We’ve seen a few NUMMI-built Junkyard Finds in recent weeks, including this ’87 Nova and this ’87 Corolla FX16 GT-S. However, the car that really comes to mind when you think of NUMMI is the Geo Prizm. Here’s an example of GM’s rebadged Corolla that I found at a self-service junkyard about 20 miles from the car’s birthplace. It’s the circle of automotive life! (Read More…)

Volkswagen’s SEAT has been a bit luckless recently. The victim of the Mediterranean malaise seeks to improve its odds by exporting cars to China. Lacking new models to introduce, Seat showcases a new culinary delight: Blondes on a stick. (Read More…)

When it comes to car blogging, China has long bypassed the rest of the world.  Even much larger sites than TTAC look like midgets compared to the Chinese giants. Nothing shows that more drastically than the Beijing Auto Show. (Read More…)

Toyota will launch a domestically produced plug-in hybrid in China before the year is over and will follow with EVs once certification is completed, said Dong Changzheng, executive vice president of Toyota Motor (China) Investment Co., to a small group of reporters at the Beijing Auto Show. The cars will be marketed under a yet to be announced “Chinese” brand. (Read More…)

Coda Automotive withdrew a Department of Energy loan application after two years of waiting. The $334 million loan was supposed to have gone towards establishing an assembly plant in Columbus, Ohio, but for now, production will continue in China.

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Big news today; the Ford Shelby GT500 apparently packs 662 horsepower in addition to its 200 mph top speed. The big question now is “why?”

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The first fruits of a large scale joint venture of a leading U.S. supplier and a consortium of Chinese automakers will debut in FAW’s Hongqi (Red Flag) luxury sedan. BorgWarner United Transmission Systems (BWUTS) will supply DualTronic control modules and clutch modules for a seven-speed wet dual-clutch transmission (DCT) that goes into FAW’s Hongqi in late 2013. (Read More…)

Sometimes, journalists are in the pockets of people. This time, people are in the pockets of journalists: More than 40 theft cases were reported in the first hours of the 2012 Beijing Auto Show. (Read More…)

The last two Vellum Venom editorials discussed the differences between 1980s and 2000s automotive design aesthetics, for two vehicles with similar missions for their respective brands. The point?  We’ve gone silly in our proportions and we need way more ATD (attention to detail) from the auto makers. Behold, my point coming to life: the 1991-ish Toyota Camry.

Before we proceed, remember what one of my design teachers said: success depends on proportion, proportion, proportion! (Read More…)

Most people are pegged on the predictable and reassuring.

It’s not that they hate. It’s that they are comfortable in their world and prefer familiar borders over new horizons.

Our human mind may have gradually evolved to a higher state of being and capability when it comes to complex problem solving and reasoning.  But it acts not too differently from other simpler life forms when it comes to the ‘daily routine’. It takes pleasure in re-mastering the known… and avoiding the unknown.

Fear, familiar pleasures and adrenal driven instincts are reflected in the vast conformity and commonness of what we buy.

Do our choices eventually come about because certain products are truly better than others? Not at all. We’re slaves to the marketing of ‘great’, and the mental satisfaction that comes with accessing ‘good enough’. Any product, service or person that simply does what is promised, and nothing more, will almost always win out over an unknown that has neither the name, nor the societal track record.

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Today is a busy day. Bertel and Ed are off somewhere plotting their next round of skullduggery, Murilee is prowling the junkyards of Denver for the elusive 1991 Isuzu Impulse AWD, Jack is laid up in bed with an illness certainly caught from his child’s pre-school, Steve and Sajeev are collaborating on their next hit column and I am commiting a cardinal sin according to the Church of Panther…fraternizing with the enemy.

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The discussion of yesterday’s Junkyard Find, a 1973 Ford LTD, got a bit heated at times. Some felt that the ’73 LTD was an abomination too horrific to contemplate, while others (including most who had actually driven one back in the day) opined that it was a pretty comfy pseudo-luxo-chariot and no worse than its contemporary rivals. Both sides have valid points, which got me to thinking about what I would do if a time machine were to drop me off at Auto Row in 1973 with the money to buy a new LTD (assuming I was required to spend the money on a new car, instead of giving it to my 7-year-old 1973 self with instructions to buy Microsoft stock a few years hence). Would I get the LTD… or something else? If something else, what? (Read More…)

Back when we reviewed the Chevrolet Orlando, we noted that it had trouble catching up to its chief rivals, the Mazda5 and the Kia Rondo. No longer.

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After 15 years of sales in the United States, the Corolla had become as familiar to Americans as the Nova or Dart. By 1981, Toyota had confused matters by badging the unrelated Tercel as the “Corolla Tercel,” but the actual Corolla was still selling well. With the gas lines of the 1979 energy crisis— by some measures more painful that its 1973 precursor— still fresh in car shoppers’ memories, the stingy Corolla made a lot of sense. The Corolla was getting sportier-looking as the 1980s dawned, too; compare this car to the smaller and frumpier Corollas of just five years earlier. Here’s a nice example of the Celica-influenced fourth-gen Corolla liftback, spotted last month in a California self-service yard. (Read More…)

Here’s a quick example of Gen Y marketing done right, but this isn’t so much to do with the product.

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