Dan Sloan is tired. The head of Nissan’s Global Media Center in Yokohama got up at 6am this morning after days of not much sleep. Today is the day when Nissan’s third quarter earnings are to be announced to the press, and the world at large. It will be a long day of preparations for the big announcement in the late afternoon, and TTAC will be the fly on the wall. Or, as Sloan predicted, the fly in the ointment.
Remember TTAC’s Future Writers Week? You chose the writers. The writers wrote. The stories are in (well, most of them …). Here is the first one. Do you like it? Tell us. The stories will be published in the sequence in which they arrived in TTAC’s mailbox.
Jeff called while I was watching the Ed Sullivan Show. He was my best friend, but it was odd for him call on a Sunday night. (As eighth-graders in 1968, it was unusual for any of us to call our friends except to see if they were available to “do something” at that moment, and we never did anything on Sunday nights.) Jeff did something all by himself. Jeff liked to take his parents’ 1967 Saab 96 around the block when they were gone and, that evening, he overshot the turn onto his street, jumping the ditch and landing in his next-door neighbor’s front yard. After repeatedly killing the engine while attempting to get traction, he managed to exit the yard. As this was a two-cycle three cylinder Saab that sounded like a chain saw when revved, Jeff assumed the neighbors, or the police, would soon be paying a visit. (Read More…)
So venerably ubiquitous was the VW Beetle, I wondered for a while whether the sighting of this particular example constituted as something special enough to qualify for another “fifteen minutes of fame”, here on the Bodacious Beaters page.
Here in the SoCal area, for many years after the end of the sales line, the Beetle just kept finding a way to stay in the spotlight. (Read More…)
Holden took the wraps off of the latest VF-Series Calais, the luxury version of the Commodoe. Expect some, but not all of the styling cues to carry over to the upcoming Chevrolet SS sports sedan. This is also likely the last hurrah for the big, rear-drive Holden. Slow sales have sealed the fate of the Commodore, with a 2016 death date scheduled.
Remember TTAC’s Future Writers Week? You chose the writers. The writers wrote. The stories are in (well, most of them …). Here is the first one. Do you like it? Tell us. The stories will be published in the sequence in which they arrived in TTAC’s mailbox.
I thought I was hard-core. People who complain about the Lotus Elise’s lack of creature comforts or suspension compliance are wimps I thought. Many of us would agree that pure driving pleasure outweighs most other considerations. The Elise is the ultimate test of this idea. Buy or by the hour? Let’s do the test. (Read More…)
What is the best part of a modern auto show? It’s not the constant running from one press release to another. It certainly isn’t fighting your way to the front of the throng to get some blurry photos of the latest sports car. It isn’t even the airport-grade lunches and cheap booze. No, it’s the cutaways. Nowhere else will you find the sheer quantity and quality of mechanical cutaways as an auto show. There are engine cutaways, transmission cutaways, and cutaways of entire vehicles. Click past the jump to see 28 of our favorites from the Chicago Auto Show.
This is making the rounds of the driver-training people on Facebook right now. It’s interesting to watch for a few reasons. Critique it yourself then click the jump.
The French government is denying that it plans to acquire a stake in PSA, but France’s Prime Minister told reporters that mechanisms for providing government assistance have already been vetted.
With the Chicago Auto Show behind us, automakers readying new trim levels and minor engine revisions will have to wait until next year’s Chicago Auto Show, which – aside from wordy Internet press releases – has become the official place for such unveilings.
If the Transit Connect isn’t your bag but you’re looking for a small cargo carrier (or a New York Taxi), Nissan is finally bringing their NV200 to the USA. The small cargo hauler has been on sale in Japan and Europe since 2009 but due to the success of the Transit Connect Nissan has decided to bring it our way. What do you need to know? Click past the jump to find out.
If you were an early adopter of Ford’s compact cargo hauler, news of the 2014 Transit Connect may upset you. Rather than letting the old baby-Transit languish in America like Ford did once upon a time with thee Focus, the new Euro van is coming to America later this year. With new engines, new transmissions and a corporate grille, should you put your purchase on hold?
Every Canadian consumer knows that when it comes to new car prices, we get screwed. Yes, Canada is a small market with higher taxes. It costs more to do business here in part because the high distribution costs can’t be amortized over 300-odd million people. In addition, things like metric instruments further complicate things.
But then there’s the question of why a Toyota RAV4, built two hours outside of Toronto, costs $2,890 less in Hawaii than it does in Canada. Why does an Oshawa-built Camaro demand a $4,685 premium in Canada? Where does BMW get off charging a $19,300 premium in the Great White North for a 535i xDrive, a 38.9 percent increase over the U.S. sticker?
Better Place is shutting the doors of its Australian and American operations, and will concentrate on its Danish and Israeli divisions. The New York Times reported the news just days after Evan Thornley, head of Better Place Australia, left his post as CEO after just three months on the job.
Another Detroit début languishing at the back of a booth is the 2014 Nissan Versa Note. Nissan’s discount hatch, which replaces the Nissan Versa sans-note is still singing the discount tune undercutting both the Honda Fit and the Fiesta.For hatch back duty Nissan fitted the Versa with a new nose that looks a bit less premium than the sedan. Click through the jump for more.
TTAC writers will stoop to any trick to get access to cars. This may be my last post at TTAC because I bribed my way into the ELR and may be removed for ethics violations (a Diet Pepsi was involved.) Fresh off its début in Detroit the ELR may be old news, but since none of the TTAC staff had seen one in the metal, I knew my duty.
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