The LaCrosse is yet another midsize front-drive sedan, and like virtually every other sedan in the Buick lineup, the standard powerplant will be GM's ancient-but-pretty-good 3800 3.8L V-6. In this case the Series III 3800 makes 200 hp. More intriguing is the new 3.6L, DOHC, 24-valve V-6 that will power up-market versions of the LaCrosse. An all-aluminum engine with a 60-degree angle between cylinder banks, the 3.6 is a version of the engine used in the rear-drive Cadillac CTS and features variable valve timing and is rated at 240 hp with a thick well of torque between idle and redline. Both engines will feed the 4T65-E four-speed automatic transaxle.
With a MacPherson strut front and an independent system in the rear, there's nothing startling about the LaCrosse's suspension and nothing groundbreaking in its unibody structure. The real question is whether GM has sweat the details on this car so thoroughly that it can bring in buyers who would otherwise be shopping at Acura, Infiniti, Volvo, and Lexus stores.
Mopar History Online[Photos 116-0604.SCUP 6 on disc.]If Mopar guys are 11/4100th as obsessive about the Internet as they are about their cars, they'll spend weeks on www.chryslerheritage.com.
This is the official Web site of the Walter P. Chrysler Museum that is located on the grounds of Chrysler's massive facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It's one of the best car museums on the planet, with an exhaustive collection of cars and artifacts tracing the history of everything Chrysler, Plymouth, and Dodge. The Web site is hardly a comprehensive catalog of the collection, but it's a good enough peek to change your summer travel plans.
The cars on display in the online tour of the collection include everything from a Rambler Model C Runabout from 1902 to a '96 Dodge Stratus road racer. But the heart of Mopar fanaticism remains the musclecars, and included here are such tasty pieces as a '70 Dodge Challenger T/A, a '68 AMC AMX, and the legendary '64 "Color Me Gone" lightweight drag racer.
With any luck this Web site will grow into a more comprehensive resource with more in-depth and useful tools for the Mopar maniac. Still, this is a good start.
Book ReviewHow to Customize Damn Near Anything[Photos 116-0604.SCUP 8 on disc.]When Monster Garage first showed up on the Discovery Channel, it was an interesting diversion; a good way to kill an hour watching a bunch of guys weld some hapless car into a weird contraption. By about episode 5, the novelty was wearing off. By episode 20 it was a surprise the show was still on. Now they're up to like episode 6,000, and this paperback volume has been issued as a companion to the show.
But this book really has very little to do with Monster Garage. It's not written by anyone involved with the show, and there's very little about the projects seen on the show. There's also no participation in this book from Jesse James of West Coast Choppers, the motorcycle-builder around whom the show is (for little apparent reason) built. Instead this book is basically a collection of tech articles-very basic tech articles-about fabrication, engine-building, and painting techniques. The articles are OK as far as they go, but frankly you're better off with a subscription to this magazine if you're interested in pounding on cars. And a year's sub to Car Craft is a bunch cheaper than this book's $19.95 cover price.
In its defense, this might be a good gift for someone who wants to know about modifying cars but hasn't yet seen a car in real life. Plus, as this is written, Amazon.com is selling the book for just $13.97.