street before speeding away, according to the arrest report.

Briggs jumped into a red pickup truck driven by fellow shopper Ryan Gray and they chased Gingerich. They caught up to him near his apartment building at 2236 Taylor Street but he sped away again, hitting Briggs in the process, the report stated.

Police found her car involved in an accident on the 2800 block of Funston Street. Two people in the car Gingerich hit required hospital treatment. An officer found an injured Gingerich blocks away around 6:51 p.m. He still had Briggs’ keychain in his hand, police said.

Briggs identified Gingerich as the carjacker and he was booked into the Broward County Jail, records show.

White remains world’s most popular car paint color, copper and bronze rising

When it came to paint colors on new cars, for ten years, silver was the one hue to rule them all, not just extending its lead through 2009 and 2010 but doing so in the U.S., Europe and Asia. The revolution came in 2011, when white took over as the top color in the States and black claimed the number one spot in Europe, silver maintaining its hold in the Orient.
The annual study by the paint experts at PPG Industries notes how the the colorless hue has made more gains this year, white cars being the number one choice here and in Europe and tied for first place with silver cars in Asia. Black took second place in every market. Here, silver and gray grabbed third place, while our European cousins displayed their taste for 50 shades of metallic: gray took third place on its own, silver in fourth, four points behind. In Asia, “natural,” which includes browns, tans, golds, oranges and yellows, was the pigment of choice after white and black.
Further back in the pack, mineral and alloy shades like gold, copper and bronze are getting more buyers, and based on some of the colors being previewed for 2015 and 2016 it looks like our automotive future has more than a chance of sparkle. The PPG press release below has all the trends and the numbers.

Struck and killed by a passing car? That will be $6,000, please.

That’s what one insurance company told the grieving relatives of a Long Island grandmother who was fatally injured while crossing a busy street earlier this year in Westbury, N.Y. A BMW struck Anna Cedeno, 70, in the westbound lanes of Old Country Road on April 2 as she walked toward a bus stop.
PURE, the insurance company of the driver, now wants Cedeno’s estate to pay $6,245.09 for damage to the BMW, according to a letter obtained by the New York Post.

“Our investigation shows that your client was responsible for the accident,” read the letter. “We now look forward to your client’s estate for payment of the damages.”

After The New York Post contacted the insurance company, PURE backtracked on its macabre efforts, and said it was not its policy to pursue damages in “a case like this.” In a statement to The Post, the president of the company wrote:

“We acknowledge that a letter was written and sent by an otherwise excellent claims professional. … That created the impression that reimbursement would be pursued even if there was no applicable insurance. This runs counter to our position, and (PURE) should not have written the letter.”

Daniel Flanzig, the attorney for the Cedeno’s daughter, doesn’t buy that explanation.

He tells The Huffington Post “this was not just a form letter issued by an insurance company, but rather a conscious decision by the company to get their money back from this family.”

In a similar recent case in Maryland, the brother of a woman killed in a car accident said that Progressive, her insurance company, helped defend the man accused of killing her at trial instead of representing its client.

So You’ve Just Been Egged…

As Halloween fast approaches, homeowners need to brush up on egg-removal methods. Here’s what to do when you get egged.

Americans consumed about 75 billion eggs last year, according to the American Egg Board, but only a vanishingly small percentage of those ended up as devices of airborne mischief. No one tracks the specific numbers of egg-related vandalism or their cost, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the damage done by even a single egg can be significant. The stain an egg leaves behind can require repainting or even siding replacement and hundreds of dollars in expense.

Removing egg, wet or dry, is no simple matter. A jumbo size amounts to 2 1/2 ounces of sophisticated organic chemistry. To the casual observer, it’s just 65 percent water, 12 percent protein and a nearly equal amount of fat, not to mention assorted vitamins and minerals. But when Chemical and Engineering News took a hard-boiled look at the chicken egg, it reported trace amounts of volatile compounds ranging from indole (a chemical also found in coal tar) to phenols (an ingredient in glues and plastics). You could say the same for practically any food, if you looked at it closely enough, but it’s also the egg’s aerodynamics and low cost that make it a unique instrument in the hands of a teenager nursing a grudge.

Got egg on your car? It’s a different story than cleaning siding or windows, as using any cleaner that doesn’t have a pH close to a neutral 7.0 stands a substantial chance of damaging the clear-coat outer paint layer. Best advice is to use plenty of water to hydrate the stain (try setting the lawn sprinkler onto the car for a couple of hours), and then using a commercial car-wash detergent and a terry-cloth towel or microfiber car-polishing cloth to gently rub the stain off. There are no kitchen products or devices (like that nylon pot scrubber or rubber spatula) suitable for use on automotive paint. Still, the car wash may leave stains behind, probably caused by the chemicals in the egg yolk etching the paint and dulling its shiny finish. That’s when to use, carefully, an automotive auto-body rubbing compound to restore the clear coat’s shine. Follow the directions on the label.

Beware of 3rd Row Seat Thieves

Thieves across the country are in many cases not targeting expensive SUVs parked in driveways and parking lots, but are instead stealing the third row of seats from the vehicles for up to $1000 profit.

Ivan Barahona, an SUV owner, parked his vehicle in his Dallas driveway, and made sure nothing valuable was inside and locked it up, but a trio still broke into the back, and within seconds, removed part of the seats. Within 40 seconds, the entire back row in the vehicle was gone.

“It feels really bad because people work really hard for what they have,” Barahona said.

Police say so-called “third seat theft” is on the rise, particularly in Texas and California.

Replacement seats are in demand by SUV owners whose row of seats has been damaged or worn out. Detectives say the crooks can get about $1,000 for the seats on sites like Craigslist or in a salvage yard – a sizable payoff for 40 seconds of work.

Police often recover the stolen seats but have no way of reuniting them with their rightful owner, which is why Los Angeles police are encouraging owners to engrave their SUV’s vehicle identification number onto the bottom of those seats.

“It’s something that’s very simple. With a little bit of time and effort people can protect themselves,” Det. Mike Ventura with the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Even something as inexpensive as a bike lock will slow crooks down. Locking up seats is a good investment, because replacing a stolen third seat at the dealership can cost up to $4,000.

Man reunited with his first Harley after more than 30 years

Everyone has a story about the one that got away. For Ed Church, it wasn’t a high school sweetheart left behind, or a job offer he turned down — “the one” was a beloved 1958 Harley-Davidson.

“It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw,” Church said of the bike he had as a high school sophomore in Montana.

“[Back then] there were no Hondas, you had a Harley or an Indian [motorcycle],” Church recalled. “The whole rite of passage as a young man was trying to start one.”

Church rode the bike for 13 years, but sold the Harley after his daughter was born. “I knew I had made a mistake. I always wondered what would come if I ever found it again, but I never had much hope.”

That fleeting sense of hope got a big boost when he stumbled upon a listing for his bike on eBay, 32 years to the date he remembers selling it.