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Posts By: Derek Kreindler
As part of TTAC’s reboot, we promised you, the readers, many things. One of them was “no more luxury car puff pieces”. Jack and I had every intention of adhering to this rule as well, until our staff email inbox received a message from Rolls Royce Motorcars, asking us to come drive the all-new Wraith. […]
Readers of our departed EIC’s chronicles will no doubt understand that building a luxury brand is a gradual, concentrated effort that won’t bear fruit for many years. Over at Audi, it took Herr Schmitt and Herr Piech the better part of two decades to morph Audi from an oddball line of tarted up Volkswagens into a global luxury player, and that journey was not without its own mishaps.
A study by Edmunds on the buying habits of millennials shows that 2013 was not a particularly good year for young car buyers. Despite making good headway in 2012, 2013 saw those gains practically eroded, as a weak job market and rising home prices helped stymie any growth in market share for automotive consumers aged 18-34.
An obscure story in the Azerbaijani press this past summer may be the tip of a much larger iceberg involving General Motors, PSA Peugeot Citroen and the Western World’s current bete noir: the Iranian regime currently embroiled at the heart of a controversial nuclear program, which is subject to economic sanctions by the United States government, including those that specifically target Iran’s automotive industry.
Citing reports from Iran’s Mehr news agency, an Azerbaijani news outlet reported that an unspecified number of brand new Chevrolet Camaro RS 2LT convertibles were imported by a division of Iranian conglomerate Iran Khodro. According to the report, the Camaros were sent from Miami to Paris, and then from Paris to Tehran via a Qatar Airways plane. The report also states that US Customs and Border Patrol documents list the final destination as the Aras Free Trade and Industrial Zone.
That mysterious sedan spied by Ronnie Schreiber might really be a Ford after all. Numerous sources have told TTAC that the sedan is indeed a Ford, based on certain tell-tale clues. A TTAC reader from Brazil also sent us this note
“…it is the sedan version of the new Ford Ka, or Escort, as some are saying it is going to be named.The car will be powered by a 1.0 three cylinder engine. Similar to the 1.0 EcoBoost, but with no boost, or else, with no turbocharger, in order for it to be cheaper. This car will also be sold in India (as Figo), China and other emerging countries. Even Europe will receive it to replace the current Ka and work as a sort of Sandero from Ford. This sedan will have a nice trunk capacity (around 500 litres) and probably a stronger engine, the 1.5 that is currently used in the New Fiesta in Brazil.”
If you want to see the future of Holden in Australia, this is it. Yes, it’s the same car that Jack Baruth took to the woodshed in today’s edition of TTAC, but it’s also a harbinger of things to come for the iconic Australian marque, with the announcement that Holden’s Elizabeth, Australia plant will be tooling up to produce the first ever front-wheel drive Commodore. And even that looks doubtful.
Late breaking news from Los Angeles – this month’s LA Auto Show will herald the debut of the RLX Sport Hybrid All-Wheel Drive, nearly a year after the front-drive V6 RLX debuted.
TTAC readers seem to care not a whit for the flashy stuff. The Jaguar F-Type, possibly the most anticipated press car this year among journalists, lifestyle bloggers and other dubiously affiliated members of the media, garnered less than 50 reader comments. Meanwhile, reviews of the Chrysler minivans regularly generate hundreds. In a quest to be […]
Another day, another turnaround strategy from Sergio Marchionne. The plan, which won’t be revealed until April, reportedly includes a rear-wheel drive architecture as a key element, with enough flexibility to be used in everything from Alfa to Dodge vehicles.
2016 will be a pivotal year for Holden’s Commodore-based Ute. Declining sales and shifting production capabilities could mean that the traditional Aussie Ute could become extinct, as both the Commodore and Ford Falcon Utes die off.
For some time now, I’ve had the notion that I’d like a BMW – and a specific one at that. I want one with a manual transmission, a naturally aspirated I6 and hydraulic steering. Finding one isn’t exactly hard, but finding a good one is very tough. So much so that I nearly pulled the trigger on one of the last 128i 6-speed manual coupes to come to Canada. The dealer offered me some rather generous terms, but my overriding distaste for owning a rapidly depreciating asset (128i residual values are flaccid, to put it mildly) ended that idea. The next best thing, according to former E46 330i Sport owner Jack Baruth, is a used E46 330i Sport.
Juan Barnett of DCAutoGeek has compiled the definitive infographic on our favorite niche segment: manual wagons. Using inventory from Cars.com, Barnett found that of 2.4 million new cars current available for sale in America, just 2,336 or 0.09 percent are manual wagons. Subaru, followed by Volkswagen, are the big players in this very small market. BMW is sadly absent from this list, now that the 328i wagon can no longer be had with a stick, but Kia (the Soul is technically a wagon), Scion (ditto their two-box offerings) and Mini still make the cut, according to the government’s definition of a wagon. Who would have thought that Cadillac would replace BMW in these rankings?
Remember the Fiat Viaggio, the Dodge Dart clone that was supposed to be the brand’s breakthrough product in China? The compact sedan has missed its sales targets by as much as 60 percent, and now Fiat is hoping that local production of the Jeep Cherokee can help fill some of their plant’s capacity and capitalize on China’s insatiable demand for crossovers.
Michael Banovsky of RM Auctions has been on a MK1 Lotus Elise kick. And why not? Canada’s more relaxed importation laws mean that owning a MK1 is a legal proposition, and the lucky guy has got the resources of one of the world’s best auction houses at his disposal.
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