If you’re an average Mopar enthusiast you may be wondering what the front of a Plymouth Valiant is doing on a 1963 Dodge Dart. Unlike urban legends about cars with front ends from one brand and rear ends from another of that automaker’s brands that was being built on the same assembly line, and unlike custom car mashups, this was factory built and sold by authorized dealers.
If you were born after the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show you can be excused for not knowing this, but Dodge Darts and Plymouth Valiants weren’t always badge engineered twins. In 1963 they were more like bigger and smaller brothers, with an odd Canadian cousin in the family.
While not mentioned explicitly, this is Suzuki’s SX4 replacement – the Dodge Caliber S-Cross Concept – which is all but ready for dealer showrooms for 2013.
Economies of scale are the driving force behind everything happening in the industry right now; it’s why Alfa and Mazda are collaborating on an MX-5 and why Volkswagen is building nearly everything on one platform. Does that lead to increased homogeneity on the product side? Absolutely. But it also makes cars like the CLS63 AMG Shooting Brake possible. Mercedes has all the components needed to make this car, and it barely costs them anything to produce it. The halo effect alone makes it worthwhile. Cadillac needed to sell just 5 CTS-V wagons to break even on the car, and it’s likely no different for Mercedes. Look for a brown one to show up in press fleets at some point.
In the ’72 Dodge Tradesman Junkyard Find earlier this week, I referred to the iconic custom-van airbrush mural with “jousting knights battling Aztec kings in a zebra herd at the Mars Base.” All of those elements were seen on the flanks of plenty of Chevy Vans and Econolines back in the 1970s (though you didn’t often see more than one per mural), and— now that we’ve got the benefit of nearly 40 years of hindsight— we can think about what could be done today with the art form of the custom van. Read More >
As amazing as the specs may be, I’m not sold on the design of the McLaren P1. It may be functional, but it can’t stand up to the elegant minimalism of the F1 and looks far too busy. Let us know what you think.
Reporters of Reuters, roaming the floors of the doom-dominated Paris Auto Show, finally found a feel-good trend: Green supercars, or make that guilt-free kickass swank, targeted at cash-positive crisis-sated, climate-conscious consumers . Read More >
Yesterday’s coverage was fairly snarky, for the simple reason that none of the product was particularly compelling or exciting. But I love the look of the new VW GTI, especially in this blue hue. In my senior year of high school, my father bought a 2006 Jetta 2.0T with the DSG gearbox; it might be one of the all-time great sleepers, with just enough power to be fun in the city, but not enough to get you in serious trouble. Even on mundane all-season tires, it was one of the better FWD platforms I’ve ever driven. I can’t imagine how much fun the new GTI will be with more power and 200 fewer lbs.
Kudos to Ferrari for having the audacity to show off their carbon fiber monocoque like it was a new vehicle introduction – which it sort of is, for their new supercar. The big news here is that they’ve confirmed it will be a hybrid, packing a 804 horsepower V12 gasoline motor and a 90 kW electric motor.
Since I’m the guy who generally won’t take photographs of ’69 Camaros and ’57 Chevys (well, unless they’re really special ’69 Camaros and ’57 Chevys ) and who will walk past 5 “Eleanor” Mustangs to look at one American Motors Hornet, it should come as no surprise that for the past couple of years I’ve made it a point to attend the annual Orphan Car Show held in Ypsilanti, Michigan’s Riverside Park. This year was the 16th iteration of the OCS, which is affiliated with Ypsi’s Automotive Heritage Museum. With a number of century old (and older) brass era cars at the event, it’s not surprising that some of them had to be started with hand cranks. What is surprising is that not all the crank starting cars dated to before World War One. Actually, a couple of them date to the Vietnam War era and later.
McLaren shows the P1 concept at the Paris Motor Show. Due to budgetary constraints, we had to outsource the video to India, and leave the reporting to Ireland’s Student News, which reports: Read More >
Renault chief Carlos Ghosn said in a radio interview with RTL that his company could leave France if it is unable to compete at home. Asked if Renault could disappear, Ghosn said: “In its current form, yes.” Read More >
“Perhaps no story will get more play than the third-quarter earnings report General Motors has now scheduled for October 31, less than a week before the election. Could this prove to be the sort of October Surprise that has sank or resurrected so many presidential bids in the past?” Read More >
TTAC readers who followed our past reporting on the developing relationship between Daimler and the Renault/Nissan Alliance will not be surprised in hearing what Carlos Ghosn and Dieter Zetsche told the press today. If you think you’ve heard it all before, you are right. You did here. Read More >
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