Thaddeus writes:

I’m looking to build more in depth automotive knowledge, and I think that (re) building a motor in my Manhattan apartment is a great first step. (Wife be damned.) With the hot summer coming around, and no vacation days left, this would also be a great summer hobby to keep me inside and cool.

I’m currently thinking about finding an old Ford flathead, as know how, and books on these is readily available–do you have a better suggestion? I’m looking for a block that’s well documented, has parts, or spares to be had, and won’t require a CompSci degree to fix or tune . . .

The end state of this project is to put it into some sort of hotrod, but that’s another question–for when I have a bigger apartment.

PS: Sub question…should I even attempt to fire this thing up inside if I get it built?

(Read More…)

Here’s the full text of the speech given by Akio Toyoda, the new president of Toyota Motor Corporation.

Thank you very much for coming today.

I was appointed president of Toyota Motor Corporation at the board of directors meeting held on June 23, following the Ordinary General Shareholders’ Meeting on the same day. In addition to my comments here today, our executive vice presidents will provide remarks on their areas of business.

The global automobile industry has been facing extreme hardships since the latter half of last year. As for Toyota, we ended the last fiscal year with an operating loss of 461 billion yen. We expect our losses to deepen this fiscal year, and so all of us in the new management team at Toyota feel like we are setting sail during a storm.

Since the birth of Toyota, the company’s philosophy has always been to “contribute to society.” The first article of the Toyoda Precepts, our original statement of purpose as a company in 1935, states that we must contribute to the development and welfare of each country we operate in by working together – regardless of individual position – in faithfully fulfilling our duties. In other words, we must manufacture high-quality vehicles for the benefit of society.

(Read More…)

I started TTAC’s General Motors Death Watch in the summer of ’05, after the automaker pulled tens of millions of dollars in advertising from the LA Times. GM was pissed at a Dan Neil Pontiac review that called for an executive cull. While I’d been predicting bankruptcy for The General long before that point, the automaker’s bully-boy tactics against this country’s finest carmudgeon was the final straw. GM was free to pull its ads. And I was free to start the Death Watch. The rest, as they say, is history. Only maybe not so fast.

(Read More…)

This interview raises some important questions. Is it me or does Alex Taylor sound like Sgt. Friday? What editor thought he could get away with using B-roll of a union worker with a sign referring to a “Golden Shower?” What kind of company has a CEO who can go his entire life without anyone daring to correct his pronunciation of “hubris?” Why would the CEO of GM point out out that “every one” of the company’s surviving 34 nameplates has to be a winner? I mean, what are the odds? And what’s with this: “We’ve lost a part of the population but [sotto voce] it’s not that large.” No complacency here. No, sir.

Eddy gave us the heads-up on Chevrolet Volt Vehicle Chief Engineer Andrew Farah’s party piece over at FastLane. Straight out of the gate, Farah’s not shooting straight on the all-important question of the Volt’s effective driving range. “Scott” asks Andy to compare the Volt to the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius non-plug-in hybrids. “Clearly I enjoyed the significantly longer EV distance that is available with the Volt. I had to drive quite some distance before the engine came on, even though I didn’t start with a full charge. By comparison, our chassis is much more sporty than either of the other vehicles.” Non-starter and a non-sequitur in the same comment; nicely played. And just when you thought it was safe to sit and spin, another e-interlocutor gets Andy to spill the beans.

(Read More…)

Sent to us by a reader:

Trying to find somewhere to voice my opinion about the fact that gm lost the lawsuit we had about our 07 Equinox. They are supposed to give us a replacement or 25,000 dollars but they know that they can get out of it with their bankruptcy. They want to try to buy us off with 6,500. This is not right. We had so many problems with the cobalt right before this but never held it against them. This is what we get for being loyal customers. I have had gm for the last 15 years and this is what I get. We just want the thing to run but even after 22 service visits and them having the vehicle for 63 days and it still doesn’t run. So we are in for 476 a month for 5 and a half years for a lawn ornament.

“Many commentators interpret this as a battle of egos, but that is a simplification of a much deeper human need to be attached to something meaningful that will persist long after you are gone from this Earth.”

—Ex-Tesla spinmeister and TTAC protagonist Darryl Siry on the cat fight between Martin Eberhard and Elon Musk

“The Buick LeSabre is made in Ontario, Canada . . . the UAW worker in Canada makes the same wage as the UAW worker in the U.S.”
—Vice President Joe Biden in the Detroit News

TTAC frontrunner Michigan has won the Chevy Viva sweepstakes and will be hosting production of the Aveo replacement, reports the Freep. The new compact will be based on Chevrolet’s Spark world car, and produced at the Orion Township plant near Pontiac. Orion currently produces Malibu and G6 sedans. The plan reportedly saves 1,200 jobs at the Orion plant which had been marked for death. Sorry, Wisconsin and Tennessee!

Communist witch hunters called Americans who supported the battle against Francisco Franco before World War II “premature anti-fascists.” In other words, they were right for the wrong reasons. There’s a lot of that going around these days. For example, Chrysler and GM’s claim that they need to cull dealers is spot on. But trimming overheads, as the automakers claim, ain’t it. [see: number three after the jump]. By the same token, it’s also true that New GM is doomed to failure. But not for the seven reasons that Seeking Alpha sets forth. Still, Jason Mathew’s analysis is worth a closer look . . .

According to the Freep, Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne is planning on running its Alfa Romeo right at the heart of the established import luxury market. With an LX-platform 169 sedan (still an acknowledged maybe) and a “GTX” version of the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee. This is in line with Global Insight‘s breakdown of the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep/Fiat/Alfa-Romeo empire. Got brands?

(Read More…)

Ahead of schedule and under budget? Maybe this one will come down to door closing sounds. So why the flashback to the concept bait-and-switch? If the Volt’s butterfly-into-larvae morph doesn’t remind folks of the Old, Bad GM, what will? Ask Farah for yourself at his Live Chat Confessional, 4 pm Eastern, at Fastlane.