Is the Toyota FT-CH the first car deliberately designed to be a troll? It combines all the trigger elements that have kept servers warm since teh interwebs tubes were first hooked up: French, Low-CO, anti-Global Warming, Hybrid, Prius, Toyota, and Questionable Styling. Did I miss something? (Read More…)
Despite his genial, affable manner, Alan Mulally is a businessman and, by all accounts, a businessman not to be crossed with. One story goes, when he first started with Ford, he let them know, in the clearest possible terms, “Everybody says you can’t make money off small cars,” he said. “Well, you’d better damn well figure out how to make money, because that’s where the world is going.” Long protected from the brutal rationalisation of the global market, Australia might be about to get a taste of the man’s darker side as he attempts to drag Ford’s Australian ops into the 21st Century.
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Having been told by the Secretary of Transportation that the Chrysler Group’s motley assortment of new trim level names, rebadged Lancias, decal-sporting special editions represents “the cutting edge of developing the kind of products that I think people in this country, and also in other countries, are really going to feel very favorable toward,” CEO Sergio Marchionne apparently thought enough had been said about his struggling bailout baby. As CBS reports, Marchionne suddenly canceled a 45-minute scheduled press availability before he had the chance to confirm LaHood’s astonishing opinion.
One might quite reasonably have expected a smaller, lighter two-passenger variant of the Insight to achieve higher EPA numbers than its bigger brother. Say, like it did in 1989, when the CRX HF pulled a 41/50, compared to the ’89 Civic sedan’s 27/33. But reasonable expectations have been dashed by Honda more often than not lately, as in the Insight’s various shortcomings. But a 31/37/33 mpg combined rating for the new 2011 CRX manual, when the Insight is rated at a 41 combined? Does Honda have a death wish? That highway mileage is the same as the Chevy Cobalt XF, which doesn’t need any stinking battery and seats four. And even the combined mileage is only three mpg better. What gives? (Read More…)
You might need to click through to the gallery to fully grasp the stunning blandness of its New Coupe Concept, which just debuted at the NAIAS. Volkswagen has said again and again that it plans to take over the American market by screwing its loyal followers and selling out for mainstream appeal. The NCC is the apathy-osis of this philosophy, showing an approach to the sports coupe genre that makes the business of car look like a less glamorous offshoot of the packing materials industry. It’s a hybrid. It’s a “poor man’s A5.” It’s a dust bunny to the Scirocco‘s sandstorm. Most of all though, it’s a sign of how misguided VW’s approach to the US market really is.
We’d heard that Dodge (“The Full-of-Life Brand”) would be re-working its trim levels in order to “take ‘base model’ out of the Dodge vocabulary,” as a company press release puts it. So, they’ve changed the names of trim levels on some Dodge models. First off, note that only certain models get the trim level name change: Caravan will still be sold in SE and SXT trim, and Challenger will still come in the standard SE, R/T and SRT8 trims. Otherwise, each model has its own trim levels: Journey now comes in Express, Hero, Heat, Crew and Uptown trims, Nitro is available in Heat, Detonator and Shock, while Caliber comes in Express, Mainstreet, Heat, Uptown and Rush, while Avenger comes in Express and Heat trim. What the Foxtrot does it all mean? There’s no way we want to break it all down, so surf on over to Kicking Tires for the full breakdown. Needless to say, it’s yet a another marketing mess from the soon-to-be defunct bailout baby named Chrysler Group.
(Curbside Classics paid a quick visit to TTAC Command Central in Portland on Saturday, and came away with a few goodies to share from that CC Elysian Fields this week)
With the presumed return of Alfa to our shores, its easy to forget that it seems like just yesterday (to us oldsters) that Alfa was selling its handsome 164 sedan hereabouts until 1995. To the more youthful here, the 164 may have been something you ogled from the back of the family Caravan on the way to grade school. Regardless; it’s a quickly disappearing part of the street-scape, and has some fascinating history behind that tasty exterior. (Read More…)
It’s a bit early in the day to be crowning a QOTD, especially considering there are sure to be plenty of juicy quotes coming out of the NAIAS today. Still, this one deserves a special place at TTAC for the sheer bold-faced shamelessness of its untruth.
I think (the government bailout was) well placed, and I think they’ll make a lot of money. GM’s on its way back. We’ll be back. The government’s made a good investment. We appreciate their support. We’re glad they’re here.
So said GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre to reporters from the Detroit News today. As I recently explained in an op-ed in the NY Times, unless GM’s market cap soars to its highest level in history (a pipe dream if ever there was one) the taxpayer losses on the GM “investment” will be in the billions. Even the government estimates losses on the GM and Chrysler bailouts to reach $30b. Whitacre surely meant that a GM IPO will generate some kind of money for the Treasury’s 60 percent stake in GM, but the way it came out makes it sound like the bailout will be a positive investment for the government. That’s an impression that GM desperately needs to foster in order to have a chance at emerging from government control. Too bad it’s just an old-fashioned fib.
