Mercedes has released official images of its hinted-at R-Class facelift, which brings the unloved crossover’s looks closer to the brand’s better-selling SUVs. But will it improve the model’s moribund sales? Probably not. Status-seeking family-haulers in the US will keep buying GLs, and sniggering softly when they drive past folks in their Pacifica-like Rs. Sometimes it’s a good day to die, and sometimes it’s a good day to get a facelift. For the Mercedes R-Class, today is the former kind of day.

Buick’s LaCrosse is dropping its little-loved 3.0 V6 base engine in favor GM’s direct-injected 2.4 liter four-banger, probably so it can use the magic term “3o MPG highway” in forthcoming marketing. The downsides? You mean, besides having to move over 4,000 lbs with a 182 hp, 172 lb-ft engine (compared to the 3.0’s 255 hp, 217 lb-ft)? (Read More…)

Ford already sells a Ford Fusion Hybrid and a Mercury Milan Hybrid, but according to the Detroit News, a Lincoln MKZ Hybrid is en route as well, giving Ford a hybrid model for each of its three brands. Too bad they’re all the same model. As Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics points out: (Read More…)

Remember how the California Air Resources Board was contemplating banning black cars because air conditioning uses so much C02 (or not)? Well, the madness is over, as The Detroit News reports that California’s proposed “Cool Car” rules are dead. What killed them (besides common sense and the laws of diminishing returns)? Law enforcement, for one, which warned that (Read More…)

After several years of hype, Chevrolet is releasing images pictures of its US-market Cruze compact in advance of the New York International Auto Show. The Cruze has been on sale around the world for nearly a year now, though the US launch delay has actually been a blessing in disguise, thanks to early transmission problems and a recall for fuel supply pipes. Now that Chevy’s next small thing has had its teething pains, the Daewoo-developed compact is being shown in a dizzying array of trims and packages for the US market. Chevy hopes that the Eco trim level will bring some much-needed enviro-cred to the brand, by offering a 40 MPG (freeway) version powered by a turbocharged 1.4 liter engine. To match that long-established mileage goal, Chevy had to make a number of modifications to the Cruze, including (Read More…)

BMW has filed trademark registrations for a series of new car names. According to reports, the names registered include i1, i2, i3, i4, i5, i6, i7, i8, i9 and E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, E6, E7, E8, E9. The M50d, Urbanic, Gran Coupe, Compactive, and Compactive Tourer names were also filed.

Autocar reports on fresh brand-equity casualties in BMW’s battle for mainstream territory. According to our sophisticated car name evaluation system, “Compactive Tourer” is the only moniker in this bunch that comes close to making the cut. But hey, it’s better than naming sub-1-Series BMWs after fractions. Or worse.

In America, certain European cars ostensibly set their drivers apart as willfully unique characters. Cars like the Volvo C30, or just about any Saab indicate that the driver’s desire to be seen as quirky iconoclasts outweighs any of the more rational metrics that might guide the car-buying process. And while in the US, compact size and European pedigree are the keys to stepping out of the automotive mainstream, making an automotive statement in Europe requires the opposite approach. Pickup trucks, muscle cars and American SUVs are the signifiers of choice for the Europeans who find themselves marching out of step with their efficient hatchback-driving fellow citizens. As a result, European advertisements for motorized guilty pleasures, like the one above, play on the perception that big V8s are downright antisocial. By refined European standards, no one should drive a brutish Camaro… but what’s more fun than blowing a supercharged raspberry at social niceties? And though the marketing for American muscle cars in Europe practically writes itself, global brands like Chevrolet don’t necessarily want the Ameri-barbarian associations… which might explain why Chevrolet has canceled plans to build a right hand drive Camaro.

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With Maybach folding up its tent after an uninspired campaign to unseat Rolls Royce at the top of the luxury sedan heap, only Bentley and Bugatti remain as potential challengers to the Phantom (Geely doesn’t count). Bentley has always had a slight inferiority complex when comparisons to Rollers come up, and though the new Mulsanne offers an alternative to the Phantom, it won’t replace it as the undisputed champion of four-door luxury. No, it seems as though the Volkswagen Group is trying to bracket BMW’s Phantom, with the Mulsanne nipping at its heels, and the Bugatti Galibier concept indicating what on might purchase in order to put all the Phantom owners in their place. It might not be as purely luxurious as the Rolls, but the Bugatti name, the 800 HP and the Galibier’s dramatically opulent looks have the potential to yield an icon capable of unsettling the high-end, four-door order of things. But will it be built? According to Autocar‘s Bugatti sources:

It will be made one way or the other.. We’re the smallest VW Group member and there’s a recession on so we’ve not been a priority. But we can expect to announce something by the summer; it looks good, people like it and it wouldn’t be a great financial commitment in the context of the Group.

