If you had to guess what vehicle underpins this Guangzhou GAC Trumpchi, what would you guess? Here’s a hint: if you’re basing your answer on exterior styling, you will definitely get this one wrong…

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When I attended the launch of the Buick Regal, Buick’s product reps were anxious to talk all about the forthcoming Buick Regal GS, the high-performance version of the Opel Insignia-based sedan. At the time, the Buick Boyz were anxious for input; what, they asked, would enthusiasts prefer: a manual transmission or all-wheel drive. My answer: all of the above. Surely, I thought,  Buick would be bringing a rebadged version of the Opel Insignia OPC, with AWD and the GM 2.8T V6 from the Cadillac SRX Turbo and Saab 9-5 Aero. No, came  the answer. The 2.8T was not approved for use in a Buick. Stung by past oversharing between divisions, GM had decided that the 260-325 HP, Australian-built LP9 engine would be limited to applications in Caddys and Saabs. But now, it seems that GM may have penned some kind of deal with Saab, as GMInsideNews reports that the LP9 has been discontinued from its last remaining Cadillac application, the SRX Turbo.

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The EPA has not yet listed the 2011 Chrysler 200’s MPG rating at fueleconomy.gov, but based on this screen grab at Chrysler.com, the Pentastar boys know what to expect. Which is a good thing, because their claimed mileage numbers are definitely a bit confusing. For example, why does ChryCo’s 2.4 liter 4-banger base engine get the exact same rating (21/30) with a four-speed auto as with a six-cog slushbox? And while we’re at it, why does the “model overview” section of Chrysler.com show the 200 getting 20/31 MPG with the four-banger? Plus, how does the convertible have the same rating as the sedan? But perhaps the most confusing part of all this is the fact that the “new” four-cylinder 200 still gets worse fuel economy than Camry (22/32), Accord (23/33) and Sonata (22/35). The 200’s available all-new Pentastar V6 fares only slightly better, rated just below the Accord V6 (20/30) and Sonata Turbo (22/33), about the same as Camry V6 (20/29), and better than Malibu (17/26) and Fusion (18/27). In short, the aspects of the 200’s efficiency rating that aren’t confusing are just plain disappointing.

Mass SUV consumption may have been weaned over to car-based Crossovers, but pickup trucks are still hugely popular and a major challenge for automakers facing steep increases in government CAFE standards.The average 2010-model American pickup truck weighs nearly 5,000 lbs, making it some 22 percent heavier than its equivalent ten years ago. Thanks to that weight gain, average pickup truck efficiency has improved by a paltry two percent since 2000. This year, the fleetwide light truck fuel economy standard was 24.9 MPG, but by 2016 light trucks will need to average about 30 MPG to comply with already-set CAFE increases, and could face another sharp increase by 2025. As a result, it seems that the era of cheap pickups may be coming to an end. Though the Detroit automakers say hybrid and plug-in drivetrains will help, it’s clear that more than anything else, trucks need to lose weight. That’s where things start getting expensive…

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With the second collapse of a Mahindra US-market initiative this year, some might believe that the Indian automaker has abandoned all efforts to make a good name for itself in the USA. And certainly, the implosion of its Pickup truck distribution deal with Global Vehicles looks difficult to salvage, given that both sides are locked in a legal dispute. Needless to say, when GV dropped us an email hyping a Spring 2011 launch for US-Market Mahindra products, we were more than a little skeptical. Now, however, the delay might have a legitimate explanation. According to Mahindra’s Arun Malhotra, senior vice-president for sales and customer care, speaking at the launch of the Mahindra Thar (see video above)

We are working on a lot of models. There will be a pick up on a completely new platform. We plan to bring it in the second [quarter] of 2011. It will be positioned near the top-end of our commercial vehicle pickup range, with a payload capability of above 1 tonne.

This seems to indicate that Mahindra is replacing its 1.2-ton Scorpio-based trucks (known in Australia as the “Pik Up”) with an all-new model before launching in the US. In other words, this is the first actual, legitimate reason for the endless delays to Mahindra’s US launch. Still, as the video of the Thar launch proves, Mahindra could probably make use of this (hopefully) final delay to work on their launch skills.

