WIN: Bees Hate Chargers Too!

My head is swarmed packed with puns and cheesy jokes right now.

Apparently in Wake County, North Carolina, a truck carrying bee hives broke down on the side of the highway. A passing police officer stopped to offer assistance and called a tow truck. The officer decided to wait with the broken down transport truck until the tow truck arrived as it was very early in the morning before sunrise. Turns out that was a bad idea because by the time the tow truck came by the sun had risen which meant it was a fresh new day for the bees.

They they came out of their hives and started swarming the officer and transport truck driver! But luckily the bees rightfully hate Dodge Chargers so much that they then turned their attention to the officer’s Charger police cruiser! Oh the hilarity! And actually the officer sought refuge in his police car, but ended up being trapped there due to the amount of bees.

Bee keepers from the University of Carolina were then called in to take care of the bees’ apparent love/hate for the Dodge Charger. When enough were taken off the car, the policeman was able to drive away.

Autoblog has a caption contest going for this story. How about:

“Sting operation backfires”

“Dodge Charger charged with swarmings”

“Officer regrets honey dip donut choice from Tim Horton’s”

“Winnie the Pooh arrested for stealing honey, bees react strongly”

“Flower has bees arrested for sexual assault, bees insist pollination”

“Choice of Dodge Charger for police force has everyone buzzing”

I could go on… unfortunately.

[Autoblog]

Test Drive: 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan SE

By Kevin Harrison

Alright everyone, it’s time to get over yourselves. Why? Because you know damned well that SUV in your driveway isn’t quite adequate enough to haul people or stuff, yet you try to get away with it because you say minivans aren’t cool.

Well, you’re right. They aren’t.

But know what’s even less cool? Buying a car for image rather than practicality. If your SUV hasn’t spend an ounce of time off-road, then you are just as image driven as Heidi Montag.

Because of people like you, the minivan population is actually starting to decline. Ford’s once popular Windstar turned Freestar no longer exists, Nissan has halted production of the Quest due to slow sales and Hyundai has scrapped the Entourage after only two years on the market!

But there’s one minivan that has survived the tide, despite the wave of foolish resistance from the public. That’s right, the vehicle that started the whole minivan craze back in the 80′s is still the number one selling van in North America.

Does it deserve such an accolade?

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Oh Hi: 2011 Dodge Charger

Really? That’s it?

Way back since the inception of this blog we saw spy shots of the 2011 wearing a full camouflage suit. It wasn’t terribly interesting but it gave the impression that a fairly substantial redesign was in the works.

Well some fool over at Dodge left the front end of the 2011 Charger completely uncovered for prying eyes to see and it looks as though there isn’t much going on besides an evolutionary face lift. Yawn..  Then again leaving the Charger unmasked could be something done on purpose in order to hype up the car. It’s going to need all the help it can get.

We see that the new Charger is going to have a more douchy looking angrier face with more angular headlamp clusters while the grille has been redesigned to look taller and come with real fake chrome. Since Charger owners only care about raw power and nothing else (such as styling, handling, quality, fuel consumption etc) you can be assured that the new Charger will have plenty of power and that the HEMI engine will stick around.

God, I can’t wait until Fiat/Alfa Romeo gives Chrysler back its credibility.

Mustang Beats Camaro In Sales For May

Ford is again doing quite well in sales thanks to some credible product offerings, one of which is the all new Mustang.

Even though the Camaro has a loyal following in pop culture, that hasn’t swayed people in the muscle car market. In the States last month the Stang sold 10, 225 units while Chevy was able to move 8,931 Camaros. I won’t even bother mentioning how Dodge did with the Challenger. Let’s just say it isn’t posing much of a challenge. Heh.

Ford has been winning many of the unavoidable comparison tests between the two pony cars, but Chevy hopes new revamped engines for 2011 will help it gain some ground.

Which would you choose?

[Autoblog Photo Credit: EGM Cartech]

Volkswagen Golf Best Selling Car in Canada for February

Watch out Honda, zee Germans are coming!

The Civic has been the best selling car in Canada for over a decade – they even have a television commerical boasting about the Civic’s longstanding success.

