Mitsubishi, pretty much given up for dead in the U.S. and Europe, thrives in an easily overlooked part of the world: South-East Asia. Mitsubishi has three assembly plants in Thailand, and will spend around $150 million to increase output. Read More >
Coming straight out of the “I can’t believe people get paid for this nonsense” department is Scion’s new marketing initiative; picking heavy metal-listeners as its next target demographic.
They called it the “Ferrari of the East”: The Melkus RS 1000 was East Germany’s only sports car, “powered” by a mid-mounted Wartburg 3-cylinder 2-stroke engine. Most cars had 1 liter engine, a few were 1.2 liter mills. Fitted with gullwing doors, it looked fast. 101 cars were made between 1969 and 1979 in the Dresden factory, to buy one, you had to race it. In 2009, Sepp Melkus, grand child of founder Heinz Melkus, resurrected the company and started building the Melkus RS 2000. No more, the company is bankrupt. Read More >
The exalted community of Panther-platform enthusiasts has a term for people who deliberately make their Crown Vics look like working undercover/plainclothes police cars: “wackers”.
You can’t call this fellow a “wacker”. “Wack”, on the other hand…
I don’t have any particular bias against American cars, but it’s fair to say that I’ve always preferred imports over American muscle, save for one major exception; the GMC Typhoon.
The seventh generation of Volkswagen’s venerable and best-selling hatch, the Golf, has barely been launched in Europe, and Volkswagen is already looking into producing it abroad. Volkswagen aims at two regions that usually prefer cars with trunks: China and America. Read More >
16,290 people were killed in road accidents from January through June, says the NHTSA. For the first time since 2006, deaths are up. The NHTSA does not know why fatalities are up, but the usual suspects have already been rounded up. Read More >
The fortunes of small cars used to be tied to gas prices. Sales of compacts rose when gas prices shot up, when gas came down, big was beautiful again. Sales of small cars are up strongly in America, but this time, it’s different, think two of the US motor industry’s most senior executives. They believe that the trend won’t reverse, and that sales of small cars will go further up. Read More >
| Rank | Analyst | GM | Ford | Chrysler | SAAR | SAAR Diff | OEM Diff | Overall |
| 1 | Jessica Caldwell (Edmunds.com) | 1.9% | 0.7% | 8.4% | 14.4 | 3.6% | 4.5% | 8.1% |
| 2 | Jesse Toprak (TrueCar.com) | 2.5% | 1.3% | 8.1% | 14.6 | 2.3% | 6.0% | 8.3% |
| 3 | Peter Nesvold (Jefferies) | 3.7% | 2.2% | 6.1% | 14.5 | 2.9% | 10.1% | 13.0% |
| 4 | Rod Lache (Deutsche Bank) | 1.0% | 1.6% | 4.4% | 14.4 | 3.6% | 9.5% | 13.1% |
| 5 | John Sousanis (Ward’s) | 4.6% | 4.3% | 8.1% | 14.6 | 2.3% | 11.1% | 13.4% |
| 6 | Joseph Spak (RBC) | 4.0% | 4.9% | 8.0% | 14.5 | 2.9% | 11.2% | 14.1% |
| 7 | Patrick Archambault (Goldman) | 2.2% | 4.2% | 4.8% | 14.6 | 2.3% | 11.9% | 14.2% |
| 8 | Brian Johnson (Barclays) | -1.5% | -1.4% | 5.5% | 14.3 | 4.3% | 10.2% | 14.5% |
| 9 | Alec Gutierrez (Kelley) | 4.0% | 1.7% | 5.6% | 14.3 | 4.3% | 10.4% | 14.7% |
| 10 | Emmanuel Rosner (CLSA) | 3.3% | 2.0% | 4.4% | 14.4 | 3.6% | 11.2% | 14.8% |
| 11 | Chris Ceraso (Credit Suisse) | 5.0% | 4.0% | 6.0% | 14.5 | 2.9% | 13.3% | 16.2% |
| 12 | Adam Jonas (Morgan Stanley) | NA | NA | NA | 15.0 | 0.4% | 300.0% | 300.4% |
| 13 | George Magliano (IHS) | NA | NA | NA | 14.5 | 2.9% | 300.0% | 302.9% |
| 14 | Jeff Schuster (LMC Automotive) | NA | NA | NA | 14.5 | 2.9% | 300.0% | 302.9% |
| 15 | Alan Baum (Baum & Associates) | NA | NA | NA | 14.5 | 2.9% | 300.0% | 302.9% |
| 16 | Ryan Brinkman (JPMorgan) | NA | NA | NA | 14.4 | 3.6% | 300.0% | 303.6% |
| Average | 2.8% | 2.3% | 6.3% | 14.50 | ||||
| Actual | 1.5% | -0.2% | 11.5% | 14.94 |
The public may have been surprised by the very strong showing of the market and the not so strong showing of GM and Ford when the September sales came in yesterday. Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds and Jesse Toprak of TrueCar weren’t surprised at all. They called the market with high precision. Separated by only 0.2 points, Caldwell made first, Toprak second, followed far behind by Peter Nesvold of Jefferies. Read More >
September saw big gains for Volkswagen and Honda, two brands that have been pilloried by the motoring press for apparently sub-par products, while Chrysler led the Big Three in gains, if not volume.
Want a quick, agile, fun-to-drive vehicle you can stuff a bunch of kids into? Ford has what you’re looking for. Just one catch: you’ll have to move to Europe. Not that Ford sees no market here for a swift seven-seater. They do, just not for one like the S-Max. Instead, for 2013 we receive the Explorer Sport. CEO Alan Mulally’s “One Ford” vision apparently acknowledges that some models must remain regional. Here’s what real Americans want in a high-performance crossover…
Just-Auto is reporting that Honda will cease UK production of the Jazz (aka our Fit)
“to benefit from production economies of scale and fully [use] Honda’s global production resources”.
So, where are they going to come from?
George writes:
Hello again, Steven,
You may recall our email last March regarding our 1992 Lexus SC300 5-Speed. Thanks for the reply; guess the timing was bad for you with tax time coming up. As you may recall, the car is all original, black with gray interior, looks and runs great, and has slightly less than 25K miles. Here’s the back story: Read More >
Renault-Nissan already has Dacia as its “low-cost” brand, to compete with vehicles in the $10,000 range, the auto maker is moving forward with plans to introduce a new car that costs as little as $3,000.
The Mazda/Alfa Romeo sports car collaboration was best described by one industry reporter as “the first slow dance, where they leave room for Jesus”. Now it looks like Fiat is definitely trying to cop a feel.
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