Volkswagen is making most of its profits with pricey Audis, but it is looking towards making volume with low cost cars. Plans for a budget-brand, reported at TTAC in October, are “entscheidungsreif”,  ready for a decision as they say in Wolfsburg. In January, Volkswagen’s board could give its go-ahead. (Read More…)

We’ve seen an ’81 Citation and an ’82 Citation in this series, so let’s continue down GM’s Bad Memory Lane with a 1983 version of the car that damaged The General’s image even more than the Vega. Somehow, this car stayed on the street— or at least out of the wrecking yard— for 29 years, but now it awaits crushing in a Denver self-serve wrecking yard. (Read More…)

Car sales accelerate their decline in Europe. The market for new cars was down fourteen months in a row in November, dropping by 10.3 percent compared with November 2011, says the European manufacturers association ACEA. From January to November, 11.25 million new cars changed hands in the EU, 7.6 percent less than in the same period a year ago. Sales in Europe have not been that bad since 1993. (Read More…)

Volkswagen shows yet again that you are not automatically doomed just because you are a Europe-based carmaker. Its global group sales are up 10.4 percent to 8.29 million units from January to November, after a 11.7 percent rise in November. (Read More…)

Looks like we were wrong in reporting the demise of the Acura ILX’s 2.0L engine option. Despite reports from Automotive News which claimed that the 2.0L ILX was on its way out of the lineup, Acura PR contradicted these reports, claiming they are “pure speculation”. The initial AN article seemed credible, in part because it was based on negative comments about the car made by Honda’s Executive VP John Mendel. We apologize for not verifying the information before publishing our piece. And by “we” I of course am refering to myself.

Demand for fuel-efficient vehicles remains strong, and the fleet of newly bought cars is taking to the streets getting a better mileage on average than a year before. The cars sold by Hyundai/Kia are most miserly with their fuel, with Volkswagen close behind. Automobiles from Detroit on the other hand stay thirsty. This is the result of TrueCar’s TrueMPG survey. (Read More…)

As the year comes to a close and we choose our most reviled cars of the year, it’s also worth reflecting on the most compelling narratives of the year.

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Peugeot is deepening job cuts at its French factories, with another 1,500 positions set to be made redundant as part of a massive cost-cutting effort. Meanwhile, rival automaker Renault is expanding its operations in Morocco as its Dacia brand continues to steamroll through the European market.

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GM revealed its new full-size pickups today, with a combination of “evolutionary” styling and while offering a more traditional pickup, devoid of the fancy turbocharged V6 engines and air suspensions offered in its rivals.

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The bailout of a Volt-producing GM was sold as an investment into a green future, a liberation from the terrorist-supporting Arabs. We have been fooled. The decisive turnaround of the company could be delivered by a new generation of big, gas-guzzling trucks. If successful, the trucks could help recover at least some of the money the tax payer sunk into GM.

Forget the Volt. (Read More…)

In recent years, there was no way any car customizer in the world was going to come close to the absurd lengths that practitioners of Bōsōzoku Style in Japan went to when modifying their vehicles. Six exhaust pipes sticking ten feet straight up out of a slammed Corona with an octo-wing? Not enough! That’s a shame for patriotic Americans, because we once ruled the world when it came to brain-scrambling, utterly senseless customized vehicles. But wait! The love of 84s and old-timey lowrider-style kandy paint in Houston has led to a renaissance, and the SLAB (Slow, Loud, And Bangin’) may be knocking the Bōsōzoku Style machines off their pedestal. (Read More…)

Henry Ford II and Israeli premier David Ben Gurion, Ford HQ, Dearborn 1951

One of the neatest parts of being a car guy living in the Detroit area is that you hear stories about the people in the auto industry. Some of those stories are obviously apocryphal or urban legends, others have the ring of truth but can’t be verified. Last night at dinner I heard one of those stories, only in this case the source is credible and willing to say it on the record. Whenever the topic of Henry Ford comes up, almost invariably Ford’s shortcomings as a human being get mentioned, in particular Henry’s infamous antisemitism. (Read More…)

Since ages, India has been receiving cars from UK manufacturers (MINI, Rolls-Royce, Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley, etc) and it’s now time to return the favour. Renault has commenced exports of the Duster compact SUV to the UK markets. This entry level vehicle is manufactured at Renault-Nissan’s India facility in Chennai. The Duster is badged as a Dacia for the UK and is very similar to the one sold in India. The Duster is a massive hit in India, selling more than 5,000 units per month, which is more than 6 times that of the second best selling car (Scala, which is a re-badged Nissan Sunny) in Renault India’s portfolio. (Read More…)

A large crossover doesn’t have to be Mehta-approved to be a best-seller. Aesthetically, it need do little more than not look like a minivan, so owners can pretend to have lives apart from their offspring. By why be just a couple sliders away from fatally uncool when the brood could roll with the style of […]

Market share by country, passenger vehicles, w/o SUV

The island row does not make headlines anymore in China where people focus on the once in a decade transition of power. Japanese carmakers however still feel the pain. Two countries appear to be the winners: China and Germany. (Read More…)