Alex writes:

Hi Sajeev,

I have recently come into possession of a 1994 Isuzu Trooper (pictured above). 158k, One owner, with good service history until 100k. After that the (affluent) previous owner basically used it as a Home Depot Hauler for 7+ years so besides oil changes and tires, not much was done. That’s fine by me as the truck cost $1600 and it is pretty great running shape. (Read More…)

Former Hyundai and General Motors marketing executive Joel Ewanick’s newest endeavour — a hydrogen fuel filling station network called FirstElement Fuel Inc. — has won a $27.6 million grant from the California Energy Commission, allowing Ewanick to move forward with the startup.

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Automotive News reports General Motors’ attorney Kenneth Feinberg met with Texas attorney Robert Hilliard at the former’s office within the Beltway to begin preliminary discussions over the claims of the latter’s 300-plus clients affected by the ignition switch recall. During the talk, no agreements were reached regarding compensation, while Hilliard viewing the first meeting as GM’s way of convincing him that it would do “the right thing” by his clients. Feinberg states he is gathering proposals for a compensation program similar to the one he orchestrated for 9/11 victims and victims of other major disasters, and should have a package ready within the next few weeks at the latest.

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For five decades, the powerplant of choice for Truck Mountain has been the venerable V8. With powerful V6 engines from Ford, General Motors and Ram being favored for more and more consumers of full-size pickups, however, the V8 could soon find itself occupying a smaller niche along the mountain.

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Late last week Zipcar announced their ONE>WAY service, a point-to-point rental product and a clear challenge to Daimler’s successful Car2Go program.

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We lost about 130 minutes due to fuel problems yesterday, but we aren’t out of the game entirely.
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Didn’t read Part 1? Catch it here

Our imaginary road trip continues in jazz, which is America’s greatest contribution to music.
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5 cars – 5 sticks = 0 Customer Demand

I hate looking at that equation. But these days, it’s about as true for the car business as Georgia is hot. An older stickshift vehicle that isn’t an all out sports car will sit at a retail lot for months on end.

Nobody knows how to drive them except for those folks who are either too middle-aged, too arthritic, or too affluent to buy an older car with a manual transmission.

Don’t believe me? Well, here’s five vehicles that have become the equivalent of heavyweight paperweights at my humble abode. The funny thing is I like driving them all… I just wish I wasn’t two stickshifts away from driving a different handshaker every day of the week.

They are…. (Read More…)

 Years ago, a coworker constructed a sinister device. Inside of a RadioShack project box he attached a capacitor, a battery, and a 120 decibel personal alarm. On the outside he attached a simple on/off switch, and a button he labeled “Do Not Press.”  He would leave this in conspicuous places, and invariably, someone would pick it up, turn on the power, and press the button despite clear instructions to the contrary. The alarm would shriek and the capacitor ensured that once the power was applied, the alarm could not be turned off until you accessed a hidden reset port with a straightened paper clip to interrupt the circuit. As sinister of a prank as this was, it played upon a human trait; people, especially men, enjoy pressing a button that they’re told not to touch. (Read More…)

Earlier this week TTAC ran an insightful post by Abraham Drimmer on the history of autonomous cars that featured a promotional film about General Motors’ Futurama exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. That film was produced by the Jam Handy Organization, the Detroit based motion picture studio famous for its educational film strips and promotional films. GM executives must have liked the “ama” suffix because a few years later in the 1950s they used it to name their annual touring display of concept and show cars the “Motorama”. Just as the Futurama gave Americans a look at the highways of the future, in its day, Motorama became synonymous with cars of the future. Perhaps that’s why Chevrolet decided to use the word “Motoramic” to describe their all new 1955 models and again hired the Jam Handy studio to promote them. (Read More…)

“BUT FIRST, OMELETS!” That was the fateful phrase that let us know that we wouldn’t exactly be contending for the overall win in last year’s LeMons race. Or for the class win. Or for the “makes it around the racetrack for one lap” trophy.

This time, it will be different. Well, it could be different.
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Hey! Remember that great idea that Audi and BMW and Ford and Hyundai and Kia had about getting you to buy a turbocharged four-cylinder in a relatively expensive car instead of a V-6? Lee Iacocca had it first. But he never had it like this.
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Imagine Detroit at its height, enormous factories and mile-long production lines running day and night, a roiling, churning symphony of man and machine where thousands of workers joined together parts, large and small, from a myriad of sources into single, working vehicle. Although I have toured modern factories in Japan, meticulously clean facilities where technicians in spotless coveralls only complete the tasks that robots cannot, I view the old factories, places like Rouge River that were built in in the first part of the last century, with a special sort of awe. The entirety of what went on there is, to me, unknowable and, like the great pyramids, all that is left of the human toil is the end product. That’s why, when some small piece of history, some bi-product of that mysterious past, catches my attention, I stop and look.

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Auris Touring Sports. Full gallery here.

In a post by our managing editor about that part of the European automotive market referred to as the “C segment”, what Americans would call compact cars, some of our readers commented on how “Toyota Corolla” means different things in different parts of the world. In Europe, Toyota sells a Corolla branded car based on its subcompact platform. The car that Toyota sells in Europe that is most comparable to the North American Corolla is called the Auris there. While built on the same platform, the Auris comes with a multilink independent rear suspension, while the U.S. spec Corolla gets a less sophisticated torsion beam setup in back. At the ride & drive for the launch of the 2014 Corolla that I attended a few months ago I asked Paul Holdridge, vice president of sales for Toyota Division, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A, how come Europe gets IRS and we don’t. Holdridge said it had to do with differing driving styles, needs and expectations of American and European consumers. One might thing that means that American drivers don’t care that much about better handling, but it seems to me that the differences between the Auris and the U.S. spec Corolla may have more to do with the expectations of Europeans, than American driving styles.

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TrueCar founder Scott Painter and former Hyundai North America CEO John Krafcik both announced that Krafcik is now president of the online automotive shopping company.

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