Today’s Junkyard Find, despite its dilapidated nature, delivered a jolt of adrenaline right when it was needed most. Monday mornings can be a slow-to-rouse affair, but the ’73 Century Gran Sport was a car aimed at reducing the sudden onset of depression afflicting America’s drivers. It still carries that same therapeutic effect.

Yes, the Seventies — a decade talked about heavily in the TTAC chatroom, though not nearly as much as the two that followed. Starting with a bang and ending in a forlorn whimper, the 1970s was a tumultuous time for the U.S. auto industry, with geopolitical events and government regulation kicking off a stigmatizing Era of Malaise that still echoes to this day.

Let’s see if we can find some points of light in all that darkness. (Read More…)

If you spend your days decrying the bloat of American automobiles, you won’t like what 2021 has in store for you. It’ll be like 2020… only worse!

Scary stuff. For consumers enamored both with the Jeep brand and large, cargo-happy vehicles, however, next year will bring the dawning of a new age of glorious excess. Thanks to Fiat Chrysler’s second-quarter earnings report, we can now pin down post-lockdown production timelines for three Jeep vehicles boasting three rows of seating. (Read More…)

U.S. sales results, at least those that we know of, were a mixed bag in July. Automakers foreign and domestic are busy replenishing inventories drained by a two-month shutdown of U.S. manufacturing; for many, the restocking can’t come soon enough.

At Kia Motors’s West Point, Georgia plant, production of the Telluride crossover got underway again in May, and the automaker can barely keep up with demand. Cox Automotive (via CNN) reported two weeks ago that the country’s Kia dealers report an average 15-day supply of the unexpectedly popular model. That’s tight, to say the least.

But the Telluride isn’t the only vehicle lifting Kia’s fortunes in the wake of the shutdown. (Read More…)

Canadian auto manufacturing has steadily declined over the past several decades, and the future looks cloudy for workers at Detroit Three plants. It’s under this gathering gloom that the union representing these workers, Unifor, enters into contract negotiations with General Motors, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler.

The last round of collective bargaining was rough, but the near-closure of GM’s Oshawa Assembly (where auto production ceased last year) provided Unifor with a grim portent of what could await other underutilized Canuck plants. (Read More…)

Kids, as we all know, exist for but one purpose: to replace us. You’re out there on the deck, grilling steaks, and over there sits Junior. Waiting.

It’s ominous.

But kids need to get around, especially to places of employment so that they can pull their own weight. So sometimes a purchase is in order, or at least the gifting of a well-used vehicle you’d planned to sell or trade in. Ever done it? (Read More…)

A longtime presence at the top of Mitsubishi Motors departed his post Friday morning, marking the end of an era for the embattled Japanese automaker. Company Chairman Osamu Masuko, 71, resigned effective immediately today, following a six-year tenure at the top of a company he joined in 1972.

Masuko, who rose to become president of the company in 2005 and CEO in 2014, cited health reasons for his sudden departure. (Read More…)

The Cadillac Lyriq’s final production form remains unknown, but the “show car” revealed late Thursday is said to be a fairly close representation of the real thing. That show car is also not far removed from a conceptual rendering released in January 2019, previewing a vehicle that will enter production in late 2022 as a 2023 model.

A lot can happen in the span of more than three and a half years: Buzz can wear off, unreleased products can grow outdated, rivals can catch up. Imagine if Chrysler’s “Suddenly, it’s 1960” collection of 1957 creations were first teased in early 1953.

Cadillac’s betting that the Lyriq’s attributes will remain fresh come roll-out time, and that could very well prove true. (Read More…)

Have you seen an Audi E-Tron (officially, “e-tron”) on the street? This writer hasn’t. Yet the electric Audi crossover has been on offer for a little over a year now, slowly paving the way for an all-electric future.

Available to U.S. customers through special order and to dealers who just wish to keep one around, the E-Tron arrived in early 2019 with 204 miles of EPA-rated range. It’s now back after skipping a model year, with two improvements aimed at broader consumer appeal, if not adoption.

(Read More…)

An ongoing pandemic and serious North American sales hit weren’t enough to bring Toyota to a loss in the quarter ending June 30th.

The automaker posted its weakest fiscal first-quarter return in nearly a decade, but last quarter’s operating profit, despite plunging 98 percent on a year-over-year basis, still came out in positive territory. While the road ahead is rocky and paved with uncertainty, Toyota says it was surprised as how quickly it bounced back. (Read More…)

Big gatherings of people who’ve traveled from across the country — and globe — continue to be unpopular, and for very obvious reasons. So it’s no shock to hear that the 2020 edition of the popular Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) trade show will not go ahead as planned.

Scheduled for early November, the show, as in past years, would have provided the usual catnip for the aftermarket crowd. Assembled at the Las Vegas Convention Center, they’d ooh and ah over the latest accessories on offer from aftermarket manufacturers and OEMs alike. Organizers claim they still haven’t decided what, if anything, will take its place. (Read More…)

Achingly simple question today, folks. With the demise of the Ford Fusion last week, the Blue Oval now fields zero domestic four-door sedans, leaving buyers to choose instead among a bevy of trucks and utility vehicles.

It’s the first time since 1908 that the automaker hasn’t built a U.S. passenger car with four doors (earlier pre-Model T models sported rear doors, but omitted the front). So, with plenty of history to choose from, which domestic Ford sedan gets your pick as best of the bunch? (Read More…)

Specifically, the Ford Fusion — the last domestic Blue Oval product with four doors and a trunk to remain in production. Until July 31st, that is. That’s the date Ford ceased manufacture of the sedan at a Mexican assembly plant.

The end of production was confirmed by Ford via Ford Authority. Next up for Hermosillo Assembly is the Bronco Sport — a retro-styled, decently modified Escape launched alongside the body-on-frame Bronco last month. Quite a looker in its final generation, the Fusion fell victim to consumer anti-car sentiment and strategic product planning. (Read More…)

Imitation, as the saying goes, is the sincerest form of flattery, but Jaguar Land Rover’s been burned in the past, what with a certain Chinese automaker rolling out near carbon copies of its Range Rover Evoque crossover.

In the Defender lies far more heritage, but JLR just lost a bid to keep the visual rights to the boxy off-road beast in the UK, paving the way for British sales of a model that looks very similar to the much-loved previous-generation model. (Read More…)

With the upcoming QX55, Infiniti is tearing a page from the Volkswagen Atlas’ playbook. That German manufacturer saw that it had a good thing in its midsize crossover, so it decided to get more bang for its buck by shaving a little length and height from the three-row model, creating a mildly upscale, slightly restyled two-row variant to widen the model’s net.

The QX55 is the same recipe applied to Infiniti’s QX50 crossover — a model that landed with a resounding thud in late 2018, but one whose sales have proven interesting in the grim year of 2020. Why is that, you ask? (Read More…)

Honda reported a $765 million loss in the fiscal quarter ending June 30th, a marked downturn in its financial standing when compared to the quarter before.

Hardly shocking, though, given the virus-related global sales plunge and the production shutdown that afflicted the American manufacturing scene in April and May. Honda’s characterizing it as a “nowhere to go but up” scenario. (Read More…)