By David Menzies

Whether you’re heading out on the town as M.J. Zombie or the Octomoron, you’re probably adroitly primed for Halloween festivities tomorrow. But is your car?

Yes, apparently Halloween is no longer just a shindig for members of homo sapiens. Rather, this day is now something to be celebrated via motorized vehicles.

According to Halloween Online Magazine, there are several ways to accessorize one’s vehicle for Oct. 31. A few ideas:

Licence Plate Frames: A plate frame bearing the inscription, “I believe in the Great Pumpkin” or “This car stops at pumpkin patches” nicely conveys the spirit of All Hallows’ Eve, according to the online resource centre.

Grill Decorations: The people at Halloween Online Magazine were able to source an “easily obtained” common plastic pumpkin. The flashing bulb that came with it was replaced by a non-flashing bulb. (A flashing light would possibly be illegal and “dangerous” to oncoming traffic.) Two holes were then drilled in the pumpkin and bailing wire was used to secure the ornament to the grill of the vehicle. The ornament must be secured to endure the vibration and bumps when the vehicle is in motion, notes the ever-helpful website.

Antenna Decorations: A ping-pong ball-sized plastic pumpkin, skull or ghost can be hot-glued to the antennae. Halloween Online Magazine stresses that the ornament must be glued in such a way that it can be easily removed. As well, readers are reminded that the faster a car accelerates, the more wind resistance will be encountered, so antenna decorations should be as small as possible.

From left: Award winners Mark Atkinson, Jeremy Sinek and Mark Toljagic.

MSN Autos

MSN Autos writers took home three top prizes at the 26th auto-journalism awards last night.

Two of the three top spots for Journalist of the Year, presented by Jaguar Canada, some of the night’s most-coveted prizes, went to MSN’s Autos writers.

Mark Atkinson, a newcomer to Canada’s most-read automotive website, won first runner-up for his articles – including “Bringing home baby: Three alternatives to the minivan” and his first drive review of the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG.

Angela Forgeron, MSN Autos

It was tough growing up in a coastal town on the Atlantic. Though not for the reasons you might think. It’s nothing to do with the downturn of the fishing industry, or the “Perfect Storms” that caused havoc to the coastline at the end of each summer season. The hardest part was dealing with the deliveries to one of the town’s biggest businesses: Autoport.

One of the continent’s largest destinations for new cars arriving from Europe, Autoport receives as many as 100,000 vehicles per year, and disperses them across the country via truck and trains.

It’s one thing to drive by your favourite car dealership en route to the office each day fantasizing about test-driving (and then buying) your dream car, but it’s an even tougher pill to swallow when day in and day out you drive past the newest BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes, Audis, Volkswagens, Porsches, Saabs and Volvos – oh, and a few from Jaguar, Land Rover, Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini – all parked in neat and tidy rows for as far as the eye can see. “If only I could just have one, surely they wouldn’t miss just one,” went the town joke. “Just one."

By David Menzies

A Gatineau, Que. man was recently fined almost $300 after police caught him twice driving with a teddy bear disguised as a child so that he could make use of the carpooling lane.

Keen-eyed cops were surprised to see the teddy bear dressed as a toddler, complete with toque and scarf. The bear/baby was buckled into a rear child seat in the car, according to the Ottawa Citizen.

One wonders: what could possibly have unravelled such a brilliant master plan to make use of the high-occupancy commuting lane? Was it Teddy’s lifeless eyes that resemble a pair of black buttons? Or perhaps it was the protruding snout? Or maybe it’s the fact that an infant doesn’t usually have a face covered in thick brown fur?

In any event, the officer dinged the cheater with a $144 ticket and warned him that city traffic regulations require drivers to have at least three real passengers when making use of the carpooling lanes.

Evidently, a $144 penalty was not enough to change the driver’s behaviour. Const. Isabelle Poirier says police spotted the same man, woman, and teddy bear in the Fournier carpooling lane the very next morning. Making things easy for police, no doubt, was the fact that the teddy bear was wearing the same scarf and toque.

By Ryan Maule

The racing simulation genre has been ruled since the launch of the PlayStation by one franchise: Gran Turismo. Most gamers can say that they first cut their teeth on racing simulators with it, but you know what the problem is with Gran Turismo? It's like building the Great Wall of China for each subsequent release! Gran Turismo 4 was released on February 22, 2005, and we’re still waiting for GT 5. Since then, there have been three (count them, one ... two ... three ...) great – and progressively greater – racing games released by Microsoft-backed Turn 10 Studios. That game series is Forza Motorsport.

The fact that the Turn 10 team is able to release games in a reasonable amount of time shouldn’t be the only reason for giving them kudos – these guys are actually pushing the genre to new heights. This third edition of Forza Motorsports could very well be the best racing simulator you’ve ever played.

Forza 3 continues to build on the work of Forza 2, focusing on gameplay physics – as always, they remain the top priority. But this time the team said that outstanding physics weren't enough, and so they completely re-wrote the graphics engine from scratch. The results are simply amazing … and should definitely help justify the purchase of your new $3,000 high-def home theatre system to your significant other.

