Mercedes-Benz has been making improvements to its manufacturing facility near Tuscaloosa, Alabama in anticipation of the introduction of the all-new 2015 C-Class. On December 18, Mercedes held a grand opening ceremony for a new 900,000 square foot parts logistics center at the plant. Mercedes claims the $70 million dollar facility will employ 600 people.
Automakers and auto enthusiasts alike aren’t fond of the differing safety standards in Europe and the United States. Having to satisfy two different standards means increased costs for car companies that want to compete on a global scale and it also means that car enthusiasts on both continents are often deprived of desirable cars on sale in the other market. But according to Automotive News, lobbyists for automakers in the U.S. and Europe are hoping to use current negotiations over a free-trade agreement to harmonize safety standards and they are using academics to make their argument. (Read More…)
Image from Twitter @craigsfrost
Positively or negatively, mass transit is often viewed as a social leveler. Rich and poor alike ride the subway in New York, London and Berlin. Atlantans of all economic and social backgrounds make use of MARTA’s facilities, as they do in many other American cities where public transit is the most efficient way of navigating the inner cities. Of course, these are public systems, funded by fares and taxpayer money.
They’d been on the freeway for maybe half an hour when the first joint appeared between the fingers of Serious D’s right hand, briefly flaring in the rear-view mirror as D took a long draw and passed it over to Premiere, who bogarted it with a pair of puffs before handing it forward to The Emperor, who swore under his breath as the lit end briefly touched his knuckles. Premiere and The Emperor started fussing with each other trying to negotiate the passing of the joint into the Pontiac’s front seat.
“Just turn it around, man, I’ll grab it.”
“I can’t see your hand.”
“What does it matter?” Scott reached down and twisted the Parisienne’s headlamp switch, flooding the interior with a sickly yellowish glow. “Got it now,” The Emperor noted with satisfaction, puffing it to a roach as Scott turned the dome light back off. “Hey man, you want to finish this off?”
“No,” Scott heard himself say, “someone has to drive us home.”
(Read More…)
Last week we ran a post of mine about the Jam Handy Organization, a motion picture studio located in the Detroit area that created many of General Motors’ promotional films for decades. A couple of the readers liked my idea of posting some more of those vintage films as a recurring feature here on TTAC. Jam Handy, though, wasn’t the only person who recognized the potential of using motion pictures to promote the sale of automobiles.
In 1981 the CART/PPG Indy Car series was in its third year. Formed in 1979 by racing teams who had split from the previous sanctioning body, USAC, over how races were promoted, the way that television contracts were handled and what they believed to be the small size of the winners’ purses, the ‘81 PPG Indy Car World Series had 11 races on the schedule and featured drivers like Rick Mears, Johnny Rutherford and Mario Andretti. In time the series would go on to become the sole sanctioning body for all of Indy Car racing, but in 1981 the series was still in its infancy and, despite having Indy Car as a part of it name, did not even include the Indianapolis 500 among its officially sanctioned events. (Read More…)
Today’s Ur-Turn comes from TTAC reader Mike Stanizewski, who writes about his experiences with his E46 winter beater. Mike says
“I wanted to write this article after reading some of the recent articles regarding German cars and their long term reliability. Some of the commenters in the Cayenne article were wondering out loud what happens to old German cars when they reach their third uncaring owners. Well here I am, the third uncaring owner, and I want to tell you what it’s like to drive an old, high-mileage German car through the winter months.”
I live in Michigan. In my off hours I buy and sell used cars through my friend’s dealership. This gets me access to used cars at good prices. Every winter I pick out one of these cars to drive during the winter months in order to keep the salt off my nicer car.
My goal is to find a car that’s not too old and not too beat. And very cheap to buy.
The Conselho Nacional de Trânsito, the highest traffic authority in Brazil, has just unauthorized the Economic Ministry’s intention of opening up an exception to venereal, I mean venerable, Volkswagen Kombi (known as Bus in the U.S.). It has ratified the governmental organ’s own resolutions of 2009, which implemented a gradual, mandatory adoption of airbags and ABS systems, reaching 100 percent of cars sold in Brazil as of 2014.
TTAC had its first bite at the 2014 Highlander recently. Be sure to bookmark TheTruthAboutCars.com for the written review in the coming days and a full-on drive review based on a week in Toyota’s new crossover in a few months.
It wasn’t my first job, not even close. In fact, by the spring of 1986 I had been fired from several different places. I had drifted a bit in the two years since I had graduated from high school and had gone through an entire string of dead end jobs. No matter what kind of work it was, I never seemed to last more than a few weeks. I wasn’t a bad guy really, I didn’t steal or do horrible things, it’s just that I wasn’t a hard worker and for some reason, a lot of employers really objected to that. Eventually, however, something inside me clicked into place and when I finally landed a job as a clerk at an auto parts store I was determined to keep it. (Read More…)
One of the best things at PRI is a little room, tucked just off the main hall, that usually houses the first-time exhibitors or late entries. This year’s “new arrivals” included an outfit called Midwest Supercub and Midwest Supercub’s line of homemade, alcohol-burning, CNC-milled racing engines. For lawn tractors.
According to credit reporting bureau TransUnion, auto finance has a bright future ahead in 2014, with easier access to credit and bigger loans for consumers.
The Dodge Tradesman cargo van of the 1970s was quite popular among customizers back in the days of 20% annual inflation and talk-box guitar solos, as we saw with this ’72 Tradesman Junkyard Find last year. In the very same San Francisco Bay Area wrecking yard, here’s a Slant-6 Tradesman that doesn’t quite qualify as a custom van— not with just tinted glass and aftermarket wheels— but is still a nice time capsule. (Read More…)
Once of the most frequent car advice emails I get is from consumers looking to cut down their fuel bills while still hanging on to a family sedan. Until recently, this question narrowed the field down to a few hybrid sedans and the Volkswagen Passat TDI. Today, there are more hybrid options than ever and soon […]
The green warriors who hoped EVs and hybrids would be the dominate force on the highways of America may need to wait a bit longer: the United States Department of Energy predicts gasoline will be the fuel of a generation until at least 2040.
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