Cars

Repairs to the aging Sagamore Bridge during the spring have slowed traffic leaving Cape Cod to a crawl most nights and backed it up for miles on Sundays, culminating in a Mother's Day morass when the stalled line of cars stretched past multiple exits on Route 6 and triggered all-day gridlock on nearby Route 6A. "Whoever conceived of this plan should be fired," said Anne Kilguss, a Boston social worker and psychotherapist with a second home in...

James Hinchcliffe can't understand it. In this sports-crazed nation, there are skilled athletes who willingly get behind the wheel of exotic-looking race cars and risk their lives at more than 200 mph, yet the interest level in what they're doing 364 days out of the year can be measured on a scale that starts at Zero, goes up to Negligible and roughly peaks out at Where's Danica. "IndyCar is the best-kept secret in sports," Hinchcliffe moaned Thursday from the infield at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

In late 2009, Dassault Systèmes, France's largest software company, launched a search for a location to establish a headquarters for its rapidly expanding operations in North and South America. It already had operations in Los Angeles, Charlotte, N.C., and Auburn Hills, Mich. But ultimately, the global technology firm decided there was only one place to be: Route 128. Dassault creates software that helps companies conceive, design, make, and improve products, and Route 128 has become the world's undisputed epicenter of this fast-growing technology, known as Product Lifecycle Management, or...

A woman who texted her boyfriend while he was driving cannot be held liable for a car crash he caused while responding, seriously injuring a motorcycling couple, a judge ruled Friday in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the country. A lawyer for the injured couple argued that text messages from Shannon Colonna to Kyle Best played a role in the September 2009 wreck in Mine Hill. But Colonna's lawyer argued she had no control over when or how Best would read and respond to the message.

. CARS 2 Directed by: John Lasseter and Brad Lewis Written by: Ben Queen Starring the voices of: Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard, and Michael Caine At: Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs, Jordan’s IMAX Reading and Natick Running time: 106 minutes Rated: G (machine guns, explosions, female cars adrool over male cars) This feels like the review in which I’m supposed to report that it has finally happened: Pixar has belched out a disaster and expects us to call it art. That “Cars 2’’ is the animation auteurs running on fumes, that it’s stuck in...

To Lydia and Daniel Wee, heading into Allston for dinner one evening last spring, it looked like a dream come true in a city where it can be hell to park - an almost empty lot close to the restaurant, fronting a nearly deserted strip mall. Signs warned that parking is for customers only, but there were so many empty spaces. Dinner would only last an hour. And this is Boston, where, when it comes to driving, rules can seem proudly optional. Wrong move. The Allston strip mall lot has become Boston's black hole for illegally parked cars - and a cash machine for one local towing...

Pixar’s track record has been close to impeccable for turning out intelligent, emotionally rich, beautifully detailed animated films, with plenty of humor and heart to appeal to movie lovers of all ages. But the weak link in the chain, at least from a narrative standpoint, has always been 2006’s “Cars,’’ with its two-dimensional talking autos and hokey, borrowed tale of small-town life. Sure, it was bright and zippy, which was enough to appeal to the little ones, and it became a merchandising juggernaut.

WHO: Globe features editor Steve Greenlee, his wife, and their three kids, ages 9-12 WHAT: Watching “Cars 2’’ from the car WHERE: Mendon Twin Drive-In It couldn’t have been more perfect: a clear weather forecast, comfortably cool temperatures that kept the mosquitoes away, and a screening of “Cars 2’’ at the drive-in. Watching a movie about cars from the car, surrounded by other cars. How meta! Naturally it started raining as soon as the opening scene unfolded.

DETROIT -- Posters outside theaters across the country list Jon Voight, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, and Megan Fox as the stars of the summer action flick "Transformers. " But in the labs and cubicles where General Motors Corp. workers design and market new cars, the true leads are the Chevrolet Camaro, Pontiac Solstice, GMC TopKick, and Hummer H2. "You're going to see these cars as the heroes. You're not going to see the other actors," said Dino Bernacchi, GM's associate director of branded entertainment.

