Obi's Top Tips: Keeping Your Car Clean

My Range Rover Sport

We all have our 1st class wheels that we take care of, like my Range Rover, or someone's BMW, or another person's Lexus. We all like driving them to and from the store or work. We love them so much, we give them names like Oliver, Pete, or even Broadway. There's no limit to the love you have for your car. Also, there's no limit to the amount of dirt your pride & joy can obtain in a couple of days, or is there? Say you're one of the high-end business types and drive your jet black Ferrari F430 to and from work in Short Hills, New Jersey. If you do this for a week, your car will achieve a reasonable amount of dirt and it won't look as cool as it did when you washed it. I know. I've been there myself. After a few days of driving my all-black Range Rover, it will start to get dirty, and it won't look as dashing as it did when I bought it. Maybe buying a black one was a mistake but, nevertheless. Here are some tips on keeping your car clean. First, time your car wash days. This is especially crucial. Say for instance you keep your car in the garage. Then all of a sudden, it snows 8 inches overnight. If this is your only car, you will have to drive it in the morning with all the snow on the ground. Eventually, once most of the snow has melted, your car will end up dirty and messy like the ground you're driving on. Here's a tip: wash your car after all the snow has melted. If you wash it before, there will still be snow on the ground and you will have to drive on it causing your car to be dirty again which also removes more money from your wallet. If you wash it after, the road's will be dry and the cleanliness of your car will last much longer saving you money. Second, choose a good car wash. There are some car washes out there that will do a horrible job washing your car and charge you more for doing so. That's a terrible car wash. You'll need to find a car wash with friendly staff, good washing machinery, and people who know how to take care of your car. This can be quite a find, but you'll see one eventually. Third, always keep a second car. I know that we are currently in an economic crisis and we need all the money we can get, but if you have the money, it's always good to have a second car in your driveway. I'd prefer you get one sedan or coupe and one SUV or truck. That way, you can take your truck to work on a snowday, get it dirty, and keep using it 'til the snow has melted. Once all the snow has melted, you can leave it in your driveway and bring your sedan or coupe out and not pay a dime for a car wash. There is on prerequisite to this though. You have to have a car cover or a big enough garage for your sedan so you can keep it in there during the snow while you take the SUV or Truck to work. These are just some out of many tips when dealing with keeping your car clean. I'll have more in the mere future.

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Ferrari Body Shop

2011 Ferrari 599 GTO Matte

This rather stunning Ferrari 599 GTO was one of the only Red Matte Ferraris ever made, and a rich guy in Dubai has taken ownership of it. However, now you can have your 599 GTO look just like it. A body shop in Modena, Italy known as Carrozzeria Zanasi is now pro-owned by Ferrari. If you ever want your Ferrari customized or fixed with special licensed body paint, rims, or trims, don't take it to some regular body shop, because they'll ruin it. Instead, have it shipped to Carrozzeria Zanasi and they'll take perfect care of it. It all started back in 1964 when Ferrari founder, Enzo Ferrari, was looking to repair his damaged cars. He stumbled upon Umberto Zanasi, the founder of the shop, he did work on his cars, and finally, they were in business. Ferrari's still been using them to this day and they've been perfecting them ever since. See how they do it below in this video.



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Buick Softy

2012 Buick Regal GS

Buick has sprung back to life with an all new style of luxury and design. The LaCrosse for instance is a very good looking luxury car with the technology similar to that of a Mercedes C-Class. The all new Regal looks much better than what it did before and is much more powerful. Now, Buick is on its way to making sports sedans, starting with this all new Buick Regal GS. It looks pretty cool with its chrome Y-Spoke rims and sporty bodykit, but look under the hood, and you'll be disappointed. You see under the hood is a 2.0-liter Turbocharged 255 horsepower 4-cylinder engine connected a 6-speed automatic or manual transmission. Now to some of you, that may sound good. However, to most of you, this isn't good, and here's why.

