With GM now dropping out of Super Bowl advertising, what’s next for the marketing bigwigs at the Ren Cen? And yes, I’ll take the Storm, thank you very much.
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Automotive News posted a picture of a Kia K9 luxury sedan wearing manufacturer plates on the road near Orange County, California. Does that mean we’re due to get the K9 any time soon?
Well, it was bound to happen. The ugly step-child of the Lexus lineup, the HS250h, is dead. And the too-tall corpse has been decomposing for quite some time.
Holden is expected to make an announcement regarding the export of its Commodore vehicles to North America – essentially confirming the existence of the forthcoming 2013 Chevrolet SS Performance – and apparently it may not be limited to sedans. Utes and wagons could be arriving at some point as well.
Ford has priced their C-Max MPV with a base sticker of $25,995, or $555 less than its main rival, the Toyota Prius V.
Our own Michael Karesh will be testing out Nissan’s new Altima this week. This is the car that Nissan is hoping will take the Altima from its current second place slot in the mid-size segment and up to the top of the pile. In lieu of Michael’s take, there are a few factors that are worth looking at.
Even as GM abandons Facebook advertising because of a poor ROI, Ford is going full steam ahead with Facebook spending and including more “sponsored stories” – i.e. cheesy advertorial content – as part of their “accelerated” spending. The problem is that it doesn’t work.
Happy 28th birthday, Mark Zuckerberg. Your baby is about to go public, but GM still had to rain on your parade by pulling their advertising from Facebook because GM ad men didn’t think it was effective.
Even though the BMW 1 Series M Coupe is gone forever, performance-minded 1-Series customers must have a high-end performance model, even if a lot of them don’t even know if the car is front-drive or rear-drive.
As TTAC’s official reviewer of all things “emerging market cast-offs sent to Canada”, I’ll be busy again in Q4 2012, when I get my hands on a Chevrolet Trax.
“On a clear day,” John Z once famously wrote, “you can see General Motors.” The day has yet to come, however, when the works of GM will be made plain to the mortal man. Consider, if you will, the bizarre story of the “Theta” platform in the United States. It’s a huge success; the Equinox and Cadillac SRX (which, we are assumed, is totes different from the Equinox, but we will will discuss that contention below) combined for about a quarter-million sales in 2011. It’s a perfect example of the way GM is supposed to work nowadays: there are two platform variants with very little visual similarity combining to provide high volume in one model and high profit in another. Theta is NAFTA-friendly, with the cheapie being made in Ontario and the luxury model in Mexico. The two models are generally well-reviewed. The obscurity, stupidity, and thrown-darts decision-making which used to characterize the General are nowhere to be seen. What’s to criticize, even here at TTAC, where we typically cast a jaundiced eye on the RenCen fire drill?
Well, there is the minor issue of a third Theta, which is as perfect an example of GM’s undiminished ability to screw things up as the other Thetas are of the company’s ability to get things right.
With Opel’s fortunes in the toilet and Chevrolet vehilces gaining ground in Europe, Opel brass are looking at an obvious solution – stop building Chevrolet products in South Korea and start building them in Europe.
An article in Automotive News lavishing praise on the Chrysler/Fiat merger of equals marriage inadvertently spilled the beans on a couple upcoming products from Marchionne’s minions.
Tesla Motors has almost used up funds from a Department of Energy loan program – but the startup car maker also says that they’ll start paying back the money at the end of 2012.
Has Mini’s over-propagation of vehicles gotten so bad that we’re actually cheering when a new special isn’t a silly two-seater or pseudo-crossover? The Mini John Cooper Works GP may be overpriced, but at least it’s got its heart in the right place.
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