There are automakers that treat you like a moron. They sell you a fuel saving package that costs so much and/or saves so little that you won’t see the savings until you and the car are ancient. As some comments will surely prove, there are people who like to be treated as morons. For those, some alleged fuel saving packages serve a purpose. Some like to be insulted, whipped and charged $800 by a dominatrix, others prefer the same treatment from a dealer. Nothing wrong with it amongst consenting adults. (Read More…)

Here’s a Junkyard Find that really takes me back. My dad bought a Bonneville new in 1979, and it seemed like a very nice car when I was 13 years old. A few years later, I borrowed the Bonneville to take my date to the high-school prom (in spite of this being the early 1980s, I did not wear a robin’s-egg-blue tuxedo, though now I wish I had), and I felt classier than Frank Sinatra in a brand-new ’61 Imperial. A few years after that, I was given the now-quite-worn-out Bonneville to make the drive between the San Francisco Bay Area and my new home in Southern California… and it crapped out every 100 yards while trying to climb the Grapevine. So, mixed feelings when I saw this very similar ’81 Bonneville Brougham in a Denver self-service yard. (Read More…)

So here’s what’s going to happen… They’ll drive it as hard as they dare, swinging it through corners and stamping on the gas, chucking it into hairpins and willfully trying to unsettle the rear, and all the while traction will be total. And you know what, not one of those drivers will say anything about it, because they’ll be too scared to be the limp-wristed bloke that can’t even drift what they’ve been told is the most driftable car in decades

So says Ben Barry in a recent Car editorial. He’s driven the car, we haven’t, so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’s correct. Well, so what? What if all that additional dealer profit won’t even get Joe Sixpack (sixpack of Sapporo, of course) sideways? What if the new Toyota can’t deliver the tofu?

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During my visit to Vietnam last month, I saw about a million Honda Super Cubs, a Hummer H2, and lots of GM products, but I didn’t see something I thought would be commonplace: Soviet vehicles. Well, except for this lone UAZ-452, that is. (Read More…)

After taking a look at product planning and marketing for new cars, it’s time to take a step back into the supposed domain of Generation Why; used cars. And not just any old CPO Audi or two year old Civic either. We’re talking beaters.

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“Gas prices are nearing $4 per gallon nationwide and consumers are getting reluctant to pay any additional money at the pump when buying a new vehicle,” said Jesse Toprak of TrueCar.  This changes buying pattern, and it might influence election results. Important as the topic may be, foreign carmakers continue to give you the most mileage. American carmakers lag. (Read More…)

Automotive News is reporting that the Nissan Leaf will eventually get a restyling specific to Europe as well as increased range. But our Nissan sources say that’s not entirely accurate.

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The automotive world is infested with lists and rankings.

The 10 Best Here. The 10 Most There.  Sometimes you may even find a 10 Least or a 10 Greatest. The range of expertise for such rancor can vary from truly knowledgable souls to borderline literary dope pushers with monetary agendas.

Personally, I enjoy the mental exercise. When you look at 20,000+ vehicles going through the lanes at the auto auctions every year for well over a decade, ranking becomes part of your work.  The same is true for folks in traffic.  Or those who take strolls through our streets. Or our junkyards.

Since every publication in the car business offers some type of “Best Car!” article,  we here at TTAC have decided to do our own…

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Well, we knew it would happen. Some dealers are already starting to ask for markups on the Subaru BRZ. And some people are dumb enough to pay them.

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Are you proud driving a car that not everybody drives? Then better turn off the phone, install an aggressive spam filter, or, even better, leave the country until America elects a president in November. Or drive a Mitsubishi. If you don’t, you will be bombarded with calls and messages. Campaign managers call it microtargeting. You will call it a royal pain. (Read More…)

For a long time, carbon fiber was a high tech, high cost product. Slowly, carbon fiber is going mainstream. From Volkswagen to Toyota and GM, large automakers have carbon fiber projects in the works. Now, Ford is joining the bandwagon made from lightweight fiber.

Ford  joined up with fiber specialist Dow Chemical “to develop cost-effective ways of using carbon fiber in high-volume cars and trucks as the No.2 U.S. automaker moves to cut vehicle weight to improve overall fuel economy,” Reuters writes. (Read More…)

General Motors has often been the focus of criticism at Generation Why – despite what some of the B&B suggest, it’s merely a function of the fact that they put themselves out there the most when it comes to publicizing their youth marketing efforts. But it’s time to reward their efforts with some free, unsolicited advice from a know-it-all keyboard jockey.

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When a truck gets turned into a band’s wretched gig-rig, you know it’s on its last owner prior to entering The Crusher’s waiting room. The same can be said about any car owned by Juggalos. Likewise, when a bunch of Denver/Boulder skater/snowboarder dudes get hold of a cargo van, that’s the end of the line. Here’s a thoroughly used-up Chevy G20 van that I spotted at a Denver self-service yard earlier in the week. (Read More…)

If you’re traveling to Oklahoma City any time soon, Herz will give you the option of renting a Honda Civic or GMC Yukon that runs on Compressed Natural Gas.

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The autoblogosphere is buzzing with news of an explosion in an electric vehicle battery testing facility at General Motors’ Tech Center in Warren, outside of Detroit. This isn’t the first time that the Tech Center has been the site of an explosion involving alternative energy. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the domestic automakers have invested many millions of dollars trying to develop alternatives to gasoline power over much of the second half of the 20th century. Almost 50 years before Toyota introduced the hybrid Prius and Honda started making the FCV hydrogen fuel cell powered car, General Motors was working on cars and trucks powered by fuel cells or batteries. Not all of that R&D proceeded without incident. (Read More…)