A hot hatch that’s up on power and 220 lbs lighter than the model it replaces? What a novel concept!
Find News by Subject:
Category: Marketing
It’s probably fair to say that, of all the ridiculous Special Advertising Awards in the print rag business, the Car and Driver “10 Best” comes closest to being a legitimate honor. True, the years where the awards had to be split equally between “import” and “domestic” were kind of ridiculous, and the backslapping, manufacturer parties, and exchange of honoraria between C/D and the “winners” cast an unfortunate shadow of cronyism and back-room dealing over the whole thing, but it’s some order of magnitude more respectable than the “Car whose manufacturer bought the most ad space Of The Year”.
This year’s awards, like always, are predictable enough that most TTAC readers could guess most of them ahead of time. If you want to test your knowledge, go ahead and write ’em down then click the jump. You’ll be semi-wrong about one of them, however. This year, there’s one “surprise” that will either confirm or destroy your faith in the so-called “10 Best”…
Fisker Automotive CEO Henrik Fisker is doing some major damage control after the Department of Energy announced that loans totalling roughly $336 million would not be issued to the company. Fisker Automotive is apparently seeking private equity funding to solve what’s being called a temporary cash-flow issue, but the company may be facing deeper problems than that.
MINI will unveil their new Clubvan (isn’t that clever), a Clubman-based van with the rear seats removed and a metal screen placed in the back to separate the cargo compartment from the two seats up front.
Chrysler alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission that they’d be withdrawing their request for as much as $3.5 billion in loans. The money was to be used for the development of unspecified “green” vehicles.
While the rumormill is rife with talk of Infiniti/Mercedes alliances for small, front-drive cars, one of the products to come out of the tie-up might be a luxury car for Renault.
Ford is showing its fealty to the machines putting its money where its mouth is regarding telematics systems by unveiling their new B-MAX MPV at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress, a week before the Geneva Auto Show begins.
According to current propaganda, Toyota’s Prius c (2012 EPA-estimated 53/46/50 city/highway/combined mileage ) has “the highest rated city fuel economy of any vehicle without a plug,” whereas Ford’s new Fusion Hybrid (EPA-estimated 41 city/36 hwy/39 combined) is “expected to be America’s most fuel-efficient non-rechargeable sedan.”
Consider me confused.
North America won’t get a “tuner special” Scion FR-S like the Japanese Toyota 86 will. Such a policy apparently contradicts Scion’s policy of offering one trim level, and the American FR-S will apparently come pretty well equipped. But that doesn’t mean we won’t see it later.
Looks like it’s time for some more Scott Burgess news! Mr. Burgess, whose very existence had long been unknown outside a select circle of hotel room-service supervisors and parakeets who had acquired literacy due to a ruthlessly effective program of eugenics at Petland stores, briefly made Internet headlines last year when he went crazy on a Chrysler 200, quit his paper, was rehired, and fell back into line — not to mention obscurity.
Turns out you can’t keep a good man down. Having briefly tasted the Internet fruit, Scott’s decided to take a job at the salad bar.
Back up in yo’ass with the resurrection! The elder Niedermeyer’s Curbside Classic on the Boaterhome got a bit of an unexpected boost from links on Reddit and elsewhere over the weekend. The Boaterhome is an odd device, for sure, but it doesn’t really speak to the imagination the way the newest Blastolene special does…
Dentists and divorcees, rejoice! The BMW M6 will debut as a convertible first, with deliveries starting in June. The hardtop will go on sale later this summer – both will get all the same mechanical bits as an M5, but with only two-doors, you can shed the family image in favor of someone who pays (or receives) alimony.
Renault’s establishment of a factory in France’s former colony of Morocco has drawn ire from union officials and industry in the sort of election year politicking that wouldn’t be unknown to Americans. The language and culture may be different, but the theme remains the same; good jobs in the manufacturing sector are leaving the country, and they aren’t coming back.
As lifetime President of the “Auxillary Cable Fan Club”, it saddens me to see that Ford’s annoying system will be standard on the 2013 Flex and 2013 Gamechanger Fusion, with Ford boasting that over 4 million vehicles have had SYNC installed since 2007.
Not content with being the best selling compact car and third best selling passenger car in the United States, the Honda Civic is not only Canada’s best selling car for 2012, but it absolutely crushed the competition – outselling the #2 Hyundai Elantra and #3 Toyota Corolla combined.
Recent Comments