introduces the development direction for Buick’s future SUV products for the market,
the Chinese-designed Envision is the first look at future Buick design since the Buick Business from two years ago. But whereas the Business Concept pointed the way towards a funkily distinctive Buick aesthetic and product sensibility (if anyone should reinvent the minivan, shouldn’t it be Buick?), the Envision concept is an anonymously internationalist crossover. GM’s presser claims the Envision “merges Buick’s global design language with Chinese aesthetics,” but next to Buick’s previous Chinese-designed masterpieces of contemporary “American-style” design like the Business, Invicta and Riviera concepts, it offers little to identify it as a Buick. In fact, it seems more like a tribute to the Hyundai Tucson, which itself is something of an homage to Ford’s Kinetic Design. Perhaps Buick’s designers are trying to signal the fact that, in the future, all crossovers will look exactly the same.
You have your reasons. Gas prices might be high and headed higher, and car-based crossovers handle better, but you want your full-sized, full-lux, body-on-frame conventional SUV. GM and Ford, the segment’s traditional rulers, have had nothing new to offer in five years. But Infiniti has as much faith in the segment’s continued vitality as you […]
You can just about kiss those worries about a US price war goodbye, as GM has become the third major automaker to raise its US market MSRPs in April alone. Like Toyota and Ford before it, GM is raising its prices by about $100 per vehicle ($123 on average) in response not to Japanese parts shortages, but steadily increasing raw material costs. According to the WSJ, the price increase takes effect starting on May 2. And, TrueCar’s Jesse Toprak tells Fox,
The advice would be, based on what we see today, we don’t see any kind of ease in price anytime soon. The prices of everything will go up, moving forward.
Now all GM needs to do is start easing off its incentives so that those MSRPs actually mean something.
Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments in the much-hyped world of electric vehicles is the fact that no major OEM has committed to proving their battery-powered cars in the crucible of competitive racing. But it seems that this crucial oversight is being addressed by Nissan, which is unveiling a race-spec Nissan Leaf NISMO RC, aimed at pushing the electric racing world forward while proving that green isn’t synonymous with dull. Nissan’s presser explains:
“Combining the talents of NISMO, Nissan’s world renowned motorsports group, and engineers behind some of the company’s Super GT and FIA GT1 race teams, the Nissan LEAF NISMO RC will serve as a rolling laboratory for the accelerated development of EV and aerodynamic systems, as well as a platform for the development of new green motorsports series,” said Carlos Tavares, chairman, Nissan Americas.
The new electric race vehicle will likely make a series of special demonstration appearances at various motorsports venues in 2011, with the company exploring pioneer zero emission competition spec series in future years.
The shorter, lower, lighter racing Leaf has the same battery pack as the production version, but shifts the drivetrain to a mid-mounted position, driving the rear wheels. Early testing points to a 0-60 time of around 6.85 seconds and a top speed of 93 MPH. Nissan’s not announcing any details of the hinted-at racing series, but we’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for the first manufacturer-backed EV racing effort.
Plenty of things have happened since I began writing for The Truth About Cars that I would never have been able to predict, but perhaps one of the happiest surprises came when Timothy Ogden contacted me for an interview that would go into a book on Toyota’s recent recall scandal. That book, Toyota Under Fire, is now complete, and it references work published here at TTAC as well as interviews with myself and Bertel Schmitt. Not only does the book admirably document the media-fueled scandal, but it also contains profound insights into Toyota’s response to the recall challenge as well as Toyota’s efforts to respond to the economic downturn of 2008-2009. A review will be posted first thing tomorrow, and at 1 PM Eastern Mr Ogden and his co-author Professor Jeffery Liker (author of The Toyota Way) will join us in one of our popular author livechats, in which he will answer your questions about Toyota, its recent challenges, and the culture that helped propel it through its darkest hours. Mark your calendars or, if you can’t make it to the livechat, just leave your questions for Mr Ogden and Professor Liker in the comments section below.
Large parts of Japan’s auto production have been down following the March 11 quake and tsunami. Production of large Japanese carmakers like Toyota and Honda is now running at 50 percent capacity. There is something else that affects export: Fear of radiation. (Read More…)
Hey Sajeev, James here (well duh.) I’m at a conundrum of logic-versus-emotion and I need someone to talk me out of this idea. My current car is an ’07 Accord EX sedan, 4-cylinder, 5-speed, low miles (like 42k, hardly broken in.) It’s a great car – costs almost nothing to maintain,comfortable, great shifter, good gas mileage. The only thing is, I don’t actually… well… like it.
