Motor Trend gets three GM sources to confirm the return of the Pontiac G8 (Holden Commodore) to the North American market… only this time it’s coming as a Chevy. One exec even brags

We have a good name for it…

…and no, it’s not “Impala.” Nor is this simply a civilian version of the Caprice police model, which is based on the long-wheelbase version of the Zeta platform. This will be a limited-numbers affair and V8-only, reports MT, because currency fluctuations have made shipping cars from Australia more expensive. Should GM even be messing around importing the the Antipodean Driving Machine? The numbers might say no, but the fanboys are already screaming “hell yes” (or, more accurately “what about an El Camino ute version?”). Check out Michael Karesh’s reviews of all three versions of the Pontiac G8 (you can even read Liebermann’s Take Two on the GT if you must), and let us know what you think of the return of the G8.

TTAC Commentator cc-rider writes:

Sajeev- I have written you before asking for advice for my coworker. You all had a field day with that one! I am looking for some quick advice as I now have a dilemma of my own to deal with.

I currently own two cars: a near mint 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R and a nice 1988 BMW 325is. A situation has come up where I am thinking of trading the Sentra for a 1997 Mercedes C36 AMG. Before you spill the coffee on the keyboard, the C36 is not worth nearly as much as you would initially think. It is pretty much at the bottom of its depreciation curve.

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With results from Audi’s driverless attempt at Pikes Peak certified, it seems that we have nothing to fear from the GPS-based autonomous drifting machine. Audi’s press release notes:

Overall, the Autonomous Audi TTS Pikes Peak completed the mountain course in 27 minutes, as verified by Pikes Peak International Hill Climb officials. No human rally driver has completed the course in fewer than 10 minutes, despite driving cars that produced more than 900 hp. The Autonomous Audi TTS Pikes Peak generates 265 hp. Race officials told researchers they would expect an expert race driver on the course to finish in around 17 minutes in a car similar to the TTS.

Take that robots! You may build cars better than humans, but you’ve still got a thing or two to learn about driving.

[UPDATE: the Stanford team writes in to remind us that the point of the exercise was to safely develop driver-assistance systems, and that the 27 minute time was ” just a measurement of our safety plan and the speed we set for the lead vehicle.” Call us insecure, but we’re still calling this a victory for H.Sapiens.]

We all knew that Bob Lutz wasn’t going to spend his retirement circulating between the golf course and the early bird special, and when Lotus rolled out the most ambitious re-boot of any car company since GM, we should have known Lutz would end up involved somehow. After all, Lotus’s CEO Dany Bahar has bragged at length about making Lotus the “Real Madrid” (think Miami Heat) of  the sports car industry… and if there’s one high-profile prima donna in the car industry, it’s Mr Robert Anthony Lutz.
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You have to imagine that plenty of Lamborghini Gallardo owners have been hauled in front their local magistrate for daring to allow their Italian stallion to stretch its legs… but surely none of them were ever treated as well as Leone Antonino Magistro of Perth, Australia.

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As the global auto industry becomes ever more competitive, the pressure to deliver a high volume of products and sales per platform is driving companies to develop mega-platforms that underpin millions of global sales units. And sorry folks, but mass market cars aren’t going to become less homogeneous any time soon… in fact PriceWaterhouseCooper’s Anthony Pratt took a look into his magic crystal ball recently, and he forecasts that in just over five years, a mere ten platforms will account for over 27 million units of global sales volume. It’s just the next step on the way to the ultimate dystopia: a world in which every new car in the world is identical under the skin. Spooky! Hit the jump for more details on the (projected) top ten platforms of 2016.

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On a recent visit to HATCI, TTAC’s Michael Karesh was granted a peek at the forthcoming Hyundai coupe, known in concept form as Veloster. As our graph of the day shows, Hyundai’s never had great sales success with its front-drive coupes. At its best, the Tiburon hit 20k annual sales for a few year with the last design, but the appeal wore off and sales dropped to about half that level. And with sales of the Genesis sedan and coupe combining for fewer than 24k sales through October of this year, it seems that Hyundai isn’t setting the US coupe market afire with its rear-drive offering either. For comparison, the Chevy Camaro racked up at about 71,500 sales through October. But with 40 MPG highway apparently on-tap for this new Elantra-based coupe, the Velostiburon is on track to out-green the hybrid Honda CR-Z. And by the looks of things, it should at least give the Scion tC a run for the extroverted budget-coupe market. Could Korea’s coupe curse be on the way out?

