Pity Acura. Honda gambled in creating the first Asian luxury brand, and enjoyed four years in the spotlight when this bet paid off, only to then be completely overshadowed by Lexus. Acura has spent the last two decades trying to regain car buyers’ attention. The logical solution: offer cars that look and drive like no […]

The European Commission concluded that the sale of Volvo to China’s Geely would not significantly impede competition in Europe (well, that would have been a stretch), and approved the transaction, says Reuters. (Read More…)

Italian supercar upstarts Pagani started with one car, the Zonda, and have maintained a laser-like focus on that single nameplate ever since. Former supercar heavyweight McLaren is re-entering the road car arena with its V8-powered Ferrari Italia-fighter, the MP4-12C, but is fast-tracking the development of its range-topping supercar, pitched as a neo-McLaren F1 and aimed at the Zonda and its hypercar ilk. Recession? What Recession?

(Read More…)

People have different ideas on what constitutes a good car. Some people think driving dynamics are the key, which explains the sales of cars like BMW and Ford. Others look to reliability, which accounts for cars like Toyota and Honda. Then you have the skinflints who consider value their key factor, Hyundais and Kias. While each car brand stands for something, there are many people who want a mixture of many factors. After all, a car is a major purchase and you’d want it to perform well over many areas and not just excel in just one. You car is your transport, it keeps your children safe, keeps you entertained in traffic and keeps the rain off your head. And all it asks for is a tank of petrol and regular servicing. So maybe there’s more to buying a car than just branding? So here’s the question of the day: Which one does it all? (Read More…)

At least four of the country’s top rental car firms sell information on their customers to a photo enforcement firm. American Traffic Solutions and its subsidiary, ATS Processing Services, signed contracts through which Avis, Budget, Hertz and Advantage agreed to hand over information on renters so that ATS can collect extra money on photo tickets.

(Read More…)

Speaking of German car companies doing exceptionally well despite a tanking German car market, there is of course Volkswagen.

The Volkswagen group sold more than 3.5m units worldwide in the first six months of 2010, besting the pretty darn good numbers of the same period in 2009 by about 15 percent, Martin Winterkorn said to Reuters. He predicts (and that’s an easy call based on the half year results) that the Volkswagen group will see record car sales in 2010. What’s driving the new Wirtschaftswunder? The weak Euro, of course. And the strong position of Volkswagen in boom markets such as China.

Nevertheless, VW doesn’t want to rely on the vagaries of the foreign exchange. (Read More…)

We continue our look at the rock stars of car magazines, the concept cars splashed across the covers, cars that rarely if ever went anywhere.

The cover concept dream cars that I find most intriguing are the stillborn ideas, cars that were not quite vaporware, but that also never made it past prototype stage into production. Some were from specialist manufacturers, others from new startups and yet others from large and established firms. Some, like the six-wheeler Panther, were so unique that they have stuck in my memory for decades. Others completely slipped my mind. Most of them, I’m sure, sold more magazines than cars.

If I asked you to name a major Japanese automaker that developed a mid-engine sports car you’d most likely mention Toyota and the MR2 or Honda’s highly esteemed Acura NSX. You probably wouldn’t mention Nissan. (Read More…)

There was a time, in summer of 2007, when a dollar bought more than 120 yen. Once you arrived in Tokyo, you quickly wished it would have bought more. Now, the dollar buys about a third less. The dollar/yen rate had been at a downward trajectory since that summer of 2007. What made the yen really expensive was a company called Lehman Brothers, and the fallout following their bankruptcy in 2008. For inexplicable reasons, the yen is seen as a safer currency than the greenback. Should you make the mistake of stepping off the plane with Euros in your pocket, you would be in for an even bigger shock. In July 2008, a Euro bought 170 yen. Now, it’s down to 109.  For even more inexplicable reasons, some mentally unstable people still talk about an undervalued yen.

