Transformers the Movie (live action, not the classic cartoon movie) is just around the corner. Although I know that they have completely bastardized the series by changing several key elements, I’m still very excited. Maybe not “300″ excited, but at least “Spider-Man 3″ excited. We’ve been taunted by teaser trailers, presented with spy pics from the set, and teased for our undying love of transforming robot-car things. After all of that, they’ve finally got the cast, so to speak, together for a group shot. In the above picture, you see the following:

• Optimus Prime, depicted as an 18-wheeling big rig
• Ironhide, based on a GMC pickup truck
• Ratchet, shown here as a Hummer H2
• Bumblebee, based on a modified Chevy Camaro (I’m still recovering over the fact that he’s not a VW Beetle)
• Jazz, based on a Pontiac Solstice
• Barricade, a cop car version of a Ford Mustang
• Starscream, the mildly dressed-up F22 fighter jet in the background

Most of the cars are from General Motors, as you can see. None of these actual vehicles can transform, unfortunately, as that part of the picture is all done via CG.

Transformers the Movie opens on the Fourth of July, 2007.

On a side note, I’m watching 300 tonight (finally), so expect a review of that soon.

BBC car enthusiast show Top Gear could be coming off the air permanently…. Say it ain’t so. Say it ain’t so.

Easily one of the greatest automotive television shows to ever grace the airwaves could be shutting down for good. No more Richard Hammond ripping around the test track. No more Jeremy Clarkson giving us quirky British sayings. No more Stig destroying speed records with hot new supercars. This is a sad day in television and an even sadder day in the world of motorsports.

According to Leftlane News, Top Gear will not be returning for another season this fall. The BBC did say that the popular show would come back for a summer special, but even the chances of that seem slim. Jeremy Clarkson ended the last season by saying, “We don’t know when we’ll be back” and told the U.K.’s Sun newspaper this past weekend that the show would not come back. The BBC, by contrast, is saying a new season is still on the way.

The problem is that Clarkson, Hammond, James May, the rest of the Top Gear crew want to keep the focus on the cars and what they can do. They want to continue comparing supercars. They want to continue giving us some actually useful information about everyday commuter vehicles. The BBC, on the other hand, wants to toss in more celebrities and shift the focus away from cars. They might as well call it America’s Next Top Model.

In this way, as sad as it may be, BBC’s Top Gear might be back in the fall, but it will be without the presenters we know and love, and the show will be distinctly different than its current incarnation.

The automotive world is all topsy-turvy these days. Everyone owns everyone and no one owns themselves. It’s about to get a little more crowded (or a little less, depending on your perspective), because there’s a very good chance that General Motors, the world’s largest carmaker, is going to buy the Chrysler Group from DaimlerChrysler. This would mean that GM would be adding Dodge, Jeep, and of course Chrysler to their ever-expanding stable of brands. The next time you ask a Cobalt or Cadillac driver whether their car has a HEMI in it, the answer just might be yes.

A Merrill Lynch analyst is saying that this is a “defensive maneuver” on the part of GM in that they are trying to protect their position as the automaker with the greatest worldwide volume. Toyota — when you include their subsidiaries like Hino, Scion and Lexus — is currently the number two carmaker, but their numbers are very quickly approaching number one status. GM is scared, I guess, that they’re on the cusp of being de-throned.

Personally, I don’t like it. GM has enough brands already and adding three more to the bunch can only make things more confusing. Hummer and Jeep clearly overlap with one another. And then there’s the matter of the Dodge Viper vs. Chevy Corvette. In fact, there’s a lot of overlap, so GM may not be buying as much extra market share as they may want to believe.

No other party has expressed interest in buying the sinking ship known as the Chrysler Group. Hyundai denied rumors. It seems that if DaimlerChrysler wants to dump off the second half of their name, GM is the one and only customer willing to blow $13 billion on the acquisition.

Oh, and to follow-up on my earlier comment above about everyone owning everyone… the Audi R8 is based on the Lamborghini Gallardo, the Tesla Roadster is based on the Lotus Elise, and the Mazda CX-7 is virtually identical to the Ford Edge. Where’s the originality?