Does this new BAIC BC301Z remind you of anything? How about the Mercedes-Benz B-Class (with perhaps a touch of Opel Meriva in the headlights)? Sure, it’s about a foot shorter than the B-Class, and it uses old Mitsu motors, but the resemblance is tough to deny. Still, whether you see the connection or not, Daimler probably does. After all, BAIC is supposed to be Daimler’s Chinese-market partner. But with partners like BAIC, who needs competitors? [via AutoBild]

It’s that time of year: the media dead zone between Christmas and the New Year, when traditional “news” and “content” gets laid aside in favor of lists of things that happened last year and might happen next year. We’re not great list-makers here at TTAC, and we’re still waiting on December sales data to sum up last year’s industry performances, so rather than offer our “top ten moments” and “trends to watch,” we’ll simply ask you, our Best And Brightest, to whip out your crystal balls (in a safe-for-work manner, please) and make a wild prediction about next year. Will gas prices spike or recede? Will trucks outsell cars again? Will GM’s stock hit the $53/share price needed to pay back taxpayers, or will more tax money be funneled to the automakers? Will the Chinese market collapse or carry on? Will Chrysler’s rushed updates like the 200 sell significantly better than last year’s equivalent models? Will the return of Fiat to the US market be cheered or ignored? Can we expect another big recall scandal next year, and if so, from whom? Will the Motor Vehicle Safety Act be exhumed and passed, or will it rest in peace? So many questions… time to start predicting!

Forget how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, the original automotive spiritual exercise has always been “how many people can fit into a Volkswagen Beetle.” And now there’s apparently a new answer: 20. Kentucky.com reports that the Asbury University’s Emancipation Project, a human trafficking awareness group, is awaiting final confirmation from the Guinness Book Of World Records for its attempt at the old record of 17 people in a Bug. According to the report, the key question is whether the students fit Guinness’s size guidelines, as

Published guidelines called for the students to be at least 5 feet tall and at least 18 years of age.

With some 60k Italian jobs and a $20b investment at stake, Fiat’s “Fabbrica Italia” renovation of its home-country production plans are crucial to the integration of Fiat and Chrysler. And rather than negotiating a national labor agreement with Italy’s fractious unions, Fiat has been revamping its Italian plants on a case-by-case basis. This strategy has already backfired at the firm’s Naples-based Pomigliano plant, where the Italian metalworker’s union Fiom decried Fiat’s plans as “discriminatory.” Since then, Fiat has moved onto its Mirafiori plant in Turin, where Fiat wants to build the next-generation Compass/Patriot models for Chrysler and a derivative SUV for Alfa-Romeo on the firm’s new “Compact Wide” platform. And once again, Fiom is up to its old tricks. The WSJ reports that every other union has approved the new Mirafiori deal with Fiat, except Fiom, which has been banned from representing workers at the plant, pending a January vote by workers. However, Fiom represents some 22 percent of Mirafiori workers, and the union has announced an eight-hour strike for January 28.

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Nissan has partnered with the telemetry firm Carwings for years, but with the electric-drive Nissan Leaf, what was once a way to suggest efficient navigation routes and driving techniques has become a game. Yes, Carwings allows you to track every trip in your Leaf down to the last nauseating detail and helps prevent the creep of “range anxiety,” but it also ranks you against all other Leaf drivers in your region. In short, the Leaf isn’t just a car, it’s a competition for the “Platinum” Leaf Cup. The fanboys at MyNissanLeaf.com are all abuzz over the competitive feature, which Nissan hasn’t done much to publicize otherwise. But do the early adopters who buy Leafs need a competition to encourage efficient driving, or is this just going to turn the Leaf into a posterboy for antisocial hypermiling? Sometimes getting where you need to go on time is competition enough.

Still, based on the forum chatter, telemetry data is hugely popular among alt-fuel adherents and hypermilers alike. Carwings-style telemetry reporting will definitely be a significant trend in future automobiles… even if the Leaf’s competition aspect gets left by the roadside.