By David Menzies

In this day and age of Jackass – a show that routinely depicts cast members in shopping carts hurtling down an incline to a very painful fate – is it really all that surprising someone has taken the shopping cart as people-mover to the next level?

Wheel forward, Charles Guan.

Guan pimped up a shopping cart to such an extent that the cart not only moves his groceries – it moves Guan, too.

Indeed, Guan’s motorized shopping cart is capable of blazing down the blacktop at 50 km/h. While that may not sound like greased lightning, keep in mind we’re talking about a vehicle that usually travels less than 1 km/h at the local supermarket.
 
Guan’s achievement was considered lofty enough to have the 21-year-old MIT student featured in Popular Mechanics recently.

Guan told the magazine he essentially stumbled into the world of souped-up shopping carts. A member of the university’s Electronics Society, Guan was rummaging around the club’s shop one day and spotted a shopping cart, some discarded wheels and an electric engine normally used in high-performance golf carts. Before you could say, “Clean-up in Aisle 5,” Guan had a brainstorm: he would transform the shopping cart into a go-kart.

By David Menzies

Quick! Someone get the folks at Guinness on the line. We might just have a new world record for the most number of moving violations in the shortest amount of time – 15 traffic tickets in just 10 minutes.

The dubious achievement goes to a 47-year-old Italian man who was recently motoring through Switzerland, according to The Daily Mail.

The lead-footed loser buzzed past an unmarked Swiss police car at 160 km/h in heavy rain, all the while just missing other cars and the curb as he weaved through traffic like a downhill skier on a slalom course.
The Mario Andretti wannabe went on to notch further offences for driving on the hard shoulder; running through a red light; and failing to stop for police.

It gets better: when this Darwin Award candidate was finally pulled over by St. Gallen police, he failed a drug test (which might just explain his driving acumen.)

By Justin Couture

There isn’t a shred of doubt that Kia is a hot brand. Global sales are up – way up – and the sheer growth the company has seen over the past five years is likely to have caused a change in mood in rival brands from apathy to one consisting of equal proportions fear and envy. But what’s even more remarkable in my eyes is how quickly the brand’s products have become appealing, and not merely from the usual value proposition.

Kia has never really been a design company, but this year alone we’ve seen the launch of several vehicles all of which are worth taking a second look at. Just take your pick. The Soul, for instance, proves that Kia’s design department has its fingers on the pulse of what’s cool. And then there’s the chiseled Forte Koup, which in SX trim looks like it wouldn’t be out of place on the cover of Performance Auto and Sound.

And for those who prefer their vehicles a little more grown up, there’s the Lexus-esque Sorento, and the European-only Venga, the Soul’s chipper-looking, family-friendly sibling.

But the one that’s really got me thinking that Kia is taking its design seriously is this vehicle, the Cadenza entry-level luxury sedan. Just look at it for a moment. While there are certain to be folks that will find the Cadenza’s look unoriginal, it’s different enough from the rest of the players in the class to stand out with its balanced proportions and tasteful details.

By David Menzies

Oh well, so much for Clint Eastwood’s star power when it comes to moving the vintage muscle car merchandise.

A 1972 Gran Torino Sport GT – a dead ringer for the car featured in the superb 2008 Eastwood film, Gran Torino – only received 23 bids on eBay recently. The top bid was US$10,000.

This California car – boasting a 285 horsepower 351-cubic inch V8 (rebuilt 5,000 miles ago, according to the seller) features automatic transmission, air conditioning, numerous power accessories and (unfortunately) a factory-installed vinyl top. (Note to the world’s automakers: while retro design cues may be somewhat cool these days, please do not – we repeat, do not – bring back the vile vinyl roof.)

By David Menzies

At long last, science is now proving what has been conventional wisdom for decades: a hot sports car makes a man feel manlier. And it is testosterone that fuels the male desire to own fast cars.

According to a study published in Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, researchers at Montreal’s Concordia University took 39 young men (median age: 24.7 years) and let them cruise around the city in two completely diverse cars.

The first vehicle was a swank $150,000 Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet. Going from stud to dud, the same 39 men were then asked to cruise around in a dilapidated, 16-year-old Toyota Camry with 300,000 km on the odometer.

In each scenario, the men drove the Porsche and the Toyota on a busy street where they would be seen by women. They would then drive the vehicles on a quiet road.

After an hour of motoring, the men’s saliva was tested for testosterone. The researchers discovered that when the men were driving the crumby Camry, their hormone levels remained low. However, when they were behind the wheel of the piss ’n vinegar Porsche, their testosterone levels stayed high — with or without an audience.

According to the researchers, endowing the men with a vehicle very few people can afford actually tripped an endocrinological response, mimicking the one elicited during competition for female mates.

“In other words, just put a guy in a Porsche and his testosterone levels shoot up whether people watch or not," says Gad Saad, a Concordia marketing professor and the study’s lead researcher.