SRT has more models on offer than Chrysler. It has as many models as Ram, with hotted-up versions of the Dodge Charger and Challenger, Chrysler 300, and Jeep Grand Cherokee, plus the exclusive SRT Viper. Dodge is still the top of the choice heap, but SRT wants to wave its freak flag high after building its roster somewhat quietly. Since SRT can't roar through everyone's neighborhood, its taking to television with its first-ever advertising campaign.

You may have already been lucky enough to catch one of the Body and Soul spots that launched June 8 on cable. There are 30-, 60- and 90-second versions of the commercial, and a web-only full version that clocks in at 2:15. It's a nice piece of evocative writing by David Morring, who served as Creative Director for agency The Richards Group.

"We wanted to infuse our first-ever SRT creative campaign with grit, beauty, longing, desire and nostalgia," said Olivier Francois, Chrysler's Chief Marketing Officer. SRT President and CEO Ralph Gilles also weighed in about the campaign, saying "it's the feeling of when you get behind the wheel and step on the throttle for the first time and feel the power of the engine. It's that feeling and legacy that Chrysler Group has forged with owners and ther vehicles over the last cetury; something that SRT brand is creating with a new set of consumers for the first time." Keep reading to see the spots for yourself, read the press release, and see if they nailed it.

When you self-identify as a hack, that means you're proud of it, and Rob Siegel is proud of being a hack. He even has rules for what makes "a good kludge," which he delineates in his book, Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic. Rob Siegel, you see, isn't just a backyard wrench-twirler. His column, The Hack Mechanic, has been a fixture in the BMW Car Club of America's official magazine, Roundel, for decades. Now, Bentley Publishers has given Siegel a wider platform for musing about cars, while really not talking as much about cars as you'd think.

Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic bills itself as "a memoir with actual useful stuff" – an apt description. It's not a how-to manual for fixing your car, and it may be more helpful keeping your life in balance than it is with carburetor balancing. That's no bad thing, and Siegel himself explains how classic manuals like John Muir's How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive and books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Shop Class as Soulcraft serve more like manuals for self-discovery than fix-it books.

The tone and Zen-seeking flavour of those books makes Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic an easy read that often makes you chuckle (because you've been there) or marvel at the clever solution to a potential landmine of a repair ("cascading failure" is Siegel's apt descriptor). Talking about the process of auto repair not from the "put-tab-B-into-slot-A" perspective, but from the "stand back and look at the big picture" point of view that the book takes is due, in part, to the author's day job as an engineer. It's good advice, and it's why the book has appeal beyond fans of Neue Klasse Roundies.

The actual useful stuff is exactly that, especially the section that covers tools and shop procedures. Knowing the right kind of equipment to buy, where to spend the money, and where you can find bargains is key to getting the job done in an at least somewhat enjoyable fashion, and that's all well-covered by the book. Another nugget of gold is a detailed section of repairing air conditioning systems, because without AC, your summer enjoyment season with a car lasts about five weeks until it's too sweltering to use, forcing you back to your Toyota Corolla. And nobody wants that.

Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic is a book that will feel right at home next to your spiral-bound How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, and it's written with a breezy, conversational tone that lets you get to know the author even if you haven't been reading Roundel for 25 years. It's less a car manual than it is a how-to guide for living with this particular addiction, from buying to keeping to selling cars that entertain you, and that's why it's a worthwhile addition to your library.

When a video touts itself as "probably the greatest hollywood-style RC action movie car chase ever," (sic) you should set yourself up for disappointment. That's not to say that this joint effort, a clearly well-funded partnership between LA Muscle Sports Supplements and Fast & Furious 6, isn't fun and polished, but just lately we've posted some very entertaining small-scale car videos like this and this.

