When I was a kid copywriter on the Volkswagen account, grumpy but thorough VW engineers drummed one tenet of green into me: You don’t save gas with secret carburetors which the oil companies hide. You save by shedding weight. The less weight to push around, the less energy is needed to do the pushing. From the First Law of Thermodynamics to Einstein, all will agree. Like we agree on the need for a balanced diet. Then we go to the next Wendy’s, and order a triple Whopper. Despite the wisdom, cars tend to gain heft over the years like an erstwhile skinny Italian bella ragazza after the age of 30.

With tougher environmental regulations spreading across the globe, and CO2 mutating into a climate-ogre from something that used to provide the fizz in a soda, automakers remember the old engineering rule: Less weight, less gas, less crud. (Read More…)

Shai Agassi’s Better Place possibly clinched a possibly better deal than having three taxis running around in Tokyo. Possibly.

According to the Financial Times, Better Place signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s Chery “to develop prototypes for electric vehicles to be used in regional sate-sponsored pilot projects.” This could give Better Place access to what the FT calls “potentially the biggest future market for battery-powered cars.”

The system remains the same: switchable batteries that will be swapped at charging stations faster than you can swap-in the extra battery of your camera. If you can find it. Israel and Denmark are running tests. But these are tiny countries, and this is China. (Read More…)

It seems obvious that I’m making the CC Clues too easy. So we’re going to do something else here: a replay of a very difficult Mystery Car Identification contest that ran on another site back in the day when they still did such mundane things. And what made me think of it? It ran for several days, and yours truly finally nailed it; my life’s greatest achievement. It gave me the inspiration for the CC Clue a few years later. We’re going to have to use the honor system: if you actually remember it (I doubt you will), please refrain. Because the guesses alone are going to be fun. And we will duly acknowledge said author and web site when the contest ends.

Hint: This is a production scoop, not an aftermarket or custom item.

Update: This car was not necessarily found on the street!

Contest Over: We have a correct guess: Dave Shulze, who said 1954 Fiat 8V. Excellent job!

I realize in retrospect that this may not have been such a brilliant idea given the how easy it is to find everything on Google. Oh well; seemed like a good idea at the time.  BTW, I gave away the Mazda Rotary Kit to the first ever CC Clue winner. Sorry about not having prizes. It’s for the honor!

Here’s the link to my cyber-buddy Murilee Martin’s contest at Jalopnik:

http://jalopnik.com/301258/what-was-that-mystery-car-1954-fiat-8v

Ironically, I thought it was the front facing hood scoop I was identifying; I didn’t realize it also had two smaller rear facing extraction scoops too.

Well, the TR-6 must have been way too easy. Revver had it before my hand fully returned from hitting the “publish” button. I hope this one is going to be a bit more challenging, but you guys are amazing.

It’s yellow convertible week at CC, and I have one too many. And since I have a lovely early sixties VW Cabriolet (un-yellow) in the can, this less desirable early seventies Super Beetle Cabrio gets nudged into the Outtake position.  No hard feelings. (Read More…)

Fleet sales were up 47 percent in the first quarter of this year, driving sales at a number of automakers. Ford, in particular, is targeting fleet sales unapologetically by touting a recovery in resale values for the Blue Oval Brand. Ford’s Mark Fields tells the Freep:

We love fleets at Ford…Ford remains focused on our disciplined approach to daily rental, making sure we help keep growing residual values

At Chrysler, which suffers from some of the lowest resale values in the business thanks in part to a longtime addiction to fleet sales, the response seems a bit more… conflicted.

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Deutsche Straßen sind nicht der Nürburgring.

But there I go, quoting German Minister of Transportation Peter Ramsauer out of context, and in the original. Herr Ramsauer’s rebuke comes on news of a late-night crash involving a future Mercedes ML Class prototype, that resulted in the death of a 26-year old man over the weekend. The crash took place on a stretch of non-speed-limited autobahn between Singen and Stuttgart, favored by Mercedes and Porsche for high-speed testing. Apparently the victim had been involved in a minor accident and was trying to exit his vehicle (stalled in the left lane, according to Der Spiegel) when the Mercedes test mule slammed into his car, killing him instantly. The 52-year old test driver is under investigation for negligent homicide.

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… you’ll get covered in red food coloring? Or is this ad by Mudra Group for the Bangalore Traffic Police [from Copyranter via Daily Dish] trying to say something else? Meanwhile, when do we get an Oprah Winfrey version of this spot?

