Go online to Pinterest, the newest social network for sharing photos and other content and you’ll see. The automobile is far from dead – even on a site supposedly dominated by females. Economy cars are largely absent. Exotics, luxury cars and most importantly, classic cars make up the majority of the posts, or “pins”. BMW 2002s, vintage Ford Broncos, Porsche 356s, muscle cars of all types and stripes and of course, the ineffable coach-built Ferraris of the 1950s and 1960s comprise a substantial portion of the automotive photos being shared on Pinterest as well as Tumblr, another content sharing service.

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The “made for China” Buick Encore won’t be the last gawky micro-crossover put out by General Motors. In addition to the Encore and the Opel Mokka, it looks like Chevrolet will join the party too – perhaps what should have happened right from the start.

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Today, the Supervisory Board of GM’s ill-fated Opel division is meeting. For the first time, the unions are in the majority on the board. In addition to half of the seats in the boardroom being occupied by representatives named by labor, UAW boss Bob King is taking part in the meeting. It is unlikely that King’s vote will strengthen the labor side. King comes as an emissary of GM, where the UAW, through VEBA, owns 10 percent of the stock.  Representing the capitalist side of the equation, King will have to vote for job losses and plant closures. If not today, then soon. (Read More…)

The Detroit News is reporting that the company that electrifies Ford’s Transit Connect Electric vans, Azure Dynamics, AZD, has filed for bankruptcy and suspended the production of the small battery electric van. Azure Dynamics announced that 120 employees, including 50 at their Oak Park facility just outside Detroit where AZD performed the conversions, have been laid off. So far about 500 Transit EVs have been made since late 2010. There is no word if the company will be able to restart production.

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I visited my old stomping grounds in California over the weekend, which means I hit a bunch of self-service junkyards in the East Bay. I was thinking about some of the cars I used to drive during the 80s as I walked the rows of this yard’s import section, when there it was: my very first car! (Read More…)

1966 Dodge Coronets never were the most aerodynamic vehicles ever built. The nickname “shoebox” stuck to them like a drunk sticks to an open bar.

These Dodge Coronets were sensible vehicles that Dad drove because they were functional, practical and affordable. Every adjective that kids hated when it came to cars.

Then Chrysler stuck a NASCAR 426 Hemi in the shoebox and the magic began on the streets. The “Street Hemis” turned the shoeboxes into blunt trauma missiles. (Read More…)

Mark in Upper Kentucky writes:

Sajeev,

Here’s a tire question for you to chew on: I just bought a new Mustang V6 (w/ the performance package), so I’ll soon put my ’07 Focus ST on the block.  The car is in good shape mechanically and cosmetically, but I’ve got a bit of a tire issue.  The Goodyear Eagle GT on the left rear has about 30k miles on it and is making a racket.  (Read More…)

With the government still waiting to see how much it will get out of its equity in General Motors, The General seems to be attracting more of the media commentary than Chrysler these days. And not without good reason: GM saw the greatest drop in market share last month of any Detroit automaker, its government-hyped Volt is flopping, Opel continues to be an open sore and it can’t help but flaunt its cluelessness about youth marketing. But interest in GM’s shortcomings seems to be driven by little more than election-year political implications, which Chrysler was able to avoid by borrowing cash and misleadingly claiming to have squared up with the American taxpayer. After all, Chrysler is facing just as many challenges as GM, if not more. And despite having formally closed the bailout chapter of its history, Chrysler’s performance still bears on the decision to rescue America’s weakest major automaker.

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I’m pretty good at taking tests. The problem is, with some tests that you take, success is not attained by giving the logically correct answer but rather by regurgitating the answer the test giver wants. I forget that sometimes. When the Michigan Secretary of State’s office told me that I needed to take a written test to continue to have the privilege of driving, on one question I forgot the proper test taking strategy was to determine what some bureaucrat in Lansing wanted me to think. Instead I just read the question, parsed its logic, and gave the same answer that I’ve given my now-adult children concerning the same driving situation. Wait. That’s a fib. I didn’t just read the question, parse etc. The question and possible answers intrigued me enough that I jotted them down on an envelope I had with me. They were unclear enough that I wanted to run them by the other TTAC writers and the Best and Brightest to get your opinions. Here’s the question:

Q. If you cannot stop before hitting another vehicle it’s usually best to:

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Toyota released a teaser of a new sedan with an “…elegant yet athletic look.” The sedan is apparently a production ready car and not a concept and if it really is the new Avalon (what else can it be) it looks like that the stodgy old retiree-mobile is getting some youthful new duds. Sort of like seeing your Grandpa wear Air Jordans because he bought them for $29.99 at Marshall’s. Except this time, it seems to be intentional.

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Horns are a fixture of Indian driving. Rather than being used to signal anger like in the United States, horns are used for almost everything on Indian roads – one study found that major intersections in Calcutta have one horn honk every three seconds.

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Give the crew at Motor Trend some credit: they aren’t even pretending to be anything other than an advertising outlet for the automakers. Witness this particularly succulent bit of bragging by Ladyboy-Editor-in-Chief Edward Loh, published yesterday:

Ever wonder what it might cost to borrow a brand-new Nissan GT-R Black Edition for a year? Try 33,482,741 views. What’s that, you say? As of this writing, that’s the total number of views of the top 16 GT-R related YouTube videos Motor Trend has produced.

Until recently, Motor Trend at least kept up the mildest of facades that its million-dollar fleet of brand-new vehicles served some purpose that would be beneficial to the mixture of waiting-room residents, caged parakeets, and ESL students that makes up approximately 99.97% of its readership. That facade has now been thrown aside with a shameless flourish worthy of Messalina. Motor Trend, in its agent as an advocate for Nissan, has produced at least sixteen promotional videos for the Nissan GT-R. They have been duly rewarded with a one-year lease of a $106,000 car, something that would probably cost the little people out there in Readerland four or five grand a month if they wanted to have the same car under the same conditions.

There you have it. Editorial content, bought and paid for. But what’s this business about “meat in the face”?

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This coming Monday, new car sales for March will be announced. Forecasters increasingly are of the opinion that March will look like carmageddon never happened. Real-time data equipped TrueCar has released its opinions. Here are the highlights:

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A year ago, I penned a passionate defense of the new direction that was being taken by Lotus. In the piece, I chastised enthusiasts for their armchair criticism of Lotus management and their resistance to bringing out new vehicle to replace the nearly two decade old Elise (which would hit that mark by the time a replacement rolled around in 2015) and their lack of faith in the stewardship of CEO Dany Bahar, the man who helped Luca di Montezemolo turn Ferrari around. Now it looks like I’ll have to retract those words and admit I was wrong.

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