For many Americans, the words “Ford Fiesta” dredges up memories of a crappy claustrophobic tin can that fights the Geo Metro for the title of Worst American Small Car of the decade. The only time I ever wanted a fiesta was during a drunken weekend in Cabo, but the fiesta in mind had more to […]
Find Reviews by Make:
Latest auto news, reviews, editorials, and podcasts
Just because I want to believe doesn’t mean I should. Or that I can. Even by the gonzo standards of 1970s Italy, the Stratos was always a wild one… precisely the kind of car that has no obvious place in the homogenized, safety-crazed world of 21st Century automobiles. Besides, Lancia and Chrysler are becoming two names for the same brand, and it’s tough to imagine a Chrysler Stratos ever coming stateside (if only to avoid the “Cloud Car” associations). Besides, if Fiat is keeping Alfa around as a sporty brand, why would it develop a Lancia sportscar? Other than Old GM-style branding confusion, of course. But the least believable part of these pictures, purportedly showing a Stratos prototype testing at a Fiat test track [via Italiaspeed] are the photos themselves… and the story going along with them.
Another month, another sales record for Hyundai/Kia. At this point, it’s getting tough to expect anything else. Elantra took top honors for the Korean concern last month, as Hyundai USA CEO John Krafcik confirms that sales of the new Sonata and the Santa Fe are both capacity restrained at this point. Krafcik tells Automotive News [sub] that an undisclosed US production capacity increase is in the works, as Hyundai is selling Sonata and Santa Fe faster than they can build them. Soul and Sorento are hitting their stride for Kia as well, with the Soul cresting 8k units last month and the Sorento topping 9k. But perhaps one of the best signs that Hyundai/Kia are in a good place is that only the aging Accent failed to beat its Cash-for-Clunker-driven July 2009 number. We’ll see what happens next month, but further out, Krafcik tells AN [sub] that Hyundai is targeting a 50 MPG fleet average for 2025. Even with no plans to sell pickups in the US, Hyundai’s prospects look bright in this market.
It’s the war of the unreleased documents. Days after a former NHTSA chief accused the NHTSA of burying evidence that shows that driver error was the cause in 23 out of 23 cases, ABC has the story that Toyota knew long ago how to cause sudden unintended acceleration in their cars, and failed to tell everybody how to go about it. (Read More…)
Prior to going on television on Monday, I spoke to a GM spokesman in hopes of better understanding the business case for the Volt. Perhaps the most interesting thing he told me was that a major impetus for developing the Volt as an Extended-Range Electric concept was GM’s failure to achieve success with three alt-energy concepts (EV-1, Hydrogen, and yes, E-85 ethanol) due to their need for fueling infrastructure. As we talked, it occurred to me that three other less-than-entirely-successful GM “green car” projects might have helped lead The General down the primrose path to the Volt: GM’s BAS “Mild Hybrid,” the Parallel Hybrid Truck system (PHT), and the V8-based “Two-Mode” hybrid drivetrains. He admitted (somewhat grudgingly) that GM’s hybrid sales had been “disappointing” and that the ambitious Volt project was to some extent motivated by this lack of market success. What he didn’t tell me: GM is bringing back the discontinued mild-hybrid BAS system for 2011.
Imagine yourself going down the road with your foot on the brake pedal all the time. This is a Japanese inventor’s idea to stop driver error and unintended acceleration. To accelerate, you move your foot sideways against an accelerator bar. To brake, you stomp on the brake. A horrible thought – if you are a personal injury lawyer. (Read More…)
TTAC Commentator superbadd75 writes:
My question is somewhat loaded, as I have a general plan of attack, but would like to hear from you and the B&B. My awesome wife just surprised me with the car I’ve been dreaming of for some time now. It’s a very basic 60,000 mile ’93 Miata with power NOTHING, and no A/C, so there’s very little to break. I plan to make the timing belt change top priority, and do the fluid changes, but are there any other Miata specific items that need attention? I appreciate any and all advice!
The city of Mukilteo, Washington filed papers Monday hoping to thwart the attempt of a traffic camera company to deny residents the chance to vote on banning automated enforcement. Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Michael T. Downes on Friday will hear arguments in the case filed by an American Traffic Solutions (ATS)-funded front group to protect the company’s ticketing contract from the fate such agreements have shared in all ten cities where the public has forced a vote to toss out the cameras. The sponsors of Mukilteo’s initiative — Nicholas Sherwood, Alex Rion and Tim Eyman — filed a more comprehensive legal brief as intervenors tearing apart the ATS-backed case.
