In this Streetfire video, Bob Hartwig of Cinema Vehicle Services invites Fireball Tim to examine a “plethora” of Fast and Furious 4 movie cars. Nice word, plethora. Not as catchy as “meme,” but way better than “farrago.” Still, we live in a world where you can happen upon a murder of crows. So there’s got to be a better collective noun for the vehicles used in a movie based on a trend who’s time has come and gone—a long time ago. I put it to you, our highly literate readers: What’s the best name for the collection featured here? And remember, “It’s always hard to make things 100 percent perfect unless you can buy them off the showroom at the same time.” Words to live by. [Preview for Mad Max—I mean F&F4 here.]
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Posts By: Robert Farago
That ain’t me talkin’ (no, no, no, it ain’t me, babe). The headline comes straight to you from CNNMoney, with a little help from Chris Isidore—a reporter who literally laughed down the phone a year or so ago when I suggested GM would go Tango Uniform. So, from what industry could Mr. Isidore find anyone with a shred of credibility—without a bust of Lenin on their desk—who’d argue to nationalize GM (other than the people who’ve already done it)? Rail!
Larry Kaufman, a former rail executive and consultant, argued in a railroad industry newsletter Monday that the U.S. Railway Association, the special government agency set up in 1974 to deal with bankrupt railroads, is a good model for saving the U.S. auto industry…
Kaufman suggested that a special government agency would help the companies continue to sell cars while they reorganize because it would assure consumers that the companies and their warranties were not about to disappear.
OK, first Chrysler Co-Prez Jim Press flies to Geneva (first class?) to schmooze with . . . not Fiat. Oh no. Press told the press that their alleged small car partner had already been to Auburn Hills and called it good. So no need to hang out with what the company’s touted as Chrysler’s savior. “No formal meetings planned,” to use the proper PR parlance [via Automotive News]. So . . . how’s that “satisfying the government’s conditions to score another $5 billion from the federal bailout buffet” thing doing? Great! “Jim Press said today that the automaker was ‘hopeful’ the automaker had all the criteria necessary to receive additional U.S. government loans.” Automaker, automaker, let me come in! Tell me exactly who owns shares in ChryCo. No? Well, then, let’s have a closer look at Press’ hopes, dreams and fears re: Chrysler’s progress on Uncle Sam’s loan criteria, shall we?
Mercedes has revealed their one-letter-more-advanced-than-the-SLR McLaren at the Geneva Auto Show. Well, not AT the auto show. At the same TIME as the Geneva Auto Show. Which is a smart move, really. Why bother spending a million bucks or so bring the SLS to Switzerland when you can get almost as much publicity by attaching a file and pressing “send”? Pistonheads re-writes the press release, so we don’t have to. Oh, and here’s hoping the SLS’ brakes are a touch more feelsome than Paris Hilton’s bitch—I mean, previous whip.
Roughly the same size as the SLR McLaren at 4640mm × 1939mm × 1255mm, the new SLS will also be 130 kg lighter at 1620 kg.
Power from a significantly updated version of AMG’s 6.2-V8 will be fed through a seven-speed double-clutch transaxle, positioned to help optimise weight distribution.
Revving to 6,800 rpm and making 479 lb·ft of torque, performance will be suitably staggering. Mercedes claims 0-62 mph in 3.8 s and a top-speed of 196 mph, while acceleration off the line will be aided by a race-style launch control system. Stopping power will be courtesy of 15.4 in front and 14.2 in rear discs, with optional carbon ceramic upgrades.
You’d think that Ford’s marketing department would have seen what the “Pontiac is Car” tagline has done to move the former excitement building brand’s moribund metal (i.e., nothing) and avoided generic genius like a pistonhead plague. But no, Ford is using its largest advertising platform—American Idol—to promote the 2010 Fusion under the banner “We Speak Car.” FoMoCo’s marketing comms maven explains [via The Detroit News] how the $60M to $80M ad campaign will shift expectations (taken). “We’re known as a truck and Mustang company,” said Matt Van Dyke. “This sets us up for our future car launches.” Speaking to Ad Age, Ford’s global group marketing manager for small- and medium-size cars insists that her employer’s “throw it up against the wall and see what sticks” approach is alive and well. Well, alive.
