Yesterday, Volkswagen sent out a gushing report, saying that group deliveries rose 6 percent in April and 8.6 percent January to April. Something smells in Wolfsburg. Let’s take a look. Read More >
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I revisited my past recently. A friend of mine who has been in the car business for longer than I’ve been alive called me right out of the blue. It had been well over two recessions since our last talk and yes, there was an awful lot of catching up to do. So the banter lasted about three hours and all we talked about was… how things don’t work in the car business.
The list is longer than a modern day health care bill and the prescription is pain (and debt) incarnate. That is unless you decide to take the easy way out. In which case it’s downright fatal. There are thousands of do’s and don’ts in this business. Today I’ll share the Top Five ways many rookies end up scorching the thin skin under their Hawaiian shirts.
Even though Opel will be tasked with developing the next Citroen C5, PSA will be responding in kind by providing some expertise of their own, in the form of small minivans.
One of the most colorful figures in American automotive history is gone. According to multiple sources, Carroll Shelby, International announced today that Mr. Shelby died yesterday, in Baylor Hospital (Dallas, TX).
Mr. Shelby will forever be remembered for the Cobra and Shelby Mustang cars of the Sixties, but he remained surprisingly relevant well into the Nineties, inspiring efforts like the Shelby Charger, Shelby Lancer, and Dodge Viper. Although his final years were beset by scandal and an increasingly Byzantine series of lawsuits against everyone from “cloners” to his own fan club, the man’s contributions to the art, science, and passion of hauling ass in affordable cars are undeniable.
Rest in peace, Mr. Shelby.
The investigation into a Texas house fire that apparently started in a 2 month old Fisker Karma continues, with an EV expert weighing in with his opinion that the packaging of the combustion engine that drives the Fisker’s generator was likely the cause of the fire, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration saying it is looking into the incident, and the car’s owner and his attorneys firing back after Fisker initially implied there might be fraud or foul play.
Nissan pulled off an even bigger miracle than Toyota and ended a (this time truly) catastrophic year with a big profit. Today in Yokohama, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn announced that Nissan delivered a pre-tax profit of 535.1 billion yen (US $6.76 billion) for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, “despite natural disasters and currency exchange headwinds.” Read More >
When a new generation of the world’s best selling car, and of the best selling cars of all times (accounts differ) rolls off the line at its factory, then this is usually a big deal. This time, it’s a smaller deal. The 11th generation Corolla that started production today at Toyota’s new plant near Sendai in Japan’s tsunami-ravaged north, is a little shorter than its predecessor. It breaks a tradition of carbloat. Read More >
Toyota’s sales forecast of 220,000 Prius models forecast looks like a lowball number now that Toyota has moved 86,000 examples of the hybrid from January to the end of April. Sales of the Prius V and Prius c have helped the nameplate see a 56 percent rise year over year, and now Toyota is clamoring for more units – but it may not get them.
With a new Citroen C5 due in 2016, production of the mid-size Citroen will shift from PSA’s Rennes plant to an undisclosed Opel facility. A French car, built by Germans – eat your heart out, Clemens.
Nissan broke ground on a new engine plant expected to come online in 2014. The plant will build 4-cylinder gasoline engines for Infiniti cars as well as the Mercedes-Benz C-Class.
The plant will add 400 jobs and produce as many as 250,000 engines per year. Nissan produced a range of 4, 6 and 8-cylinder engines at the plant, located in Decherd, a small town near Nashville.
Watch a GT-R and a Bugeye Sprite rip slaloms and meet a girl who can outdrive you in this newest video from the SCCA Solo crowd!
With a planned Chinese joint-venture between Chery and Subaru now really, honestly dead in the water, Subaru will look to the United States for sales growth, while importing cars to China for the next few years.
Car companies can go on about their “heritage”. Though we know it’s at least partly hype, some of that heritage is verifiable history and as car enthusiasts it can tug at our automotive heartstrings. Still, it’s very easy to get cynical when you see how casually companies can be with history when it comes to promoting their products.
Despite Toyota’s announcement of a new generation of RAV4 EV, mostly for CARB compliance, it seems that RAV4 EV production has never really stopped – at least not on a one-off basis.
My commonwealth is known for a few things: Bourbon. Baseball bats. Bourbon. Horses. Bourbon. College rivalries. Bourbon.
I did mention bourbon, right?
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