I love Honda. Make no mistake about it. I’m not that much of a fan of where they’ve been heading recently — away from performance and toward luxury — but they still have some of the better vehicles on the market. When you don’t have a lot of money to spend on a new car, your options are fairly limited. Let me preface this by saying that I can be pretty biased, so I’m not going to head out and buy a Ford Focus, Chevy Cobalt, and Dodge SX 2.0. As a result, when Susanne found herself in the market for a small car (preferably a hatchback) for around 20K, we found ourselves taking nice, long looks at the Toyota Yaris RS, the Volkswagen Rabbit, the Nissan Versa, and, her ultimate choice, the Honda Fit Sport. And here it is.

Pardon the pun, but I found the fit and finish on the Fit to be head and shoulders above the Yaris. The interior materials were of much higher quality than on the Toyota offering, and I found the overall design (at least on the inside) to be more appealing. Of course, this is coming from an owner of a 2000 Acura (Honda) Integra, so I’m clearly a little biased. Okay, a lot biased. She didn’t like the bulk and rigidity of the Versa, or the fuel inefficiency of the Rabbit, so the Fit Sport became the obvious choice (in Storm Silver). We took it for a short cruise on the evening of the day she got it, so I thought I would take the opportunity to get in a quick photoshoot too. Here are a few samples from that shoot.

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It’s been a pretty eventful past couple of days, so I’ll just get down to business.

In case you haven’t looked outside yet, it started snowing again. Like a ridiculous amount. And then it stopped as abruptly as it started fifteen minutes later. This was around 8pm tonight. We’ve been experiencing some very strange weather in Vancouver these past couple of months, with the two massive snowfalls we had and the ongoing wind storms that are destroying the trees in Stanley Park, ripping holes in BC Place Stadium, and causing all sorts of other headaches. Mother Nature is finally punishing us for our horrible polluting ways. Damn those SUVs.

This week is a very busy week for tech-heads as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is taking place in Las Vegas, unveiling all sorts of electronic goodies for all the geeks in the audience. What’s more — as I’m sure many of you have already heard — Steve Jobs took the stage at MacWorld in San Francisco earlier today, and during his keynote speech, he announced the almighty Apple iPhone. It’s one beauty of a handset, but it’s a little big. That said, it’s got a whole lot of toys under that thin hood, including WiFi, 2 megapixel camera, Safari, iTunes, and a multi-touch 3.5-inch widescreen display.

Heading over to the other end of the nation (”nation” refering to the United States and not Canada, unfortunately) is the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. They have a whole bunch of concept cars and interesting ideas floating around, but the one that caught my eye — especially since so many people have been waiting for this car for such a long time — is the all-new Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. Details are a little thin, but we know that it’ll rock a 2.0L turbocharged engine and a pretty darn aggressive-looking front end. After all, the hood has got both a vent and a scoop, and check out the size of that intercooler. Man alive.

Needless to say, it’s a pretty busy week for me. Maybe with this recent dump of snow, I’ll be able to force myself to work.

With the car show season just over the horizon (the Paris Motor Show kicks off next month), automotive news is slowly starting to trickle in with some new models, fresh takes on older cars, and some incredibly innovative concepts that may not even have working prototypes yet. It’s hard to keep up sometimes, so here is a short summary of the week for the world of cars, trucks, motorcycles, sport utility vehicles, and a variety of other people-movers.

The University of Minnesota has joined forces with Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, and they’re working on a vehicle that can literally run on water. This technique will mostly be deployed in a fuel cell-powered car to generate hydrogen fuel. The goal is to have a working prototype by 2009.

If high-powered, lightweight roadsters are more your foray, then take a look at the R1 from Javan Sports Cars. The British automaker has put together a 1,430 pound car with 220 horsepower, a 0-60 time of 3.6 seconds, and a 12.2 second quarter mile.

By 2015, Ford predicts that we will no longer be able to buy a car with a four speed automatic transmission, finding continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) and 6-speed auto gearboxes instead. Ford is also working on a gas cap-less solution for the 2008 model year.

We could be the cusp of seeing the official launch of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X, because the carmaker has issued the 2006 Lancer Evo SE, the final update to the Evolution IX bodystyle.

It’s far from being official company issue, but I came across a Subaru Impreza STi-powered ATV. Four-wheeling was never so much fun, especially considering the 230hp put out by the turbocharged engine.

Peugeot may not be particularly well known around these parts, but they are a legend in the World Rally Championship. Now, they have a 700hp super sedan known as the 908 RC. It’s classy, but it’s also f&*%ing fast.