C. Douglas Weir wrote GM about the Chevy plug-in electric – gas hybrid Volt’s extended range feature. GM wrote back. First, Doug…
My confusion is the issue of what, exactly, happens as the range is exhausted for battery-only propulsion. I keep seeing the phrase: “a small engine-generator creates additional electricity to extend the range of the Volt several hundred additional miles” or something to that effect.
So, what exactly does this mean? Is the performance of this small engine-generator adequate for cruising down interstate highways and up long steep grades? Does the Volt become underpowered with this out-of-battery charge scenario? Say you were driving a couple hundred miles to the mother-in-law’s and you own a Volt and a G-6. Would the Volt be left at home because it would be unpleasant to drive in extended range mode? Or would it drive just fine on the small motor-generator with performance similar to a standard small four cylinder midsize car?
Also, the wording implies that the drive train would remain electric, with the motor-generator producing enough current to power the electric motor(s) through or around the battery stack. So is it correct that there is no direct drive from the engine to the wheels…rather it is a serial hybrid like a diesel locomotive when the battery is exhausted?
I hope you can clear this up for me. Any added information would be much appreciated.
Answer after the jump.
Not on a public road, anyway. Pistonheads reports that Ferrari will unveil its “invitation only” 599XX program at the Geneva Auto Show tomorrow. “Described as a rolling technological laboratory aimed at a select group of clients, Ferrari says the 599XX incorporates ‘the most advanced the technologies from road-going and F1 research, many being used for the first time and having been developed exclusively for this special car’ . . . the Ferrari FXX project introduced in 2005, the 599XX will be available only to a handful of extremely wealthy clients who will probably never get to drive the cars on the road. Instead they will be invited to attend regular sessions at Ferrari’s test track, where they can experience the latest performance innovations in the company of Ferrari engineers and test drivers.” So Ferrari’s customers will pay for the marque’s research and development, and don’t even get to park a car in their garage? Now that’s what I call brand power. Provided, you know, they pull it off. 2009 is not 2005, in case you hadn’t noticed.
In a Letter to the Editor in today’s New York Times, Cerberus CEO Mark Neporent fights back against the widely-held opinion regarding his employer’s relationship with Chrysler: you bought it, you pay for it. And yet, the CEO refuses to divulge the “retirement plans, charitable and educational endowments and individuals” who’ve invested in Chrysler, who he claims to be protecting (with our money). Until Cerberus names names, the equity firm’s insistence that taxpayers should be on the hook for their mismanagement of a dying car brand lacks any hint of credibility. And man, does it piss me off.
Why Can’t Cerberus Foot the Bill?” (editorial, Feb. 23) imposes an unfair double standard by suggesting that Chrysler’s shareholders should be treated differently from the shareholders of General Motors or Ford.
Cerberus’s investors are pension and retirement plans, charitable and educational endowments and individual family savings. Our investment guidelines limit the amount of capital committed to any single investment.
Dear God, will no one pull the plug on this company? I know the Obama administration needs to wait until March 31st to appear as if they’ve fully contemplated all the options. But even for me, a professional General Motors Death Watcher, charting the final dissolution of what was once the world’s largest automaker has become a painful pursuit. The breakup of the global empire. The raiding of the pension fund. The kow-towing to politicians. Automotive News [sub] gives us a way-point, reminding us that GM’s epic cash conflagration is getting worse, not better.
In a conference call last week, CFO Ray Young said GM’s cash burn this year would be less than last year, which it put at $19.2 billion — but admitted the cash burn in 2009 would be “front-loaded.”
