Following a nearly six-month search for new leadership, the American Center for Mobility (ACM) has named Reuben Sarkar as its new CEO. The Michigan-based facility has been without a chief executive since Michael Noblett left in November of 2019, leaving COO Mark Chaput in charge while the company hunted for a replacement.

It found one with Sarkar. He’s positioned to assume his new role at the historic site (Willow Run) that manufactured B-24 bombers in World War II before transitioning to GM vehicles and eventually the testing of autonomous cars, in early May. But this isn’t one of those cushy CEO positions where one can sit back and enjoy a sizable annual bonus. Intellectual property conflicts, legal hazards, and a longer-than-presumed development timelines have stagnated the self-driving industry. Mr. Sarkar is going to have his work cut out for him — though we’re sure he’ll still be well paid.  (Read More…)

Following two weeks of unseasonably cold weather that seemed to put spring on hold, Saturday was a gorgeous day in this writer’s city. Warm temps, endless sunshine, and a pandemic that compelled public health officials to tell everyone to stay indoors for the fifth weekend in a row. Or was it the sixth? Time feels more fluid than it once was.

Anyway, yours truly was on the road, seeking an escape from humanity. With too many potential walking or running spaces overrun with people or, oddly, closed off for public safety, I realized I needed to go further afield to distance myself from this constrained, antsy populace. And so I hopped on the highway… and found myself driving in a near-normal level of traffic for the first time since this all began.

Was everyone being an asshole? Was I? (Read More…)

BMW’s i4 Concept may be the EV the brand currently has to promote, but it’s the iX3 that’s poised to become the brand’s all-electric cash cow. It’s entering a market space most other manufacturers agreed showed enough promise to launch other reasonably sized, plug-in crossovers (e.g. Tesla Model Y, Mercedes EQC, Jaguar E-Pace, Audi E-Tron). These are the vehicles seen as helping EVs pitch into the mainstream, offering both the planet’s preferred body style and adequate range for most commuters.

Up until now, we’ve seen most of what the industry has to offer in the premium electric crossover segment. Even the iX3 has been thrice teased by the manufacturer since announcing its existence at Auto China in 2018. But those were typically issued to us as conceptual renderings between spy shots of a vehicle that looked very much like the standard BMW X3. Recently leaked online, the production-ready iX3 hasn’t altered that opinion. In fact, it’s probably destined to end up being the most normal-looking EV on sale for a while.  (Read More…)

Crossovers don’t have to be totally boring. Consider the 2020 Acura MDX A-Spec. It could just be another yawn-inducing luxo-box on wheels, but Acura has at least tried to imbue it with some sort of spirit. Well, as much spirit as is possible with a 4,200-pound crossover.

Mitsubishi, the automotive brand TTAC readers can’t get enough of, is going further into money saving mode amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The automaker announced late last week that it will revisit and revise its 2019 fiscal year financial forecast and rein in its spending, starting with the pay checks it sends to officers and directors. (Read More…)

Burning through piles of cash as plants sit idle, sales plummet, and the bulk of its vast workforce still demands payment during the virus-borne production shutdown, General Motors is taking new measures to protect its finances.

On Monday, the automaker announced a number of steps designed to anger shareholders in the short term, but a production restart date remains as elusive as before. (Read More…)

Still sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic in North America and suffering from supply chain and demand issues in its Japanese home base, Nissan is prepared to stem domestic output by 70 percent in May, Reuters reports.

The unconfirmed production cut won’t be a single-month affair, either. On this side of the Pacific, it seems Nissan brass want birds of a feather to flock together, with possible changes incoming at the automaker’s two American vehicle assembly plants. (Read More…)

Weird examples of badge engineering! Who doesn’t love them? Bad people, that’s who, and so I do my best to find such vehicles while I’m exploring car graveyards. The badge-engineering world includes Isuzus badged as Hondas, Hondas badged as Isuzus, Mitsubishis badged as Dodges, Dodges badged as Mitsubishis, Chevrolets badged as Saabs, and — of course — Subarus badged as Saabs. Here’s an example of the notorious Saabaru, found in the Subiest region of the United States: Denver, Colorado. (Read More…)

Former millionaire and ex-owner/CEO of Interlogic Outsourcing Najeeb Khan has been forced to sell off his entire car collection after declaring bankruptcy last year. Accusations of fraud from former clients and businesses partners really put Mr. Khan through the financial wringer. Multiple lawsuits claim the company failed to hand clients’ tax money over to the Internal Revenue Service — encouraging Khan to sell his business to Pennsylvania-based payroll firm PrimePay. While that certainly sounds suspicious, any determinations on his guilt are best left to the professionals.

