When people talk about the rekindling of the muscle car wars, they usually discuss horsepower, handling, torque -- all those good things. But to my mind, there's another, less cut-and-dried way to measure who's currently reigning supreme: the car's place in pop culture.

I bring this up because it's being reported that the Ford Mustang will play a major role in the network remake of the island-cop drama "Hawaii Five-O," and it seems to me that the 'Stang has got to be the most ubiquitous of the big three muscles, right? I mean, the Chevy Camaro obviously scored a major pop-culture coup with its none-too-subtle tie-in to the "Transformers" franchise (a coup in terms of exposure, not the quality of the movies in question), but where else does it pop up in the film, television or music universe? Likewise the Dodge Challenger -- sure, a classic version was featured in the original "Gone in Sixty Seconds," and I'm pretty sure Vic Mackie drove a purple one in the latter seasons of FX's cop drama "The Shield" (or was that a Charger?).

 

Automakers, with a push from advocates for the blind, have agreed to a proposal that would create artificial sounds for what are now near-silent electric vehicles. The increased audio would alert blind -- and, for that matter, sighted -- pedestrians as to the vehicle's whereabouts.

According to the proposal, federal auto-safety regulators would design a minimum sound rule for EVs over the next 18 months. The automatic sound would have to activate automatically, and the standards would be phased in by regulators and automakers over three years. 

The electric-vehicle revolution is upon us--or at least, that's what manufacturers such as Mitsubishi would like us to believe.

We've had plenty of exposure to EVs, including several short drives in Mitsubishi's first mass-production zero-emissions car, the i-MiEV. But none of those drives gave us a chance to live with an EV in the real world, to see how it really performs when subjected to the stresses of everyday use.

For our test, we borrowed an i-MiEV in Tokyo, using it day and night for a week as we would any other car in an urban setting. Initial skepticism faded within minutes after we silently rolled out of Mitsubishi's headquarters and onto the streets of Tokyo. There is something quite satisfying about zooming through traffic in a little city car like the i-MiEV. The responsive and eerily quiet 63-hp electric motor puts a smile on your face every time you tap into that instant 133 lb-ft of torque, making it feel far faster than its gasoline-powered equivalent. With 88 lithium-ion batteries tucked away under the floor, the little i-MiEV also offers a confidence-inspiring low center of gravity.

 

I met Scott Forrest at a friend's party here in Los Angeles, and we got to talking cars. Turns out, Forrest loves cars -- almost as much as he loves getting a great deal. He's combined those two passions into a company, UnderBlueBook, that specializes in helping people get the best possible deal on any car, new or used.

Since Forrest has made it his mission to understand the car sales industry from the inside out -- who's allowed to buy what inventory, what the banks actually do with lease returns, how to get the lowest price for anything from tires to transmissions -- we asked him to lay down some professional knowledge on how best to navigate the car-buying process and walk away with a better deal than you thought possible.

 

After 234 complaints and two crashes -- neither fatal nor involving any injuries -- due to alleged rear axle breaks on 1999 through 2003 model year Ford Windstar minivans, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has begun a preliminary investigation. This is the first of three steps toward issuing a mandatory recall. 

Given that both of the crashes and many of the complaints occurred in the so-called Salt Belt states, an early theory is that the Windstar's rear axle structure, an inverted U-shaped piece of metal, collects road salt and deteriorates over time. 

Whether Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda learned his lesson about speaking from his heart after the unintended-acceleration fiasco and subsequent fallout (you'll remember that Toyoda was conspicuously silent during the early stages of the drama) or whether it's a calculated public-relations move, one thing is for sure: The guy has been speaking in plain, sometimes brutally honest language often since then.

Case in point: this interview with Automotive News, from the Nurburgring in Germany, where Toyoda was on hand to cheer on the Lexus LFA supercar. Not only did he reiterate that the company's quality problems are not a recent phenomenon -- he traced early issues to the global expansion that brought sales up to 6 million vehicles per year all the way back in 2003 -- but he even acknowledged that stalwart models such as the Camry are getting dated and that the company is feeling competitive pressure from the likes of Ford (he specifically mentioned the Taurus), GM and Hyundai. 

What's it like to drive the 2011 Ford Mustang GT500? Watch this video and get a taste of it.

Ford's Special Vehicle Team engineers recently put this new Pony Car though its paces at Virginia International Raceway. In this video, you get to sit in the cockpit as one tester flogs the car. Cool right?

The driver hits better than 140 mph, and there's plenty of engine, road and brake noise to arouse your senses.

It's three minutes and 15 seconds of your life worth spending on something very ‘Stang.

 

An "Exhaust Notes" follower just sent us this picture of -- well, it's hard to describe. At first, this machine looks like a cross between a drag racer and a chopper after a visit to Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. Then, we saw this cool (albeit very strange) video of the thing in action, and we just had to post something on it. I mean, just listen to that thing roar. That's what happens when you have two double pumpers just dumping fuel into an engine that puts out an insane 1,000 horsepower.

Did we mention the whole thing, called the Frogman Rocket II, was created by the same team that executed Jay Leno's Tank Car? You can sort of see the resemblance.

Just a quick note on the video: It's, uh, sort of weird. A lot of lingering shots of owner Tim Cotterill burning up pavement and shattering eardrums in Southern California (or an area that looks just like it). There's a whole subplot -- if one could say the short has anything resembling a "plot" -- with a hitchhiker, who then disappears ... ahh, forget it. Just watch and listen to a truly unique machine doing what it does best: going fast and turning heads. Enjoy after the jump.