Pixar Animation remains undefeated at the box-office races. The Disney unit’s animated sequel “Cars 2’’ cruised to a No. 1 finish with a $68 million opening weekend, according to studio estimates yesterday. That makes 12 wins in a row for Pixar since the company’s first feature film, “Toy Story’’ (1995). The original “Cars’’ had a $60.1 million debut in 2006, but factoring in today’s higher admission prices, it sold more tickets than “Cars 2.’’ Premiering in second-place was Cameron Diaz ’s classroom comedy “Bad Teacher’’ with $31 million.

When Bobby Rahal was racing, he hung a picture of Michael Andretti in his workout room. That's who Rahal wanted to beat more than anyone else on the track. And rest assured, Andretti felt the same way. Looks like they've passed on that vitriol to their kids. Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti have developed quite an IndyCar rivalry, which was only heightened when Rahal took the blame for an April crash at Long Beach that catapulted Andretti's car into the air before it slid into a tire barrier.

The ex-president of Senegal won praise from around the world earlier this year when he gracefully conceded defeat, even picking up the phone to congratulate his longtime rival, a move that momentarily erased the memories of a violent election season. The goodwill lasted less than a week, however. Just days after former President Abdoulaye Wade left the presidential palace this March, local TV stations began showing footage of empty rooms in the palace. Accusations surfaced that Wade and his inner circle had made off with nearly all the cars in the...

Suspected drug cartel gunmen opened fire on a hotel being used as a police barracks then attacked it with a car bomb Thursday, wounding eight officers less than 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) from the U.S. border, Mexican officials said. A Tamaulipas state official said authorities believed the Zetas cartel, one of Mexico's two most powerful criminal organizations, carried out the attack on the Hotel Santa Cecilia in Nuevo Laredo, a city across the border from Laredo, Texas. The Zetas, founded by Mexican special forces defectors, have carried out a number...

A 20-year-old Dorchester man pleaded not guilty today to charges that he led police on a chase into Milton after a non-fatal shooting in Roxbury on Wednesday, Suffolk County prosecutors said. Paul Nova was arraigned in Roxbury District Court on charges that included possession with intent to distribute a Class A substance, possession with intent to distribute a Class B substance, and reckless operation of a motor vehicle. Judge Kenneth Fiandaca set Nova's bail at $25,000 and revoked...

Auto sales have yet to fully recover from the economic downturn and dealers say they are facing a stubborn obstacle: Your used car is working just fine. For years the auto industry has counted on car owners wearing out or tiring of their current rides and buying new. But owners are holding onto their cars much longer now, in part because cars last longer than they used to. Not only is this stunting sales of new cars, but also depriving dealers of an important source of secondary income — used cars they received as trade-ins.

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent Police in Jamaica Plain are warning area motorists about an increase in reports of wheels and tires being stolen from parked cars, with some vehicles being left resting atop cinder blocks. Most cars being targeted are Honda Fit and Honda Civic models, according to an e-mail sent to community members from the District E-13 station of the Boston Police Department. A law enforcement official said those car models are targeted because their smaller wheels are not only easier to steal, but are also particularly desirable...

New commuter rail cars designed to replace part of the MBTA's aging fleet are at least a year and a half late, leaving thousands of suburban riders waiting for modern coaches that state transportation officials had expected to be running by now. Assembly has yet to begin on the T's order at a Philadelphia plant run by Hyundai Rotem USA, a South Korean company that won the $190 million contract to build 75 cars despite little experience in...

Robert Frank’s 1956 “Covered Car’’ is one of the totemic American photographs of the last century. The automobile in question, flanked by palm trees, looks utterly alien: like an Egyptian mummy with a V-8 inside, and in Long Beach, no less. The beauty of Andrew M.K. Warren’s “Car Pictures,’’ one of three shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography that run through Aug. 29, is how familiar the several covered cars in it look — strange, yes, but definitely familiar. Totems?

DECLINING RATE: Credit reporting agency TransUnion says the rate of late payments for auto loans declined nationally in the first three months of the year to 0.36 percent. That's also down about 22 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011. RECORD LOW: The latest rate represents the lowest it's been since TransUnion began tracking auto loan data in 1999. It also marks the 10th quarter in a row that the rate has declined on an annual basis. DEBT LOAD: The average amount of bank auto loan debt owed by borrowers climbed about 5 percent from a year earlier to $13,272.