When April sales data came out, a lot of noise was made of the shift towards gasoline-sipping small cars. Shrill voices feted sales of electric cars, which look like a rounding error, as a win in the war on terror. As so often, the truth is different. The new cars that hit the road in April get, on average, slightly less mileage (23.3 mpg) than those sold in March (23.4 mpg). If the war on terror would honestly be waged on dealer lots, then the true heroes would be foreign mercenaries, with Americans occupying rear echelon slots. Read More >

Cyclone Power's 5th Generation Prototype Steam Engine

In my post about mercury arc rectifiers used to charge early electric vehicles, I alluded to the competition between gasoline, electricity and steam in the early days of the automobile. Reader Ryoku75 asked “What happened to steam-driven cars?” It’s my task to cover the oddball engine desk here at TTAC and we will be having a report on new engine technologies on display at the SAE World Congress soon enough once I clear some work from my day job off the to-do list, but to answer Ryoku75’s question, it just so happens that there is timely news about steam power. They weren’t at the SAE congress this year, but in recent years a startup called Cyclone Power has displayed their “Rankine Cycle heat regenerative external combustion” engine at the engineers’ convention. If Rankine Cycle heat regenerative external combustion engine is a bit of a mouthful, try “steam engine”.

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Imagine what happened if the representative of a large Japanese or Chinese car company would demand that America should close some car factories before easier access to foreign markets would be contemplated. All hell would break loose, and the Seventh Fleet would steam in the direction of the loose cannon – if it is not already there. What happens if the representative of Ford says that Japan should be required to reduce the size of its auto industry before being allowed into regional free trade talks with the United States and eight other countries in the Asia Pacific? Business as usual. Read More >

Germany defies the European downtrend of car sales. In April, Germans bought 2.9 percent more cars than in April 2011. Europe’s largest car market most likely has cushioned the fall in other EU countries again, which will be evident once ACEA numbers for the EU are published in a week or two. Read More >

Although Canucks have been enjoying the BMW X1 xDrive28i for over a year now, the launch of the X1 in the United States will see both the four-cylinder model, and a 3.0L twin-turbo I6 version, dubbed the xDrive35i. And it’s fast.

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Motor Trend had Randy Pobst take the Ford Mustang V6 and the Subaru BRZ out on track. With predictable results.

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Why should the superstars of cone-chasing hog all of the B&B’s attention? Today we will see some of the worst autocrossers to ever exit a course backwards, hit a tree, or strike a corner worker. The fun begins with the above video, which proves that some people just can’t operate a Mustang, but’s it’s far from the worst incident on our parking-lot hit parade…

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Reports are emerging that the Nissan Juke R will cost $600,000 (about $450,000 euro) once Nissan starts selling their steroid-enhanced crossover.

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A few years ago I offered a strong thumbs up to the outgoing Nissan Versa. Plenty of room. A small touch of sportiness when it came with a hatchback. Good feature content. I even gave it kudos for offering a slightly frumpish French design that went far beyond the flying wedges and amorphous blobs of the time.

Times have changed. Small cars are starting to look good again. Thank God!

The 2012 Versa has been reviewed here, there and pretty much everywhere. A lot of auto journalists hate it with a passion that was once reserved for no hit wonders like the Saturn Ion and Suzuki Forenza.

Is it really that bad? American consumers are saying, “Hell no!” with sales up a stunning 30% from April 2011. At least from the sales numbers (8,300+ units last month and climbing) it looks like a car loaded with penurious plentitude is just what Dr. Recession ordered.  To help us out I have asked two completely fictional car experts, Jacque Hedonist & Stefan Frugalist, to help us figure this out.

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Audi claims to have broken the dreaded “weight spiral” with their next upcoming A3. The new car will weigh nearly as much as the first-generation car did in 1997, despite being faster, safer and more luxurious.

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Renault-Nissan is buying a majority stake in Russian automaker AvtoVaz. For those not in the Russian Car Appreciation Society, AvtoVaz is the maker of Lada cars.

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Everybody believes they know what a beater is.

“My old 10 year old Chevy Cavalier is a real beater!”, they may remark in some self-affirming way. “Why it’s old and it has 120k miles, and the paint is faded… and…”, they will continue to go through the list on the mistaken belief that any car made in the late Clinton to Bush era is a beater. They’re not. At least not quite yet. Any car that can be scanned or diagnosed with a conventional OBDII scanner is not a beater.

Then there is the modern day Yuppie beater. “I have a late 90’s Mercedes E-Class that’s a true beater!” Never mind that the car would fit in at any country club if the owner bothered to give it a good detail.

In my humble opinion, these types of cars are not beaters at all. What qualifies? Well let’s go through the list shall we?

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Bentleys making booty calls in public-housing projects? General Motors sucking on the public teat like a corporate version of Marilyn Chambers and receiving a billion-dollar money shot in return? Sex bloggers turning the walls of the Seattle W’s finest rooms into something that, when viewed with ultraviolet light, looks uncannily like a Jackson Pollock painting? It’s all too much!

Let’s scrub our minds clean with just under three minutes of great footage from last weekend’s SCCA National Tour autocross, complete with a top-notch video course description from one of the best technical drivers out there. Seriously. This is one to watch, if only to see the absolute truth with which every cone in every slalom is properly anticipated and pre-dialed.

Now, if we can just keep Bertel from putting any more big-eared auto show girls above the proverbial fold, we might all keep our jobs until tomorrow afternoon…

Once upon a time, GM’s North American operations spewed red ink across the firm’s balance sheet, with the whole mess kept afloat by relatively strong overseas operations. Now GM makes most of its money at home while its international divisions limp along. No, really: in its just-released Q1 financial report, GM reveals that some $1.7b of its $2.2b global EBIT came from its once-troubled home markets. What a difference a bailout makes!

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A significant detour on the way to work had me spotting this – a modestly priced house on a busy arterial road in a working-class area nestled between two notorious neighborhoods in Toronto. Jane-Finch and Black Creek.

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