But that commerical may turn out to be a bit embarrassing now that VW’s Golf took top selling honours for the month of February for the first time ever.

Apparently we have all but forgotten about high gas prices because the Dodge Ram, Chevy Silverado and Ford F-150 were also among the top sellers last month.

Oh Hi: 2012 Ford Police Interceptor

Get used to that face, because you will now have to be on the lookout for Tauruses hiding behind bends and bushes waiting to nab you with their radar gun.

As expected, the Taurus will take over patrolling duties from the Crown Victoria, which can now fully enjoy its retirement. Ford officially stopped selling Crown Vic’s to the public, but continued on producing them for various police forces across the continent.

There are no specific details out yet, but there’s a good chance that a tuned version of the Taurus SHO could make its way under the hood. Ecoboost technology would likely be included as well.

Dodge has been producing interceptor versions of the Charger for a while now, and GM hopes to get a piece of the pie when it introduces a Chevrolet Caprice interceptor in the very near future. The Caprice will essentially be a Pontiac G8 badged as a Chevy, and there are no plans to sell it to the public.

Who knew there was such stiff competition to be the unofficial supplier to the police? To all the police officers that frequent Car Driven, what would be your interceptor of choice? Charger, Caprice or Taurus?

A few more pics after the jump.

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Canadian Black Book Announces Best Retained Value Winners

If you want to get the most back from your car when selling it after four years, Canadian Black book has made it a bit easier for you to decide what to buy in the first place.

They have compiled a list of cars that best retain their value from MSRP four years later into 17 categories.

Find out who got the honours after the jump.

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This is More Like It, Chrysler

Instead of pushing pink Challengers, this is the type of product you should be investing your time in if you really want to get your brand out of the gutter.

The adorable little Fiat 500 is reported to be coming to Canadian shores at the end of this year as a 2011 model, though it could be badged as a Chrysler, or more likely as a Dodge. That’s okay though, whatever it takes to get it here.

This car is immensely popular in Europe as it is fun to drive, cheap to own and buy and great on gas. With Ford’s Fiesta, the Mazda2 and King of the Hill Honda Fit, Chrysler is going to need a product like the 500 to truly be competitive in one of the fastest growing segments in our market.

It’s unlikely that the Abarth version (pictured above) will make it to our shores, sadly enough. But again, we’ll take whatever iteration of the 500 we can get at this point.

Hit the jump to watch the 500 Abarth SS review by our idol Jeremy Clarkson

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Chrysler Keeps Suppling Us With New Material…

As if we needed more reasons to make fun of the brand, Chrysler has introduced this new limited edition (thank God) colour for the Challenger.

Keeping with the overall retro theme of the Challenger, it is meant to pay homage to the 1970-1971 Challenger when a similar colour called ‘Panther Pink’ was a colour option. We’re guessing the reason why it was only offered for two years back then was because  nobody bought it.

This new colour is going to be called ‘Furious Fuchsia’, and we hard a hard time typing that with a straight face. However an awful name for an awful colour does at least make some sense.

Don’t call it pink though. Despite its homage to the ‘Panther Pink’ version, Chrysler is quick to point out it’s not pink. It’s kind of like how Ross from Friends would refer to his obviously pink shirt as salmon coloured.

Fiat, it’s really time to start calling the shots for your new brand because otherwise they’ll just keep on coming up with stuff like this. Until then, keep the unintentional jokes coming, Chrysler.

Spy Shots: 2011 Dodge Charger

If you go to canadatrader.com you can find many 2008-2009 Dodge Chargers for sale for $15,000. If you’ve ever driven a Charger, you know why – they’re not exactly good looking, the transmission isn’t responsive, the interior is laughably bad, the handling is dreadful as is fuel consumption.

For those of you that actually care about the Charger, here are a few spy shots of the 2011 version where Chrysler’s new V6 is expected to find its way under the hood along with a more sloping roofline, changes to the rear and front facia and an updated interior.

After the jump are two more pics for you if the first pic somehow didn’t induce a yawn…

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