2012 Vauxhall Insignia VXR

This is the British equivalent, the Vauxhall Insignia VXR. It looks like the Regal GS, right? However, under the hood, it's totally different. The Regal GS had a 2.0-liter Turbo-4 engine. This has a 2.8-liter 321 horsepower Turbocharged V6 engine. This car has all-wheel drive to keep everything balanced. The Regal GS still has front-wheel drive. I don't know about you, but this makes the Regal GS look like a big softy. If you're going to make an American Spec of a European car, at least keep all the power and drivetrain the same. I guess Buick did this to attract old people. Who knows? Anyway, the GS performance brand doesn't have enough umph to be good, but luckily there is a car in the works that just might save it.

2012 Buick LaCrosse GS Prototype (Courtesy of AutoBlog & Chris Doane/Brenda Priddy & Company)

What this is is a prototype of what could be the next GS sedan in Buick, taking the body form of the super-cool LaCrosse. It has the same sporty rims the Insignia VXR has so it might mean that there's a pretty mean engine under the bonnet. We'll have to wait and see what Buick does next with this car.

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King Camaro

2011 Chevy Camaro SS

What you thought was just an observation has finally become a reality: the all-new Camaro has become top Pony Car outselling the new 2011 Mustang. When the Camaro was first produced in the 1960's, it only made half as much of the sales the Mustang was making. The Mustang made about half a million sales in its first four years. The Camaro couldn't even reach that. The Mustang went on to star in movies like Bullet, Starsky & Hutch, Milk, and the re-boot of Knight Rider. The Camaro got one role in Love Joy, and I forgot what it was. Now, if you see a Camaro, you might think it looks similar to the one driven by a man by the name of Sam Whitwicky that can turn into a robot and destroy helicopters with its blasters. Transformers really did it for this car. It helped the Camaro achieve worldwide fame. Not to mention it looks much cooler, handles much better, and is one of the cheapest cars you can get on the market. In 2010, Chevy sold 81,371 Camaros in the U.S. alone. Ford only sold 73,716 Mustangs. That's a margin of 7,655. Well done, Chevy!

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Passing With Flying Colors

Michael Schumacher racing in the Mercedes MGP W01

In F1, it's not only about having a very fast car. It's also about being safe in it. Take for instance Ayrton Senna, one of the best drivers in the Formula One league who raced for Williams. He was a fantastic racer, but a catastrophic accident not only smashed his car, but ended his life as well. It was then that the FIA had to take precautions in safety with racing. Now, cars must be tested for faults and crashes. There have been some teams that have failed the tests, but some teams that went on to pass, with flying colors. The Mercedes-Benz GP Petronas Team was one of them. So what they've done was created a racing ma chine that has a lot of power (over 870 horsepower), is unbelievably lightweight (less than 700 kg), is extremely fast (almost 230 MPH), and is safe at the same. According to recent reports, when testing the F1 car for crashes, it passed with flying colors. This happened to be the second F1 team to pass the FIA crash tests. Can you guess what the first team was? If you said Ferrari, then you're correct.

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Top 100, Again!

Not only is my site one of the top 100 car blogs on technorati, it's also one of the top 100 motorsports blogs on technorati as well. I'm astonished because I don't really focus on motorsports as well as I think I do. But, anyway it is a pleasure to be noticed by technorati and the many motorsports fans that read my blog. I guess I'll do more of that as I move along. Thanks!

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Second Loss of the Year

2011 Mercedes ML63 AMG

I am also sad to report that Mercedes-Benz has killed off the ML63, their most powerful SUV in their catalog. It's 6.2-liter Naturally Aspirated V8 engine produced a catastrophic 518 horsepower. 0 to 60 was done in 4.5 seconds and without the limiter, it could hit 180 MPH. It was pretty fast for a very tall and bulgy SUV. Unfortunately, Mercedes is ending its production in order to increase sales among the less powerful diesel and petrol engines. So now, the most powerful engine you can get is the 5.5-liter 382 horsepower V8 that you'll get on the ML550 or ML500 if you live in Europe. So, as they say in Germany, Auf Wiedersehen ML63 AMG. We will meet again another day; and I'm not kidding. Mercedes-Benz is also doing this to make room for the all new 2012 ML-Class, which is said to be revealed at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show this March. Who knows? An all new Twin-Turbocharged ML63 could be on the uprise.

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