Between the tooling for the old Saab 9-5 being shipped off to China and GM “starting” the wind down process, even the most optimistic, “fuel tank is half full” members of the auto world are starting to think that it’s “game over” for Saab. Well, here’s the final nail (barring a completely audacious bid, from an equally audacious company, who want to spend millions of pounds on a damaged brand) in the coffin of Saab. The Local, a Swedish website, reports that GM are officially killing all plans to bring the new 9-5 to production. “It would be so sad that it never sees the light of day despite the fact that it’s a fantastic car,” admits GM vice chairman Bob Lutz.
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Hey, we’ve finally found someone who believes in the Volt and Chrysler’s alleged new products. Too bad he’s from the government that owns 60 percent of GM and 15 percent of Chrysler… and he can’t explain his optimism in anything but the broadest platitudes. Did Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood properly disclose his relationship with the state-owned automakers per FCC standards? Probably not. But that’s OK, since few probably took him seriously to begin with.
BMW is rapidly becoming the Swiss Army Knife of automobile brands. Elegant and well-trained coupes, estates and sedans? Check. Interested in CUVs of both respectable and questionable utility? They got you covered. Though the X6 and 5-series Gran Tourismo are answers to a question nobody asked, the smaller, racier 750i Sport treads dangerously into well […]
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, desperately seeking new sources of revenue to cover a $19.9 billion budget shortfall, yesterday declared a state of fiscal emergency. As part of his proposed solution, Schwarzenegger called for the deployment of a massive statewide speed camera program to generate at least $397.5 million in net profit to state and local government.
Under the proposal, existing red light cameras at intersections would be converted into “speed on green” cameras that issue citations to motorists who try to speed up at an intersection to make the light. Those who slow down and fail to make the light will be mailed a red light camera ticket.
“Various federal rules are tying our hands and preventing us from reducing costs in some state programs,” Schwarzenegger explained at a news conference yesterday. “I want to remind the federal judges and the politicians California is not Washington. We do not have the luxury of printing money or running trillion-dollar deficits.”
TTAC Commentator PG writes:
Sajeev, In their December 2009 issue, Car and Driver has a great article about how extended warranties — such as those offered by U.S. Fidelis and others — are largely scams that deceive customers, don’t really cover the cost of repairs at all, and don’t give refunds at cancellation.
My parents own a 2002 BMW X5 4.4. They bought it from Carmax and have the extended warranty from that dealership. It’s a fantastic car, but it’s had some very costly repairs — thankfully, those have been covered in full or at least in part by Carmax’s warranty. The thing is, that warranty expires this month and can’t be renewed.
The ‘rents are thinking of getting an extended warranty for the Bimmer, but after reading that C&D story I’m pretty convinced they would be throwing their money away. My question: are there ANY extended warranties out there that they can use? What can they do to help avoid the full cost of repairs?
Buying a new/different car isn’t really an option right now, because they want to keep the X5 as long as they can. The car has about 80,000 miles on it and still runs well, except for the occasional hiccup, but those can be pretty pricey on a BMW.
If you or the best and brightest have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
Ain’t it Granite? As Curbside Classics recently explored, GMC has a long, proud tradition of uglifying otherwise palatable Chevrolet products. In this case, the Chevy Cruze-based Orlando compact MPV was beaten with GMC’s patented professional-grade ugly stick, transforming it into the this “Urban Utility Vehicle.” “Granite was conceived as a new type of vehicle from GMC – one that could stretch people’s ideas of what a GMC can be,” said Lisa Hutchinson, product marketing director for GMC in the Granite presser. Which is a fantastic-sounding way of announcing the destruction of the last remnants of GMC’s truck-tough image. But hey, at least the core brand value of cubist-nightmare styling remains intact.
When the Ford Focus first went on sale in the US, it was a rare glimpse for the still-SUV-centric US market at how the rest of the world gets from the Blue Oval. Of course, as time went by, Ford eased away from the Euro-funk of the first generation, first blandifying the model with a mid-cycle “refresh,” before eventually replacing it with the current embarrassment to the nameplate. And it’s not just the current model’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers-meets-Pep Boys look that makes it unworthy of the Focus name: the whole idea behind the original Focus was the dream of a world car, that would be sold, largely unchanged, in markets around the world. With the 2012 model, now being previewed before the Detroit Auto Show [press release here], Ford has gone back to the model’s original vision.
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