In 1980, Fiat shoppers had the choice of two affordable sports cars: the 124 Sport Spider (examples of which remain quite common in wrecking yards, and the X1/9. The mid-engined X1/9 featured 128 running gear and was a lot more fun to drive than its 66-horsepower (for US-market models in 1980) engine would suggest. (Read More…)

Carnewschina spotted this Panther with a – shall we say – unique paint scheme in Shanghai. Black was not enough for this Town Car. Gold was not enough for this Town Car. It needed to be orange-gold on black. Use eye protection, and don’t stare at the picture for too long. (Read More…)

After reviving a few fond memories in some of you by taking you on a trip down memory lane to France since 1949, let’s go back to worldwide rankings one more time if you don’t mind. You saw my April World Round-up and the Top 100 best-selling models worldwide over the First Quarter of 2012, but now I can share with you the most popular cars around the globe for April.

Enough of the world? No worries, you can visit 163 additional countries and territories in my blog, go on, you know you want to!

So looking at the worldwide best-selling cars ranking for April a big question looms: can the Ford Focus ever beat the Toyota Corolla to become the world’s most popular car?

The Focus ranks #2 this month…

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The previous BYD F3 was known as a more than blatant copy of the Toyota Corolla. Many buyers pay a small extra fee to have (fake) Toyota badges affixed, making the F3 nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. The next generation BYD F3 wants to be known for groundbreaking innovation: The car will be remote controlled. (Read More…)

At 3pm Eastern, TTAC’s software will be upgraded to a newer and hopefully greater version of WordPress. We are promised it will take only 20 minutes, and not to expect any major disruptions. Should you just stare at a blank screen, you know why. If you can read this after 3pm, TTAC has cheated death once again.

Did you miss “HyperFest” this past weekend? If you did, then you missed out on what is turning out to be a genuinely American tradition: road racing, drifting, beer, open lapping, brawling, bikini contests, and general debauchery, all held at Summit Point’s outstanding Main Course.

The video above shows an incident that had everybody talking: a high-speed meeting with Bambi on the front straight. But wait, as the AutoBiWeek people say, there’s more.

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European carmakers are hurting. They hurt so much, they ask for government-prescribed painkillers. Renault’s COO Carlos Tavares wants a return of cash for clunkers. Credit rating agency Fitch warns there would be nasty after-effects. (Read More…)

Even though Project Volvo is geared towards the budget end of the scale, Sweden’s Polestar has been working on a factory backed S60 concept that puts out 508 horsepower and 424 lb-ft. The most surprising element, aside from the absurd power, is a 6-speed manual gearbox, something not readily available on North American Volvos. Polestar has apparently built one for an unspecified customer. We won’t get to drive it, but we hear there’s a brown XC70 kicking around the press fleet with a Polestar ECU flash.

The music starts. A pulsating display of automotive brilliance comes through the screen and draws you into the moment.

The car… is perfect.

The person driving the car… is Wow!

The music.. the action… the excitement… (Read More…)

An article from British rag AutoExpress may have inadvertently shed some light on the base powertrain for the next Ford Mustang.

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A hitherto unknown Chinese business man who leads a shadowy “consortium” buys the assets of Saab. The media eats it up. Dalong “Kai Johan” Jiang takes the microphone and says what everybody wants to hear: “Electric cars powered by green electricity is the future and electric cars will be built in Trollhättan.” Jiang says there is a huge market for these made-in-Trollhättan EVs, waiting in China.

Nobody dares to say that it does not make sense at all. We say it. (Read More…)

A rear-wheel-drive four-door hatchback with staggered wheels and a mere 2,579 pounds distributed 45/55. From the folks who gave us the Evo. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? But the Mitsubishi i-MiEV (conversationally referred to as either the “i” OR the “meev”) isn’t that sort of car. Its focus is just as narrow as the Evo’s but […]

Last Saturday, Opel CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke wanted to address the workers at Opel’s Bochum plant. All he addressed was 2,000 backs as the workers got up and left. (Read More…)

Guess which car company did profit the most from Greece’s weekend elections. It’s Mazda. Mazda’s stock was up 6 percent in Tokyo today.

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Brian writes:

Hi Sajeev,

Love reading TTAC – thanks for all the entertainment. Responding to your request for more stupid questions, I have one ripe for pontification.

I am a (male) small business owner with two small children and I’m looking for a new vehicle. I’m a big guy and with all the stuff kids have, I can’t get something too small. Nevertheless, in my search I’ve been toying lately with this question: What makes a car “manly/masculine” or “girly/feminine”? I understand that a two ton hunk of metal cannot in itself take on gender-specific characteristics, but there are definitely cars that women tend to call “cute” and cars that men tend to look at as “awesome”. Can anyone really look me in the eye and tell me that a VW Jetta or a small SUV strikes them as “manly”?

But picking such a car before hearing the reactions almost seems counter-intuitive. At first glance you may think that mustang coupes would be “manly”, but lately it seems that more women are buying them than men. SUVs are supposed to be big and tough, but more women use them for carpool duty than for off-road or towing duty. Same problem with trucks these days or, for that matter, just about any other segment. All the online lists of “manly” cars seem to detail special trims of expensive, ostentatious, or otherwise impractical vehicles with twice the horsepower I need. Below the 50k mark, are there any “manly” somewhat normal family-capable cars out there? Does a car have to have some exclusivity to it (i.e. either by price, customization, or a limited edition)? Is it a matter of power/engine/trim (i.e. Audi A4 vs. S4)? Color choice (interior/exterior)? Does size REALLY matter?

Are there elements of car design that tend to appeal more to men than women (or vice versa)?

I know, the answer can largely be in the eye of the beholder, and I’m interested in your opinion. Call me shallow, but I covet the envious stares of others on the road.
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