I’m not the type of person to, you know, name things. Well, I did name my 1980 Marquis Brougham “The Love Train”, thus expressing a sort of pre-hipster irony, and I also call my emerald quilt-top Godin LGX-SA the “Green Destiny” in definitely non-ironic homage to the sword in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. Those are the proverbial exceptions which prove the rule.

After a few weeks of riding my ’75 CB550, however, I’ve decided that she needs a name. Oh yes, this bike is a “she”. She is cranky when it’s cold in the mornings. She is temperamentally carbureted, responding to a quick roll of the throttle with a sullen shudder. She spits raw fuel all over my business-casual Zanellas when we lean hard in the turns. And when she is hot, she is too hot to touch. So she needs a name.

My senses of sentiment and propriety combine to determine that she can’t be named after any woman whom I’ve known, or even spoken to, recently. Instead, she should have a name that makes me wistful, sad, and nostalgic. You know, the whole recherches du temps perdu thang.

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When a new generation of the world’s best selling car, and of the best selling cars of all times (accounts differ) rolls off the line at its factory, then this is usually a big deal. This time, it’s a smaller deal. The 11^th generation Corolla that started production today at Toyota’s new plant near Sendai in Japan’s tsunami-ravaged north, is a little shorter than its predecessor. It breaks a tradition of carbloat. (Read More…)

Toyota’s sales forecast of 220,000 Prius models forecast looks like a lowball number now that Toyota has moved 86,000 examples of the hybrid from January to the end of April. Sales of the Prius V and Prius c have helped the nameplate see a 56 percent rise year over year, and now Toyota is clamoring for more units – but it may not get them.

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With a new Citroen C5 due in 2016, production of the mid-size Citroen will shift from PSA’s Rennes plant to an undisclosed Opel facility. A French car, built by Germans – eat your heart out, Clemens.

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When I saw this car at a Denver self-service yard, I had to wonder if Ford really sank so low in the late 1990s as to make this godawful crypto-laundau roof a factory-installed option on the MN12 XR7. I haven’t been able to find any references to such an abomination in any of my reference books, so it’s probably a safe assumption that we’re looking at an aftermarket conversion. (Read More…)

Nissan broke ground on a new engine plant expected to come online in 2014. The plant will build 4-cylinder gasoline engines for Infiniti cars as well as the Mercedes-Benz C-Class.

The plant will add 400 jobs and produce as many as 250,000 engines per year. Nissan produced a range of 4, 6 and 8-cylinder engines at the plant, located in Decherd, a small town near Nashville.

Watch a GT-R and a Bugeye Sprite rip slaloms and meet a girl who can outdrive you in this newest video from the SCCA Solo crowd!

With a planned Chinese joint-venture between Chery and Subaru now really, honestly dead in the water, Subaru will look to the United States for sales growth, while importing cars to China for the next few years.

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Car companies can go on about their “heritage”. Though we know it’s at least partly hype, some of that heritage is verifiable history and as car enthusiasts it can tug at our automotive heartstrings. Still, it’s very easy to get cynical when you see how casually companies can be with history when it comes to promoting their products.

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Despite Toyota’s announcement of a new generation of RAV4 EV, mostly for CARB compliance, it seems that RAV4 EV production has never really stopped – at least not on a one-off basis.

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My commonwealth is known for a few things: Bourbon. Baseball bats. Bourbon. Horses. Bourbon. College rivalries. Bourbon.

I did mention bourbon, right?

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When you need to get your message through to the ignorant hypnotized masses, what do you do? Why, paint that message in small shaky painted type on your Dodge Aspen! (Read More…)

Attack on Opel’s sites in Germany: Opel’s vaunted German Tech Center will lose jobs to PSA in France. The Bochum plant will be closed in 2015. Even Opel’s ancestral seat in Rüsselsheim is endangered. GM is bleeding out Opel’s production base in Germany. This according to a report in Germany’s Spiegel Magazin. Unions suspect GM’s vengeance. Detroit wants to punish Germany for its opposition against GM’s austerity program. (Read More…)

I wasn’t five minutes before my friend and I had gone to inspect TTAC’s Project G-Body Grand National that we began discussing the next foray into fiduciary stupidity. My friend Joey, not content with his cream puff 1986 Grand National (with a verified 38,750 miles on the odometer) wanted to know how we could “get in to rallying”.

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The Land Cruiser is one of those vehicles that washes up in self-service junkyards only after its body and interior become so thrashed that even bottom-feeder truck shoppers can’t stand the idea of being seen in the thing. Contrast this with the legions of great-looking 1980s Jaguars you’ll find in the very same yards. (Read More…)