RideLust

An Edison Ford Escape plug-in hybrid.

Monday kicks off EcoLust week here at RideLust where we’ll be exploring the exciting, “lustable” side of environmentally friendly automotive technology and no – this is not a joke or a paid corporate spot. To kick things off, part-time RideLust correspondent and full-time hippie Alex Kiersten provides coverage of his exclusive behind-the-infrastructure tour of Southern California Edison, a utility company at the forefront of EV technology.

Electric vehicles, whether all-battery or plug-in-hybrid, are coming, and automakers and utilities are scrambling to make sure that the infrastructure is there to greet them when they land. Want to get a Chevy Volt? Where are you going to plug it in, and how will it affect your electric bill? One utility company, Southern California Edison, is on the cutting edge of EV infrastructure technology, having been in the game since importing some “Griffon” electric vans in 1987 for testing. President Obama recently toured the facility to see what was up, and so perhaps it’s no surprise that Edison invited Ridelust (always interested in the world of green car tech) to tour their Electric Vehicle Testing Facility in Pomona to show us what their vision for an EV-friendly world would look like.

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What’s there to say? Make the jump to view a video of the next-generation of BMW’s legendary M5 sedans careening through the Nurburgring Nordschelife. Of course, you’ll need to crank your speakers in order to fully appreciate the new Beemer’s V8 as it sucks air through twin-turbochargers, a radical departure from the current model’s V10. Anyways, I’ll shut up and let you just click through to watch the vid.

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More grist for the mill in the ongoing debate about the aftereffects of Cash for Clunkers and the current recession: Kelley Blue Book reports that small car sales unexpectedly rose in September, after tumbling precipitously when gas prices stabilized. This is despite the fact that the Cash for Clunkers program ended on August 24th, and that overall sales of new cars have been down after the program. This also contradicts a recent survey among new car buyers that suggested that large numbers of the C4C buyers who purchased small cars were unsatisfied with their purchase and would buy a larger car next time.

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If you haven’t had a chance to see the hundreds of youtube videos of bored Middle Eastern dudes with too much money to spend doing insane stunts on sandy roads, then perhaps this wild custom motorcycle commissioned by the Abu Dhabi Police Department and built by Paul Teutul Sr. of Orange County Choppers fame won’t make much sense. To be frank, even if you have, it might not. Car culture and conspicuous consumption have been exploding in the oil-rich Gulf nations, and the Abu Dhabi “Barbican Turbo” car show is a sign of the times.

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Infiniti must be really excited about the new M, as they spent a lot of money developing an admittedly pretty cool virtual reveal, and now they’ve dropped the development dollars on creating the first-ever Infiniti hybrid car to spice up their mid-sized BMW 5-series fighter. The regular M goes on sale in spring of 2010, and this hybrid version should come out about a year later. Under the hood you can expect to find a version of that ubiquitous Nissan VQ 6-cylinder, coupled to a parallel hybrid system and putting power down through the rear wheels. The hybrid drive is an in-house design, so apparently they wiped the slate clean after borrowing Toyota technology for the Altima hybrid, and consists of a single electric motor paired with a twin clutch system (no, not a DSG unfortunately, the clutches simply mesh the gasoline and electric motors to the transmission). However, the new arrangement is allegedly smoother than the sometimes jerky gas-to-electric transition in other hybrids.

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Polyphony Digital may be driving me crazy by pushing back the GT5 launch date so many times, but then they go and do something like this. Apparently way before the concept was revealed to the public, the Gran Turismo modeling folks got to digitize the FT-86 concept, and put it in the game. How they were able to sit on their secret knowledge for so long is admirable, although it’s likely that Toyota would have sued them six ways from Sunday had any of the programmers let slip what they’d seen. Luckily for you, in the video after the jump, you’ll see pretty much the whole car from every angle, with no lawsuit potential! As a bonus, it drifts with an old AE86 for a bit. Anyways, click through for the video.

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The new European Ford Focus has long been the envy of any Blue Oval fan worth his or her salt, and there’s news out of Essex that is liable to make Stateside Ford nuts curse their luck again. At a British MPG competition, the apparently stock Focus RS was manned by an automotive journalist, and returned fuel economy numbers that are rather astonishing. The 163 MPH capable Ford Focus RS, that nimble hot hatch that is nothing like our ancient creaky joke of a car, can return a remarkable 38.5 miles per imperial gallon if you lay off the fun pedal. That’s 31.6 MPG in our smaller American gallons, but it’s still nothing to shake a crumpet at. Press release and more after the jump.

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It was only a matter of time before the huge performance potential of the Hyundai Genesis Coupe was tapped by an eager aftermarket. GReddy, the Irvine-based tuner, is releasing a bunch of Hyundai approved parts for the rear-drive sportscar, and they’ll debut on the “GReddy X-Gen Street Genesis Coupe” demonstration car at SEMA this year. The showcar, and most of the mods, focus on the 2.0L turbo model, and they’re aiming to extract 350 HP and 320 ft-lbs. of torque from the Stage 1 tune that’ll show up at the show. Later modifications should push the little coupe up beyond 500 HP. Press release and more details after the jump.

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Ever wondered how fast a hearse, with a casket and body inside, would run the quarter mile? If you were watching Jerome Miller’s funeral procession, you’d have the answer. Miller was an avid, possibly fanatic drag racing fan from Kenosha, Wisconsin, who came up street dragging and ended up running an AMC dragger until around 1993, when his eyesight wouldn’t allow it anymore.

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Comrades, if you think the Jeep started the SUV craze, you’re wrong. It was in fact the glorious people’s GAZ M-72. While the Jeep was indeed a popular 4WD vehicle, it wasn’t until the Grand Wagoneer came around in 1963 that the United States fully embraced the full-on SUV bodystyle. But in this particular arms race, we were behind the Ruskies, who’d created this trucklet behind the iron curtain by stripping down a GAZ “Pobeda” (“Victory”) car shell, and grafting it onto a GAZ-69 military 4WD truck chassis.

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