When I went to the NADA Convention and Expo last week, the opening general session was something I didn’t want to miss, largely since Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush, son of George H.W. Bush, and a former governor of Florida, was giving the keynote address. Mainstream news outlets interpreted his speech in front of NADA as a signal that he was possibly planning a run for president. Consequently, I wanted to hear his (partial-politicking? semi-stump? kind of-campaign?) speech and the subjects it would concentrate on. However, I would have to sit through a lot more before I learned that Jeb Bush was “seriously considering the possibility of running.”

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You never know what car you’re going to get at the rental counter. Whether you’re at an airport in Anchorage, a Milwaukee suburb, or in Tahiti, you won’t know how you’ll get from Point A to Point B, or if you’ve ever vacationed in Tahiti, Point A to Point A. It could better than your […]

Despite a collapse in oil prices of 50 percent since summer’s end, Saudi Arabia, whose vast production capacity has enabled that country to modulate world oil prices by adjusting its output, “effectively resigned from that role,” Daniel Yergin wrote in this past Sunday’s New York Times Week in Review. “…OPEC handed over all responsibility for oil prices to the market, which the Saudi oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi, predicted would ‘stabilize itself eventually.’”

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Behold, the Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen GTD!

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Despite a request from two senators to extend the deadline for its compensation fund, General Motors will still close the filing window this Saturday.

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Or, how many Pacemans could a pace man sell if a pace man could sell pace?

The answer, at least in the United States: not very many.

• 4176 Cooper Hardtops sold in December

• Only 129 Paceman sold in December

• 2014 was the best year yet for the Countryman

Mini won’t be extending the Paceman’s lifecycle nor will the Paceman be replaced by a next-gen model when the current iteration is put out to pasture. Pacemans arrived in North America in March 2013. The nameplate averaged 243 monthly sales through the end of 2014.

Its best months were in November and December of 2013, when 631 and 650 Paceman sales, respectively, were reported by BMW USA. Mini USA sold 1435 and 2055 Countrymans in November and December 2013. (Read More…)

Despite the recent expiration of the $8,000 federal credit for hydrogen vehicles, Toyota is still marketing its Mirai as if it never happened.

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Shopping around for a Korean premium sedan with rear-wheel drive and V8 power, but not looking to spend much? Kia just might have what you need.

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Despite cost-cutting measures meant to save the automaker €5 billion annually by 2017, Volkswagen is moving ahead with a new Phaeton by 2018 at the latest.

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Remember when we told you about GMC’s Duncan Aldred wanting a “professional-grade” Jeep Wrangler? General Motors thinks it’s a good idea, too.

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Last week, I snagged a press pass to the 2015 National Automobile Dealers Association Convention and Expo in San Francisco. That’s right, San Francisco, one of the least car-friendly places in the country, if not the world. Dealers would have to rely on buses to get to their hotels and a few landmarks. They would have to use public transport to go shopping. And they would have to contend with an area of the country trying to “disrupt” their business model with the likes of Tred and Tesla, both of whom didn’t have exhibits at the event.

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Currency fluctuations and a lack of volume helped bring an end to a deal that would have seen Mitsubishi sell Renault-Samsung vehicles as their own in North America, according to a report by Just-Auto.

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As a tyke growing up in South Bend, Indiana, my father and I would often stake out the lots behind the Studebaker factories with hopes of spotting the next generation Avanti or Lark. Too often all we spied were rows of Mercedes-Benz automobiles due to the fact that Studebaker was the U.S. distributor for the German brand up until shortly before the closure of their South Bend operations in 1963.

Yesterday it was announced that Mercedes-Benz was returning to South Bend to build the R-Class crossover at the AM General plant, producer of the military Humvee and the late GM Hummer. Mercedes-Benz once moved their headquarters from South Bend to New Jersey and soon to the South (Atlanta) and now R-Class production is moving from the South (Alabama) to South Bend. Got it? (Read More…)

Leaders from Germany’s automotive sector held a rally Wednesday in Berlin to lend support to a transatlantic trade agreement heavily facing opposition.

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With so many IHC Scouts here in Colorado, many of them wear out, rust out, get crashed, or get replaced by trucks with modern conveniences such as sub-100dB interior noise levels and air conditioning. In this series, we’ve seen this ’70, this ’71, this ’72, this ’73, and this ’74, and now today’s well-used ’74. I saw this truck when I went to a Denver yard to celebrate Half Off Everything Day on the first day of the new year. (Read More…)