TTAC Headquarters is experiencing a tiny internet outage thanks to our good friends at the cable company, so our content cadence will be a bit off today. We’ll be back with Monday’s news, review and analysis as soon as the local outage is fixed (I’m assured that top men are on the case), but in the meantime we’d like to take this moment to solicit your burning technical and car-buying advice questions.  Struggling to identify that smell/sound coming out of your family truckster? TTAC’s in-house advice guru, Sajeev Mehta is standing by to answer your car-related technical questions in his Piston Slap column. And if the problem’s too big for even Sajeev to solve, he and Steve Lang will get your search for its replacement started right, with their car-buying advice column New Or Used? Begin your voyage of automotive discovery with an email describing your technical problem or car buying conundrum to mehta@ttac.com

Automotive News [sub] highlights a new trend in the car sales game: the luxury dealership destination. This picture was taken at Lexus of North Miami, which its owner describes thusly:

The new state-of-the-art dealership not only provides the ultimate in automotive service but also provides unrivaled personalized service, catering to all of your needs with luxury amenities via the Club Lexus Lifestyle and Fitness Center. The innovative, resort-like center is designed to accommodate and enhance your everyday lifestyle by allowing access to the finest facilities for consultation and first class amenities.

Ford’s Fiesta subcompact has earned a top EPA rating of 40 mpg on the highway, and 29 mpg in the city, reports Automotive News [sub]. Those numbers are for Fiestas equipped with an optional six-speed autobox; manual transmission models get a 37/28 mpg rating. By comparison, auto-equipped versions of competitors like the Honda Fit (35/28) and Toyota Yaris (35/29) come up short on highway mileage in particular. But this isn’t the first time Ford has claimed 40+ mpg for one of its cars: the Fusion hybrid carries an EPA city rating of 41 mpg, despite coming up short of its government-endorsed rating in several real-world tests (although not as shockingly as Chevy’s Equinox, for example). But the EPA testing regime is hardly perfect anyway, so let’s just wait and see what the test drives yield before we start stringing up the piñata.

Now that GM has released its Q1 data, let’s have a look at the race for the top spot, world’s largest auto maker. We are counting global deliveries only, not production. Even with “deliveries” there is room for interpretation. Deliveries to customers? Or cars dumped on dealer lots? We’ll never know. All we know is: (Read More…)

Whereas Chrysler’s surprise operating profit in the first quarter of this year was achieved mainly through cost-cutting, GM’s just-announced Q1 profit comes on the strength of sales increases in most of its global markets. Though The General’s sales numbers are still lower than they need to be, momentum is headed in the right direction… albeit somewhat more slowly than had been hoped.

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With ballot initiatives and other possible legislative action threatening to put a major photo enforcement company out of business, an effective public relations strategy has become the firm’s top priority. Redflex Traffic Systems on Friday had its former corporate spokesman, Michael Ferraresi, return to writing about the industry for the Arizona Republic newspaper, which covers the battleground market of Phoenix.
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Well, the suspense is over. General Motors announced its Q1 earnings this morning, and for the first time since 2007 the quarterly numbers are positive. GM’s net revenue jumped to nearly $31.5b on strong performances from its North American and GM International Operations (GMIO), and across-the-board sales improvement for the Chevy brand. General Motors Europe was The General’s sole unprofitable division for the quarter, losing half a billion dollars while it waits for a deal on financial assistance to clear. Operating cash flow was $1.75b, with about $755m of that going towards capital expenditures. That left just under a billion dollars in free cash flow, as GM finished the quarter with $35.7b in cash on hand. Net income attributable to shareholders was $1.068b, less $203m for cumulative dividends, for a total net profit of $865m [Full financial highlights in .doc format available here].

Despite suffering from a market-induced sales conflagration at home and in Europe last April, Volkswagen can pat itself on the shoulder for outperforming the global market. In the first four months of 2010, the world bought 20.9 percent more Volkswagen Group cars than in the same period of last year. That versus an 18.1 rise of the general market.

VeeDub’s bacon was saved by China and Brazil, “where Volkswagen is particularly successful,” said a proud VW sales Chief Christian Klingler today. Looking forward, he’s hedging his bets. “Despite the very positive performance to date, we remain cautious about our forecast for the full year. It is still very difficult to predict macroeconomic developments,” a Volkswagen communiqué cites Klingler.

Klingler is right to be careful. (Read More…)

A good old friend is coming back to China: The Jeep. Guangzhou Automobile Group Co (GAC) is expected to produce Chrysler’s Jeep at its Changsha-based joint venture with Fiat, Gasgoo reports. (Read More…)

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association ACEA released sales numbers for April. As predicted on Friday, the numbers are bad. For the first time this year, and for the first time in 10 months, numbers are negative. New passenger car registrations in Europe fell by 7.4 percent in April compared to the same month last year. They will get worse. (Read More…)

Congressional lawmakers are mad at Toyota. What has Toyota done now? Their sin this time: They may have harbored a secret “attack plan against congressional testimony.” This, says the Washington Post, has “drawn the ire of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.” (Read More…)

Got up bright and early this beautiful chilly morning. The sun is out and there are no clouds in the blue autumn sky. (Get used to it. It’s autumn in Brazil.) Reminds me again of some American friends, who say that a trip to Brazil is worth it just to see the sky. Anyway, the plan is to hit the dealer at opening time and check out all the hype surrounding the new Uno. As luck would have it… (Read More…)

Here’s my daily struggle: I like cars and I like (and greatly appreciate) how I make my living. But I also really like the Earth and nature and polar bears and would prefer mankind not relocate to some Total Recall-like Mars colony stocked with Evian, Luna bars and aliens with three boobs. (Read More…)

So much for seeing a Hyundai-branded Ram anytime soon. The company has clarified in a statement [via Reuters] that:

Hyundai Motor Co. denies that there are any current plans to bring a pickup truck of any type into the U.S. now or in the foreseeable future. Hyundai is not in discussion with Chrysler in regard to a selling a rebadged Chrysler Corp pickup truck, or any other vehicle, in the U.S

Which means that Ram will have to overcome a 20-25 percent sales slump over the last year on its own. And Hyundai will have to stick with cars, where it’s killing the competition anyway. Unless it hooks up with the other former Ram-rebadge-wannabe, Nissan. The Japanese brand is reportedly developing both full-size and compact pickups despite having had minimal success moving pickups in volume… a partnership there might benefit both.