The way that the auto industry uses the traditional independent dealer sales channel and proposed alternatives to that process have prompted considerable debate here at TTAC recently. While industry followers watch Tesla’s attempt to change the way automobiles are retailed with their factory owned outlets, General Motors is doing its part to change the retail sales equation, or at least make the negotiating process a bit more user friendly. If buyers want to, they can now complete the entire car buying process and even take delivery without ever stepping foot in a traditional dealership. However, GM says that the program is there to complement the existing retail dealer sales channel, not replace it.  According to Automotive News, by the end of 2013, GM will expand  the Shop-Click-Drive online shopping program nationally. Read More >

An “unidentified buyer” in a “private transaction” reportedly acquired the 1963 TdF (not the bike race) winning Ferrari GTO for fifty-two million dollars.

Other GTO owners are fielding offers in the $40M to $50M range for their cars. If you are one of those people, this sale amounts to brilliant news and will no doubt give you an even greater sense of satisfaction at having purchased at prices ranging from $7500 (out of an old R&T classified) to $6M (the “ridiculous” price set during the previous collector-car bubble). For the rest of us, this is bad news — but not just because it means you’ll never see a LeMans Ferrari in LeMons.

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We called it on April Fools’ Day. Sort of, anyway. The new high-power XTS uses a twin-turbo 3.6L V-6 to twist out 410 torque-steering horsepower on its way to a C/D – tested 0-60 in 5.2 seconds and a quarter-mile in 13.5@105. (Naturally-aspirated Porsche owners should feel free to turn right at stoplights unless they have 3.8 liters or direct injection.)

Big, fast car. Well, kind of big. And kind of fast. But what are we supposed to call the thing?
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Caterham’s showing off the “Aero Seven” concept, its latest attempt to comprehensively update the idea of the Seven for the next generation of drivers. (Their last attempt, the Caterham 21, was not well received and ended up being discontinued.) In addition to showing this very polished and very modern-looking car, Caterham’s co-founder Tony Fernandes discussed some future product that falls well outside the company’s traditional mission.

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This august publication has proven more than willing in the past to criticize Dutch Mandel’s writing. The Autoweek editor-in-chief has long been not so much a journalist as a junketeer and upscale-meal-consumer of the first rank, dispensing harsh words without fear unless the potential target for those words is an automobile manufacturer of some type.

It would appear, however, that Mr. Mandel is finally ready to take a carmaker to the woodshed over customer service and product reliability.

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Just before it makes its debut at the Frankfurt Auto Show, Jaguar’s C-X17 concept shows its undisguised face. To the Jag faithful, this is as scandalous as bare ankles would be in Taliban-era Kabul. We’ll be waiting for the full picture before launch any damning “Avoidable Contact” fatwas.

Your humble E-I-C is a fairly committed capitalist tool, in pretty much all senses of the phrase, but I’m also a fairly ardent reader of left-leaning publications and books. This month’s Adbusters throws a shout out to Porsche by reprinting a recent Cayman ad and superimposing a description of narcissistic personality disorder on it. To be fair, the first stereotype regarding Porsche owners probably sprang into existence when the first customer for the Gmund coupe drove it past his neighbor on the way home from taking delivery, but it’s easy to argue that the company’s actions of the past fifteen years have done a lot to make those stereotypes more true than ever.

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The big news this past week from Nissan: lots of old iron at Pebble Beach, concept car test drives for sympathetic journalists and a pledge to have autonomous cars ready (but not on sale) for 2020. More interesting than that is news of Nissan’s booming exports from America. Some say that this is the “new normal” – Japanese OEMs expanding their manufacturing base in America as they leave Japan en masse to both insulate themselves from a volatile yen, take advantage of America’s welcoming manufacturing climate and shed a reliance on Japan’s aging and declining population. And even more interesting than that is how it was presented.