Back in October, GM’s then-CEO Fritz Henderson announced that GM would make a stand on market share, refusing to allow its share of the US market to slip below 29 percent. Oh wait, that was Gary Cowger’s campaign of 2003, which saw GM execs wearing symbolic “29” lapel pins. Where Henderson actually drew GM’s market share line in the sand six months ago was

At this point about 19 percent… We’ll finalize that, but I’m not interested in going down from that

And according to the Detroit Free Press, GM actually achieved that goal in December, logging a 21 percent share based on Autodata findings. Unfortunately, things have been slip-sliding ever since. In February, GM’s share fell to 18.1 percent, and last month it fell even further, to 17.6 percent.

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CAFE got you down? Worried that it’s only a matter of time before the feds come for your V8? You can relax a little, as General Motors is announcing that it will spend nearly a billion dollars rolling out its next generation of small-block V8 engines. According to Automotive News [sub], GM is dropping $893m to upgrade or renovate engine plants in Tonawanda, NY; Bay City, MI; Bedford, IN; Defiance, OH; and St. Catharines, Ontario. These new plants will build GM’s next generation of all-aluminum V8 engines, which will use direct-injection and a new combustion system for improved efficiency.GM won’t say what vehicles these new V8s will be offered in, but expect this to signal the end of the road for the Northstar family of engines as well as replacing the outgoing small-blocks. And what of GM’s commitment to reducing emissions? According to The General’s presser, all of its future small-block V8s will be E85-capable, meaning they qualify for the CAFE ramp-up’s Flex Fuel Vehicle credit loophole. As such,

their fuel economy is determined using a special calculation procedure that results in those vehicles being assigned a higher fuel economy level than would otherwise occur.

Which helps explain why Sen Chuck Schumer (D-NY) doesn’t mind publicly lobbying for V8 production at Tonawanda despite his strong belief in Global Warming: the regulatory fix was already in.

In a study for the International Council on Clean Transportation [full study in PDF format here], Lotus Engineering sought to prove that major reductions in the mass and fuel consumption of mass-market vehicles would be possible by 2020 through the use of new materials and architectures. Starting with a Toyota Venza crossover, Lotus was able to show that a 38 percent reduction in vehicle mass (not counting the powertrain, 33 percent reduction including powertrain) will be possible with a mere three percent increase in component costs.  Based on DOE estimates, that means the Venza’s efficiency could be improved by 23 percent solely through changes in materials and design, with future powertrain efficiency gains adding cumulative benefits.

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I’m a crook, and I’m glad to admit it. Back when GM was trading in the 20’s I decided to sell the company short. Way short. In fact I didn’t cover my short until GM’s price reached a bankruptcy teetering $3 a share. The reasons were endless… of course. But the crux of my decision was based on the very same observation Goldman Sachs had with American’s sub-prime mortgages… the books were essentially cooked.
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Audi and BMW have  history of trading shots in their advertising, not only calling out their rival by name, but also targeting each other’s advertising. With China taking on increased importance in the global luxury car game, the battle has moved to Hong Kong where BMW has purchased this giant billboard… immediately over an Audi dealership. Insecure much?

Read through a few reviews of the Ford Fusion, and you’ll notice that few are able to avoid reference to the midsized sedan’s polarizing chrome grille. Though different reviewers compare the gaudy grille to different brand-name razors, the consensus seems to be that it’s more than a little over the top. Certainly no other car in the Camccord class lays on the plastichrome quite so thick, and it’s hardly the only Ford with class-leading amounts of cheesy bling. And honestly, until I saw the recent Ford ad shown above, I had no idea the Fusion could even be purchased with a body-color grille. The Blue Oval’s marketing forces are only just beginning to feature Fusions with the subtler grille in its advertising, and the difference is instantly noticeable. And with a little research, you’ll find that, having earned a special spot in the Pantheon of Detroit chrome abuse, Ford appears to be moving towards offering chrome-free fascias on more of its vehicles.

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For decades, British roadsters had a spell on Americans. And the rivalry between the MG and Triumph, the two leading exponents of the genre, was legendary. They each had loyal adherents to the respective marques, and the stiff competition kept the improvements coming, even if not exactly at a breakneck pace. But by about the time this TR-6 first appeared in 1969, the race was essentially over: the new MGC was DOA, and the MGB was quickly slipping into its ossification period, while the Triumph reveled in its final incarnation of the classic formula: old school, but with a healthy kick of life in it yet. (Read More…)