There’s a very difficult business case for this car. The hope here is not to create volume, but to create a flagship.
—Bentley CEO Franz-Josef Paefgen on his firm’s new Mulsanne flagship.
So when is the Toyota rebadge coming out?
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Rumor has it that a manufacturer of automated teller machines had too many front panels made and sold the excess to an automobile maker. Which one?
News is flashing across The Swedish Wire that GM and Koenigsegg have reached a final agreement on the future of the Saab brand. A share transfer agreement has been signed for an undisclosed sum and equally undisclosed technology and service understandings. Koenigsegg and its consortium partners are still waiting on $593 million worth of financing from the European Investment Bank. More details as they become available.
The Chevy Impala already gets dumped on for being a fleet queen holdover, but a Kansas City Star investigation reveals that it might not actually be fleety enough for buyers like Enterprise Rent-A-Car. It turns out that Enterprise ordered 66,000 Impalas from GM without the side airbags that are standard equipment on all retail Impalas. Worse still, hundreds of these Impalas were sold with the side bags listed as standard equipment. Enterprise saved $175 on each Impala by deleting the bags, for a total of about $11.5 million in savings. Thanks to the misleading online sales though, Enterprise is offering to buy back the nearly 750 Impalas sold under false pretenses for $750 over Kelly Blue Book Value. Beyond that effort though, Enterprise is defending its standard safety feature deletion by arguing that it never violated any federal mandate. Congratulations, guys, you aren’t criminals. Meanwhile, when it comes to buying fleet vehicles, buyer beware.
Just got off the blower with Rae Tyson, stalwart spokesman for the Department of Transportation’s Cash for Clunkers (a.k.a. C.A.R.S.) program. Although Tyson doesn’t have the exact stats, he revealed that the agency has rejected “significantly more” than 25 percent of dealer submissions for government reimbursement. “The bottleneck is regrettable,” Rae said. “But the number represents safeguards against fraud.” The clock is ticking. As of this morning, US car dealers have submitted paperwork to the C4C program for 390,283 vehicles. That represents $1.63 billion from the $3 billion total. Minus the $50 million processing fee. So there’s $1.34 billion and change left in the kitty. [Top ten reasons for C.A.R.S. rejection after the jump.] Meanwhile, NADA spokesman Chuck Cyrill says, “a lot of dealers are pulling out of the program.” Cyrill contends that cash flow problems caused by paperwork issues are causing dealers to “limit their exposure.” The remedy is the experience. “To address dealer concerns with a backlog of reimbursement claims, DOT has informed NADA that it will commit to deploy an additional 1,000 employees to speed up its processing efforts.”
Volkswagen of America boss man Stefan Jacoby speaks with the Detroit News about VW’s US strategy going forward while admitting a few missteps. Jacoby acknowledges, for example, that the Passat “is too small, and it is almost knocking at the doors of the premium segment. That’s not where the volume is. What we need to do is improve our competitiveness in pricing.” And how does that admission jive with VW’s plan to bring the Phaeton back to the US? Keine ahnung. The DetN never asked.
Jeff Puthuff is one of our (mostly unsung) heroes: a TTAC commentator who made the leap to editor. Initially, Jeff made the jump as our resident proof reader, grammarian and style guru. Since then, he’s begun patrolling the comments section and helping us figure out how to take TTAC to the next level. This is the month that VerticalScope’s boffins will cull the cranky code created by NameMedia‘s Estonian customizers. In short, TTAC will return to a bog standard WordPress platform, with a few bells on. We will, of course, keep things nice and simple. And then adjust the site’s style and functionality according to your feedback. Meanwhile, Jeff has created a new way for you to access all TTAC reviews: click here for more direct access to our arsenal of democracy. Meanwhile redux, thought you might like to know that our stats are approaching those of the dead tree version of Car and Driver.