Still, it's cool to watch an R/C Camaro slide wide around turns amidst warehouse shelves full of LA Muscle product. Just as in real life, zooming around gets the attention of the constabulary, and a passel of police cars gives chase, which leads our Camaro protagonist to... J-TURN! It is a cool video, tied to a movie that we know is full of some fantastic cars and you can bet that the full-sizers will do stunts that are even more jaw-dropping.

Invest in watching the minute long video below.

"Oh yeah, Toyota still makes the Tacoma." Admit it, that's what you just said to yourself. It's a perfectly natural reaction, but the Tacoma has been quietly anchoring its segment for years, outselling every other compact pickup without making too much of a fuss. Toyota hasn't neglected the Tacoma – it was updated in 2012 with a revised nose and interior as the most notable changes.

In a world awash with high-value full-size pickups all vying for your attention, the Tacoma still charms more than a few buyers out of their cash. I hooked a Tacoma for a week to see whether it still has enough to recommend it.

Hit the jump to continue reading our full driving notes on the 2013 Toyota Tacoma TRD Sport.

"We thought we were going to build a super-911," said Peter Schutz, former CEO of Porsche AG of the development of the Porsche 959. That was before it started getting expensive. At that point, Helmut Bott, Porsche R&D director got frightened. Costs ballooned because of the all-wheel drive, sequential turbocharging and other technology Porsche had never even thought about when it set out to build a 911 to compete in Group B. Schutz continued, "The amount of resources we were committing got totally out of hand." Instead of pulling the plug, Bott doubled down and drew on the strength of his brilliant team to build a car whose impact is still echoing aross the industry.

"It's probably one of our most prized possessions" says Don Leatherwood, Director of the Brumos collection where Dr. Bott's personal prototype resides, and where Frazer Spowart went to see the car and create a video for eGarage. Check out the sights and sounds of the 959 before it was the 959, and get personal takes on the car from Hurley Haywood, Peter Schutz and Don Leatherwood.

Keep reading to watch the video.

Enthusiasts are all talk. The best-selling cars are rarely the ones that set our hearts aflutter, and that's because while we're ogling glossy pictures of lust-worthy automobiles, Mr. and Mrs. Average Family are ponying up the money to actually park a new rig in the driveway. For these family-focused buyers, the wants and needs are different than the set of requirements you start listing when you want to go weekend autocrossing.

With that in mind, a recent report has set about naming the best family vehicle across 19 categories for 2013. "With such a broad range of award winners," says Jamie Page Deaton, Managing Editor of U.S. News Best Cars, "any family can find the best car for their lifestyle."

The rankings result in a strong showing for General Motors, and the winners are nearly split right down the middle between foreign and domestic nameplates. Even given the workaday mission of family vehicles, there are still some winners we'd gladly pilot as the kids trash the interior.

Check out our gallery of winners, and keep reading to see the press release with full results below.

The Stig makes his return to Top Gear USA on the History Channel tonight, though it looks like the circumstances could be better. The upside is that Rutledge Wood, Adam Ferrara and Tanner Foust appear to have built themselves a Road-Warrior-iffic late-1990s Toyota Camry complete with an electric fence. The Stig chases down his prey with, naturally, a Panther. Seems appropriate.

Looking more closely, it almost seems like a Camry body was bolted atop a truck frame, and you'd expect something like a Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor to be the most menacing Panther, but the Stig does a good job being scary in a Lincoln Town Car. The only way to know for sure what went down is to watch tonight.

Click here to check out a video clip, and hit the photo gallery for some shots you'll only find here on Autoblog Canada.

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy hitting the east coast, Fisker Automotive and insurer XL Insurance wound up in a legal battle over 338 Karma models destroyed in the storm. The cars were sitting in Port Newark, New Jersey when the enormous storm struck, washing away US$33 million worth of viable automobiles. Fisker sued XL Insurance in New York State Supreme Court after the company denied coverage for the loss.

