“Far! Far!” The man in the corner station was screaming at me. Yes, I thought, as I steered out towards the grass, smoke billowing behind me from the twin tailpipes and blanketing the track like the thick fog of a dream, I’m getting it far off the line. Far. We came to a halt in the damp grass but the man is still screaming.
“Far! FAR! FAR!”
Understanding clicks down over me like the visor of a full-face helmet. He isn’t saying ‘far’. He’s saying ‘fire’.
As Steve Rattner described in his book “Overhaul,” the Presidential Auto Task Force very nearly decided not to rescue Chrysler, with the decision coming down to a single vote. Now, it seems, that with Chrysler blaming the “shyster” interest rates on its government loans for its lack of profitability, Chrysler’s viability now depends on rounding up a “lender of second to last resort.” And, according to the latest reports, that rescue-of-a-rescue effort is still very much hanging in the balance as well. If CEO Sergio Marchionne thought the government’s loan terms were “shyster”-ish, he was clearly in need of some context from Wall Street… and he doesn’t seem to be liking it.
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Lewis writes:
So I have been debating my next car purchase and am wondering your thoughts.
Does it make more sense to purchase an older low mileage used vehicle or a newer vehicle with high miles. An example would be let’s say a 1997 Jeep Wrangler with under 30K miles or a 2007 Jeep Wrangler with 95K miles.
Rick Kranz, product editor at Automotive News, had an epiphany: “To understand Victor Muller’s obsession with China, you need to understand where that market is headed,” Kranz wrote. Ok, enlighten us, sensei. Where is it headed? (Read More…)
When Lotus showed five new cars at the Paris Auto Show last summer, the British Sports Car brand raised a number of eyebrows amongst the motoring press. Not only was Lotus abandoning its lovable but hugely unprofitable enthusiast/trackday niche, but it was also reaching for Ferrari and Porsche-style brand recognition while offering an ambitious but underwhelming (on paper anyway) vision of its future product lineup. Five new vehicles (three mid-engine, two front-engine, four two-door coupes, one four-door sports sedan) is a lot of development work, and initial reports that Lotus would use Toyota power including hybrid drivetrains didn’t create much for enthusiasts to get worked up over. Lotus has since backed away from using Toyota power, but developing engines for five new vehicles creates a whole new set of challenges. And, as it turns out, Lotus has wuietly backed away from the most ambitious elements of its plan, and the firm now plans to launch only two cars at first. Has Lotus turned the corner from hype machine to credible competitor?
The Wisconsin Court of Appeals on Wednesday gave its first ruling on how dashcam evidence would be treated at the appellate level. A three-judge panel decided that the proper legal standard when evaluating a video is to overturn a trial judge’s decision only it is “clearly erroneous.”
The context was provided by the November 4, 2009 arrest of Jeffrey D. Walli in Sheboygan. The court was asked to determine whether Sheboygan Police Officer Brandon Munnik had a valid reason for pulling Walli over in the first place. Munnik claimed that around 11:22pm Walli’s car nearly sideswiped him, so he flipped on his emergency lights, which triggered his dashboard-mounted video camera, and gave chase. Munnik testified that the resulting video showed Walli’s car over the center line and was a legitimate traffic violation. Walli’s attorney disagreed with that take.
Logic makes you think that used cars sales would skyrocket at the moment in Japan. The auto industry barely has started producing and will not be back to normal before the end of the year. Hundreds of thousands of cars have been destroyed. In Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture alone, 146,000 cars are estimated to have been severely damaged or destroyed, 10 percent of the 1,540,000 cars registered in the Prefecture. Used cars should be flying off the lots. But the opposite is true. (Read More…)
Victor Muller is getting desperate. Hard up for cash, he is willing to sell 24 percent of Saab to a car dealer in China. It’s not any car dealer, but Pangda, one of the larger chains in China. According to a Spyker press release, Pangda has “over 1100 dealerships nationwide”, according to Pag Da’s own profile (see below) is has about half of that. Be it as it may, it is a dealer group, not a larger automaker. Not even a smaller one. (Read More…)
Is it possible for a Jeep Cherokee with a 60s-technology AMC power to finish in the top fifth of a race on a crazy road course full of off-camber turns and dizzying elevation changes? No, it is not possible. And yet… (Read More…)
For most of the ’11 Goin’ For Broken race, the battle for the overall win seemed to be all about the Spin-N-Out Burger E30 and the Model T GT… but a lot can happen over the course of 24 nonstop hours of road racing. We had snow, gusty winds, dust storms, wild horses, and— eventually— a whirlwind of mechanical problems and black flags that knocked out the top two contenders. You don’t dare make any mistakes when you’ve got the winningest car in LeMons history looming in your rear-view, and Eyesore Racing’s ghettocharged Miata made its move at oh-dark-thirty this morning. (Read More…)
During the recent annual shareholder meeting in Munich, BMW’s prez Norbert Reithofer confirmed the Bavarians are seriously considering starting production in Brazil. “We are studying new places for production, such as an assembly line in Brazil and in another BRICT country”, he said. This comes on the back of another of BMW’s top honcho’s declaration. Back in March, BMW’s head of production Frank-Peter Arndt commented: “We believe Brazil has a great future ahead. The country’s development over the last ten years has been impressive”. (Read More…)
As you’ve read here many times, the drums against imports have been beating in Brasília for a long time. Now, the government is acting. It has opened up its little tragic bag of dirty tricks and is pulling the first, as it were, rabbit out. It also promises to dip into that bag again if this first rodent fails to bite. Moneyed (and not so moneyed Brazilian import buyers of Chinese cars) Brazilian consumers should run to the dealerships to get ’em while they can. They should also put some money aside as the measure will also affect parts makers and consequently prices. (Read More…)
“If you have no cars, you will lose market share,” said double-CEO Carlos Ghosn at last week’s annual results conference of Nissan. He said openly what other carmakers on the other side of the Pacific only dare to whisper into the ears of sympathetic reporters, or via analysts at banks and brokerages: The March 11 tsunami will cost Japanese makers big chunks of market share. The questions is: For how long? (Read More…)
The 2011 Goin’ For Broken 24 Hours of LeMons, which takes place in Nevada’s Reno-Fernley Raceway, is a true 24-hour event. The green flag waved at 10:00 AM this morning, and we’re just about halfway done now. RFR features thin air, crazy elevation changes, off-camber turns, and (starting a couple hours back) pitch darkness. The racers love it, but it kills their cars. (Read More…)
Editor’s note: Car News China has some pictures of the Dongfeng EQ250 in police livery, accompanied by the nearly-unbelievable tale of the HMMWV’s Sinification, which we have excerpted here. Do surf over and check out one of the better Chinese car blogs out there.
AM General tried to sell the HMMWV to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the late 1980′s.
The PLA however had no interest in the vehicle by that time, they thought it too big and heavy. AM General left one HMMWV in China, hoping the Chinese would change their mind. They did after the first Gulf War in 1991 when the HMMWV was on every TV screen in the world, seen as a winning vehicle that could cross every desert.
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