A group calling itself Consortium Jacob AB is making a last-minute play to keep the Volvo brand out of Chinese hands. The alt. Geely newbies consist mainly of Swedish owners, fronted by former Volvo CEO Roger Holtback. Despite the late entry into the auction, Ford has promised to treat the all [mostly?] Swedish bid seriously. The Swedish government’s “manager for affairs of the automotive industry” at the Industry Dept., Jöran Hägglund, gave the group the green light. Allegedly, Volvo’s union of engineers got the ball rolling. So, now, show me the money . . .
The success of citizen initiative petitions to stop photo enforcement have forced local officials to react swiftly. In Heath, Ohio the mayor has begun forgiving recipients of multiple speed camera tickets in a desperate attempt to paint a friendlier face on the program after formal acceptance of the petition that will put the future of the program up for a public vote in November. A similar petition also succeeded in College Station, Texas, but officials are turning to far more hostile tactics. Local resident Jim Ash, who led the charge to gather signatures, now says city officials will attempt to sabotage the ballot initiative later today.
I’m having a little trouble seeing GM’s decision to reopen 30 to 50 terminated dealerships as anything other than the result of disorganized dithering. For one thing, the fact that it’s such a vague number shows that the reanimation dealer plan—such as it is—is a work in progress. Automotive News [sub] turns to GM’s Marketing Maven to explain the mechanics and rational behind the reversal: “Terminated dealers will get the right to make the first proposals, GM says. Mark LaNeve, GM’s vice president of U.S. sales, said the open points were created when poor-performing dealerships in good locations were targeted. Other points will be filled if GM discovers that customers are driving too far to reach a dealership, he said.” Needless to say, this is bound to piss-off some of GM’s 1350 or so officially terminated—rather than GMAC-squeezed-to-death—dealers. To which LaNeve “repeated his assertion that the terminations were fair and based on poor performance for sales, customer satisfaction and other targets.” Formula please? Hello? At least one ex-GM dealer’s not bothered . . .
Greg writes:
I have a ’95 Accord with 200,000 miles. As it runs well, I hope to drive it for a while more, but the radio has nearly died. What is the best solution for low-cost replacement audio? The other quirk is that in warm weather the speakers fade in and out. Do I have to replace the speakers and the wiring too?
There’s a big difference between myself and Lotus founder Colin Chapman. When I change a flat tire, I find that I have two lug nuts left over. Chapman could create fully functioning sports/racing cars out of the detritus found in the average kitchen junk drawer. One-handed. While sipping tea. The Lotus Seven—later Super 7—is perhaps the best-known and longest-lasting example of his Frankensteinian genius. Debuting in 1957 and running on to 1973 (when Caterham Cars grabbed the baton), the 7 has undergone decades of continuous development. Yet is essentially the same vehicle that Chapman created. And none the worse for it.
I’m glad Mr. Rosenbusch, of Chrysler Group LLC, found my article on Chrysler archives interesting. It’s always nice to be read. And I’m sure Rosenbusch agreed with the article when I said “America’s automakers have gone to great lengths and expense to preserve and protect the historical documents which chronicle and define their existence.” I’m also reasonably sure that Mr. Rosenbusch doesn’t dispute the fact of the closing of Chrysler’s engineering library. “One of a series of necessary steps to cut costs,” as he puts it. And I’m glad Mr. Rosenbusch saved all of the important documents resulting from that change of fortune. But I stand by my report that people on site experienced a sudden and chaotic end to a resource someone thought was valuable enough to create and fund. That Chrysler has tuned its back on its history.
All images courtesy David Holzman, motorlegends.com. Thanks [again] to Marc Feinstein, German Performance Service, Cambridge, MA and Robert Fitzgerald, Robert’s Porsche-Mercedes Service, Wellfleet MA for access to the vehicles.
Having won the battle of the alpha males, Volkswagen now bares its fangs at two new enemies: Big Toyota, which Volkswagen wants to unseat from its #1 position; and moribund Opel, which VW would rather see dead than alive. VW CEO Winterkorn growled that VW might pull its parts business from Magna if the Canadian-owned partsmaker proceeds with their plan to acquire Opel. “We are looking with suspicion at what’s happening here,” Winterkorn said, according to the German edition of the Financial Times. Things are getting nasty, again . . .
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