The earlier post about Ferrari swearing to never build a four door instantly reminded me of the four door that Ferrari almost did build: the stunningly beautiful 1980 Pinin concept. I have vivid memories of drooling over it at the 1980 or 1981 LA Auto Show. What a divine piece of work in an era that gave us some weird four doors such as the Lagonda. (Read More…)
Having recently done the Ultimate CC Truck, what would its passenger car counterpart be? Let me ask it this way: how many cars have their owners replace their V8 engines with a slant six? If you understand the true attraction of Chrysler’s A-Bodies with the slant six as the ultimate long-life American car, you’ll understand why. There are several dozen A-bodies in Eugene, and I have shot many of them, and yet I still keep uncovering new ones. Many are still used to some degree or another, although most are clearly slowing down in their old age. Not this ’65 Valiant: it’s in full front-line duty, as the business vehicle for an energy specialist that regularly takes him all across the North West. Needless to say, he’s also the ultimate A-Body owner, with his type-A attention to modifying his Valiant in a way to keep it suitable for his preferences and today’s conditions. This baby is good to go for the long haul. (Read More…)
I did it! I managed to make the last clue for the ’67 Electra convertible hard enough. Or was it the fact that the red taillight lens looked black because it was in the shade on a bright high-contrast picture? Oh well. You guys gave it quite the effort. Let’s see how you do with this one.
These three are continuing the trend established some months ago: Subaru strongly outperforming the market; Nissan somewhat ahead of it; and Suzuki trailing it substantially. All Subarus were up except the Tribeca, which is clearly in its fade out period. The Outback was up 133%.
Nissan showed the most balanced increase, with the same increase for both cars (+34%) and trucks (+34%). All the cars did well, with Versa up 44%, Sentra plus 38%, Altima up 23% and Maxima up 25%. The Cube is selling decently at about 2k units per month. Truck sales were also up fairly evenly, with Frontier (+60%) and Rogue (+38%) being two of the stronger models.
Suzuki’s models all swooned, and the story would be a disaster except for the Kizashi, which posted a rip roaring 406 units sold.
Charts follow: (Read More…)
Looks like Honda will be stuck near the bottom of the market in April, under performing with a 12.5% rise. Honda Division was up 11.7%; Acura up 21.6%. The problem is with the cars: Honda’s were down 1.4%, while trucks saved their bacon with a 41% increase. The Fit eked out a 14% increase, but the Civic slipped 5%. Accord was up 9%. Pilot (+42%), CR-V (+37), Odyssey (+14%) and even the Ridgeline (+46%) kept the Honda from the red.
Acura cars were also weak, but the MDX and RDX both showed over 50% increases. The new ZDX sold 234 units. (Read More…)
Nothing like igniting sales with the spark of incentives. Toyota appears to be pacing in line with most of the market, posting a 24.4% rise for April. The Toyota brand was up 24%; Lexus jumped 29%. Again reflecting a shift back to more utilities and trucks, cars were up a more modest 18%, light trucks 33%. Toyota cars were paced by the Prius and Corolla, both up 50%, while Camry had to get by with a 10% rise. Even the Avalon got a rise from its refresh, up 36%. On the downside, the Yaris tumbled by 53% and all three Scions were in the red again. In the truck sector, the Rav4 increased by 34% and the long-languishing Tundra showed sign of life with a 45% boost.And the new 4Runner ran with 204% climb. Detailed chart: (Read More…)
Ford continued its momentum in April, if perhaps not at quite the blistering pace as in the past few months. In a clear indication of how the market is returning to a more pre-recession composition, car sales were up only 10%, while utilities jumped 33% and trucks 38%. The F-Series had a very strong month, topping 40k units with a 42% rise. Ford also increased its ratio of retail to fleet sales, with retail sales up 32% and fleet a more modest 13%. Ford is also crowing about resale values being up 23% versus last year. In terms of brands, Ford was up 26%, Mercury 19%, and Lincoln 22%. Not exactly a knock-out month, but another strong showing. Details follow: (Read More…)
GM’s final peak in US market share was in 1978, before it began its long decline. For the fifty years prior, only two men oversaw the styling of GM during those golden decades. The hand off from one to the other was was hardly smooth in the end, with a painful transition for the 1959 models that were a essentially a hybrid of the two. But for the 1961 models, Bill Mitchell was now completely in control, and few cars show his love for sharply sculptured surfaces and a restrained use of chrome than the very handsome 1961 and 1962 Cadillacs. (Read More…)
(My favorite Lutz photo: with a 1966 Opel Kadett he just rolled at the test track)
The world would have been a lot duller without Bob Lutz, on many levels. And although it’s easy to poke fun at his endless malapropisms, as well as the more than ample mistakes in his long career, his gut instinct for cars that look good and are exciting to drive make quite the collection. The following cars are vehicles that Lutz had some degree of involvement with, allegedly, or well documented. If I’ve missed something significant, let me know, and I’ll add it. (Read More…)
We seem to have sunk into an amphibious mode this morning, although we got our feet wet earlier this week with that seminal and still most-built floating car, the VW Schwimmwagen. But Hanns Trippel saw civilian potential, and convinced the Quandt Group (BMW) to back production of his Amphicar design. Although it floated well, enough, the business case for it didn’t.
Where else would someone take a brain fart and actually build it? Yes, combine a boat and a hyper long stretched van, and turn into the Boaterhome! Fame and fortune are just a prototype away. Actually, twenty-one were built. And now JDK Enterprises wants to revive the plan, and build an even bigger and better Boaterhome. Some brilliant ideas just won’t go away, despite the many intrinsic challenges. Here’s one: Guess which axle drives this behemoth? (Read More…)
The precise evolution of the SUV, like all car genres is debatable, but there’s no question that the International Scout is the critical link between the military Jeep and the modern SUV. It was the first vehicle of the genre to be designed from scratch to meet the anticipated growth in the off-road capable civilian market, and it clearly was the template for its many imitators: Ford Bronco, Range Rover, Chevy Blazer, Dodge Ramcharger, as well as the Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero (and others). True to its name, the Scout led the industry into the land of milk and SUV profits, even if it bowed out early. (Read More…)
I walked well past this Corvette before I stopped and gave it a backwards glance, suddenly remembering that it is yellow convertible week. I wavered momentarily, gauging my feelings. Yes, it was fast and pulled impressive numbers on a skid pad. But numbers alone do not make the car. And my feelings meter just wasn’t moving one way or another, so I almost moved on. Call it the Madonna of sports cars? Then it hit me: this is the most soulless sports car ever, the ultimate antithesis to the TR-6. The C4 Corvette sold its soul to the devil of numbers. And in my cartechism, that’s a Deadly Sin.
“If you’re going to do something wrong, do it big” (Jayne Mansfield)
Can you blame me for thinking of a certain larger than life blond bombshell of the era while looking at this big topless Buick? But then I said to myself, no, it’s wrong; been there, done that. But googling to find the vital statistics of this Buick turned up the fact that Jayne Mansfield was killed in an Electra in 1967. Holy coincidence! Or did I subconsciously remember that? Whatever. So despite the risks, I’m forging ahead, hopefully for the best, because frankly it might be a stretch to write much about this overstuffed Buick. Like Jayne, it was meant to be looked at, not analyzed. (Read More…)
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