I’ve always had a thing for turbocharged Swedish cars (oh lord.) My last car was a beautiful Saab 900 SPG that blew up in dramatic fashion despite me throwing a frankly insane amount of money at it while I owned it. Thus the appliance-like Honda now. (Read More…)
Our man in Brazil has been sharing his love of the Citroen DS line of late, and in the process he’s managed to coax more than a few fans of Citroen’s funky “anti-retro” experiment out of the closet. Of course, the Citroen love has also drawn out a few detractors, who criticize the DS line’s out-there looks, the brand’s weak links to the glorious DS past, or the overall Frenchness of the whole thing. And with the latest installment in Citroen’s ongoing love note to French automotive savoire faire, the DS5, Citroen isn’t shying away from the controversy. Just introduced in Shanghai, the DS5 is funkier, freakier and, well, Frencher than ever, all while bringing the DS line into its most practical application to date. And with Peugeot’s diesel-hybrid drivetrain in which the rear wheels are driven electrically (lowering drivetrain complexity and weight), the DS5 even has a hint of the old-school Citroen creativity in its engineering. Fans of the French car, it’s time to let your freak flags fly.
What was old has become new… again! After letting the old New Beetle languish on the market for a remarkable 13th year, VW has revisited its ’90s retro hit with a longer, lower, wider update on the new Jetta’s platform [The 2012 Beetle is 71.2 inches wide (3.3 inches wider), 58.5 inches tall (.5 inches lower) and 168.4 inches long (6 inches longer)]. The engine options are largely the same as the Jetta’, with TDI, 2.5 liter five-cylinder and 2.0 Turbo mills on offer, with a 200 HP range-topper offering an electronic limited-slip diff and dual-clutch gearbox.
Convertible and Hybrid versions should be coming down the pipe shortly, but for now all VW wants to talk about is the Beetle’s return to an original-style profile, its status as a “new original” and its ability to “respect the past while looking to the future.” Which is all well and good, but no matter how well the New New Beetle may tickle the Boomers’ retro sensibilities, it’s got nothing to to do with original Beetle’s values. If anything, the New New Beetle should do some of its best work by making at least a few sub-Boomers just a little bit nostalgic for the late 1990s, a simpler time when retro cars didn’t even have to be faithful to the original as long as they offered a plastic flower vase. Now those were some special times…
A New Mexico district court judge on Thursday transferred a case challenging the legality of photo enforcement systems to the state’s second highest court. In a written decision, Judge Manuel Arrieta suggested it would save time and expense for the court of appeals directly to weigh the case against Cristobal Rodriguez who was issued a red light camera ticket by the private company operating on behalf of the city of Las Cruces.
You get the Index of Effluency, 24 Hours of LeMons’ top prize, by accomplishing the most with the worst car. You can win it by getting a horrifyingly terrible car just into the top half of the standings, or you can get it by getting your very terrible truck a hair from the top ten. The Pickup Trash S10 team opted for the latter route, clawing their way to 12th place under un-pickup-friendly weather conditions against an extremely tough field. (Read More…)
On paper, the Toyota MR2 should be an excellent choice for a low-buck endurance racer… but 24 Hours of LeMons racing has a way of shattering such preconceptions like a connecting rod hurtling through the side of a 4AGE block. In fact, the MR2 has been one of the least reliable LeMons cars, even worse than such good-on-paper-but-terrible-in-practice endurance machines as the Nissan Z and Porsche 944; we’ve seen dozens of them race in LeMons over the years, and nearly all have failed miserably… until today. Today, the Dai Mondai II car was the first MR2 to take the win on laps in the 24 Hours of LeMons. (Read More…)
A mild case of pedal misapplication left five cars in pieces. An 86 year old woman from Cologne, Germany, vacated her parking spot. She confused gas and brake and smashed into a few cars behind her. Totally shocked, she wanted to extract herself from the scene. She did put her car in gear, mashed the gas, and slammed into a car in front of her, which ended up against a wall. Another driver was waiting for the bigger and bigger parking spot to be come available. The octogenarian slammed into that car as well. After five cars including her own were demolished, an ambulance drove the lady to a hospital.
You never know what you’re going to see. I’ve been trying to get in the habit of taking the camera bag for my 3D rigs with me when I go out and about so that I don’t miss capturing the neat old vehicles that I happen across. Just last week there was an impossible-not-to-notice canary yellow 1972 Lincoln Continental that shoulda woulda coulda been posted here but the cameras were at home. So when I walked out of Durst Lumber after picking up a tripod nut for my video rig and saw a very clean, very black Buick Grand National, I was glad that I had the cameras in hand. That’s when I realized that as unique as the Grand National was in its malaise era day and as cool as it is today, there was something far more worthy of note just a few parking spaces away.
This originally equipped 1948 Packard Eight survivor is on only its third owner and has just 40,000 miles on the clock. Other than the tires, fluids, filters, belts and hoses, everything is original – nothing’s been rebuilt. All it takes is a walk around the stately exterior and a peak into the elegantly appointed interior and it’s easy to understand that while Cadillac may have been the standard of the world, Packard was America’s ultimate aspirational car. Packards were what truly wealthy people drove. (Read More…)
Rising prices at the pump make people do dumb things. Some buy a new car to save at all costs. Not only will they never recoup the cost of the new car, the tsunami in Japan turned fuel efficient Japanese cars into everything else than a bargain. Others do something particularly stupid: They drive their car until it runs out of gas. (Read More…)
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