Midsize pickups have increased their share of the overall pickup truck category by around four percentage points since GM launched the second-generation Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon.

Compared with a period when the twins weren’t on sale, the volume sent the direction of midsize pickups jumped 50% over the first four months of 2015. That gain of 39,000 units wasn’t simply down to the GM twins, either, as the class-leading Toyota Tacoma is growing faster than the overall pickup truck category. (Read More…)

After some success in connection with the Pebble Beach car festivities, the producers of the Auto Moto Film Festival decided to bring the show to Detroit’s Fillmore auditorium for the weekend of the Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix. I hope to have something about the festival and the outstanding movies and personalities therein up on TTAC sometime later, but there was actually some automotive news generated at the event.

Well, sorta.

Ford Motor Company’s head of product development coyly avoided denying company plans to campaign the new Ford GT at the 24 hour LeMans race next year. The designer of the previous Ford GT, an homage to the LeMans conquering Ford GT40, also acknowledged he’s been working on a successor to another iconic 1960s sports car. (Read More…)

“Let me show you how this works,” Danger Girl laughed, as we descended the stairs in the airport parking garage. I call her Danger Girl because 0. I keep putting her in danger, sometimes mortal; 1. She soloed in a Cessna before she turned seventeen; 2. She has certain other dangerous habits that, this being […]

As should be quite clear from my previous Crapwagon ramblings, I like weird cars. My current garage, however, is quite boring, with a domestic minvan and SUV, and a rusty/immobile Miata. For the last four years, my automotive wanderlust has been mostly sated by writing for Bring A Trailer. I’ve been able to stave my funky automotive cravings by writing about the cars rather than inviting a call from a divorce attorney.

There are a few cars that make me consider that tradeoff. Near the top of the list: an E36/8 Clownshoe, otherwise known as the M Coupe. Those massive flares, the short wheelbase, and the MGB GT-aping hatch make me feel all tingly. I followed a trailered, caged M Coupe last weekend for a while (I’m assuming it was headed to a trackday at Mid Ohio) and it gave me rather dirty thoughts.

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123,000 of the 5.4 million new vehicle sales generated in the United States over the last four months are new vehicle nameplates which weren’t on sale at this time a year ago.

Between January and April, the Ford Transit, Acura TLX, Chevrolet Trax, Lexus NX, and 18 other new nameplates accounted for 2.3% of all new vehicle sales volume in the United States, way up from the 1.7% achieved by a smaller fleet of all-new nameplates during the same period one year earlier. (Read More…)

For the second time since applying for the name, General Motors has seen its trademark application suspended for the Chevrolet Bolt.

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FCA Chairman John Elkann confirmed CEO Sergio Marchionne did email General Motors CEO Mary Barra about consolidation, though GM wasn’t the only one.

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FCA, Ford and Honda are adding more models to their recalls involving Takata’s airbags, the first following the supplier’s admission on the issue last week.

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A handful of European automakers are lashing out against the prospect of the United Kingdom’s “Brexit” from the European Union via referendum in 2017.

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The Envoy XUV is one of those unicorns I seem to recognize on the street immediately. As the owner of a Taurus X, I sometimes wonder how my arduous life would change had Ford went ahead with it’s transformer counterpoint to this sub-niche of vehicle. Then I realize, “Probably, I would be scrounging for more weird, rare electric roof trim garnish power regulators at the junkyard.” “Probably not much.”

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People who don’t take no for an answer deserve more admiration. James Glickenhaus is one of those people. James and his Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus are building exotic road cars which can be raced and done so competitively. Almost nobody does that anymore; most manufacturers just build road cars and subcontract the manufacture of racecars resembling those road cars to anonymous shops in North Carolina or southern England. But Mr. Glickenhaus has resources not available to us “normies” – funding, mainly. He has more than money, though. He has ambition, dedication, and he’s probably not the kind of person to take a no for an answer.

That’s great for him. What about you? What if you want to build your own car and you do not have millions of dollars at your disposal?

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Ford Motor Company’s Transit Connect has seen the number of its direct rivals rapidly expand over the last two years. Not only must the Transit Connect fend off challenges from the Nissan NV200, now Chevrolet sells a version of the Nissan Van and FCA has imported the Fiat Doblo as the Ram ProMaster City.

Nevertheless, Ford still owns more than half the market for small commercial vans. Through the first four months of 2015, a period in which small commercial van volume in the United States has increased 58%, the Transit Connect’s market share stood at 55%. True, that’s down from 63% in the equivalent period one year ago. But a year ago, there was no such thing as a Chevrolet City Express or Ram ProMaster City. Moreover, Transit Connect volume has increased dramatically. Its 38% year-over-year improvement translates to 4,201 extra sales for Ford MoCo over just four months. (Read More…)

This is the third week in Themed Junkyard Find Week Madness. We started with 21st Century Junkyard Find Week, then had Volkswagen Junkyard Find Week, and now we’ve staggered right into Rusty Junkyard Find Week. Next week, I might return to ordinary jumbled-up Junkyard Finds, or I might subject you to an entire month of Chrysler LH Junkyard Finds.

For now, though, let’s finish up our third Themed Junkyard Find Week with a case of genuinely puzzling rust. (Read More…)

So I’m screwing around on the Internet the other day, minding my own business, and I come across this video of an accident with a red light runner.

For those of you who can’t or don’t want to watch this video, allow me to explain what happens. In one second, some guy is driving along in Anytown, USA, next to a mall, and a couple of shops, and some charming angled parking spots, and some nicely maintained grass. And in the next second, he goes through a green light and hits a person in a Mitsubishi Eclipse who has run the red light coming the other direction.

Now, any idiot can see what happened here. In one lane, you have the driver with the dash cam, who’s cruising along at a normal rate of speed like a normal person, abiding the law and doing everything by the book. And in the other lane, you have someone who chose to spend their hard-earned money on a Mitsubishi Eclipse.

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Yesterday evening, I appeared on the CTV News Channel in The Great White North to talk about Takata’s latest recalls. As a consequence, I’ve learned I look like Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants when I frown.

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