The Fisker Karma looks as sleek and and sexy as any four-door car on the market, but it’s got a secret: Spanx. Fisker’s powertrain sand battery suppliers tells the New York Times that prototypes of the series-hybrid Karma are weighing in at “over 5,000 lbs.” Says battery supplier A123 System’s Jason Forcier

It’s a pretty heavy car, but you have to look at all the technology, which includes a large gas engine, large electric motors and large batteries.

Fisker reps insist that the final product could come out weighing slightly less, but don’t hold your breath. Meanwhile the 50-mile EV range, 5.9 second 0-60 time and 125 mile top speed goals remain unchanged…. it will probably just feel lead-footed in the twisty stuff. On the other hand, by packaging its batteries in a low, central mass, Chevy’s Volt (the only other EREV on the market) actually handles fairly well for a nearly 4,000-lb compact. Still, “over 5,000 lbs” is full-sized SUV territory, and the Karma is being positioned as a green performance luxury car, not a chauffeured limo. Could this possibly end well?

I’ve always maintained that despite green noises about electric cars, Volkswagen, deep in their Wolfsburg hearts, doesn’t believe in them. Because they don’t make sense. If they are too expensive, people won’t buy them. Volkswagen has ample experience in this arena, probably more than anybody else. Ages ago, VW built a fuel-sipping 3 liter Lupo (3 liter / 100 km, 78 mpg.) The press lapped it up. The greenies creamed in their pants. Focus groups swore they’ll buy it, no matter the cost. They lied. In the showroom, the 3 Liter Lupo was a dud: Advanced materials had made it light, but also expensive. Customer reaction: “Interesting. Now how about that red GTI over there?”

Now finally, someone high up at Volkswagen has the guts to say it: Volkswagen doesn’t build electric cars because the customer wants them. Volkswagen makes EVs because the government demands them. Read More >

Anyone who’s ever spent more money than they really could afford on a car they absolutely couldn’t live without knows that a certain amount of buyer’s remorse comes with the territory. I certainly felt a fair share of doubt about my own such purchase, when, just days after buying my ’99 M Coupe, I drove a friend over the Mt Hood pass in heavy weather. Having driven the car only a few times by then, I knew little about the M’s handling characteristics beyond its reputation for making fast decisions at the limit of grip. Sure, I’d blasted it around some dry sweepers, and even strung a few corners together, but I had no idea what to expect on rough, wet roads with poor visibility until I found myself pushing to get around traffic a few miles from the top of the pass.

The opportunity wasn’t endless: about a quarter mile of passing lane had opened up just as Highway 26 disappeared around a long but sharp corner. As the M’s suspension loaded up, rebound off the battered road suddenly made the back end go all light, and the hair on the back of my neck prickled as some internal G-meter began to worry about where the rear tires’ next bit of grip was going to come from. And then, just as my right foot was easing back off the throttle in hopes of calming the rear end’s polka dance, minor potholes became full-on ruts filled with water, and the M’s oversized rear tires started hydroplaning. As the rear of the car started to pull back into a fishtail, I realized that my beloved new car was scaring me a little… and that the Oregon winter hadn’t even properly begun yet. Could it be, I wondered, that I had just spent a lot of money on the wrong car?

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This summer I had the pleasure of touring Volkswagen’s advanced research lab at an industrial park near Stanford University. VW is developing a number of advanced technologies at this Silicon Valley facility, including its autonomous driving systems and electric battery packs. But in one corner of the lab, VW techs have a driving simulator set up with cameras aimed at the driver’s face. Using these cameras, VW developers measure driver attention and focus, testing just how much the latest Google Maps-based navigation system distracts drivers, and whether a car could offer features designed to keep the driver’s attention on the road.

These are doubtless worthy goals, but this ad for the Hyundai Sonata Turbo made me wonder whether VW pays much attention to changes in facial features based on changes in performance. Surely the kick of a turbo at full boost focuses the driver away from the gadgets and gizmos that VW (and every other automaker) is trying to integrate into its vehicles, and reconnects them with the original automotive “killer app”: a compelling driving experience. Technology, it seems, is being used simply to integrate more technology while minimizing distraction. When will car companies start using that technology to assist their vehicles in providing a more engaging, emotionally-rewarding driving experience?

