In the late 1950s, when Chrysler executives asked Virgil Exner Sr to show them what could be done with a highly personalized future car for the popularly priced Plymouth brand, the Chrysler design chief took them at their word and came up with something so personal that he named it XNR, after himself. One of a series of Chrysler Corp show cars built by Ghia in Italy, the XNR was based on the compact Valiant chassis. Unlike many of the other Exner-Ghia concepts that featured Mopar’s marquee motor, the Hemi, the XNR is powered by a souped up version of what would in time become venerable but what was then a new engine, the Slant Six. With its asymmetrical and quirky styling, the little speedster is quite an interesting car, but its provenance, which includes being both Exner’s and the Shah of Iran’s personal vehicles and surviving a Mideast civil war, is even more interesting. (Read More…)
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When it comes to rental supercar tests, the people have spoken! And you’re going to get five of the original eight cars ranked between today and Saturday. But when you choose five from eight, you still have three that didn’t make the cut. I’ll explain why below.
After less than nine months at the helm, Tesla China president Veronica Wu will be resigning from the top job, and leaving the company behind.
If you’re like me, a dose of 90s Japanese automotive nostalgia is about as good as Prozac. Friend of TTAC Michael Banovsky unearthed this gem – a still intact website from 1995 highlighting Nissan’s home market offerings at the Tokyo Motor Show.
Michigan Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville of Monroe, the senator behind the bill that would allow auto title loan companies to do an end-run around the state’s title loan ban by posing as pawnbrokers, proclaimed the 276-percent interest loans the title companies would provide consumers weren’t predatory.
Aston Martin is preparing to crowdfund the old-fashioned way — shares and bonds — its portfolio expansion, per sources close to the automaker.
The Chrysler Group reported the Dodge Dart’s best-ever sales month in November 2014 as year-over-year volume jumped 39% to 9012 units.
This was the first time Dart volume climbed beyond 9000 units in a single month. The previous top month for this modern incarnation of the Dart was May of this year, when 8644 were sold.
Yet at best, a best-ever month from the Dart still represents nothing more than a mid-pack performance. (Read More…)
Start the YouTube video player. Click on the settings icon in the menu bar to select 2D or your choice of stereo 3D formats
Would you miss a parade of 50 Ford Pintos (well, 47 at least)? The cute little subcompact, oft demeaned as a fiery death trap due to lawsuits and controversy over how and where it mounted the fuel tank, does have its enthusiasts and for the past three years they’ve gathered for the Pinto Stampede, a car meet and fund raiser for the Wounded Warrior Project. This year the Stampede was held in Dearborn, Michigan and the proud Pinto pilots (alliteration is my friend) were reserved a special place of honor at the Ford Product Development Center employees’ annual car show on the lawn in front of the PDC. (Read More…)
Hey! Remember that movie Drop Zone, with Wesley Snipes? No? Well, there’s a character in the movie who won’t speak to someone until he’s jumped out of a plane with them. After all, his reasoning presumably goes, you can’t know what someone’s made of until you skydive with them. Luckily, he ends up doing a very daring jump with Wesley Snipes and therefore he can talk to Wesley Snipes from then on.
I felt the same way about Jalopnik’s Travis Okulski. Until he and I drove the inaugural AER enduro, I didn’t know or care much about him. Over the course of two days, I saw his character as a racer: fast, careful, intelligent, conservative when necessary. I grew to really like him. Which is just one of the reasons I’m so pleased to read his latest editorial on The Site That Reports On Cars Almost As Often As They Raise Awareness On Gender And Race Issues.
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Passenger car sales in the United States are up just 1% as the overall industry has grown more than 5% through the first eleven months of 2014. America’s two best-selling premium brands, however, are enjoying more encouraging passenger car numbers in 2014. Quickly decreasing fuel prices are not, as of yet, slowing car volume at BMW in the least. (Read More…)
The lives of Millennials are often filled with regrets about the previous night. You spent too much money on craft beer; you lied to your eco-aware, renewable-resource-friendly, feminist-ally boyfriend about your whereabouts so you could meet some convicted felon in a stairwell of an “Aloft” hotel and have unprotected intercourse; that old Ra Ra Riot song came on and you started crying so hard you pissed yourself.
But for many Millennials and people of other generations as well, last night’s strongest regrets have to do with a car-sharing service.
The current Audi Q7 is unequivocally a CUV. This one is some sort of David Bowie-esque androgynous mix of CUV and wagon. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
You haven’t been able to buy a BMW 318is since L.A. Law was on the airwaves, but BMW just introduced the next best thing. A 3-cylinder BMW 2-Series Coupe.
After over a decade without any substantial changes, Toyota is finally redesigning the mid-size Tacoma pickup for 2016.
By 1957, not only had Ford and Chevy brought modern styling to their traditional pickup truck lines but Ford had also introduced the Ranchero car based pickup and Chevy featured the Cameo Carrier, a conventional pickup that sported many automobile styling trends. Dodge’s trucks, in comparison, were starting to look a bit dowdy. The solution was to create the Sweptside pickup, with tailfins that emulated Chrysler design chief Virgil Exner Sr’s “Forward Look”, which fully flowered in the ’57 model year. One could be forgiven for assuming that the Sweptside Dodge and the nearly identical Fargo trucks sold in Canada were the product of Exner’s design studio. That wasn’t the case. Supposedly “Ex” wasn’t even interested in restyling the trucks. In fact the Sweptside pickups had nothing to do with Chrysler’s design team. They were the result of a parts-bin project of Joe Berr, the head of Dodge’s Special Equipment Group. (Read More…)
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