EchoBooming in Birmingham

Dr. Wife has been blessed with many things.

She’s beautiful, she’s incredibly brilliant, she’s one of the most driven people I’ve ever met, and she has awesome British teeth.

Ok, so noone is perfect, and you can’t do anything about the genes you’re born with, so she does what she can. She flosses regularly, she gets her teeth cleaned twice a year, she brushes… No, she brushes alot. In fact I have to tell her to stop brushing sometimes… Like when I’m watching TV, and I notice that there’s been two comercial breaks and she’s still brushing…

But sometimes no amount of prophilactics can stop the inevitable. About 7 years ago it started. If I remember correctly, she was in her first year of medical school and she had just recovered from a sinus infection. Then the tooth aches came. Well, it turns out she had one of her front teeth abscess. One root canal and one filling later, she was back in business.

This pattern of sinus infection, tooth abscess, root canal, filling continued at a frequency of about once per year over the next 3 years.

So for the last two years, she has planned on getting a “grill”. (well, it just recently became a dream for a new grill after some random rap video she saw where folks were waxing poetic about their bling bling grills) And when the time finally came when my employeer offered some decent dental coverage, we decided to go for it.

So Wednesday, the process began.
After Impression after impression, and hours of drilling and fitting, she came home with a temporary grill that’s got her all talking funny and what not… So now she’s got a set of odd fitting temps, a throbbing heavy mouth , and all sorts of instructions to follow like how to eat, what to do and not do, and how she needs to brush like 5 times a day (despite the fact that it hurts her to brush).

Dr. Wife’s comment last night while we’re watching TV:
I don’t ever want to brush my teeth again. Yeah, same person that I have to convince to stop brushing…

Big thanks to Bayou Self for the pic.

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That’s right, nothing was interesting..

Biggest Letdowns

Nissan displayed their new Sentra, but you would have thought that it was a GM product from 3 years ago. After the beautiful Z, Murano, G35, and M35/45 that they’ve rolled out over the last few years, I expected more from them. Especially after the aggressively styled Sport and AZEAL Concepts that they rolled out at the autoshows last year.

Subaru brought nothing to the table for this year’s NAIAS. I was hoping for an STi version of the Legacy or at least the availability of the 6sp Manual throughout more of it’s lineup (it’s currently only available in the WRX STI) but instead they just showed the same B5-TPH Turbo Paralell Hybrid concept they debuted at Tokyo…

Chevrolet rolled out the Camaro Concept, and that’s all it is… a concept. It will be 2009-2010 before this car sees a showroom floor, if it ever does. In addition to that letdown, the car itself is a letdown to me. Dodge nailed the Challenger, and the car that started the Muscle Car rebirth, the Ford Mustang, is selling like hotcakes. Chevy needs to go back to the drawing board.

A day of big letdowns in my opinion. I’ll start off with the highlights.

Biggest potential

Honda’s got a Turbo Engine. Yay!
It’s got AWD. Yay!
It’s a small SUV. ~eh~
It only comes in with an Auto. Boooooo!

The new mini ute from Acura is called the RDX. Sharing a platform with the Element and CRV, the RDX is sure to be a hot seller for Acura but the big news here is the engine.

The 2.4L Turbo puts out 240HP and 260lb/ft of torque (the only time I can remember a Honda engine having more torque than HP) and it’s a K series engine (the same basic engine block that is in many other Honda and Acura autos). The potential here is huge. If Honda can roll out a manual transmission to mate this engine to it’s SH-AWD system, it will pwn the sport compact and sport sedan segments. Even with out SH-AWD, this engine would rocket Honda into the lead of the sport compact HP wars (currently being won by the Dodge SRT-4 and the Chevrolet Cobalt SS Supercharged).
Honda, if you put this engine, SH-AWD, and a manual transmission in to the next TL, I’d be in heaven.

Biggest tiny car

Volvo is bringing a new entry level car to the US market in the form of the C30. It is built on the same platform as the S40 and V50, but it comes in 2 door form. In fact it is nearly an exact copy of the European Ford Focus (which also shares the platform along with the Mazda3).
It should bring a younger demographic to Volvo, along with more sales.
I’m not sure I follow Ford’s logic when it comes to refusing to bring the latest version of the Focus, and instead re-skining the old Focus for the North American market. One would think that a Ford version of the car would sell many more copies than a Volvo version (that will undoubtedly be more expensive).

Let downs to come later…

Biggest Props

Honda sweeped the North American Car and Truck of the Year Awards with their new Civic and Ridgeline, their debut into the light truck arena. The winners are chosen by 49 automotive journalists from the United States and Canada (which eliminates any potential influence that advertising dollars can bring). The Civic and Ridgeline beat out the Ford Fusion, Pontiac Solstice, Ford Explorer, and Nissan Xterra. This marks the first time in the awards history that a single manufacturer has takend both awards.

In my opinion, the value of the Civic (starting MSRP of $14,360) and the unique features of the Ridgeline (the locking trunk in the bed) edged out their competitors. Congrats Honda.

Biggest Mercedes Benz

7 pax, bigger than the lengthy R Class that was unveiled last year, and bigger than anything else in the DCX lineup (short of their commercial vehicles anyway); the new GL replaces the venerable G-wagon (the Boxy Jeep like military vehicle-come-big-ballin -dub-donner) as *the* offroad Benz (despite the fact that it’s built on the same Unit-body platform as the ML and R and in the same plant a mere 40 miles away from mi casa).
The trims are GL 500 with a 5.5-liter, 388-hp V-8, and the GL 450 with a 340-hp, 4.6-liter V-8 (why the number can’t match the displacement is a mystery to me) . Full-time all-wheel drive is standard.
I personally think this vehicle belongs in the same place as every HUMMER, crumpled up in a board room trash bin after it was shit-canned. Why anyone needs a vehicle this big is lost on me. The only “redeeming” factor about this vehicle is the fact that it will be offered with the 3.2L Turbo Diesel in the near future. That engine promises50 State emissions (even meeting the tougher 2008 Diesel standards) and 26MPG on the highway, un-heard of for an SUV of this size.

Other Notables from Day one

A new entry level car from Honda called the Fit. The Civic’s been growing in size, price, and even stature since the early 80’s so Honda’s bringing in a proven performer from the Japanese market (called the Jazz there) to Fit (how cute) under the Civic in it’s lineup.

Infinity showed off their “coupe concept” that’s undoubtedly the next G35 (G45?). The casual observer would probably not be able to tell this concept from the current G35, but in my opinion, that’s not a bad thing. The G35 coupe is sex on wheels, it’s hard to improve on perfection.

Mazda took the wraps off of its entry into the sea of new “crossovers” called the CX-7. This platform will be shared with Ford (and probably Lincoln and Mercury) so I guess the only real item of note here is the 2.3L Direct Injection Turbo engine (detuned to 240HP from the 280HP this same engine has in the Mazdaspeed 6) and available AWD.
It seems that the Subaru Forester XT (235HP/235lbft) started a bit of a mini-SUV horsepower battle back in 2004, and after 2 years of being un-contested, is facing fierce competition from this new Mazda and the new Toyota RAV4 which will be offered with a 260HP V6.