FAIL: BMW X5′s Aren’t Meant to Barrel Roll

I never watched the Dukes of Hazzard, despite them having a car with a somehow sweet name on the show (the General Lee). However I know enough about the show to know that the General Lee was asked time and time again to perform spectacular stunts, not least of which is the barrel roll.

Now, the Dukes of Hazzard undoubtedly have a huge following and I’m not sure if the show ever had any “don’t try this at home” warnings, but it I’m guessing with the type of people that watched the show, a warning wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Case in point, an owner of a BMW X5 decided to try the classic barrel roll stunt. I’m not sure how much the General Lee weighed, but it was surely less than the over five tonne X5. Plus, I’m sure each stunt required quite an intricate set up. These facts of common sense obviously escaped the X5 owner. The lack of reaction from the people recording the stunt would seem to indicate that they saw this coming too.

Watch his unfortunate results in the video above.

[Youtube]

Oops! Next Gen BMW M5 Gets By With a Little Help From Its Friend

Being the successor to any generation BMW M5 is a tall order. Each variation has been been bigger and better and the next generation M5 is no exception.

There are few details coming out about the next gen M5 other than it is expected to retain the big German V8 found in the X5 M and X6 M with little or no tweaking to the engine. As a result 555 horsepower will be the order of the day. Nothing to sneeze at. That’s 55 horses more than the outgoing model.

As you’d expect, the next generation M5 is going to be faster than the outgoing model as well. Most manufacturers tend to use the infamous Nurburgring as their base for a vehicle’s performance and the next gen M5 was caught doing a few laps. Unfortunately, the next gen M5 isn’t quite ready for any photo ops yet as maxing it out on the ‘Ring recently proved to be too much to ask. It actually broke down on the ‘Ring and had to be towed by a family member back to base to nurse it back to health. The previous generation X5 was happy to help, but embarrassingly enough, the whole mishap was caught by sneaky photographers.

Clearly the next generation M5 isn’t ready for production, but when it is, you can be sure that it will set yet another benchmark in the sport sedan world.

Sidebar, those rims on the M5 are absolutely sick!

[Autoblog]

Test Drive: 2010 Volkswagen Touareg TDI

By Kevin Harrison

A few days ago, I was on my way to Halifax from Dartmouth via Metro Transit’s superb bus services. It was around lunch time and I expected it to be quite busy. It was. However I was able to get myself a seat near the front of the bus which is typically reserved for the elderly, people who are disabled or have  young children. At one point a woman got on the bus and sat down next to me. This annoyed me because at no point during her time on the bus did she do anything remotely surprising. I had her ‘type’ pinned down as soon as the bus pulled up. She was clearly a crazy woman. Now, normally I don’t tend to judge books by their covers, but there seems to be a law in the universe that anyone that is remotely ‘loony tunes’ will interact with me, no matter what the circumstances.

I knew that this woman would choose to sit next to me rather than take the empty seats across from me. I knew that she would hit me in the face a few times with her bags as she attempted to sit down. I knew that she would ask me to hold her travel mug while she composed herself, then once settled in, act like the mug wasn’t hers. I knew that she would spend the majority of the trip talking to me about her dog “Jack” who may or may not exist. Seriously, the way she spoke about him made me question whether he was all in her head. It was at this point when I had started to pray that an elderly woman would get on the bus so I could give up my seat and get a break from hearing about how she once met a man with the same name as Tom Cruise, but wasn’t Tom Cruise, yet she still asked for his autograph anyway.

Sometimes you can nail down the personality of a car before driving it too, which is also irritating. For instance before you get into a Toyota Corolla (it does not matter what year) you know you will be in for a rather boring ride, but at least nothing will go wrong the gas pedal you’ll be able to save some gas. Before you get behind the wheel of a Ferrari 599 you know you’ll be in for one of the most thrilling adrenaline inducing rides of your life, but only if you can get it started first without jumper cables.

I thought I had the Touareg nailed down too. Turns out, I didn’t.

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