Jack thinks Porsche may have ripped off the Ford Taurus X with their new Panamera Sport Turismo concept. I say the taillights are a rip-off of the 1993 Mazda RX-7.
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The Audi S3 promises 300 horsepower and 280 lb-ft of torque from its 2.0L turbocharged four-cylinder engine. Err, wait a second. That’s not the hot hatch you are looking for. The real pictures are below. You can tell it’s the real thing because of the LED headlights. That’s what makes it premium, dontchaknow?
Fresh out of Weight Watchers, the next-generation Volkswagen Golf was apparently greeted by smoke-bomb wielding Greenpeace protesters. Wouldn’t something other than a fuel-efficient compact hatch be a better target for one’s environmental anguish?
In Part 1 of our talk with Infiniti CEO Johan de Nysschen at his new office at the Infiniti world headquarters in Hong Kong, we talked about his new job, about new directions for Infiniti, and for the brand. In the second part, we talk about the new cars Infiniti will bring, where they will be made, what engines will be in them, and what deNysschen thinks about the plan to sell half a million by 2016.
In April at the Beijing auto show, Nissan’s Andy Palmer said he wants to see 500,000 Infiniti sold by 2016, while conceding that this is “an aggressive target.” In the last fiscal year, Infiniti sold 141,000 units worldwide, 105,000 of those in the Americas. In carefully crafted words, de Nysschen explains what he thinks of the 500,000 unit target: Read More >
TTAC has written many times about the growing dependency on China, and now there is a voice that says that GM is more enslaved to China than it is to Washington. Read More >
Researchers at MIT’s AgeLab finally have proven what designers have long suspected: Some typefaces are easier to read than others. Because this would be a boring message, and because the New England University Transportation Center and typeface vendor Monotype were also involved in the study, the researchers put it in context with in-dash menus. And came to the conclusion that the choice of typeface is a matter of life and death. Read More >
This might be the first live shot of the Jaguar F-Type that isn’t taken on a blurry camera phone.
| Sales Projection For September 2012 | ||||
| TrueCar | Kelley | |||
| Manufacturer | Sept’12 | YoY | Sept’12 | YoY |
| Chrysler | 137,612 | 8.1% | 134,520 | 5.6% |
| Ford | 177,066 | 1.3% | 177,840 | 1.6% |
| GM | 212,284 | 2.5% | 215,460 | 4.0% |
| Honda | 113,439 | 26.7% | 109,440 | 22.2% |
| Hyundai/Kia | 102,283 | 16.7% | 93,480 | 6.6% |
| Nissan | 92,349 | -0.7% | 92,340 | -0.7% |
| Toyota | 161,201 | 32.7% | 163,020 | 34.2% |
| Volkswagen | 48,304 | 31.4% | 47,880 | 29.7% |
| Industry | 1,163,000 | 10.5% | 1,140,000 | 8.2% |
The month is coming to an end. A sure indicator: The forecasters are submitting their guesses. Again, September seems to be up solidly. More. Or less. Read More >
When TTAC’s reliability scribe Michael Karesh bought a used Taurus X a few years ago, he was able to get it as a nearly-new car for about half of the original retail price. It’s not hard to understand why; the Taurus X, which combined the high “hip point” from the vaguely-Volvo-based Ford Five Hundred with a rather humpbacked wagon profile, was showroom poison and widely derided by automotive journalists who were in the full flush of an industry-loved love affair with “crossovers”.
Those same journos are now competing to pile the greatest number of accolades on the “Panamera Sport Turismo” concept, presumably because there are going to be some awesome European press trips involved for the writers who can generate the most suction, er, traction on the topic.
A few months ago, BMW announced that it was throttling back (or should that be rheostating back?) on it’s “i” branded EV program, in part due to a lack of public charging station infrastructure. A company that sells as many gasoline and diesel powered cars as BMW does can afford to temper its enthusiasm for cars that run on electrons. A company that only sells battery powered electric cars, as Tesla does, doesn’t have that luxury.
Hey there, autocrossers! Aren’t you tired of explaining to that stacked little “administrative assistant” down the hall that you race on a parking lot, not a racetrack? Would you like to change that in a way that preserves your car and your own scaly hide? Would you like to face off against TTAC’s only most feared racers? Of course you would.
With a CAW labor contract expected to be announced today, Fiat has confirmed that cars built in Italy will be exported to markets like the United States, as Fiat looks beyond its ailing home market for growth.
CAREFUL, NOISY! Lower volume before playing.
The Paris auto show opens its doors tomorrow to the press (sans TTAC, our suggestion to make a pilgrimage in a Dacia all the way from Rumania to Paris was inexplicably met with an “um, maybe another time,”) but the thoughts of makers of luxury cars are in China, where their party could be over. Read More >
Back for the seventh time, the Volkswagen GTI will be unveiled in person in about 24 hours, once the Paris Auto Show kicks off.
Apologies for the delay in getting the next article to ‘press,’ a few matters including a misbehaving back were needing my attention! Too much sitting, not enough exercise!
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