I regret to announce that JimC is no longer with us. He has been banned for calling Ray LaHood an “idiot.”  Mr. Stones also will no longer comment here. He has been banned for telling JimC: “STFU … You’re the idiot. Probably a jap too.” Read More >

I’m not supposed to let you in on our inner workings, but here is something I wanted to share with you for quite a while: There is a huge grassroots movement that wants the HUMMER back. How do we know this?

Well, we are keeping tabs on you, dear reader. Read More >

Ed Niedermeyer is too humble to say it, so it’s left to me: Ed just had his second third op-ed piece in the New York Times. Required reading.  Two core sentences: Read More >

Almost exactly a year ago, I received a phone call informing me that the founder and editor of The Truth About Cars, Robert Farago, would be leaving the site. Robert and I had already discussed (in theoretical terms) the possibility of such a move, and he’d mentioned that I would be in line to replace him when the time came.  Still, nothing could had prepared me for the actual realization that TTAC had become my baby. A year later, the shock is still wearing off.

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Looks like Ed is away on his secret weekend project. Writers, send your stories to me for publishing.  It’s going towards 4am here in Beijing. I’ll publish them tomorrow. B

The car. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness inCARnate.  Let us celebrate our unalienable rights, in a TTAC kind of way. Read More >

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The Booth  Babe requests your indulgence. She announces that The Booth Babe Chronicles will be late, due to the fact that she’s at a beach somewhere. So if you see a hot babe furiously typing into an iPhone or similar at a beach, who knows, this could be her.

Easy to find out: Walk up to the lady, and say: “Do you come with the car?”

Blank stare: Fail.

Slap in the face and a kick in the privates: Bingo!

TTAC is a 24/7 operation, spanning most continents (except Antarctica, but we are working on it.) Nevertheless, there are occasional gaps in our coverage, and such a gap is now. Our Dear Leader Ed Niedermeyer is on a secret mission this weekend, and he may not be able to log in all the time. Which means: Yours truly is alone manning the ramparts of TTAC. Even I may be interrupted, because my presence is DEMANDED by members of the German community in Beijing to cheer on the Teutonic team from a German restaurant owned by the former military attaché of East Germany. I have no idea about soccer (that’s probably why they expelled me.) I hope Germany will lose so that I can focus on more pressing matters.

Anyway: Coverage will be spotty this weekend. Writers: Don’t send your stuff to Ed, send it to me. Thank you!

(Might as well get used to the Ed-less weekends: His secret mission will extent through all of July weekends, or so he mumbled.)

Our dear leader, Ed Niedermeyer, is in an undisclosed location to fill the TTAC hopper of car reviews.  On Wednesday and Thursday, he’ll be putting several new cars through their paces while taking notes. (Ray LaHood: You didn’t hear that.) Which means: We are home alone. Read More >

It’s been a tumultuous several weeks here at TTAC, as we’ve moved headquarters and lost our managing editor, all while the industry continues to flop about in dramatic fashion. And we’ve been barely keeping up with the latest developments in the world of cars,  because behind the scenes we’re preparing to introduce a brand new lineup of contributors to our ongoing quest for automotive truth. We still have a few details to clear up before we make a full announcement, but suffice it to say that I’ve had the exquisite luck to ask some of my favorite automotive writers to join the TTAC team and have them say yes. Read More >

TTAC Headquarters is experiencing a tiny internet outage thanks to our good friends at the cable company, so our content cadence will be a bit off today. We’ll be back with Monday’s news, review and analysis as soon as the local outage is fixed (I’m assured that top men are on the case), but in the meantime we’d like to take this moment to solicit your burning technical and car-buying advice questions.  Struggling to identify that smell/sound coming out of your family truckster? TTAC’s in-house advice guru, Sajeev Mehta is standing by to answer your car-related technical questions in his Piston Slap column. And if the problem’s too big for even Sajeev to solve, he and Steve Lang will get your search for its replacement started right, with their car-buying advice column New Or Used? Begin your voyage of automotive discovery with an email describing your technical problem or car buying conundrum to mehta@ttac.com

[Ed: According to Google Analytics: 90% of TTAC’s readers come from the US and Canada. India accounts for .28%; China .27%; Brazil .24%]

According to Alexa, about half of TTAC’s readers come from the U.S.A., the other half comes from the rest of the world. An amazing 12 percent come from India, must be Sajeev’s extended family.  We have a sizable contingent of readers in South America, despite the dearth of articles about the booming auto industry down south.  This is about to change … Read More >

Even as blogs assume a larger role in the media landscape, TTAC remains a small-scale labor of love. Recently we’ve become a family affair as well, with Niedermeyers elder and younger occupying the Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief positions respectively. As a family, there come times when even the opportunity of a lifetime must take a momentary back seat to the obligations of family. Paul and I are in the Baltimore area, visiting with far-flung members of the Niedermeyer clan, many of whom I have not seen in the better part of a decade. And though for the next few days, family must come first, we remain as dedicated as ever to TTAC. Or, more specifically to you, our readers. Though cars are our passion, your collective wisdom, individual reflections, deep insights and often brutal dedication to the truth is what truly inspires us to man our keyboards every day in the pursuit of automotive truth-telling. Though there may be some interruptions (including a move to permanent headquarters later this week), as long as you remain hungry for the truth it will be our privilege and honor to dedicate our days to providing you with the latest news, commentary, analysis and reflections on the world of cars. Thank you all for your readership, support, criticism, praise and passion.

[We owe a special thanks to our fantastic Overseas Editor Bertel Schmitt, for manning the ramparts in our absence]

Due to developments beyond my control, you, the Best and the Brightest, will be exposed to a whole load of BS today. Nothing but BS. All day. Read More >

Ed Niedermeyer is probably too humble to say it, so it’s left for me to say: TTAC has been doing exceptionally well over the last few months. Thank you.

Yesterday was another record day: 122,000 views. Thank you,  Jack Baruth for having written the 2011 Mustang review. It pulled in readers in droves. (Today’s Mustang GT review is developing into another scorcher. And thank you, Ford, for making the cars available.) Thank you, Paul, for writing another classic curbside classic about the Honda Prelude, and about the illicit substances you had sworn to keep away from your son. Thank you, Paul, for writing the runner-up traffic generator, about Honda’s high-revving, mid-engined whacky pick-up.

As you see, the most read topics on Thetruthaboutcars.com are as eclectic as our readers. Which brings me to the secret of TTAC’s success: Read More >