The suspense-filled wait for Toyota Motor Corp’s first quarter profits is finally over. Some expected (hoped?) that ToMoCo would pay dearly for the recalls. Others consulted their crystal ball that said that Toyota might have netted more than a billion US in the first quarter. They were all wrong. Way off the mark. Not even on the same planet. (Read More…)
“As West Germany debated last week whether it should have an army, East Germany was unmasking one.
Five thousand jackbooted, blue-uniformed toughs swarmed into the border districts to put down disturbances by farmers trying to save their homes as the Reds bulldozed a three-mile-deep isolation corridor between East and West Germany. The blue-uniformed men, part of a 100,000-man force, are called the People’s Police (Volkspolizei, or Vopos, for short).”
Oh, just the tone of that article (from TIME) makes me nostalgic for the days when American journalists kind of, you know, liked baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and freedom. Nowadays, the Times would probably “embed” somebody with the Vopos and he would enthusiastically shoot farmers while talking about the need for social justice.
But I digress. The car in the photo above is also a “VoPo” — a Volkswagen-Porsche. Styled by the consumer-goods design firm Gugelot, who were the folks responsible for the Kodak “Carousel” slide projector, it was assembled by Karmann in Germany. In Europe, it was sold as a Volkswagen; in the United States, as a Porsche. Although I’m personally a bit of a 914 fan, the car has to be understood as an aesthetic, critical, and commercial failure for Porsche. Most importantly, it was yet another episode in the strange “Inside Baseball” relationship between Volkswagen and Porsche. From the day Ferdinand Porsche started thinking about the “People’s Car” to the very last who-bought-whom stock manipulation of 2009, Porsche and VW have been engaged in a bizarre, operatic, and occasionally fraudulent relationship — and Porsche always loses. Every. Single. Freaking. Time.
Toyota pulled back on incentives last month, and paid the price with a 6.8 percent decline in sales compared to July 2009. Between this and the fact that year-over-year comparisons are skewed by July 2009‘s Cash-For-Clunkers effect, it’s almost no surprise that Toyota’s smaller and value-oriented models were almost uniformly down on the month. But a look at last July’s report shows that the Yaris, Corolla and the Scions actually lost volume during the first month of Cash-For-Clunkers. A similar situation is playing out at Honda, where the Fit has fallen for the second July in a row, and the Civic dropped hard after gaining only three percent last July. Stranger still: both firms, which earned their US market spurs on the back of efficient cars, beat their July 2009 “truck” numbers but failed to match car volume. My, how things change!
What’s the difference between these two compact crossovers? American readers will recognize the vehicle on the left as the forthcoming facelift of the Nissan Rogue. The crossover on the right is a recently-released update to the European-market Nissan Qashqai. The Rogue is slightly larger in most dimensions than the Qashqai (not counting the extended-wheelbase Qashqai +2), and only offers a 2.5 liter engine while the Qash has a palette of four two-liter and smaller gas and diesel engines. But it’s not the Euro model’s cramped quarters or low-displacement engines that we find ourselves wishing could find their way to the American market… it’s the Qashqai’s updated styling that we want. Sure, these things are subjective, but the updated Rogue just doesn’t seem like much of an improvement on its predecessor’s looks. The Qashqai, meanwhile, has gone from filler to killer.
Nissan may have broken its own incentive record last month, but it was GM that blew the lid off the competition. According to Edmunds’ True Cost Of Incentives Index, The General loaded up nearly $1,000 more in incentive spending compared to its closest competitors, and killed the industry average by $1,340. Combined, Detroit spent $1.7 billion, or 57.3 percent of the total incentive expenditures last month. And according to Edmunds,
Analysis of incentives expenditures as a percentage of average sticker price for each segment shows large cars averaged the highest, 13.5 percent, followed by large trucks at 12.4 percent of sticker price. Premium luxury cars averaged the lowest with 3.5 percent and sport cars followed with 3.9 percent of sticker price.
Ford may have beat its July 2009 number last month, but sales at the Blue Oval brand still fell compared to the month before. Perhaps more embarrassing still is the fact that the recently-canceled Mercury brand managed to move more volume than Lincoln, despite the fact that both brands underperformed compared to both June 2010 and July 2009.
Set the way-back machine to our July 2009 Chrysler Group sales post, and a certain amount of deja-vu might just set in. Last Summer, Chrysler’s version of success was a mere single-digit percentage volume decline. This July, Chrysler’s big accomplishment was a five percent improvement over last July’s number. Last July we thought the Chrysler brand in particular was “toast,” and based on this July’s numbers, we can’t say we’ve found much to change that opinion, as ChryCo’s eponymous brand dropped 11 percent year-over-year, and shed over 3k units of volume compared to June. Chrysler Town & Country outsold the rest of the brand alone at 8,083 units, an 18 percent gain.
Recent Comments