Instead of a thank you for the well-meant career advice, I had an irate Dr. Carsten Krebs on the line, who identified himself as the Director of Corporate Communications at Volkswagen Group of America, Inc, before he tore into me. He demanded a takedown of the story, which was denied. Herr Dr. Krebs claimed that Barnes “loves his new job.” It turned out as huey. Read More >
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Category: News Blog
In much of the undeveloped world, wealth and poverty have a permanence for individuals. The governments own or subsidize the most lucrative businesses. Access to credit and capital is scant for the average citizen. Food resources are a priority, and higher education is often times solely for the wealthy and well-connected.
It’s hard to build a good life when corruption, bribery, and the ‘thug mentality’ are a big part of daily life. Arab Springs, Civil Wars, Fascisms of every stripe. The aftermath of allying with all these dictatorships and other criminal organizations is a culture that preys on weakness.
What does this have to do with cars? Everything and then some, sad to say. Let me introduce you to two groups that epitomize everything I see in this business as a car dealer here in the United States.
PSA’s owners are not happy with CEO Philippe Varin. They would already have sacked him, would a replacement be on hand, reports France’s La Tribune. Reason for the disenchantment: Catastrophic sales, and the alliance with GM. Read More >
Interested in meeting your least favorite TTAC author? Perhaps you’re a fan of my unique lyrical styles, or you’re a lonely female journalist stuck on the West Coast with a boyfriend who plays Goth music through a Les Paul that isn’t even from the f**king Custom Shop. Maybe you’re one of the GM forum loons who nearly crashed your ’96 Grand Am GT automatic into a Jersey barrier when you saw that my awesome article on the Crapillac ATS was translated into German, complete with fun illustrations, and now you want to choke me with the power of your massive, Cavalier-tattooed biceps. Failing all that, perhaps you’d like to appear in the next TTAC video?
Good news! I am doing an international tour during the next two weekends!
Rounding out our day of Top Ten lists, news reaches us that Total Car Score came up with a list of the Top Ten Convertible Cars for 2012. Read More >
Further on yesterday’s story on PSA’s, and by extension GM’s, alleged continuous supply of embargoed car parts to Iran, Bloomberg reports that Iran’s imports of automobile parts decreased by 47.8 percent to $254 million in the two months since March 20. Read More >
The engine just didn’t seem right… at least that’s what they said.
“Ma’am. I think you’re going to need a full tune-up. It’s going to be $487.38.”
“But this Volvo 240 just had the work done 10,000 miles ago?”
“It’s due ma’am. Sorry.”
(Sigh!)
If you are seeking to conquer, subjugate, crush, annihilate, subdue, rout, defeat thy enemy on track, or, preferably, Autobahn, then collect all your pennies and buy the car that is synonymous for all that vehicular domination: The Aston Martin Vanquish, the car formerly known to a high net-worth clientele as the AM310. Yesterday, the Kuwaiti-held purveyor of handmade super cars finally unveiled its new flagship. Read More >
Who needs a mid-engined rice racer to drift? Latest dispatches from Russia show that with a little training, your can even drift when pulling a trailer. This creates so much enthusiasm that the camera car engages in a little sympathetic drifting as well.
Toyota will cut its production capacity in Japan by more than 10 percent to some 3.1 million units by 2014, if The Nikkei [sub] is correctly informed. Read More >
Honda is mining for rare earth in unusual places: In cars.
Honda has been extracting rare earth metals from used nickel-metal hydride batteries since April. Today, the company announced it will begin reusing the extracted metals before the end of 2012. Read More >
When Renault had rolled out its Alpine A110-50 a few weeks ago, the logical conclusion was that this was not just to celebrate the 50th birthday of Alpine. Today, Renault COO Carlos Tavares tells Bloomberg that Renault is thinking about bringing back Alpine as a brand for sports cars, and to create another high-end brand for luxury models in a bid to become a true global carmaker. Read More >
GM-partner PSA has repeatedly stated that shipments of parts to Iran’s carmaker IKCO (a.k.a. Iran Khodro) had stopped in February, and would not resume until September, if at all. The parts are for the 206 and 405 models, and PSA said it stopped shipping them in response to sanctions on Iran. IKCO says it’s not true at all, ships are unloading parts and the lines are running. Read More >
Bloomberg’s trademark monitor reports that GM filed an application to register “Electra” as a trademark, which triggered suspicion that a Buick Electra may see the light of day again. Read More >
Car companies the world over get in line to spend $185,000 (for starters) to register their brands as what is called a “Top Level Domain” or TLD. Instead of, say “Chevrolet.com,” in the future, you will be able to type only “Chevrolet” to get to the site. Google allows you to do the same right now, but also gives you a long list of other choices. Read More >
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