Planning on visiting Florida’s Longboat Key island? According to Wikipedia, Maria Sharapova is a resident, which is probably reason enough to visit the beach there. Should you make the trip, however, you should be aware that the local police will record your arrival and departure. They will also be keeping the records of said arrival and departure for as long as ten years. Whether you — or the ACLU — like it or not.
The Nissan Terrano, once a fairly rugged SUV, is now the nameplate by which Nissan will sell a rebadged Dacia Duster in India. How about some exports?
I grew up as a city kid, but my parents made sure I had every opportunity to experience the great outdoors. Most of the time I elected to skip those opportunities. Although I enjoyed attending a rustic summer camp where we slept in tents and warded off raccoon and skunks each night, I did not take well to camping, coming back with over 300 mosquito bites. Fishing was too slow of an activity to capture my attention, but sport shooting was the opposite. After that, I never once picked up an Xbox controller, finding Halo and Call of Duty to be unsatisfying facsimiles for sending rounds downrange. A pity that it took me nearly 25 years to actually go off-roading; I may have never bothered with sports cars in the first place.
As police departments across the United States start retiring their Ford Crown Victoria P71 Police Interceptors, now that those out of production vehicles are reaching departments’ mileage limits, it looks like they are replacing at least some of them with SUVs, not sedans. Though the end of the Crown Vic has been mourned by law enforcement officers and car enthusiasts alike, both groups looked forward to the new police package sedans being offered by the domestic automakers. Ford brought out the SHO Taurus based Police Interceptor sedan to replace the Crown Victoria, General Motors is importing a police only Caprice PPV with rear wheel drive from Australia (while continuing to offer a police package for the FWD Impala) and Chrysler sells pursuit Chargers. Police department purchasing officials, though, are apparently opting to buy SUVs instead of the new cop cars. Read More >
Nissan’s next-generation Titan has now been confirmed for a 5.0L twin-turbocharged diesel V8. Exact power figures have yet to be released but the Indiana-built powertrain should put out over 300 horsepower and over 500 lb-ft of torque. While the Ram 1500 is the first half-ton pickup to offer a diesel engine, it comes in the form of a 3.0L V6.
It would appear that Lincoln’s upcoming replacement for the MKS sedan will be aimed squarely at the Chinese market. Rumors of a proper RWD flagship notwithstanding, the die has been cast, and it’s all entry-luxury-derived from here on out.
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Call it a Microbus, Kombi, or Transporter, the Volkswagen Type II (the Beetle was the Type I) is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, motor vehicles in continuous production, having first appeared on the scene in 1950. It was based on a suggestion and sketch by Ben Pon, VW’s Dutch importer and a water-cooled version of the second generation bus is still being made and sold in Brazil. Pon knew that Europe, rebuilding after the destruction caused by World War II, needed inexpensive cargo haulers and small commercial vehicles. Pon’s sketch showed a boxy body mounted to the Type I’s platform frame. The Type II ended up being more successful than Pon could have imagined, but production is coming to an end with a run of 600 “Last Edition” Type II Kombis, as the vehicle is called in Brazil. Read More >
What remains of Ford Motor Company’s Highland Park plant, where the moving assembly line was developed and implemented.
Ford Motor Company’s Highland Park plant was the location of the first moving automotive assembly line a century ago this year. Henry Ford started to build the Highland Park complex in 1910, needing more capacity than he could produce in the Piquette Avenue plant. Getting away from Detroit taxes and more effectively being able to influence politics in the small municipal enclave within the Detroit city limits were also factors in Ford’s move. Much of the large complex, designed by famed architect Albert Kahn, has long since been demolished but a Detroit economic and community development group is trying to buy the plant’s office building, which still stands, and turn it into a center for information on automotive related attractions in the Detroit area. Read More >
At a time when some question the overall value of big auto show media previews, car companies continue to look for new ways to reveal new product and concepts.
The domestic car manufacturers have long had large displays set up near the huge annual Woodward Dream Cruise, held every year in mid-August. At this year’s Dream Cruise, held this past Saturday, for the first time one of them decided to use the event to show off a new concept vehicle the Ram Rumble Bee truck.
Not only is the Rumble Bee the first concept vehicle revealed at the Dream Cruise, it’s also most likely the first concept vehicle to use an insect as interior trim. The knob that selects the 8-speed transmission’s gear has a real bumble bee embedded in amber (Chrysler says it’s a bumble bee, but it looks more like a common honey bee to me).
