Three-plus years ago, your humble E-I-C pro tem was quite impressed by an 800-horsepower Nissan GT-R. After a couple of years racing in the NASA Performance Touring “E” class, where “big power” cars have 160 horses at the crank, having a chance to boot the proverbial ten-second car around for a while was quite a hoot.
At Switzer, however, I suspect they look at those old 800-horsepower days the way Justin Timberlake does at his N’SYNC records.
Monday night at 5:43 PM, TTAC received this note from Chrysler PR
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the 2014 Jeep Cherokee and Dodge Durango short-lead media drive program – originally scheduled for August 4-14 in Seattle – is being postponed. We deeply regret this late notice and apologize for disrupting your busy summer schedule. We will get back to you as soon as possible regarding information for the media drives of the Cherokee and Durango, which we expect will take place in the first half of September.
For those of you that have already booked your flights to the program, your reservation will automatically be canceled by our travel company, BCD Travel. Should you have questions related to this, please feel free to contact me and/or the individuals noted below:
Please welcome TTAC reader John Mohr (username J.Emerson) and his guest contribution to our site
In 2004, my family decided to replace our soon-to-be-off-lease Ford Focus Wagon with another Ford product, having been quite satisfied with our little five-door. This being the height of the Bush-era full-size SUV binge, we were barraged with row upon row of new Explorers, Expeditions, and Excursions when my parents suggested that we wanted a “sensible 4-door family car.” My mother couldn’t have cared less about such monstrosities, but she didn’t like the recently-redesigned Taurus either, and she wanted something larger than her old Focus. Eventually, they got a deal on a new Crown Victoria LX, a car that served us well for many years. The salesmen couldn’t wait to get rid of it; it was an ‘03, and as I said before, nobody wanted bargain-brand full-size sedans in the middle of the Bush years. Most importantly, this particular car shopping experience was my wake-up call to the artificiality of Ford’s luxury branding attempts. And thinking about it now helps me to understand why Ford is content to let the Lincoln line become nothing but a set of badge-engineered clones.
The English High Court is trying to stop it, but it’s hard to know how much authority they have over the upcoming USENIX Security Symposium. If, as I suspect, the answer is “None”, then attendees to that event will be treated to a presentation on how to break the Megamos Crypto system, the RFID-based immobiliser that prevents counterfeit and physically-copied keys, to say nothing of plain old “hot-wiring” at the ignition switch, from starting the Bentley Continental GT that, apparently, uses it.
Of course, some of you will have already considered that if the system is in use in the CGT, it’s in use in the Phaeton, and probably the Touraeg, as well. You’re right, and there are far more cars at risk than just those.
Following PSA’s exit from Iran last year, Renault is the latest French car maker to leave the Middle Eastern country, thanks to American derived sanctions.
Nearly 9 years ago, a small car from an obscure, nearly-defunct Romanian brand was launched with little fanfare. The Dacia Logan was – and still is – a basic vehicle designed to be sold for very little money and provide honest, basic transportation for emerging markets. Few would have predicted that in nearly a decade of sales, it would spawn Renault’s top-selling nameplate while bringing in profit margins that were once reserved for premium marques.
Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne may not be fond of changing up his outfits, but he certainly has no problem mixing up product plans. The latest news out of Auburn Hills suggests that Chrysler will be extending the lifespan of some key products for up to another 5 years.
Despite planning to sell 486,000 units in America this year, Volkswagen has trimmed its sales targets to 440,000 units, after shedding market share in the first half of 2013.
It’s no secret that over here at TTAC, we like to pay for it – at least when it comes to test cars. Sure, we do go to the press fleet frequently, but when time and budget allow, abusing our Hertz #1 Club Gold membership is a great way to get behind the wheel of select automobiles.
All it took was one little article in CAR magazine for the auto blogosphere to light up with a million different re-purposed versions of the same report. And what a joyous bit of news it is; Alfa Romeo is going to be rear-drive only from now on.
We decided to run the piece because it comes from Georg Kacher, a respected journalist who is known for having his finger on the pulse of the industry. If he says Alfa is planning to move to rear drive platforms, they probably are. But the big problem is that they are planning it. Nobody said anything about actually doing it.
When the Lincoln MKZ was introduced, Ford Motor Co. took the unusual step of pricing the MKZ Hybrid the same as the non-hybrid version of the car, $35,925. Assuming that would mean a good take rate for the Hybrid, Ford production planners for the 2013 model year set the mix at 20% for the gas-electric MKZ. The take rate turned out to be so good that for 2014, 40% of MKZs made will be hybrids. That’s what Raj Nair, Ford’s group vice president of global product development, said at the automaker’s Dearborn campus on Tuesday. Hybrid sales in the U.S. market overall are up 18.3% for the first six months of this year, compared to 2012, and Ford has been benefiting from that surge. Ford’s share of the hybrid and EV market is now close to 16%, a huge improvement of 12% over last year. The C-Max, Fusion and MKZ hybrids have given the company a strong presence in the hybrid market. Ford attributes part of it’s overall U.S. market share increase of almost 1% over 2012 to electrified vehicle growth. For the first six months of 2013, Lincoln sold 3,090 MKZ Hybrid models, an average of 515 cars a month, but now that production delays that hampered the revised MKZ’s launch have apparently been overcome, for the 2nd quarter sales exceeded 715 units each month, closely matching the current build rate at Ford’s Hermosillo, Mexico assembly plant.
Source: The Detroit News
Hot on the heels of a $275 million “investment”, Holden is going back to the Australian government, hat in hand, asking for more money. This time, Holden wants another $265 million to keep their assembly plants online.
The new diesel engine that is expected to arrive in the Dodge Ram 1500 and Jeep Grand Cherokee (which, we hear, has been pushed back a few times already) has had an interesting life. The 3.0L twin-turbo diesel engine never was intended for Chrysler or Fiat products, but rather, Cadillac.
Ally Financial, what used to be known as the General Motors Acceptance Corporation, GMAC, before GM’s bankruptcy and bailout, itself received over $17 billion from the U.S. Treasury during the bailouts of 2009. On Tuesday the company said that it was looking into options on how to repay that money and comply with the Federal Reserves’ latest stress tests for financial institutions. Ally is 74% owned by Treasury and it is trying to buy back some taxpayer-owned stock and reach an agreement with the Fed on its capital structure (known as the “Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review”) so it can offer stock in an IPO. Ally had originally planned on a 2011 IPO but having to resolve claims against its bankrupt Residential Capital mortgage unit delayed that. ResCap hopes to be out of bankruptcy by 2014. Read More >
The EU Commission has provisionally sided with France in that country’s decision to stop the sale of new Mercedes-Benz cars because of Daimler’s decision to continue to use R134a refrigerant in it’s HVAC systems. The EU has banned R134a out of concerns for global warming. The only available replacement that meets the new regulations is R1234yf, made by Honeywell, and Mercedes-Benz has insisted that their tests show that the new refrigerant is dangerously flammable and could start an underhood fire under certain conditions. The provisional ruling could be a problem for Daimler in other EU countries.
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