Since Khan’s company has little to do with the automotive sphere, we’re not overly concerned with the details of the alleged monetary malfeasance, anyway. The important issue, from our perspective, is he now has to sell off his remaining assets. That includes investments made into various businesses, multi-million-dollar homes, and 281 vehicles — many of which are highly valuable and incredibly rare.  (Read More…)

It was a sad day when General Motors all but mothballed its Oshawa, Ontario assembly plant — a manufacturing site that had cranked out cars since 1907 — but new production will soon be underway.

Not of sedans or pickups, the latter of which happened to be the plant’s last vehicular products when it ceased assembly in 2019, but masks. A lot of masks. (Read More…)

Hertz Global Holdings is reportedly bringing in economic advisors to help the business manage its mounting debt. Unsurprisingly, everyone in the world simultaneously canceling their vacation plans wasn’t great for business. Your author has had to cancel four trips this year, three of which would have included going from an airport to a rental agency. With others forced to do the same as the events and places they planned on enjoying closed up shop, the prognosis is not been good for the borrowed-automobile sector.

When we last checked in, rental agencies had slashed rates to an almost unimaginable degree. Realizing that cheap rentals actually earn you less money when you have a surplus of vehicles nobody wants, those prices have begun creeping back towards normal. But financial problems have not abated. Still, we can put a positive spin on this since you’re probably tired of hearing bad news. Instead of this signaling disaster for rental agencies, think of Hertz bringing in restructuring experts as a sign that it’s being proactive in coping with a truly undesirable situation.

Feel better? Alright, let’s bring you back to reality.  (Read More…)

That a print advertisement can still remain (near) top of mind two decades later speaks to the power of marketing, and maybe a little to the vehicle behind that famous ad: the Lexus GS.

After announcing a limited run of 2020 Lexus GS 350 F Sport Black Line Special Edition — a vehicle the brand calls the “best ever” GS, the automaker admitted that this is it for the model. The GS, which added a modicum of muscle to Lexus’ image back in the 90s, won’t live beyond the summer. (Read More…)

Rare Rides has featured exactly two Alpinas in the past, both coupes. From the Eighties came the B7S Turbo Coupe, a 6 Series-based sporty two-door. The Nineties were represented by the hefty B12, an 8 Series modification which was very expensive.

Today we step back to the Eighties and have a look at a B7S Turbo with twice as many doors.

(Read More…)

Sales fell 27 percent. Brands such as Chrysler, Infiniti, Jeep, and GMC were in torments; shedding volume as demand withered. Subaru showed signs of relative strength, however, as did the Toyota RAV4. Passenger car market share was on the rise and…

Wait a second — we’re clearly not talking about the frightening first quarter of 2020. Scan the auto sales reports from 11 years ago and aside from a few familiar patterns, the U.S. light vehicle market of 2008 and 2009 did not resemble the U.S. light vehicle market of 2020.

Year-over-year, 2009 volume plunged 27 percent in the United States as a global recession melted home equity, eliminated jobs, and sent some of the biggest automakers in the world into a tailspin. Over the course of two years, auto sales actually dropped 35 percent, a loss of 5.7 million units.

Yet by 2012, three years after the collapse and three years into a recovery that would eventually produce record annual volume, 17 major auto brands (more than 100,000 U.S. sales/year) were selling in greater levels than they had in 2008. Meanwhile, seven other auto brands had yet to fully bounce back.

(Read More…)

Some of you have been reading this site for a long time, and for that, I’m thankful. You might remember that I used to fly around the country to drive and review readers’ cars. It seems impossible that I wrote this post almost six years ago, but it’s true. On that day, I had taken a flight to Baltimore to do a pilot workshop for Autotrader, and was picked up at the airport by a loyal reader and soon-to-become new friend, Gene.

We had a marvelous time hooning around in his brand new Chevrolet SS. I think it was one of the first, if not the first “Reader Ride Reviews” that we did on this site, a feature that I sorely miss. Seeing the pride that readers had in their own cars and watching their eyes light up as they saw what their cars were capable of doing in the hands of a (slightly) trained driver was always a delight.

Well, imagine my delight and surprise when our formerly SS-owning friend Gene emailed me out of the blue last year. He had read my commentary on the C8 Corvette and invited me to try out his new C8 when it arrived sometime in February. I gleefully accepted.

Well, we all know what happened next. First, there was a strike. Then, there was a virus. Gene began to suspect that his C8 would not be built in time for his delivery date — and then, perhaps not at all.

That’s when I had an idea.

(Read More…)