Both sides reportedly reached an agreement to drop the legal action on Thursday without publicly stating a reason for the truce. In lieu of an actual reason, here's some conjecture: the cars may be worth more to Fisker as an uncompensated loss, as pending legal battles make the beleaguered niche automaker much less attractive to potential investors or suitors.

Click here to watch how 250,000 vehicles were damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

The Lexus ES lineup, the brand's bread-and-butter sedan, has been completely redone for 2013. With that tip-to-tail rework comes the model's first hybrid. We think the ES350 is better in every way than its predecessor, so a spin in the ES300h is warranted to see what it's like to live with the model sure to become the best-selling Lexus hybrid sedan. In particular, we wanted to see how the gas-electric luxury cruiser handled the battery-sapping realities of winter, so we ventured out into the slush and snow to file this report.

Hit the jump for our full driving notes and photo gallery from our time behind the wheel of the 2013 Lexus ES300h.

This restyled blue 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray is wearing manufacturer plates, and it appears to be the same one seen around the internet in various pictures lately. This crash is likely not part of the Chevrolet testing regimen, however. Digital Corvettes forum member "gpetry" posted the shot with a note: "got this picture e-mailed from a friend in Arizona last week..." No circumstances are given, other than the incident occurred in the thick of a set of curvy roads, and the coupe ping-ponged off a guardrail and into the rock wall. Hopefully everyone involved in the incident walked away.

It may not be a pretty thing to see, a crashed sports car that's not even available for sale yet, but rest easy. Many pre-production cars are used for development and then unceremoniously crushed and scrapped, anyway. If that's the case here, that makes this wrecked 'Vette less of a tragedy and more of a case of exceptional efficiency.

"There is another Commodore coming after this one," said Holden Chairman and Managing Director Mike Devereux while giving Australian press a preview of the 2014 VF Commodore, which is set to launch February 10th. It was a pretty effective way to de-emphasize the brand-new car, judging by the stunned expressions Australian press reports mention on the faces of his Holden deputies.

Really all this statement means is that there will be a car named Commodore even after the VF winds down in 2016. Devereux further explained that Holden's Adelaide facility will be assembling two GM global platforms, one of them we know to be the Cruze, and "one of them [that] will underpin the next Commodore."

Don't expect that next Commodore to be a rear-driver like the cars that have topped sales charts for the last 15 years. It'll more than likely be a port of a car we know here as a Buick, according to The Australian. While we wait for 2017, at least we can check out the VF Commodore that was just unveiled.

Giving Vanilla A Good Name



"Vanilla." Taken in modern context, that's not a compliment, but it should be. Vanilla actually has exotic origins, and as spices go, only saffron is more costly. Despite the realities, calling something "vanilla" is not whistling in admiration. The Toyota Camry has been called "vanilla" countless times since its debut, but both the car and the bean have something up their sleeves.

Scoff all you want, but vanilla is the most popular ice cream flavor, and there is no mainstream sedan that outsells the Camry. Apparently, vanilla has an underlying tinge of filthy lucre. We didn't feel rich, exactly, wheeling around in the Camry Hybrid, but we came away impressed, nonetheless.

"When I go to an ice cream parlor for the first time, I always order their vanilla," says Ralph Hannabury. Why vanilla? "When you're making ice cream, everything builds off vanilla. If they have that right, you know they know what they're doing," Ralph explained. Who is Ralph Hannabury? For more than two decades, he made ice cream for Russo's Candy House in Saugus, Massachusetts. Ralph knows vanilla, and good vanilla is hard.

It's the same thing with cars. Supercars are easy compared to a good, bland sedan that starts faithfully every day for hundreds of thousands of miles and exhibits none of the bad habits that are "features" when you're talking exclusive machinery. The Camry is a riot of dispassion to car people, and the Hybrid only moreso with its Hybrid Synergy Drive sopping up whatever visceral treats you can find in the standard Camry.

