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Posts By: Robert Farago
Since last January, JamesList.com has been offering a no-nonsense marketplace for buyers and sellers of upmarket chazzerei. Contrary to the media’s “teflon mega-rich” meme, website co-founder Noam Perski reports that tough times have quelled demand for your garden variety “ultra-luxury” automobiles (e.g., Bugatti Veyron, Rolls Royce Phantom). Perski says the slow-down lowered prices for pre-loved examples by some 18 percent (from May to September ’09). So far. “Prices for high end cars stayed firm until three to six months ago, but few deals were being done.” The good news: “When owners ask for less money, the goods are moving, indicating that we may be nudging the bottom of the market.” Or not. Meanwhile, further up and down the scale, its a different story . . .
TTAC contributor Robstar sent us the heads-up on this New York Times Freakonomics post. The blurbette was plenty prescient; it was posted a few days before the death of a Toronto cyclist in an altercation with a zealously anti-street-racing former Ontario Attorney General. After revealing the startling fact that 52,000 bicyclists have been killed in U.S. traffic over the last 80 years, “the hidden side of everything” offers some non-startling analysis, based on a bicycle-biased source (projectfreeride.org) and an undated DOT report. Apparently, it’s all our fault. Well, mostly . . .
AutoExpress never met a car they didn’t like. Or, if they did, they kept that opinion to themselves. In keeping with the advertiser-pleasing house style, the British car mag offers readers a “review” of the Vauxhall/Opel version of the Chevy’s Hail Mary-shaped plug-in electric/gas hybrid. Despite the fact that the car isn’t in production, regardless of the company’s ongoing refusal to let anyone test the car in extended range mode (i.e., when the ICE kicks in), AutoExpress gives the Ampera . . . five stars! Other than than a quick kvetch about the price and an unquestioning reference to the Lutzian crock about “the gas going stale in the tank,” Paul Bailey is a booster. Still, at the end of the proverbial English day, “the project raises more questions than it answers.” Such as: will European governments buy into the Volt-as-savior meme that found such fertile ground in the US? You don’t hear the Germans talking about it . . .
I hope our good friends over at Autoblog don’t mind me stealing their headline, but it illustrates my point about domestic automakers and their camp followers: they are seriously deluded. While you can’t fault New GM, New Chrysler and Mortgaged-Up-to-Their-Logo Ford for seizing good news like an iron chef stumbling over a plump, truffle-snuffling pig, the future’s not bright and they’re still wearing shades. While surveys like Consumer Reports headlined above may contain a kernel of truth and rally the troops, taking them as gospel instills, reinforces, and engenders company-killing complacency. I invite TTAC’s Best and Brightest to data dive this bad boy. Meanwhile, Michael Karesh: “Automotive News [sub] notes that, while Asian brands’ market share is 48 percent so far this year, only 47 percent of survey respondents reported that they would probably consider an Asian brand car in their next purchase. Two steps up the purchase funnel (might consider ⇒ do consider ⇒ buy), the percentage should be much higher than the final percentage. That it’s not suggests a sampling error.” Also, define “considering.”
Compare it, if you will, with the renderings below. The gallery. In the other post.
Automotive News [sub]: “Drawings of the redesigned 2011 Hyundai Sonata reveal a dramatic style shift from conservative to sleek and fluid, drawing inspiration from the Genesis sedan.” TTAC: Yes, well, in theory. In practice, the actual, honest-to-god, in-the-flesh Hyundai Sonata will look nothing like this image, front or rear [after the jump]. Why would it? In fact, why would do carmakers release preposterous concept-stage renderings when the eventual car can’t bear more than a passing resemblance to the adolescent imagineering (think: practicality, safety regs, cost, etc.)? Sure the pretty pics make the car look sexy. But didn’t 60s and 70s public architecture already die for that sin? And, by the way, if this isn’t the most derivative design I’ve ever seen, I don’t want to see the one that is. Oh wait, Genesis. Snap!
Experian’s AutoCheck has thrown down the gauntlet to its competitor, CarFax. AutoCheck says it’s better at providing the accident information car buyers want. This morning’s press release is all about diss and dat. “A new quantitative analysis conducted by Pipal Research, an independent, custom research firm, comparing AutoCheck and Carfax vehicle history reports, demonstrates that AutoCheck holds significant competitive advantages by reporting twice the number of accidents . . . By having access to more reported accident information when stocking their inventories and at the time of sale, dealers are better equipped to bring higher quality used cars onto their lots and be able to demonstrate that quality to consumers who place high value on this information.” CarFax is having none of it. “We’ve had claims like this made us against us in the past,” Communications Director Larry Gamache says. “Show me the study.” Gamache has no doubts about the supremacy of his company’s accident data. “We have 22,000 sources of information and 6.5 billion pieces of information in our database. CarFax is bar none the absolute best provider of vehicle history information. Period.” Ball’s in your court AutoCheck.
Pistonheads [birthplace of TTAC] reports that Škoda Australia is showcasing a one-off conversion worthy of Jeremy Clarkson’s “pin your labradors to the back window” accolade: the Octavia RS-P. No awning over the toy shop here, mate. Škoda’s boffins remapped the standard vRS’s 197-bhp motor to churn out 254 bhp and 258 lb·ft of torque. They added a three-inch stainless steel exhaust, a bigger air filter, 355mm front and 310mm rear brake discs and popped some Yokohama Advans onto black 18-inch alloys. Oh, did I mention the cross brace in the boot, front and rear strut braces and fully adjustable dampers? I’m thinking front-wheel drive makes this “little nose heavy” Škoda about as useful as tits on a tomcat. So, any good Škoda jokes, then?
I know it’s early in the day, but GM’s spinmeistery has ascended to new heights. When contemplating the failure that is GM’s California eBay experiment, GM’s vice president of US sales displayed a Glengarry Glen Ross-like inability to face the music. The facts: despite Automotive News‘ [sub] not-entirely-accurate assertion that the GM-eBay hook-up “lets consumers in California buy a new GM vehicle on the eBay Motors Web site” (every US state requires consumers to buy new cars through a dealer), the program has converted only 50 out of 16,000 listings. In total.
Automotive Traveler’s Rich Truesdell went a hunting down into Death Valley and caught this lardy-looking VeeDub pulling a trailer through the desert. Rich reckons the German automaker may be planning on building not one but two new sedans down in its Chatanooga, TN plant: XL and XXL. We shall see.
“The other solution is one where I can only say this is something that isn’t playing a role in the negotiations so far.” In other words, Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg ain’t gonna let GM keep Opel. “Germany, which has provided 1.5 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in loans to keep Opel afloat,” Bloomberg reports, in a common-laden style that just begs to be interrupted by attribution, “is pushing GM to accept a bid by a group led by Magna International Inc. Advisers to the U.S. carmaker, which failed to decide on a buyer for Opel at a meeting last month, have recommended the board consider seeking aid from other European governments to retain ownership of Opel, a person familiar with the discussion has said.” Sure, other EU members will rush-in to help GM keep Opel; they’re dying to piss-off the Germans to prop-up the nationalized automaker’s foreign empire. GM’s take?
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