“Do you want to get in and out of your car easily and do you want to be able to back out of a tight parking spot?” Ford Mustang buyer and former Chevrolet Camaro shopper John Oglesby wrote to Car And Driver for its September 2016 issue. “If so, you need the Mustang.”

John Oglesby is truly representative of the market as a whole. After holding its position as the top dog in the segment for five years, the Chevrolet Camaro predictably lost its title to the Ford Mustang in 2015, the year of an all-new Mustang; the last year for the now-departed fifth-generation Chevrolet Camaro.

2016 hosted the launch of an all-new Chevrolet Camaro, but a return to sales leadership wasn’t in the cards. Not at any point since the nameplate’s 2009 return has the Camaro sold so poorly. Year-over-year, U.S. Camaro volume is down 15 percent compared with 2015, the Camaro’s previous worst year since returning. (Read More…)

Editor’s Note: Please welcome Matt Pericles, a.k.a. FormerFF, as the first reader featured during TTAC’s Reader Submission week. We’ll post more submissions throughout the week. Stay tuned!

Consider the Jeep Patriot, whipping boy of automotive journalists everywhere, number 18 out of 18 in U.S. News’s “Best Compact SUVs” list.

Does it deserve such scorn?

(Read More…)

In last week’s Junkyard Find, I shared the first discarded BMW E30 I have photographed after nearly a decade of writing about junkyard vehicles. Yes, the E30 was a fine automobile (though right-thinking car experts recognize that its Alfa Romeo Milano competitor was faster, cheaper, and had a much better-sounding engine) and we should take a moment to appreciate this important piece of German automotive history.

Right, now that we’re done with that, let’s admire a piece of automotive history I find much more fascinating: an example of the final model year of Chrysler’s company-rescuing K-Car, photographed in a muggy, buggy, cocklebur-overgrown Minneapolis self-service yard. (Read More…)

If you go through Volkswagen’s historical model catalogue, you’ll notice many occurrences of the exact same model sporting unique names in the U.S. and Canadian markets.

For example, Volkswagen marketed the last-generation Jetta Wagon in the United States as the Golf Wagon in Canada beginning in 2010. Roll ahead to present day, Volkswagen has called its Golf SportWagen (U.S.) the Golf Sportwagon in Canada since 2015.

Thankfully, that’s about to change.

According to Volkswagen Canada representative Thomas Tetzlaff, the Canadian outpost will drop the Sportwagon name in favor of the name used in the United States — SportWagen.

(Read More…)

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general, the Obama Administration has failed to live up to its legal obligation to study the environmental impact of blending ethanol with gasoline.

Those findings, the result of an inspector general audit, confirm what the Associated Press reported back in late 2013, prompting the audit.

In 2007, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act, which was and signed into law by Pres. George W. Bush. Among other things, the 2007 legislation increased the Renewable Fuel Standard that mandated biofuel production, primarily ethanol, and the blending of at least some of that ethanol into the gasoline supply.

The law also stipulates that the U.S. EPA must conduct studies every three years and report to Congress on the air and water quality benefit, or lack thereof, by adding corn-based ethanol to gasoline. The purpose of that part of the law is to make sure solutions to the country’s energy needs don’t adversely affect the environment. (Read More…)

Updated with details on all-wheel drive being standard equipment for Alltrack.

Volkswagen of America needs a winner as it reels from the ongoing diesel emissions scandal, and its forthcoming Alltrack — a jacked-up, all-wheel-drive version of the SportWagen — is hopefully just the ticket.

As Volkswagen prepares to launch the new model on American shores, it’s all hands on deck for the German automaker as it sends representatives from its internal training department to every single dealership in the United States.

(Read More…)

If you collected all of the ink spilled over the Hyundai Santa Cruz pickup’s chances of entering production, it would overflow the unibody model’s abbreviated bed.

Well, Hyundai just put a year and a half’s worth of rumors to rest, confirming to Motor Trend that the car-based pickup is definitely a go, and will appear in 2018 as a 2019 model. (Read More…)

Ever since a data breach left user accounts vulnerable to attack a couple of months ago, VerticalScope has been going through each one of its properties and resetting user passwords.

Normally, this reset would result in an email being sent to the user notifying them of that fact. However, some of our more prolific members have decided to provide email addresses that simply don’t exist.

I’m here to help.

If you’d like to access your commenter account once again, here’s what to do: (Read More…)

If the one thing stopping you from buying an Abarth-spec Fiat model is the nagging question of whether you’ll get free track time out of the deal, consider your question answered.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced yesterday that anyone buying or leasing a Fiat 124 Spider Abarth or 500 Abarth model has a year to sign up for the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, free of charge. Your tiny turbo won’t know what hit it. (Read More…)

Maureen Noble’s home has become an impromptu garage for random vehicles almost too many times to count.

The last time was July 8, and she’s still repairing the damage after a Ford came in one side and went out another. According to the Canadian Press, several jars of jam and pickles died violent and colorful deaths in that incident.

It’s getting tiring. She’d like to move, but the home that attracts vehicles like moths to a light bulb also repels nervous buyers. (Read More…)

Click “pause” on that Model S vs. supercar/fighter jet video, Tesla aficionados.

The newest Model S P90D will outrun last year’s top-shelf Tesla while in Ludicrous mode, according to acceleration tests published by Drag Times. (Read More…)

The most American of motorcycle manufacturers has agreed to pay a $15 million settlement after the Environmental Protection Agency accused it of selling illegal aftermarket tuning kits.

The company’s “Screamin’ Eagle” super tuners, sold since 2008, cause motorcycles to emit excessive amounts of air pollution, the EPA claims. (Read More…)

A grownup game of keep-away is taking place in Germany, and Volkswagen is the kid without the ball.

Work stoppages are looming or already occurring at four of the automaker’s plants after a supplier dispute left Volkswagen without key transmission and seat parts. With the costly fallout of its emissions scandal top of mind, the automaker plans to waltz into the supplier’s factories and take what it needs, Automotive News Europe reports. (Read More…)

Last week, I wrote about our dramas and dilemmas with U-Haul’s newest product/service, U-Box, which we decided employ for our move from Nova Scotia to Ontario.

I tweeted out the link and made sure to mention the U-Haul Customer Service Twitter account.

This is what happened.

(Read More…)

TTAC’s membership in the Ford GT club just got a whole lot less exclusive (sorry, Sanjay), after Ford Motor Company announced an extension of its supercar production.

Ford Performance will tack on another two years of GT production, meaning thousands of jilted would-be buyers still have a chance to score the carbon fiber beast. (Read More…)