This week marks the 50th anniversary of the November 22, 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Shortly thereafter, the city of South Bend, Indiana suffered another tragedy: the announcement of the closing of the American factories of the 111-year old Studebaker Automobile Company on December 9, 1963. Over 7,000 local workers engaged in building the company’s Avanti and Lark models would lose their jobs – it was not the most joyous of holiday seasons in South Bend.

We will leave the story of Studebaker’s demise to other sources, like this fine article over at Ate Up With Motor. I traveled to Indiana recently to cover the Studebaker National Museum but discovered that fellow South Bend native Jim Grey had just written an excellent series about the collection for our friends at Curbside Classic. Undeterred, I decided to follow the story of one fascinating car on display and discovered some nutty tales from the company’s old test track, the Studebaker Proving Grounds. (Read More…)

If you haven’t read the first-ever Road & Track Performance Car of the Year story, I would highly recommend reading the Baruth-penned story, which gives any British buff book a run for its money, despite a dearth of derring-do heroics on Welsh backgrounds. Some of the most illuminating information comes not from the Disco Hoodied One himself, but from other R&T staffers. Take this choice quote about the Nissan GT-R for example:

There’s a lot of chuckling in the paddock over the blue seats and odd Track Edition badging on Nissans newest GT-R, but on the runway, it’s serious business. It’s also damn near the fastest car in the test. “It’s so good — and it used to be so terrible,” says Cammisa.

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Photos of the re-designed MINI Cooper have been leaked ahead of its debut at this week’s Los Angeles Auto Show. As you can expect, it looks a lot like the old car.

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From the neon-drenched beaches of Miami and the hipster enclaves in New York, to the high-tech castles in San Francisco and the studio lots of Hollywood, the Ford Fusion is experiencing a coastal market surge in popularity.

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If you were hoping to celebrate an early Christmas in Milan with Signore Marchionne next year, you’re out of luck: Fiat has declined an invitation to show at the 2014 Milano Auto Show in light of the weakened local market.

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Remember this piece from the Honda Summer 2008 Hydrogen Collection? It was supposed to point the way to future of green fuel technology before the Tesla brought plug-in sex appeal down the ramp with their Roadster and, later on, the S, as well as the trend of compliance EVs from Chevrolet, Volkswagen and Kia.

But with sales of plug-in hybrids advancing far slower than originally expected regulators are taking another look at alternative ZEV powertrains.

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While ethanol producers have been lobbying to increase the blend of that alcohol in standard gasoline to 15%, many in the auto industry have opposed that increase, saying that it could damage cars. Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has, for the first time, proposed reducing the ethanol requirement in the nation’s fuel supply. Actually, what they are proposing is a smaller increase in the overall use of ethanol, which means that the national standard may not be raised to E15. (Read More…)

Video contains NSFW language

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

My mind couldn’t comprehend the precipitant, nor the severity, of the situation. Psychologists often refer to this phenomenon as jamais vu, translated as “never seen.” I had sat in my car at a million stop signs before, but the pure fear of what I was experiencing made everything seem strange and unfamiliar.

“NOW, bitch!”

A dark, monstrous hand reached through the drivers’ side window of my 2005 Mazda 6 and quickly yanked the keys out of my ignition. In the midst of all the chaos, I remember thinking in a brief moment of clarity: is this really happening to me? My brain was finally beginning to catch up to fill in the blanks — I was being car jacked.

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The Hyundai Sonata is the oldest car in its segment and a new model is expected next year. Normally, when a car is about to be replaced by the next generation of that model, automakers usually start increasing incentives to move the metal. Sonata sales are down 11% from last year. Now, Hyundai has slashed production of its midsize car, allowing it to reduce incentives to the second lowest in the segment. Average incentive spending on the Sonata is down to ~$2,200. Only Honda’s Accord, with about $840 in incentives available is discounted less.
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Vincent writes:

Hi Sajeev,

I plan to by a Town and Country Touring-L within the next month (hat tip to Jack Baruth!). One vehicle is a 2012 with 41.1k miles, has the Certified Pre-Owned 7yr/100,000mi warranty and listed for $19.0k. The other is a 2011 with 43.3k miles w/o CPO listed for $17.0k. Both are otherwise almost identical.

