Ladies and gentlemen… As Katt Williams once said, “this country is in turmoil.”

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Volkswagen received a legal black eye from its estranged Japanese partner Suzuki. Volkswagen had taken a silly trademark fight all the way  to the General Court of the European Union, and lost today, Reuters says. This is unrelated to the divorce proceedings between Volkswagen and Suzuki, but it definitely comes at an inopportune time. (Read More…)

David writes:

Hi Steve and Sajeev,

I’m in high school and I need a car. Before anyone makes assumptions, I actually have a need for owning a vehicle. There is no public transportation where I live, my school doesn’t have buses, and it’d be a long walk especially during the lengthy winter (which sort of rules out riding a bike too). My budget is about $1000 to 2000. (Read More…)

The early-90s Escort GT was a decently fast car for its day, but Escorts were always such disposable cars that you seldom see any of these semi-goofy-looking GTs these days, on the street or in the junkyard. Here’s an example that I found in a Denver self-service yard last week. (Read More…)

After years and years and years of rumors and premature announcements, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has finally, honestly, cross your heart and swear to fry, “finalized a joint venture agreement with Chery Automobile Co to manufacture and sell vehicles in China,” Reuters reports. (Read More…)

Over the past few weeks, I have taken you on trips to exotic and mysterious Eritrea, Chile, Georgia and Myanmar. The last 3 are only because of you because I have decided to now only take you to where you asked to go. And today we are going to Bolivia, simply because lilpoindexter asked for it.

If you are already South America’ed out after Chile, that’s ok because I have prepared 159 additional countries for you to explore in my blog. So don’t be shy and click away! Adelante!

Now to make this hard for me, once again you have chosen a country with no official sales data available.

Nice. Thanks for that. Oh wait…

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Continuing with our pledge to not leave the Mitsubishi out of our reindeer games coverage of the EV and hybrid scene, consumers in Japan who have bought or expect to buy an i-MiEV will be pleased to know that soon they’ll be able to buy a box that lets them run their house’s electrical appliances from the electricity supplied by their i-MiEV.

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Confused in South Bend writes:

Hi, Sajeev….

I am the owner of 2003 M-B C240 base, with the Bi-Xenon headlights. Recently, one of the headlights has developed an issue….in cold weather, it does not work.

Went to my German car specialist, who wasn’t so special on this issue.  No problem, he said, replace the bulb.  $160 later, still had the problem.  OK, negotiated for him to give me a credit on the next fix.

Researched on the web, purchased a used Ballast.  Mr. German car specialist looked at the part, scratched his head and said, “I don’t know what this part is.” Mercedes dealer says, spend about $900 for an entirely new headlight assembly.

I know that Mercedes engineers think money grows on trees….but $900 to fix a balky headlight?  Come on… (Read More…)

LAGUNA SECA – It’s called the Corkscrew, and for good reason. Perhaps the single most famous piece of racetrack topography in North America, this left-right two-punch combo can unsettle an unsorted chassis just as fast as the steep 18% gradient can unsettle a novice driver’s stomach. Jack Baruth was here in the same car. I’ll […]

This has to be a Photoshop job, right? Some of the pixels don’t look quite right, and I’ve seen quite a few ‘shops in my time which look similar, but most of that could be explained away by the fact that the EXIF data indicates it was taken with an iPhone, and some iPhones take awfully grainy pictures.

Alternately, it really could just be another one of these well-meaning but statistically naive attempts to get people to stop looking at their phones while they drive. You know, so they can look up and see the bumpers of all the stopped traffic ahead. Or the billboards…

Honda will show off a concept version of their next generation Crosstour, and since we all know that “concept” is just “thinly disguised production car” in Honda vernacular, we’ll be getting a good look at the replacement for one of the most maligned cars of the last decade. Coverage of the New York Auto Show will start here at TTAC on April 4th.

With GM wanting to have a turn-around plan for its money-losing Opel division in a couple of months by summer, one would think there is at least some sense of urgency. Opel’s workers thought the same – until management rebuffed repeated attempts to sit down and talk. Opel labor leader Wolfgang Schaefer-Klug said management was not being “responsible” by rejecting the repeated efforts for negotiations, Reuters reports. (Read More…)

Here are eight mind-boggling reasons why you could be pulled over, ticketed, or maybe even arrested while driving or even parking your car. They have been collected by the Criminal Justice Degrees Guide, the people who help you get a job as a police officer. They should know. (Read More…)

In the market for an upscale Mercedes? Are you a reader of USA Today? In that case, stop talking to your travel agent. If you have already booked a ticket to Beijing, cancel it. USA Today fooled you. Most likely without malice. USA Today doesn’t know better.

Today, USA Today writes: (Read More…)

Suck it, proles! While the up-and-coming, emerging-market, cheap-and-cheerful crowd enthuses over the prospect of Datsun’s return or considers the purchase of Daewoo’s Chevrolet’s latest Korean global minicar, the nice people at Mercedes-Benz have decided to cut the one percent (real or imagined) in on the action with an early release of the 2013 SL65 roadster, er, cabriolet, er, whatever the hell it is.

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