Two times, the UAW tried to unionize the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tennessee. Twice, the Union received a black eye. The UAW is trying a third time, this time counting on the fact that “an estimated 70 percent of the workforce is black,” says Reuters in a feature story on the UAW’s last ditch effort to gain relevance in the South.
If this feels like the Manchester United and Ewanick day, so be it. If we’d pass up these morsels, we’d be accused of selective reporting. As a result of the torrent of leaks, we are now led to believe that the Manchester deal is what the Business Insider calls “one of the biggest marketing contractual screwups of all times.”
The new Civic Si makes a better race car than it does a road car. That’s the message that I got from the new Compass360/Honda promotional video starring Shea Holbrook. Ms. Holbrook is by turns charming, wooden, stilted, and charming again. The Compass360 Civic is already a multiple event winner. The plain-vanilla one running down the freeway next to it? No thanks, unless it comes with a twenty-something female racer willing to coach me a bit.
Yesterday we showed AutoBILD’s rendering of a new GLG. Our Best and Brightest immediately caught on to the fact that the image was derived from the Land Rover DC100 Concept, another image of which is above for your viewing disgust at the way in which Land Rover’s current owners are coring-out every last bit of the company’s heritage pleasure. Read More >
“And all the troubled world around us
Seems an eternity away
And all the debt collectors
Rent collectors
All will be behind us
But they’ll never find us
‘Cos we’ll be dri-i-i-i-ivin'”
-The Kinks “Drivin'”
The last time I made an announcement about my status here at TTAC, I made it clear in the headline that I was bidding the site “au revoir” rather than “adieu.” Having taken an opportunity to work in politics for a year, I was absolutely planning on returning to the fold. Unfortunately, that plan has now changed, and I have informed TTAC’s owners that today will be my last day on the site’s masthead.
While bloggers and the MSM are gobbling up the red herrings served by the deep throats at GM, some people are connecting the dots. They even drew a map. If you are concerned about U.S. taxpayer’s money leaving for Old Blighty, you want to read on. Don’t do it on an empty stomach. Or maybe do. You will want to puke. Read More >
We decided to take a family vacation this summer in Italy, starting in Florence and driving into rural Tuscany to spend a mellow week in a rental villa near some friends. I reserved a “Ford Focus or equivalent” with Hertz and, after a thoroughly unpleasant hour in the queue (“not exactly” indeed), they handed me the keys to an Alfa Romeo Giulietta with a manual transmission, two liter turbo diesel. Forza Italia! I now had one week with the sort of car that American TTAC readers often like to grouse about their inability to buy at home.
What do you do if you lose market share and can’t stand it anymore? You deliver what the market wants. Hyundai is trying to make up for losses in China with a (so far) China only car that slot between the Elantra and the Sonata, says Reuters. Read More >
One day after GM’s Chief Marketing Executive Joel Ewanick was fired for failing ” to meet the expectations that the company has for its employees,” one day after it was leaked like from a fire hose that there were shady going ons between Ewanick and the Manchester United soccer club, GM signed a seven year contract with just the same soccer club. A day after the ouster of a marketing chief who was tasked with saving billions, GM paid, according to Reuters, “twice as much as the team’s previous automotive sponsor” for putting “Chevrolet” on the team’s jerseys. Does this pass the smell test? Read More >
Gentlemen, there’s some automotive/emotional baggage that I need a resolution for.
I’m finally in a position to replace a Celica with something that will possibly see an HPDE, and the occasional autocross. I have $9000 to spend. Although the Celi drove beautifully, it wasn’t a viscerally thrilling car and I’d like to learn the dynamics of a rwd platform.
An Australian financial publication is quoting two auto industry players who say that Ford will exit their Australian manufacturing operations, taking the Ford Falcon and Territory with them.
Germany’s Auto-BILD thinks it knows how it will look when Daimler shrinks the G-Wagen. In 2015, Daimler will bring out a GLG based on the new A-Class, says the magazine. Auto-BILD hasn’t seen more than the own renderings, but that doesn’t keep the rag from bitching: Read More >
Recent Comments