The Rumble Bee concept hearkens back to two previous high performance vehicles, the original Dodge Super Bee muscle car, circa 1968-71, and the limited edition Ram 1500 Rumble Bee pickup from 2003.
Based on a two-door standard cab Ram 1500 R/T, the Rumble Bee has a custom matte pearl yellow paint job with black stripes and decals. The Ram badges are blacked out. The pickup’s cargo bed is covered with a body color tonneau that incorporate a spoiler at its back edge. The hood has scoops and the front fascia has an integrated splitter.
Inside the truck is black leather and yellow detail stitching. The seat backs are embroidered with Rumble Bee and the seating surfaces are a yellow/black honeycomb fabric. Under the hood is the corporate 5.7-liter, 395-horsepower Hemi V-8 coupled to ZF’s eight-speed automatic transmission. The truck sits fairly high on its 24″ wheels, also in black. True to the Rumble Bee’s name, there’s an exhaust bypass that can be activated by a button on the dashboard.
Sources tell us that Nissan and Cummins will make a joint announcement Tuesday regarding a diesel engine for the next-generation Titan. Our sources suggest the powertrain could be either a Chinese-made 4-cylinder engine or alternately a 5.0L V8. Currently, Ram is the only truck maker to offer a Cummins powertrain. Nissan recently hired Fred Diaz, Ram’s former CEO, to head up Nissan Division’s day-to-day operations.
The president of Galpin Auto Sports, the Los Angeles based car dealer and tuner, Beau Boeckmann (whom you may recognize from his role on MTV’s Pimp My Ride), used the Pebble Beach concours festivities to announce that GAS will be putting their Ford GT based GTR1 supercar into limited production next year at a starting price of just over one million dollars. Boeckman says that the venture will be profitable if they sell six GTR1s and that production will be capped at two dozen, limited by the short life prototype tooling used to make it.
Automotive News reports that Galpin’s Boeckman is optimistic about its prospects. “There is a market for a car like this,” said Boeckmann, scion of the family that owns Galpin Motors, one of the largest privately held dealer groups in the United States, including the world’s largest Ford dealership. “It’s amazing how many million-dollar car purchases there are. I know several customers who will be interested in buying one.” Read More >
Toyota FT86 Concept
A dealer attending Toyota’s U.S. dealer meeting in Atlanta earlier this month has told the Automotive News that the automaker is now letting its dealers drop underperforming Scion franchises without any penalties. Those dealers that keep their Scion stores open will likely get two new products that were teased at the convention. Toyota Senior Vice President Bob Carter declined comment though he hinted at changes, “We’re not ready to go public with that yet.” Toyota Division General Manager Bill Fay recently told WardsAuto that Scion “has a few too many stores.” Read More >
While TTAC is known for Panther Love above all else, there are some of us here who possess an iconoclastic streak and long for a General Motors B-Body. The LT1 powered Buick Roadmaster is arguably the finest of the bunch, and an essay in today’s edition of The Globe and Mail illustrates why.
This past Friday, Jack reported on Continental’s decision to remove its ATE Super Blue brake fluid from the market, citing its non-compliance with federal motor vehicle safety standards. Apparently, Super Blue ran afoul of regulations regarding the coloration of brake fluid in motor vehicles. It’s not clear exactly what led Continental to recall the product now after years on the market, but it’s obvious why: blue brake fluid is a no-go according to American regulators. As Jack pointed out, this apparent government overreach has cost consumers another choice that amateur racers in particular found useful. Commenters on that story debated the relative merits of regulating automotive fluid colors, in particular brake fluid. So just how regulated are fluid colors anyway, and do those regulations help or hurt consumers overall?
Depending on the type of mood in which I find myself after waking, as well as the type of mood in which I find my car after its waking, I vacillate between being buried in the masterpiece or selling the lemon in short order. Recently my relationship with my Porsche 911 has been somewhat strained. A relatively minor issue prompted my most recent trip to the dealer, yet I was set to depart with another four-figure bill. In a moment of weakness I strolled over to the other side of the dealer and perused their new offerings, in particular the updated 981 Boxster and Cayman twins. Perhaps relatively predictable depreciation losses would be preferable to the Russian roulette of ongoing high-dollar maintenance.
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