When we asked our readers what you wanted us to cover at the 2014 NAIAS media preview, one of the requests was about swag and perks. There was a time, maybe 10 or 12 years ago, when automotive press kits and related items distributed to members of the media at major auto shows were special enough and collectible enough that a decent number of literature and toy dealers would bring entire crews to those shows to get inventory to sell on eBay. The former communications director of the Chicago Auto Show would publicly bemoan the presence of what he called “press kit thieves” who’d manage to get past the credentials committee to get in the show and then out past security with boxes of press kits and cases of die cast models. There were so many things that would be collectible to car enthusiasts one could make a business out of it. (Read More…)

Recently, I spent some of my procrastinating time in Facebook discussion with a colleague, motoring journalist here in Czech Republic. He was driving a new Range Rover at the time, and he was raving about how great car it was. But there was one flaw, he said. The car came with the most common engine on our market – the TDV6 diesel. And while it didn’t really lack power and was reasonable refined, even for the luxury car it is, there was one thing it just lacked. A V8. Preferably, of the gasoline-burning kind.

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“It was the summer of ’92, and all I wanted was to be in Seattle. You know, like every other mopey kid with long hair, a flannel shirt and a guitar. But I was 16, with no license and no car. And I lived in Connecticut. It was time to get creative.”

I met Bryce by accident at one of those grad school functions everybody goes to just for the free food. He was your stereotypical late-in-lifer; one of those smart but hopelessly anarchic types that screwed around for two decades, accidentally aged past forty, and finally decided he needed a real career after all. The old grunge tattoos were a dead giveaway, as well as the black crewneck over jeans. He found me more tolerable than the milquetoasts sipping virgin martinis; I felt the same way. Besides, I needed a good subject for my biography class.

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A bipartisan group of United States Senators has revealed the “Driver Privacy Act”, which is supposed to put you back in charge of your black-box data in your car. But how effective will that legislation be?
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As I bent down to get a better look at the FT-1’s rear three-quarter, I could see the Scion display in the background, far away and slightly out of focus-an ironic metaphor for a brand that had nothing new on display at the show. Their product line, aside from the FR-S, was aging and seemed to lack any of the real quirkiness the brand had when it was launched.

This got me thinking – what exactly was the point of Scion today? (Read More…)

Upholstery inspired by Marlon Brando’s made-in-Detroit motorcycle jacket.

As a colleague said to me the other day, the NAIAS media preview is for networking, interviews, and asking questions, not covering reveals. You never really know ahead of time who exactly you’re going to run into but you will run into friends, colleagues and industry insiders. 2014 is the Dodge brand’s 100th anniversary. In November it will be a century since Horace and John Dodge started selling cars under their own names after more than a decade of being Henry Ford’s primary supplier. While looking at a display of Dodge memorabilia adjacent to the brand’s centennial editions of the Challenger and Charger, I got to talking with a guy when I noticed he was wearing an Alexander Brothers lapel pin. I’m a big fan of the legendary Detroit custom car builders and have interviewed Mike Alexander. Someday I’ll publish my work on the Dodge Deora. Right now it’s somewhere between TL:DR and a book. Anyhow, the guy with the A Bros pin turned out to be Dan Zimmermann, who is the interior design manager for the Dodge brand at Chrysler, and it turns out that the 100th anniversary Dodge models coincidentally celebrate another Detroit contribution to gearhead culture.

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It seemed like just the right case to start the public debate on driving-while-#GlassExploing: Google Glass aficionada Cecilia Abadie was snagged doing 80 in a 65 on a San Diego freeway while wearing the device. (Clearly, the real headline here should be: Attractive Woman Wears Nerd Glasses: Only In California.) The CHP ticketed her for the speed and also for “driving with a monitor visible in violation of California Vehicle Code 27602.”

Miss Abadie did not deny wearing the glasses.
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Imported vehicle sales by country. Source: Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association

Companies building cars in Canada are lobbying at the last minute to, kill an “imminent” free trade deal between Canada and South Korea that the automakers say would damage the Canadian auto industry and the greater Canadian economy. Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. president and chief executive, Dianne Craig, said on Thursday that the U.S.-Korea trade agreement enacted in 2007 has been a “disaster” for auto makers. Craig urged the Conservative government not to make the same mistake as the United States.

“We understand that [the Canadian government] need[s] to look for what’s in the best interests of Canada,” Ms. Craig said in an interview with Toronto’s Globe & Mail. “But, frankly, autos are the greatest driver of GDP and we think we need to have a pretty strong voice in this conversation. This is not good for autos, which means it’s not good for the economy, which means it’s not good for Canadians.”

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While the rest of the 5,200+ media-pass holders bounced from one laser light show to another, I and Raphael Orlove ( of Jalopnik) ventured north to cover a very different automotive event. There would be no makeup counter girls, no automaker swag and the coffee came from a vending machines not Italian espresso machine. We were headed to an automotive regulatory meeting that was scheduled to take place at the same time as the Acura reveal.

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One of the main criticisms of Generation Why is the lack of hard data to support this column’s ongoing thesis: that the lack of interest in car ownership among millenials is related to economics, rather than any sort of anti-car/pro-environment/pro-urban ideological shift among young people. Now, a key study from Deloitte confirms our initial hunch: young people want cars, but cannot afford them, and the notion of a car-free future, with walking, cycling and transit replacing the automobile (whether privately owned or shared via a service like Zipcar) is an unrealistic fantasy that somehow continues to have currency.

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The Montreal Auto Show is shaping up to be a blowout for fans of B-Segment cars. Aside from the usual Quebec specials, Montreal has been the launch pad for the Canada-only Nissan Micra and the Mitsubishi Mirage G4 you see above.

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The United Auto Workers will, for the first time since 1967, ask their membership to pay a 25 percent increase in dues to the union in order to shore up their strike fund and fight for better contracts, a move outgoing UAW president Bob King believes the membership will overwhelmingly support.

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Germany’s presence in the motoring landscape is enormous, from the ongoing ‘Ring Time contests between the world’s automakers and their halo cars, to the famed Autobahn that connects Nürburg — and other cities in the country — with each other. Yet, the nation’s second-largest city, Hamburg, will eliminate Porsches, BMWs and Fords from its city center by 2034, when its car ban goes in effect.

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You see some weird stuff in San Francisco Bay Area wrecking yards, from lunatic-with-a-glue-gun art cars to dipped-in-battery-acid rust to chopped, Italianized Swedes. Last weekend, I stopped by a well-stocked Oakland self-serve yard and found this puzzling brake-fluid test vehicle. (Read More…)

Those were the days, B&B; the days when cash flowed like rain upon me every morning and I had not a single responsibility in this world and if I thought it would be fun to have an extra Phaeton, I just got one. Alas, 2014 is a year of unvarnished reality on the hoof, coming my way. I’ll have medical expenses from my accident that would probably be sufficient to buy a new Siebener. Thrift and responsibility are the watchwords here, dear readers. So let’s set the “Expectations” knob on our car-choosing app to “Minimal”, and let’s de-select all those tempting silhouettes of 1988 BMW M6es and whatnot, and let’s begin.
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