Psst! Hey, you! Yes, you! The guy with the gold Bentley-By-Breitling-Celebrating-Bentley-Brand-Breitlings diamond-studded watch! With your arm around two Estonian working girls! I know you’re about to step into a fresh new Aston Vanquish, but perhaps Sir would be interested in something authentically English and genuinely bespoke? An individual creation from a man whose contribution to the automotive design scene is beyond question, a man who designed the car to which your current matte-finished whip is about to pay homage? Surely you’re interested, right? And here’s the good news: it’s far too expensive!
I will admit that I am a Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction fanboi. I spent last week in Detroit during the NAIAS, and thus had to skip my annual trip to Scottsdale, Arizona for their auction extravaganza, one of the greatest automotive events in this country. However, amidst all the breathless reporting about Barrett-Jackson selling the original Batmobile for $4.6M, you might have missed the story of a rare fail by the auction giant. Read More >
Automortal Sins will be an infrequent series about the true sins in the auto business. It won’t be the sins which some bloggers regard huge. We won’t blame lapses in styling, branding, we won’t lambast OEMs for abandoning sports cars in favor of appliances. Building the wrong car once in a while is a minor iniquity compared to the huge, most egregious, and definitely mortal sins committed by automakers every day, without the smallest amount of remorse. Here is the first one: Read More >
The cost of doing business in Canada may be high for auto makers, but that isn’t stopping GM from looking to re-negotiate their contract with the CAW nearly a year in advance as a means of keeping production of the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain at the CAMI plant in Ontario.
GM’s troubled European daughter Opel finally will get a more permanent CEO. As rumored since last year, it is the former Volkswagen manager Karl-Thomas Neumann. German Automobilwoche [sub] expects Neumann to be confirmed by Opel’s supervisory board on January 31. Read More >
Toyota “appears set to choose Vice Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada as its next chairman,” The Nikkei [sub] writes today. Uchiyamada used to be Toyota’s R&D Chief, and is celebrated as the “father of the Prius.” He was made Vice Chairman last year. If confirmed, he would replace the 75 year old Fujio Cho. A Chairman at Toyota has more of an oversight role. The executive power rests at President and CEO Akio Toyoda. Read More >
Honda wasn’t the only Japanese auto maker debuting something at the Montreal Auto Show. Mitsubishi debuted the Canadian-spec version of the new Mirage – without giving it a name.
Random Stranger: Hi there, like, I have this friend you know and he told me that you finance vehicles, and his name is Emmanuel and aahhh, like I was wondering, well, uh, do you have any Toyotas and like, do you, ummm… finance vehicles you know?
The inevitable march to American-made “imports” continues, as one Toyota official recently declared his desire to see every single Toyota sold in America to be a made-in-USA product.
Did you see an instant classic at last week’s Detroit Auto Show? Maybe that new Stingray. And hearing that the first C7 Vette was on the auction block to support the College for Creative Studies made me a little proud of my former school, too. But, aside from the always nerve-racking bus ride between CCS and Cobo Hall, my “instant classic” moment from the (1999) NAIAS was the introduction of the MK IV Jetta. All of a sudden I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Jettas, especially a silver one in the lower hall of Cobo. And time hasn’t changed my opinion…aside from making it more extreme. Read More >
My daughter’s favorite flavor of Slurpee is all of them—in the same cup. To her, it’s more exciting to combine all available options than to pick one and roll with it. If you’re the same way, you’ll find the 2013 Mercedes-Benz E550 4Matic a very exciting car.
It’s TTAC Future Writers Week where YOU decide who will write at TTAC in the future. This could be their first (or last) step on the way to their eventual Pulitzer or Wurlitzer Prize. Please choose wisely, carefully, and fairly. It’s your, the future of several nations, and most of all, the auto industry that is at stake. Read More >
Fraud Rule Number One: no matter how cute your girlfriend may be, do not include her in the picture on your fake ID.
Welcome to Part Two of our exclusive series on the rollicking world of Los Angeles luxury car buyers defrauding automakers, banks and dealers. In Part One we looked at Lemon Law scofflaws and odometer clockers. Today we will examine the crooked schemes that can be used to obtain the vehicle of your dreams. We will begin with the case of robber Baron Haghighi, who last month tried to con a few cars out of several Southern California high-line dealerships. Read More >
Humans of the male variety are innately competitive, particularly when women are involved, so while I was peripatetically experiencing the media preview of the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Bertel’s extensive coverage of the attractive female booth professionals of the Tokyo Auto Salon was on my mind. To be honest, I’m a bit ambivalent about the distracting presence of beautiful women at big car shows. I once asked Andreas Serrano, who does marketing for Maserati of North America, why they have beautiful women on their stand. Serrano, a native Italian, looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Beautiful cars… beautiful women, they go together, no?” “True,” I replied, “but you like cars and I like cars. You like women and I like women. If you had to pick one to look at, the car would lose.” Read More >
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