Auto News 5

Chopping the top off a car isn't as easy as it sounds, especially when the fixed roof is replaced with a folding one of the steel variety - the panels and system of motors and hinges add significant weight. Worse, in order to get the whole mess to fit in the trunk, a folding hard top often requires a bubbly, arching roofline and an ungainly, long rear deck. If you've had the displeasure of studying a Volkswagen Eos, you know what we're talking about.

Indy 500 parade queens, fluttering balloons, fried-chicken feasts, and shrieking engines are so indelibly embedded in the American psyche that it's difficult to visualize the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as anything but today's steel, concrete, and asphalt temple of speed. But, like other inventions that evolved into institutions, this one began as a zany idea.

Sometime around the age of twelve, I convinced my parents to get me a minibike. Upon getting it home, I climbed aboard and immediately gunned it, slewing out of control toward the house, which I narrowly avoided before ditching in the leeching field. A year or two later, a friend let me ride his dad's three-wheeler, which I promptly sent crashing into some trees. (I was unscathed, having had the good sense to bail out while I was still on the lawn.) Thinking that perhaps four wheels would bring me some salvation, I got myself a Kawasaki Mojave ATV. We don't really need to elaborate on what happened with that, because I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is on getting grounded by your parents. Let's just say that when you've got fractured ribs, it's hard to act as if you don't.

It only stood to reason that the news media, after spending years erroneously explaining how our major corporations were doing a fantastic job, would fail to predict their own collapse, along with the meltdown of the American economy. And on the way to misperceiving the rest of the world's subsequent economic decline, we ought not be surprised that the smug business publications and cable TV screamers have also fumbled the facts underpinning the American auto industry's ongoing brush with extinction.

When I first got into the Audi A6 3.0T, I thought that something had gone wrong with the MMI, because when I pressed the nav button, the system told me navigation wasn't installed. I thought this was a software glitch, as I've never seen an MMI-equipped Audi without navigation, but a little research revealed the Q7 and the A6 come with a full MMI system but no navigation. Bummer. I know I'd be upset seeing that nav button and not having the $1800 option.