Original Parts Group Armrest Pad Grp0024 on 2040-parts.com

Buick Encore gets innovative all-wheel drive system

Buick is touting the Active On-Demand all-wheel drive system in the new Encore SUV. Instead of a traditional AWD system that directs torque to wheels only when slip is detected, the Buick system sends motive force to the rear on every launch. Then, if no slip is detected, a computer disengages torque to the clutch, returning the car to front wheel drive.

BMW 1 Series Coupe

Details of BMW's latest addition have been officially released. The new 1 Series Coupe - which will be available as both a 128i and a 135i  when it goes on sale in North America - is a modern interpretation of the classic 2002, with a front-engine and rear-drive configuration. As expected, the new car looks a lot like a 1 Series hatch; the biggest difference being the newly created rear end.

'American Nitro' is back!

"Seventies drag-race mayhem is back!" bills "American Nitro," a schlocky drive-in exploitation film whose only quote of praise, from a dog-eared period issue of "Car Craft," reads, simply, "SPECTACULAR CRASHES!" Director Bill Kimberlin says that he made "American Nitro" in 1979 as a response to Tom Wolfe's influential 1965 essay, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby." "I was just getting out of high school in a small town in Northern California when Wolfe's book came out," he said. "Nitro came about as my response to the car culture I was exposed to in the small valley town of Boonville, Calif. Instead of 'American Graffiti,' I made 'American Nitro.'" A fitting comparison, in fact, considering Kimberlin later worked for George Lucas at ILM, starting with" Return of the Jedi." Now the movie is being released on DVD for the first time -- beware of bootlegs, warns the website -- and digitally remastered, while retaining the explosive charm and goofy narration of the 1979 original.