It’s pretty obvious from the amount of articles I’ve been seeing coming out of California that they’re excited at all the diesel prospects that could soon be for sale in their state. The first releases should be Mercedes in 2008 with their Bluetec equipped vehicles, and then Honda will release their i-CTDi engine in 2009. VW won’t be left in the dust either, though nothing definite, I keep hearing they will have something for 2008.

Honda had the most interesting approach to diesel that worked well for an advertising campaign too. The premise was “What if a diesel engine was built by someone who hates them?” That person was Honda senior engineer, Kenichi Nagahiro who also had a hand in their Formula One racing engines and well-known VTEC technology. He tried to turn down the project but eventually acquiesced. The condition was that he had to have free reign on the project. He was not going to build another noisy, smelly diesel like those previously on the market.

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This should help my posts as it has a built in spell checker. I’m sure everyone has noticed I’m not the best typer. Well things should be getting better now. I haven’t noticed to many other changes of consequence, but that was enough to sell me.

From the diesel side of things of course it’s supposed to rain this weekend so there’s no point in washing my car. I can wash my car and take away all doubt it’ll rain though. I’ll probably end up just vacuuming it really well.

I was driving and pulled up to a red light. Right next to me happened to be my uncle in his Volvo S80 and he revved his engine. It was time to see what this diesel was made of. The light turned green and all he could smell was the faint scent of kerosene. My reaction time was much better, and my Jetta won the battle of the slow cars. Of course we only raced to the speed limit of 40mph, but I was still surprised and happy. I’ll be even happier when I can afford some larger injectors, larger turbo, and a good reprogram, but for now I’m sated. I dare not race much else though unless I’m in my Camaro.

Anyway, happy dieseling everyone.

The AA Energywise Rally is a race to demonstrate fuel efficiency and environmental friendliness for new vehicles in New Zealand. It’s a 1,600 kilometer race covering four days and varied roads in New Zealand. The rally starts in Auckland and goes to Palmerston North. From Palmerston North it continues to Wellington and then back to Palmerston North. The race continues to Rotorua and then ends up back in Auckland.

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