This is the final part of this series of articles, the ground rules and definitions of which you can find in the introductory comments from Parts One and Two.  Without detour, TO THE PODIUM for the final time!

Electronic Fuel Injection:

My attitude toward this technology went from “why bother”, in its infant days, to “why use anything else”, when it hit its stride near the end of the ‘80’s.

It all sure looked complicated when I was first getting acquainted with the Bosch systems on the VW Fast and Squareback models from the early ‘70’s. If I only knew it would get SO complicated that comprehensive on-board diagnostic systems would be required in order to properly diagnose and repair them… and I wouldn’t mind, because these systems work so well, it’s actually WORTH the extra complexity! As it has turned out, my choice of careers has proven in many ways to be an interesting road to self-discovery, but that, as I say, will be revealed in many other stories. (Read More…)

  If you’re shopping for a compact American crossover, Chevy’s Equinox is likely on your list. If however you’re looking to rent a small crossover, the Chevrolet Captiva Sport is probably what you’ll get for $29.95 a day from Hertz. While you’re bound to see them on the streets, you can’t buy them new unless […]

Tim Cain, our not-quite-in-house sales whiz, has cooked up a ranking of the top 260 best sellers year-to-date for 2012. I won’t spoil any surprises, but the Suzuki Forenza lost. And Honda might be the big winner.

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We got an overview of Colorado’s Brain-Melting Junkyard yesterday, and today we’ll take a closer look at one of its residents. This is one of the rarest of Road Runners, a one-year-only version that was based on the downsized B-Body Fury (Read More…)

No, this isn’t a self-aggrandizing post celebrating my own birthday, but a tribute to the man who started it all for me (literally, and with respect to cars); my father.

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Also suffering from the European contagion is Ford. The blue oval’s western European are down 10 percent in the first half of 2012, Reuters says. June sales are down a hefty 16.1 percent. (Read More…)

After putting Opel CEO Stracke abruptly out to pasture, one would think that his (allegedly interim) successor Steve Girsky has a new plan to rescue Opel and to spare GM shareholders further losses. Not so. The new man will keep the old plan. “GM fully supports the current plan to strengthen Opel and improve its operational competitiveness,” a spokesman for Opel told Reuters. (Read More…)

Here we go again…Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is asking NHTSA to re-open the investigation into the Toyota unintended acceleration case.

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“It’s nice to be liked,” my future third wife Liz Phair sings, “but it’s better by far to get paid.” When your humble author began a vigorous program of auto-media meta-criticism under the guidance of the august Robert Farago a few years ago, I expected to be hated by my peers, and I was. I expected to be shunned by the industry PR people, and I was. I even feared I might be the subject of underhanded personal attacks designed to cost me my job, my home, and my ability to feed my son, and I wasn’t disappointed in that, either. The only thing I didn’t expect was to be emulated.

Now we have the nice folks at FORTUNE doing their own meta-critical review-the-reviewers, complete with double helpings of cynicism and supposition. Their target: The new Chevrolet Malibu ECO. They credit TTAC’s own Michael Karesh with being “an early sign that consensus was building” on the car. And the verdict?

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Are we all Moose Test experts by now? Presumably so. TTAC has covered Moosegate from the perspective of a skeptical American and an indignant German so far, and now there’s more (moose) fat to chew.

Yesterday, I sent this email to Rabe Mattias at Teknikens Varld:

Thank you for contacting us to provide the full details on your test.

Can you offer an opinion or theory as to why the Grand Cherokee
repeatedly displayed the wheels-up behavior during your testing but
did not display the same behavior during Chrysler’s observations?
Thank you!

We didn’t get a response. Here’s what we did get:

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The Suzuki Grand Vitara was the second worst-selling small SUV in America last month, with 419 sold. The only competitor that fared worse was the now-dead Mazda Tribute, which sold 1 unit (ostensibly a remainder car).

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I’m looking at you …

Obsessions are a menace. The daughter of a friend had a shower obsession. “I have an obsessive compulsive disorder,” she would readily admit, only to continue: “I’ll be right back, I need to take a shower.” Such a pretty girl. And she always smelled so good.

A prime obsession of the auto blogosphere are the sales of the Lexus LFA. Is it sold out? Is it not?

(To avoid killing you with the suspense: It is. Has been since April 2010 when Lexus had its 500 orders long before production started in December of that year. Not interesting? I don’t blame you. Stop reading. There is plenty of other content.) (Read More…)

The 335d may not have done so well in the United States, but BMW seems undeterred, and is set to launch yet another oil-burning 3er shortly.

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On the LFA’s in-house test track. Each car gets tested for some 50 miles

In this week-long report, we followed the Lexus LFA from raw fiber to body, paint, and assembly. In this final chapter, we take it on the test track in Motomachi. 

Each and every LFA that rolls off the line is checked like no other car. 7,000 items of the LFA, all previously checked, counter-signed, eternalized in evidence sheets, are checked again. Each check again is eternalized in evidence sheets. When I said it takes 8 days to make an LFA, I lied. It takes 8 days to make one, and then it takes a full additional week to check it. (Read More…)

Volvo has long been the “safe choice” in more ways than one. The brand’s reputation is steeped in safety, but for the past 30 years “luxury with a hint of performance” has been a secondary focus. Even still, arriving at the country club in a Volvo won’t bring out the green-eyed-monster. Your fellow socialites will […]