You may not travel to Tokyo frequently enough to give a hoot. But Japanese auto manufacturers don’t want to take it any more. (Read More…)

Plugins are range anxiety on wheels. Hybrids are expensive, and usually come with a payback time longer than the average lease. In some cases, longer than your life. Lugging a big battery and two engines around can defeat the purpose. Hybrids are also expensive to develop. In Europe, the strategy has been to improve the old ICE as much as possible. Midsize automakers in Japan go the same route, with sometimes surprising results. Their gasoline-powered cars beg the question: Why go to the hybrid trouble at all? (Read More…)

Ford’s Escape wasn’t the best-selling compact crossover in June, but it only needed to cruise to an easy victory as the best selling compact crossover in the first half of 2010. Honda and Toyota’s offerings are still over 10k units behind the mighty Escape on the half, with the Equinox claiming fourth place, and Rogue and Forester neck-and-neck for fifth.

What a week it’s been! Tesla’s stock price is currently sitting just over $16, down from last week’s IPO price of $17. In the meantime, it’s been as high as $29.89 per share. Plenty of analysts figured Tesla’s IPO would be bubble-tastic, but did anyone think the fizz would go out of the EV maker’s stock so soon?

In this day and age, it’s nothing short of a minor miracle that giant multinationals still build cars that are as ridiculously potent and expensive as the LF-A. Especially giant multinationals which have made good headway in recent years with a green-friendly, Prius-powered image. The LFA is rare enough that few non-car-nuts know it exist, let alone associate it with their new ES350. It costs $375k a pop and Toyota still loses money on each one built. In fact, thus far, only this video (a promotional shoot by Lexus Europe at the 2010 Goodwood Festival Of Speed) comes close to properly explaining why this car was built (starting at around the 1:10 mark). In fact, I challenge anyone to come up with a more concise argument for the continued existence of hugely expensive, hugely fast cars.

Well, how’d you like to have a brand-new Chevrolet Corvette?

With that line, GM CEO Ed Whitacre keeps GM’s streak of giving Corvettes away to well-compensated guys alive in a speech at the Austin Chamber of Commerce. When Whitacre asked the chairman of the chamber and president of Tokyo Electron US Holdings Barry Mayer what kind of car he drove, Mayer responded that he drove a Lexus. That’s hardly a surprising response, points out the Freep, given that Mayer is the head of a Japanese company’s US operations. But it surprised and embarrassed Whitacre enough to drop some Corvette keys in Mayer’s lap and offer discounts on GM cars to everyone else in the audience. Because chambers of commerce are, after all, the truly needy. Besides, it’s just tax money…

Via Top Gear comes this in-car footage of the Porsche GT3 R Hybrid lapping a racetrack and making some peculiar sounds in the process. Part Porsche purr, part RC Car whine, this new note is one of the first hints at what future supercars will sound like, in particular the forthcoming Porsche 918 Spyder. It may not be the most viscerally evocative sound ever recorded, but dammit, it’s the future.

TTAC Commentator WaftableTorque writes:

I’m driving a 2002 Lexus LS430 with Ultra Luxury Package. It has OEM 17″ chrome rims, and one of the tires has an air leak. My mechanic diagnosed the problem as peeling chrome at the bead, causing an improper air seal. I asked to put a tube on it, but he refused because of the potential for overheating, and they weren’t designed for tubes anyway. He also commented during my seasonal rotation that the other 3 rims are doing the same thing, so they’ll all eventually develop leaks. He recommended getting 4 new rims.

Fortunately this car has a full-size spare, so I’m not in a hurry to replace the one rim. The chrome is peeling on a couple of the non-leaking ones near the lip where it’s been curbed by yours truly, but otherwise they look new.

I’m going to put my winter tires on aftermarket rims this fall, but want to keep the OEM rims for summer duty. My goal is tasteful understatement, so I want my car as close to stock as possible.

My question is: can a reputable wheel shop fix these rims?

(Read More…)