We walked around the Chicago show at the end of the day to take a few more photos of cars which caught our eye… including the new Civic-by-Acura, the ILX.
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In terms of new product, this year’s Chicago Show hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. Let’s see… facelifted crossover, hatchback version of existing car, convertible version of existing car… It’s the proverbial “slow news day” in million-square-foot format.
Lacking even a new bodystyle or three-year-old Japanese-market van to debut, Chrysler did the smart thing to make sure the journalists were satisfied: they broke out the cupcakes. Now for the trivia question: Can you spot the former Monte Carlo Rally winner in this picture?
Having won a somewhat controversial victory in New York’s “Taxi Of Tomorrow” competition, the Nissan NV200 has now arrived for civilian use.
Was it luck? Was it hard work? A mixture of both? After escaping a near collision with fate in Iwaki, and not even getting its feet wet in Thailand, Nissan emerges as the most successful after the trials brought on by the unholy triad of tsunami, flood and yen. We said this a while ago when we compared 2011 production numbers of Japan’s majors.
Today, we go to Yokohama to check the balance sheets. (Read More…)
Toyota U.S.A., Inc. today announced pricing for the 2012 Prius c subcompact hybrid. They were not kidding when they had promised that the car would start at below $19,000. (Read More…)
Kia brought all the glitz and glam of an 80’s hair band concert (including an actual 80’s cover band) to the stage to unveil 2 new products today. With 9 new vehicles introduced in the last 3 years, the major releases have already occured. First up was the Optima “SX Limited” that goes on sale in March. Changes include 18″ chrome wheels, red brake calipers, 274 hp engine that achieves leading mileage (22/34) for under $35,000 (destination and fees included).
The big unveil came when they brought out the “Trackster” edition of the Soul.
We’ve already heard that the 2013 GT500 droptop will be limited to a relatively poky 155MPH. That’s probably for the best, really. It’s much safer to roll a convertible over at 155 than it would be at, say, a buck-ninety.
During the press conference, however, we heard an interesting factoid, one that got us interested enough to sucker-punch SVT’s Jamal Hameedi for a brief Q-and-A:
Subtract two doors and a back seat from the Kia Soul and add a 250 horsepower and all-wheel drive and you have the Kia Track’ster concept. The initial sketches of the Track’ster were pretty underwhelming, but this car looks much better in photographs. A one inch longer wheelbase and a Brembo brake system with 14 inch rotors up front, 13.6 inches in the back and a combination of 6 and 4 piston brake calipers (front and rear) add to the Track’ster’s spec sheet. Instead of the rear seats, there’s a compartment for spare tires and safety gear like helmets.
Ah, the unbearable lightness of being Hyundai! The Elantra GT has arrived, looking quite sleek, quite desirable, and clocking in at 2,784 pounds. That’s 151 pounds lighter than the next-best player in the segment — Mazda’s similarly Tyson-faced Mazda3 — and
well ahead of the Focus and Golf. The point was driven home by a little show-and-tell, as seen above, to which the Chicago media reacted with thunderous applause. Hear me now, believe me later, and remember it when you are shopping for your next car: The Elantra GT is the lightest car in its class.
The Elantra Coupe? Well…
Even at Germany’s IG Metall metal workers union the daily BILD Zeitung was put aside today to make room for the fancy Wall Street Journal. The paper claims to have talked to “a GM official,” who thinks that all hell is about to break loose at Opel in Germany. (Read More…)
2011 was the best sales year yet for the Acadia. No explanations were offered for this surprising statistic, but GMC was happy to talk about the “class-leading fuel economy”, center airbag, and LED headlamps…
Hang on to your hairplugs. The 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 has the same 650 horsepower supercharged 5.8L V8 making 600 lb-ft of torque. But unlike the 200 mph coupe, the ‘vert will only top out at 155 mph. The vert does get 6-piston Brembo brakes, a carbon fiber driveshaft, an upgraded clutch, electronically adjustable Bilstein shocks and a Motley Crue Greatest Hits CD in the Shaker audio system.
The 2013 GMC Acadia gets a pretty mild update, with cosmetic changes playing the biggest role here. A new “center airbag”, which inflates via the right side of the driver’s seat (to protect passengers from an opposite-side impact) is also featured. The two changes are not quite the major redesign that was expected. We’ll have live shots later in the day.
Have a quick look at this screenshot. Scan it as quickly as you scan other news from China. Now picture scanning it under as much time pressure an average news editor is under. That’s what this is for, it is GM China’s site for journalists. Wouldn’t you think that GM China’s January sales were absolutely marvelous?
Well, it’s not true. (Read More…)
New car sales in China imploded in January. This will be the message when the official data by the CAAM are announced. Which should happen any minute.
The signs are ominous: Yesterday, GM China, TTAC’s in-house leading indicator, announced (in a way) that sales in January had been down by 8 percent. Then, China’s largest carmaker SAIC said that its January was down 8.5 percent. Today, the China Passenger Car Association told China Daily that the car market in China had nosedived16.5 percent from a year earlier to 1.17 million units in January. Late in the afternoon in Yokohama at Nissan’s quarterly earnings conference, Nissan’s Corporate Vice President, Joji Tagawa proudly pronounced that Nissan sales “declined only 16 percent” in China, while the Chinese car market as a whole registered “a negative 28 percent,” and isn’t that wonderful?
Whoa!!!! What’s going on?
Is the sky over China finally falling? It sure looks like it. (Read More…)
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