Racecars blow engines all the time, but a Porsche 917 isn't just a run-of-the-mill racecar. British automotive writer Mark Hales reportedly borrowed a 917 from 82-year-old former Formula One racer David Piper for a magazine article, and mechanical tragedy ensued. Nobody is arguing that the engine failed after being spun to 8,200 rpm. However, Hales was warned not to exceed 7,000 rpm, says owner Piper, and the affair landed in English courts with Piper seeking £50,000 (around CAD$78,600) in reimbursement funds for an engine rebuild and loss of use of the car while it was being repaired. Judge Simon Brown ruled in favour of car owner Piper, putting Hales on the hook for £110,000 (CAD$172,000) including legal fees – a whole lot of money in any language.

Hales says the Porsche suffered a mechanical fault while lapping that allowed it to slip out of gear and over-rev. Piper wasn't convinced, and sought to have the repair paid for by the guy who broke the racer, saying "If you bend it, you mend it." It's not like Hales is a novice driver, having seat time in both professional and amateur races over 30 years, notching about 150 wins, but even the best drivers sometimes miss a shift, and that's what Piper contended happened to his car.

According to reports, Piper has had to sell most of his valuables to pay his lawyers and is now facing bankruptcy with the ruling against him. Members of the Pistonheads website are trying to coordinate a collection to help him out, as well.

Subaru has given the 2013 Outback a host of detail changes and updates, though you'd hardly know from looking at it. The mild exterior changes mostly go unnoticed, and if you're comparing on a numbers basis, the new 2.5-litre four-cylinder engine is bang-on what the old engine would do. The biggest news is EyeSight, Subaru's new stereo camera-based system that drives lane-departure warning, active cruise control, automatic emergency braking and forward collision alert functions.

The 2013 Outback spent some time in my driveway, and as far as jacked-up wagons with off-road cladding go, this is one of the most affordable of the lot. That doesn't mean it's cheap; the Outback I tried was a Limited model with moonroof, navigation, EyeSight, leather and CVT added on. That takes the Outback from its roughly $28,500 starting point and adds just over $10,000, landing solidly in the $40,000 mark. Still, against its most natural competitors like the Volvo XC70 and Audi A6 Avant, the Outback is a better value.

DRIVING NOTES

• The new 2.5-litre four-cylinder is surprisingly happy in this big wagon. It never felt underpowered, though it also never felt abundantly strong. Adequate.
• Even more shocking, the CVT and four-cylinder combo proved smooth and refined most of the time. Hard acceleration, like merging on the highway, was really the only time the slippy-revvy characteristic of the CVT appeared. Most of the time it was as unobtrusive as the smoothest automatic transmission.
• This is a very nice car in Limited trim, and the interior materials are better than I remember them being in the last Outback I sampled. The leather seats are very comfortable for long hauls, the interior is acceptably quiet, and the car is a perfect match for climates that see lots of inclement weather. Driving through rain and snow quickly points out what the buzz is all about with these cars. The Outback is comfy and confident in the slop.
• When it's dry, you pay a price for the increased ride height and chunky tires. Still, sporty handling is not this car's forte unless you're competing in winter rallies.
• The navigation system is fiddly to use, the screen is now on the small side compared to the competition and it generally just isn't that good. It took a lot more active babysitting of the nav to get it to display useful information and get me to a destination when a clogged highway changed my route. The key to a successful arrival turned out to be 70 per cent my own wits and 30 per cent the navigation system's capabilities.
• The EyeSight system is mostly annoying. It's really sensitive and alerts at the slightest provocation. The first thing I did every time I got into the Outback was hold down the two overhead buttons to shut the EyeSight system up.
• The fuel economy I saw was better than you'll get out of a CUV or SUV with comparable space, though given the ride height and size, the Outback is practically a crossover anyway, so the solid mid-to-high 20 MPG's EPA (8-9 L/100km) I was able to squeeze from each gallon of fuel are mostly due to having a small engine and a transmission programmed to reach for the sky as fast as possible.