Dodge attempted to perpetrate yet another annoying Facebook teaser campaign, telling their fans that if they got 2013 “likes”, they’d be able to see another picture of the 2013 SRT Viper ahead of its New York Auto Show debut. The only problem is that the campaign failed.
Daimler and BYD unveiled their joint EV brand Denza today. They literally just unveiled the brand. The cars will be unveiled at the Beijing Motor Show in the last week of April. They should have kept everything covered and hire some professionals. (Read More…)
Our intrepid Brazilian correspondent Marcelo got the hearts of Canuckistani readers racing after he leaked news of an expanded Fiat lineup for Canada. According to Senhor de Vasconcellos, Fiat will add new product in Canada, where 500 sales have been much stronger than the USA. The only question is what the mystery product will be, now that Fiat head Sergio Marchionne confirmed the new model at a Toronto event.
Following up on the good news of sister Chrysler in America, Fiat do Brasil has some good news of their own to send embattled Turin’s way. As of March 20, the Uno has officially pushed ahead of the VW Gol and has taken the sales crown in Brazil. According to Brazilian car site webmotors.com.br, this is the first time the Uno has been ahead of the Gol for an extended period of time. Hitherto, the Uno had threatened VW’s pride and joy a month or another, then lagged behind.
But wait, there’s more! (Read More…)
“I just don’t get it? How can you like THAT thing?”
A former TTAC contributor was busy berating my questionable tastes. I had written an article called, “Choose Your 20 Year Sentence” where you could have any vehicle in the world… with a few small catches.
You had to maintain the vehicle yourself for 20 years from the ages of 20 to 40, it had to be a new car back in the day that cost no more than $25k (in today’s dollars), and you had to use it as your exclusive source of auto transportation.
Like all ‘mature’ men who prioritize fashion or function, I had an inkling of what my modern day choice would have been. It nearly shocked the hair off of my friend. Who we shall simply call Paul Niedermeyer.
A Maverick in a junkyard is a rare sight indeed these days, so you can imagine my surprise when I found this badge-engineered Mercury Maverick just a few rows down from yesterday’s ’75 Ford Maverick Junkyard Find. There wasn’t much difference between the Maverick and the Comet, though the Comet was marketed as being somewhat classier. (Read More…)
When, in early February, the first (unconfirmed) rumors made the rounds that UAW’s Bob King would get a seat on Opel’s supervisory board, the assumption was that King will speak for “the equity side.” According to the “co-determination law,” the supervisory board of a large German company consists of 50 percent equity side and 50 percent labor, with the chairman having two votes in case of a tie. The UAW, through VEBA, owns 10 percent of the stock of GM. That puts King definitely on the equity side. One would assume. (Read More…)
Video killed the radio star. And the Internet is about to kill the auto industry. Researchers at the University of Michigan noted a disturbing trend: More young adults would rather surf the web than cruise the highway. In a new study, Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the U-M Transportation Research Institute found that a higher proportion of Internet users is associated with fewer drivers licenses among young persons. (Read More…)
Chuck Grote is a true old school hot rodder. He comes from a world where a group of guys could take a stock Anglia with a sewing machine motor on Friday night and have a hot rod with a big block Buick ready to drive to work on Monday morning.
Maybe it would have a throttle cable snaked through a hole in the firewall, but you had to be able to drive that monster to work. If you couldn’t do that then technically you failed the test.
No excuses. (Read More…)
Chrysler dealers who were terminated and then re-instated have been left out in the cold, after a federal judge ruled that the Federal Appropriations Act, a 2010 law that opened the door for dealers to regain their franchises via arbitration, did not overrule state dealer laws that deal with dealer markets.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has come in for some criticism for awkwardly relating what he characterized as a “humorous” story involving his father, former American Motors CEO and later Michigan governor, George Romney. In 1954 George Romney became head of the newly merged (from Hudson and Nash) American Motors Corp., following the sudden death of his corporate mentor and patron, George W. Mason. One of the first things Romney did was to close the money-losing Hudson assembly plant in Detroit and consolidate all Hudson and Nash assembly in Nash’s Kenosha facility, which put about 4,300 Michiganders out of work. The story that Mitt Romney related had to do with his father’s campaign for governor in 1962, eight years later. The senior Romney was in a parade and apparently the high school marching band in front of his parade car didn’t know how to play The Victors, the fight song of the University of Michigan. Instead they kept trying to play On Wisconsin, much to the chagrin of Romney’s campaign staff, who didn’t want Michigan voters reminded of the plant closing. Though it’s clear to me from the context that Mitt Romney found humor in the parade incident, not in the plant closing, Democrats have seized on his remark, saying to it betrays a callous attitude towards working people.
It will be a suspenseful Monday. When new car sales numbers will be announced for March, I could look like carmageddon never happened. After J.D. Power had predicted sales of 1,372,400 units for March and Kelley Blue Book 1,425,000 units, real-time date equipped Edmunds now sees a total of 1,451,956 new cars changing hands. That would translate into a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 14.9 million units. (Read More…)
Renault will start selling their Twizy electric vehicle in the United Kingdom, and the new vehicle is causing some headaches for UK regulators, who will have to establish a new vehicle category for it.
Carmakers all over the world strive to make more with less. All car companies that want to be around in a few years are on some kind of a standardization drive. GM wants to cut its 30 platforms down to 14. Volkswagen wants to get rid of platforms altogether .
Mercedes will halve its vehicle architectures to two by 2015, and will double its number of model variants to 30, Automotive News [sub] reports. (Read More…)
Its squat boxer architecture meant a low centre of gravity, and by building in a low rate of roll and very little offset or castor in the MacPherson strut front suspension, the handling was truly revelatory, refreshingly neutral with precise steering…endlessly chuckable. [They]…were willing rather than fast, and there was more grip than the boxer engine…could ever hope to exploit…away from straight roads it still took a genuinely quick car to catch one.
Does this sound like a review of the 2012 Subaru Impreza? You may be surprised to read that the words here describe a car from a completely different country, with a culture and ethos that couldn’t be more different – but a car that may be the spiritual predecessor to the Impreza.
Recent Comments