Automotive News is reporting that Joel Ewanick has left General Motors. Ewanick was hired away from Nissan (who had just hired him away from Hyundai) to bring fresh thinking to GM’s marketing and advertising efforts.

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Austrian artist Erwin Wurm may stretch the concept of sculpture but you can’t deny that the man has a sense of whimsy. Though the basic concept of art cars appeals to me, the execution often has a whiff of hostility to the automobile that this car enthusiast can’t stomach. That notwithstanding, when I first saw a photo of one of Wurm’s Fat Car series, I couldn’t help but smile. After all, we enthusiasts often complain about how manufacturers we once admired have allowed their cars to get bloated and heavy. (Read More…)

Before 2011, if you were looking for a hot hatch but wanted something MINIer than a Cooper, your options were limited to the less than smart Smart BRABUS. With fuel costs on the rise and fuel economy targets looming, MINI and Fiat are hoping to tempt “sporty” shoppers into something smaller and more practical. This […]

The California streets of my childhood were full of Datsuns like this one, and the B210 remained a common sight in (rust-free parts of) America until well into the 1990s. Then, without anybody really noticing, nearly all of them disappeared. Every so often, I’ll find one in a self-service junkyard; there was this slushbox-equipped ’74 last year, and now this mustard-yellow ’75 has drifted into range of The Crusher’s jaws. (Read More…)

While most of the media outlets were enjoying the Geoff Day Show at an all-expenses Colorado resort adventure to celebrate the release of the new GL Alabama mommy-wagon, TTAC’s Jorts Penalty Crew, Changed Mon Motorsports, was contesting the Toledo SCCA Pro Solo.

Seventeen cars entered the “STR” class. Our guys, Marc Pfannenschmidt and Mark Baruth, finished first and fourth, adding two more SCCA trophies to their already-stuffed trophy shelves. Congratulations to the Changed Mon crew!

The (mainstream) staying power of GM’s B-body is pretty much history.  Panther Love shall live for the next decade or so, not much longer.  I was in this state of mind when auto writer extraordinaire Alex Nunez posted a picture to my Facebook wall, suggesting that the Chevrolet Caprice’s proportioning is somehow a worthy successor to these Iconic American Sedans.   My response? Relative to the Chevy Impala, sure.  But proportioning is more than having rear-wheel drive and a lot of real estate.  If you proportion it wrong, you create a Fool’s errand. You create the Chevy Caprice.

While we say Panther Love, we really mean Cab Backward design for an Iconic American Sedan. Can you dig it?

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After reading Jack’s “mean-spiritedly annotated” interpretation of Motor Trend’s Scott Evans’ rollover of a Cadillac ATS at a press event and then Scott’s safe-n-sane account of his unfortunate off-road adventure, I remembered 24 Hours of LeMons head honcho Jay Lamm mentioning that he’d rolled a Range Rover in spectacular fashion during his car-journo days. With all this talk about upside-down press cars lately, I decided to interview Mr. Lamm about his wreck and the effects it had on his subsequent career. (Read More…)

In my last post on TTAC, I wrote about how Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW are aggressively fighting for leadership in the luxury car market in India. This segment is just 20,000 units a year, but is expected to reach 1,50,000 units a year by 2020. Audi was breathing down the neck of BMW. However, BMW has bolstered its number one position with the launch of the F30 3-Series. The German automaker launched the new 3-Series in style, bringing in all the six generations of the 3-Series for the launch. (Read More…)

Well into the first decade of the new millennium, Changchun, China, was Volkswagen’s Siberia. When someone was transferred to the frigid city in Northern China, the others inevitably asked: “What did you do?”

It looks like Opel is quickly becoming GM’s Siberia, and people rather desert than going. (Read More…)

When you write about one Malaise Era Dodge pickup, you might as well follow it up with another on the very next day. These days, crew cabs are nearly ubiquitous on big pickups, but the idea of a truck with a back seat in the cab was still something of a novelty in the middle 1970s, so this truck is an interesting truck history lesson. (Read More…)

With China being the world’s largest car market, and the largest market of many of our carmakers, getting good and timely data is essential for stock analysts and journalists alike. Bloomberg has an exasperated story that cries about the absolute mess in China when it comes to hard data. It also describes the great lengths analysts go to when gauging Chinese car sales. No wonder the analyst reports are often messier than even the messiest Chinese data: (Read More…)

Well, that did not take long. Authorities in Vista, California today found what was left of the 2005 Ford GT discovered stolen from tony Rancho Santa Fe last week. We usually don’t mind strippers at all, butt … (Read More…)

“Drives like a go-kart”. Is there a more time-worn, hackneyed cliche in automotive journalism? Although this phrase is meant to heap praise on a lightweight, nimble vehicle that offers superlative handling, I can’t think of a more damning insult to saddle a modern road car with than to liken it to a proper kart.

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If you’ve never seen an SCCA ProSolo event, you’re missing something. The best ProSolo drivers are accurate to within an inch of their desired line at the precise limit of the tires and suspension. Live timing for the Toledo event can be found here. My brother Mark Baruth, who is not to be confused with the “Bark M.” who occasionally writes about his BOSS 302, is taking a break from his BOSS 302 to return to Honda-powered STR-class competition. If you’re in the Toledo area, check it out… if not, click the link and support the SCCA!

As we reported back on July 17th, there were reports of Nissan LEAFs “bricking” themselves while connected to GE’s WattStation home charging stations. Over the last 10 days, I have been on a number of conference calls, spoken with a number of Leaf owners, electrical engineers and battery charging gurus. As it turns out, the problem was exactly as I had surmised: bad utility power damaged the LEAF. The only involvement the GE WattStation had, was that it was merely the connection between the LEAF’s on-board charger and the utility.

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