Chrysler’s bailout-era dealer cull has ended up being something of a nightmare, with a number of dealers successfully fighting for reinstatement as federal investigators look into possible criminal wrongdoing. And whereas GM has basically rolled back much of its dealer cull, Chrysler has consistently used arbitrary calculi for closing dealers and has resisted giving dealers the opportunity to reclaim their franchises. Now, the dealers that have won reinstatement in congressionally-mandated arbitration hearings are facing a new threat: relocation. Automotive News [sub] reports that Chrysler’s method of dealing with reinstated dealers is to force them to relocate wherever Chrysler wants them to go. Chrysler has filed a request in a Michigan District Court, asking for the ability to relocate some 20 dealers in 6 Midwestern states, a move it says it must undertake in order to protect its non-culled dealers. But, having picked the winners and losers among its dealers only to see some of them reinstated, shouldn’t these reinstated dealers be afforded the same rights as the dealers who weren’t culled in the first place?

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Speaking to CNN, former Shell Oil President John Hofmeister warns that, although American oil consumption may have already peaked, high prices at the pump could come back with a vengeance over the short and medium term.

The issues that gave rise to high priced gasoline in 2007 and 2008 are repeating themselves, except the world demands even more oil in the next several years than before. Asian growth is continuing, e.g. 17 million new cars per year just in China, and will demand more oil. U.S. economic recovery has brought demand back to where it was before. Economic growth means even more demand. But the U.S. Government is prohibiting expansion of U.S. domestic crude oil production which puts upward pressure on global crude oil prices… If we stay on our present course there is no question but that prices will rise to the $5.00 gallon level by 2012 in my opinion.

With profits returning to the auto industry in large part thanks to rebounding sales of large cars and SUV/Crossovers, this is the kind of warning that should ring out in the headquarters of the major manufacturers. Gas prices have been on a subtle upward trend since bottoming out at just over $1.60 in December of 2008, and the national average seems to be creeping up to the level it was at before it skyrocketed to over $4/gal in the Summer of 2008. Which makes you wonder: will the automakers be better prepared to deal with a spike in gas prices this time around?

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TTAC will slow down for a hot minute as your humble editor makes his way to the County courthouse to pay a speeding ticket. And no, to those who might be wondering, this particular citation was not the result of some M-Coupe lunacy. I simply got busted doing 65 MPH while passing someone on a mountain highway that had briefly dropped to 45 MPH (while going through an alleged “town”)… and I was driving a Subaru Impreza 2.5. In short, there was nothing cool, fun, exciting or worthwhile about this particular transgression against the laws of speed. So I ask you, cheer me up with your wild stories of crazy speeding ticket-related encounters… remind this poor confused kid that speeding can be indeed be more than simply mundane.

On the list of things that should not have survived the last two years of Carpocalypse, Maybach pretty much takes the cake. Even before global credit markets froze up and luxury car sales plummeted, Maybach’s appeal was wearing thin: as one TTAC writer put it, the brand built on lavishly trimmed S-Classes was born old hat. Or, as another Maybach gravedigger put it,

To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, the Maybach experiment was a conspiracy between Daimler and the rich to make the rest of us feel smart.

Well, get ready to feel extra-smart. While Aston is prepping a new look for the brand, the old Maybach is having one last hurrah, thanks to the German custom house Xenatec, and the Saudi-based Auto Kingdom. This “Cruiserio” Coupe is the product of a €70m Auto Kingdom investment, and was built by Xenatec with cooperation from Daimler. And with 100 units planned at €715,000 each, Auto Kingdom stands to make €1.5m profit on the project… provided they all sell. And if they do, this garish, gargantuan coupe is just the beginning. According to Jameslist,

The AutoKingdom’s investment in the project is but the first in a series of projects the company is working currently on, [Auto Kingdom Chairman Waleed Abdullah Al-Hokair] noted, adding that details of 3 such projects will be revealed in the near future.

If there’s a face of Toyota’s overinvestment in the United States market, it’s the company’s Blue Springs, Mississippi assembly plant. Construction on the billion-dollar plant was begun in 2007, but was halted in 2008, when plummeting demand for new automobiles forced Toyota to cut back on is US manufacturing capacity. For the past two years, Toyota’s 170 workers at the Mississippi plant have been doing their best to stay busy, but the Wall Street Journal reports that hiring has now been restarted and the plant will begin producing Corollas next fall. But will demand be high enough for Toyota to justify its eighth production plant in the US? Not everyone seems to think so…
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