But evo Magazine’s Harry Metcalfe says it ain’t so. The Galibier, he says, is over, and with it Bugatti’s ambition to build the world’s most powerful and expensive four-door.

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The first thing I thought when I stumbled across these pictures on Flickr while searching for a photo for the previous post, was that they must be photoshopped right-wing agitprop. Not so, it turns out. According to the site mexicoreporter.com, a Fiat dealership on Avenida Insurgentes in Mexico City has changed its name to Obama Motors. As a result, we get these images which look like something straight out of a Tea Partier’s Government Motors nightmare. You just can’t make this stuff up… [UPDATE: Having successfully solved America’s major political issues, comments on this thread are now closed. Just enjoy the funny pictures.]

Motor Trend reports that Cadillac’s long search for a flagship is over. After debating a number of options, including importing a stretched Chinese-market STS, GM has decided that the “Super Epsilon”-based XTS will be the future range-topper for its luxury brand. The XTS was developed on a stretched version of the platform that underpins GM sedans including the Buick LaCrosse, Chevy Malibu and the forthcoming Buick Regal, and was shown in concept form as the XTS Platinum concept at the Detroit Auto Show. That concept was shown with a theoretical plug-in drivetrain made up of Cadillac’s 3.6 liter DI V6 and the plug-in components from the canceled Vue plug-in, and according to MT, the recent cancellation of the Converj plug-in means “there’s profit and green image to be had in the plug-in XTS.” Until that technology is production-ready, choosing the XTS’s engine options will be an interesting challenge.

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The good folks from the Public Radio show This American Life are hunting down a headline. Writer Emily Condon writes:

There was an article, likely between 1980 and 1988, that ran about the NUMMI plant in Fremont California, focusing on the GM and Toyota partnership. We think the headline was “HELL FREEZES OVER,” or possibly “HELL FREEZES OVER IN FREMONT,” or something to that effect. The person we’re interviewing thought it was Motor Trend – they couldn’t find any record of it. I couldn’t find it in Motor Trend or Car & Driver…but it’s possible I somehow missed it, since the archives weren’t searchable, but only on microfilm. But could possibly be another publication, too.

Long story short, their investigation seems to have gone cold at a TTAC comment thread, which is where you, our Best and Brightest, come in. The first commenter to identify the magazine and issue that This American Life is looking for, will win immortal TTAC fame, and the much-coveted Fiat 500 mouse.

[UPDATE: Commenter Msquare proves that whether you need an old car mag headline hunted down, or a ’51 Packard identified from only a picture of its gas cap, TTAC’s Best & Brightest are the place to go. Congratulations Msquare, check your email for instructions on claiming your prize. Everyone else, be sure to check out This American Life‘s piece on NUMMI, “the car plant that could have changed everything,” which airs on March 26. ]

Remember when we reported that the cash cow known as in-house dealer finance wouldn’t be covered by the Consumer Financial Protection Act, currently making its way through congressional committees? That version of the bill passed the House Financial Services Committee (with some questionable support), but now Automotive News [sub] reports that the Senate Banking Committee has passed its own version which does make dealer finance subject to regulation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Senate version would also make the CFPB an office of the Federal Reserve, rather than a stand-alone agency. So, should an agency set up to prevent another financial crisis extend regulation to dealer finance operations? Dealers aren’t happy about the idea, but traditional consumer advocates aren’t the only ones saying yes…

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Japan’s Mag-X [via Autoten] brings us this rendering of a Toyota low-cost car, said to be planned for a 2012 launch in India’s hot-hot entry-level car market. Expected to weigh about 1,322 lbs, Toyota’s Tata Nano-fighter is said to have an 800cc two-cylinder engine mounted out back (alá Nano).

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While the autoblogosphere frets bout whether BMW drivers can tell which wheels drive their cars, the real news in the BMW-goes-FWD storyline is the impact that the sea change in brand strategy is expected to have on volume. Automotive News [sub] reports that BMW is developing a new family of modular gas and diesel engines, which are intended “primarily for BMW’s new front-wheel-drive architecture, but the powerplants also will be used in the automaker’s rear-wheel-drive cars,” according to CEO Norbert Reithofer. And the volume at which this new family of three, four and six-cylinder engines will be produced is one of the early indications of where BMW is going with its FWD expansion. Today, BMW sells just under 1.3m vehicles worldwide. That’s fewer cars than will be powered by this new family of engines alone, which Reithofer says will motivate 1.5m vehicles worldwide. Considering BMW’s goal is to sell 2m vehicles of all its brands by 2020, it’s clear that much of that growth will be made possible by new FWD-inclusive drivetrain technology.
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