VW

For hump day this week, I figured we should stay on the subject of hybrid cars. Today, we're going jump across the big pond to Germany where those crafty engineers at Volkswagen have converted one of their SUV models into a hybrid. So I present this video that takes a look at the 2011 VW Touareg hybrid.

The roads of Florence, Italy, provide a gorgeous backdrop for the 2011 VW Touareg hybrid as it makes its way around city streets and the scenic countryside. As for the Touareg itself, Volkswagen has claimed to have made significant changes for the … Read more

As we've seen a little bit of this week, old school Volkswagen Rabbit owners can get creative in terms of maintaining their bunny cars. In today's video we observe a Rabbit owner who describes how he runs his bunny on vegetable oil. Really? Let's see...

The narrator walks us through the two-tank setup running in waste vegetable oil along with the diesel fuel that this VW Rabbit is designed to take. The narrator does an excellent job in describing step by step how the process works and all the car parts involved in making this process happen. … Read more

So far this week we've featured a few of the ways that Volkswagen Rabbit fanatics have upgraded this cult automobile. But let's suppose that you don't have the time, money or know-how to enhance your Rabbit...thankfully VW has already done (some of the) work for you in the form of the VW Rabbit Thunder Bunny. But you're probably not going to be able to locate a Thunder Bunny on your local VW sales floor, as unfortunately Volkswagen dropped the Rabbit name once again in favor of the Golf for the most recent model year.

While … Read more

So as we saw in Monday's video blog, there are some car owners who not only love their Volkswagen Rabbits, but also want to update and upgrade their European bunnies. Well here's another adventurous Rabbit owner who sought to give his cottontail a power boost under the hood and did so with a little help from some independent throttle bodies.

For those of you not familiar, a throttle body controls the air intake into the engine in correlation to the pressure put on the accelerator. And this VW Rabbit gets blessed with a few Suzuki GSXR 650 throttle … Read more

I'm sure many of you observed or enjoyed the Easter holiday weekend with your families, and that those of you with kids may have been paid a visit to your home or local park by the Easter Bunny. While your young ones are probably big fans of this holiday creature, there are quite a few car geeks out there who are big fans of another kind of bunny--one that has four wheels and no fuzzy cottontail. In case you need me to spell it out, I'm talking about the little ol' Volkswagen Rabbit--a vehicle that has been rechristened … Read more

Ferrari and Porsche do a couple of hot hybrids; we have to love VW's Polo GTI; and a pickup truck? Also, Abarth hots up some cool Fiats and we give a listen to the Lotus Evora hybrid--yes, a listen.

• Ferrari's 599 hybrid concept

• Lotus Evora 414E hybrid concept

• Nissan Juke

• Fiat Abarth 500 cabriolet

• Smart ForTwo iPhone app

I assume most people who are reading this watched the big game on Sunday, right? Then you probably saw the cute commercial during the second half that depicted "The Green Police" cracking down on people for using environmentally unsound products. But apparently the eco-cops approve of the 2010 Audi A3 TDI Diesel--after all, it was named Green Car of the Year by Green Car Journal. Earlier this week we got a chance to get the low down on what the A3 TDI clean diesel hybrid is all about. But we've yet to see what it's like … Read more

In continuation of my current video blog-post series concerning concept vehicles making their debuts a month ago at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, today I present a short but sweet video about Volkswagen's most recent foray into the e-car genre. And here it is, making its debut at the 2010 NAIAS is the VW New Compact Coupe concept as on display at the Cobo Arena in Detroit this last January.

The new Volkswagen NCC is reportedly a production-ready hybrid car that utilizes both traditional fuel energy as well as emerging electronic technology to propel this vehicle. … Read more