My question is whether or not it the $2,000 is worth it for the CPO vehicle. The primary difference is another 2yrs to the warranty (actually, 3yrs b/c one is a 2011 and the other is a 2012), and mileage limit stays at 100kmi, but then again I’m thinking that $2,000 is a lot of repairs for a vehicle. Then again, the piece of mind is worth something to me, but is it worth $2,000? (Read More…)

According to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), highway deaths in the United States increased in 2012 by more than 1,000 fatalities compared to 2011. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s getting less safe to drive since the majority of the 33,561 people killed in traffic accidents in the U.S. in 2012 were motorcyclists and pedestrians. Pedestrian fatalities rose for the third year in a row and a majority of those deaths involved jaywalking at night. Many pedestrian deaths also involved alcohol. Even with the increase in 2012, highway fatalities over the past five years continue to be at a historic low. (Read More…)

At Hyundai’s technical center near Ann Arbor last week, the company’s CEO John Krafcik told reporters that the Korean automaker will introduce new versions of its Sonata and Genesis sedans to the U.S. market in the first half of 2014. The company will also launch a hydrogen fuel cell powered version of its Tucson crossover, sold in Europe as the ix3d, and it is expected to be unveiled at the Los Angeles auto show this week. The 2015 Sonata will likely be introduced at the New York auto show next April. (Read More…)

Here at TTAC, we’re always willing to shine the relatively dim spotlight of Internet Hammurabian Justice on police who are mendacious, power-mad, or just plain unfit to be cops. At first glance, the October 28, 2013 incident in which a police officer repeatedly fired his service weapon at a minivan full of children appears to be a prime example of this. After all, how can it ever be right to shoot at kids?

Strictly speaking, the answer to that question is “Unless they are busy endangering your life or the life of someone else, never.” In this case, however, the blurred lines of who’s responsible for what would make even Robin Thicke a trifle nervous.
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This week, we lined the seventy-eight prisoners up in the old football stadium. More for practical reasons than anything else; there were a lot of relatives involved and we needed to make sure they saw what happened before they, in turn, were sent to the camps. I think it was the first time that it had been used since the sport was banned by my predecessor a few decades back. The drifters that live there now were a nice touch. Added a sense of desperation to the whole event.
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When you’re going to a car show featuring 80 and 90 year old pre-war classic American cars, you don’t expect to run across a half dozen exotic Italian sports cars. Earlier this year, the Gilmore Car Museum, near Hickory Corners, Michigan, just north of Kalamazoo, was hosting a meet of the Pierce-Arrow Society. In addition to their own collection, the Gilmore hosts a number of smaller museums devoted to particular marques. One of the museums on the Gilmore site is the Pierce-Arrow Museum, associated with the Pierce-Arrow Society, so the Gilmore is a natural location for a Pierce-Arrow meet. Joining the Pierce-Arrows were some cars from Peerless, another premium American motorcar from the first three decades of the 20th century. Surprisingly, the Gilmore didn’t put some of their Packards on display at the museum. Together with Packard, Pierce-Arrow and Peerless were known as the “Three-Ps of Motordom”, the three most prestigious automobile brands in the United States. Even without Packards on the show field there was a third P at the Gilmore, however, as apparently a Pantera club decided to drive over and visit the museum. There were a half dozen of the Italian-American sports cars parked side by side in the parking lot.

You’re probably familiar with the rough outlines of the De Tomaso Pantera’s history involving an Argentinian who wanted to build midengine Italian sports cars and a guy in Dearborn named Hank the Deuce who wanted to thumb his nose at Enzo Ferrari. Powered by a Ford 351 Cleveland V8 and sold at Lincoln-Mercury dealers from 1971 until the 1973 oil crisis cratered performance car sales, over 6,000 Panteras were sold through FoMoCo. After Henry Ford II lost interest, Alejandro deTomaso kept the Pantera in more limited production for the European market and it was actually built into the 1990s.

Less well known to today’s car enthusiasts are Peerless and Pierce-Arrow.

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