We’ve already been impressed enough with the McLaren MP4-12C’s 3.8 liter turbocharged V8 to say it “looks like mechanical sex” and give it its own gallery. The super-compact, direct-injected engine develops in the neighborhood of 600 hp, giving the new McLaren the dangly bits to show a (similarly-priced) Ferrari 458 the way around a racetrack. And though McLaren clearly thinks the MP4-12C’s race-tested abilities will help build its brand into the new race-nerd standard, it’s also beating Ferrari at a new game that will become increasingly important with time: the C02-per-horsepower game. Ferrari’s 570 hp V8 emits 320 grams of C02 per kilometer, giving the Fezza a rating of .56 grams of C02 per km per horsepower. McLaren’s goal for its not-quite finalized MP4-12C drivetrain is a C02 emissions rating of below 300 gm per km, which would give the supercar closer to a .5 gram per km per horsepower rating. And though the direct-injected, downsized and turbocharged engine helps keep that number down, the MP4-12C’s dry weight is also 176 lbs lighter than the 458’s (2,866 versus 3,042).

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It is one thing to recognize the legendary status of Mr. Shelby and the original Cobras, including the 427 S/C, and quite another to assert that purchasers and potential
purchasers view Cobra continuations or replicas, sold primarily as kits, which employ the Cobra 427 S/C Design as coming from a single source.  The fact that Cobra replicas, sold primarily as kits, which employ the 427 S/C Design, have been sold by numerous third parties for more than three decades, including between 2002 and 2009, precludes us from drawing that conclusion.  Accordingly, we find applicant’s evidence based on media coverage of Mr. Shelby and all of the Cobras not probative of the issue of acquired distinctiveness.

That’s right, the Shelby Cobra has been officially copied to death, according to a recent ruling by the US Patent Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board [in PDF here]. The board’s finding was complex, as proving “distinctiveness” takes a lot of doing, but the upshot is that so many Cobra replicas have been built, consumers don’t actually think of the original (Shelby-designed) Cobras when they see one. Had Shelby sued every single kit car maker since day one, he’d have the legal rights to his design, but in the years since 1968, the term “Cobra” has come to mean more than the specific Shelby Cobra 289 or Shelby Cobra 427 S/C. In fact, a survey used to try to prove the distinctiveness of the Shelby designs in the eyes of consumers may have even used a photo of a 289 to illustrate a 427 S/C… even the guy running the survey wasn’t sure. The moral of Caroll Shelby’s legal battle to own the rights to anything resembling an original Cobra: never stop suing the kit car makers. Or, just be happy with the millions of dollars and legend status you’ve already accumulated.

Pity the Buick Regal GS. Since the idea of a hotted-up Opel Insignia was floated for the US market, fans imagined that Opel’s epic Insignia OPC would be headed stateside, complete with 325 horsepower, 2.8 liter turbocharged V6 and all wheel drive. Buick reps quickly ruled out the turbo-six engine, as GM’s corporate order demanded that the engine be limited to “premium” Cadillac and Saab models. Then we found out that the Regal GS would have the same turbocharged Ecotec four-cylinder engine found in its Regal Turbo sister model, tuned from 220 to 255 horsepower, leading us to conclude that

That engine can reportedly be tuned to an easy 310 hp and 300 lb-ft of torque, making the “base” Regal CXL with the 220 hp 2.0T engine a much smarter buy. Unless the idea of tuning a Buick is simply more cognitive dissonance than you can handle. Otherwise, the only thing the GS really brings to the table is AWD and a bodykit with more front-end venting than the United States Senate.

Well, now it’s time to knock another item off the list: Automotive News [sub] reports that the GS will not get AWD because

We really don’t think consumers will want that feature… It does take away from some of the performance capability of the vehicle.

Which is doubly strange considering that AN is forced to note that

The Regal GS will accelerate slightly slower than expected, with estimates having it reach 60 mph at less than seven seconds. In January, executives said the production car would accelerate about one second faster.

D’oh! With the Regal Turbo hitting 60 in about 7.5 seconds, it’s beginning to look like the GS really is all about the bodykit. The saddest part of all this: the GS will still technically be “the sportiest Buick ever,” and will certainly be marketed as such, just as the Regal Turbo is now.

I’m going drifting. I’m going drifting dressed in the finest English brown velour ever to roll out of Dagenham, England. I’m going drifting in what this week’s Curbside Classic should have been, a 1983 Ford Sierra. And with that, I rejoin TTAC after a long hiatus due to our wonderful country sending me to various deserts to hunt for Osama bin Laden.

I have survived, although my Hilux did not after one ill-placed Taliban rocket sent shrapnel through the radiator. I also relish returning to write for one of the finest audiences I know, the Best and Brightest.

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