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                 In a push to get younger consumers into dealerships, Lincoln has undertaken a crash rebranding program. Ford is pushing dealers to upgrade facilities, as well as retraining sales staff in the lingo of “progressive luxury.” Chic furniture and flatscreens are some of the stereotypical dealership improvements that Lincoln hopes to persuade dealers to implement. But there’s one initiative that’s certainly out of the ordinary: the creation of a Lincoln-specific scent, to be wafted through dealerships.

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We’ve made it pretty plain that the floor is definitely open here at TTAC for reader contributions of all types. Most of all, we’d like you to contribute cash via Paypal, or buy something from Derek’s Amazon wishlist, but if pressed we will also accept Sunday Stories, reader-ride reviews, editorials, and all sorts of other features.

It’s possible, however, that you don’t want to write for TTAC at all. You want to write for a major automotive publication or the “wheels” section of a newspaper. If that’s the case, you’ll need to learn how to slam the holy hell out of a manufacturer without appearing to have done so. One of the most frequent ways in which this happens is the “First Paragraph Of The C/D First Drive” technique. It goes like so:
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Long-time TTAC readers will recall that some time ago, I accidentally became embroiled in a Facebook-wall argument with Motor Trend editor (and TTAC alum) Jonny Lieberman. When Jonny’s best friend and boss, Edward Loh, quite sensibly leapt to his defense, I said a lot of mean things that I probably should have just thought quietly to myself. Sometimes I forget that it’s not my job to make sure other people adhere to particular standards, ethical, aesthetic, or otherwise. I’ll do a better job of remembering that in the future.

As part of TTAC Homecoming, I’m featuring one of Jonny’s videos. In this episode of “The One”, Jonny pretends to be a British auto journalist as he drives the Challenger SRT-8 “Core” around what I think is probably the Streets of Willow. While I will freely admit that this sort of automotive journalism is not for me — the last straw on the proverbial camel’s back is probably when Jonny talks about his “good friend” Ralph Gilles, I’m of the opinion that our readers, not the PR people, should be our good friends — it’s definitely unique and it’s all part of the MT YouTube channel which, I am reliably informed, is the biggest automotive media source in North America. Not bad for a guy who used to write here for free, huh?

Toyota’s Lexus brand is going into the luxury consumer goods business by opening the first Intersect By Lexus store in The Aoyoma district of Tokyo at the end of the month. Lexus hopes that selling things like Italian leather bags will improve the Toyota luxury brand’s image, particularly outside the United States, where Lexus has been successful. Other Intersect By Lexus stores will open in Dubai and New York City.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stiffened its testing procedures in 2011. General Motors has announced that for the first time since those stricter standards have been in place its 2014 Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups have earned overall vehicle scores of five stars, the first fullsize pickup trucks to earn that rating. The 2014 Ford F-150 and 2014 Ram 1500 from Chrysler have four-star overall ratings. NHTSA hasn’t yet released the rating of Toyota’s new 2014 Tundra, scheduled to go on sale in late August, but the 2013 Tundra received four stars from NHTSA as did the outgoing 2013 GM trucks. Read More >

Say it with me in the Don LaFontaine voice:

IN A WORLD…

WHERE EVERY SOURCE OF “PREMIUM” HAS BEEN EXHAUSTED…

AND MASS-PRODUCED GARBAGE IS REBRANDED AS LUXURY GOODS FOR AN INCREASINGLY FECKLESS, IGNORANT, AND NAIVE UPPER MIDDLE CLASS…

A BRAND SHALL RISE…

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The Internet’s alive with schadenfreude regarding ROTA wheels. The company recently warned consumers that fake ROTA wheels were being manufactured in China and distributed in several of the markets in which ROTA has a presence. This has made a lot of people laugh because ROTA themselves are considered to be “copiers” or “counterfeiters”.

Your humble author has been racing on ROTA wheels since 2008, as seen above in a rather hilarious-in-retrospect incident featuring a spinning open-cockpit racer and my Neon. Naturally, I have an opinion about this.

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