Translation: The short-term bleeding will continue. It will be hard in this quarter for GM to reduce its cash-burn much below the $5.2 billion consumed in the last three months of 2008.
All this while GM inventory piles up, everywhere. The post-jump run-down is sobering stuff. One hopes.
This morning’s Automotive News [sub] carries a highly critical report on Toyota’s reaction to the worldwide automotive meltdown. The bottom line: the Japanese automaker is too damn slow and overly cautious. “Toyota Motor Corp. is famed for its advance planning, obsessive attention to ‘what if’ scenarios and continuous improvement,” Hans Greimel writes. “Yet with the market collapsing, the world’s top automaker is stunned to a near standstill by an astonishing plunge from record profits to record losses in 12 short months.” That’s quite a statement, especially as it seems to be based on a single analyst’s analysis. Greimel trots out JPMorgan’s Takaki Nakanishi, who complains that there’s “nothing remotely innovative” in ToMoCo’s recent plans to cut $5.11 billion in fixed costs by the end of the year. What, no feng shui?
The mellonheads at Carnegie Mellon University have taken a long. loving look at the whole plug-in electric hybrid vehicle (PHEV) thing and reached a shocking conclusion: smaller is better. “Across the scenarios examined, the small capacity PHEV outperforms larger capacity PHEVs on cost regardless of the consumer’s discount rate, and the larger PHEV40 and PHEV60 are not cost effective in any scenario, although they provide GHG reductions for some drivers and the potential to shift air pollutant emissions away from population centers. The dominance of the small-capacity PHEV over larger-capacity PHEVs across the wide range of scenarios examined in this study suggests that government incentives designed to increase adoption of PHEVs may be best targeted toward adoption of small- capacity PHEVs by urban drivers who are able to charge frequently.” Golf carts! I mean, city cars! Not the, uh, Volt! Never mind. As the E85 debacle proves, politics trumps science every time. Until the free market has its say. If it’s allowed one.
I could write a book about Detroit’s decline. It’s a complex story of greed, arrogance, intransigence, incompetence, ignorance and more greed. Hopefully, a book reviewer wouldn’t boil it down to “Detroit built gas guzzlers when everyone wanted alternative energy cars.” That’s a misleading simplification that takes us to the wrong morality play: Motown as mustache twirling planet killer faces well-deserved comeuppance at the hands of kindler, gentler foreign car companies. In fact, Detroit built plenty of higher mileage vehicles (just not many good ones) and spent billions (many of them yours) exploring alt-power vehicles. Their product lineup conformed to all US fuel economy legislation (unlike several fine-paying foreign manufacturers). In terms of self-destruction: production efficiency, labor relations, reliability and branding are far more significant. But the big, stupid, insensitive greedy planet-killer meme is more politically effective. Just ask the president’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel . . .
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’74 Ford Pinto Station Wagon – Hand me down from one of my two older brothers, with over 60k on the clock. When it was later revealed that Pintos exploded upon rear impact, my immediate thought was “And…?” Anyone who drove one knew the car was a POS. Slow, gnarly to shift, horrible handling, non-functional HVAC, etc. My father, A Ford man at the time, bought the car for the same reason everyone else did: they were cheap.
Ford Pinto Station Wagon – Yup, same again. When “mine” died from heat exhaustion, Dad simply did the hand me down thing again. No. 1 son got a VW Golf, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. A lifelong insanity was revealed as I shod the Pinto with Pirelli P3s in an attempt to get it to handle. Oh, and put a Nagamichi cassette player in the glove box. Peter Frampton lives!
Mercedes 230E – Dad bought a 300 SEL 6.3 on European delivery and went mad for the brand (a madness that evaporated with breakdowns and bills). The 230 was another hand me down, this time from Mom. Solid. I mean stolid. Anything was better than the Pinto. Much better. Again with the tires. Killed the car when I was showing-off the Merc’s cornering prowess to friends- understeered straight into a curb, snapped the front axle like a toothpick.
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