Scott writes:
Good People of TTAC: for the past five years my wife and I have shared one car, a 4-cyl 1998 Accord LX. It’s treated us well. It has 122K on it, and it runs pretty well for an old car. Luckily our commuting situation is aligned perfectly to allow us to keep using just one car. It sure has saved us a lot of money. Read More >
Photo Credit: United States Department of Transportation
There’s a bit of a brouhaha brewing about Ford bringing about 150 “social media influencers” to Detroit and then Las Vegas for the big North American International Auto Show and the Consumer Electronics Show. While there may be some ethical issues concerning transparency and disclosure, I doubt that anyone begrudges Ford the ability to spend Ford stockholders’ money promoting Ford Motor Company and its products. Ford is acting in the fiduciary interests of those stockholders. Whether or not cabinet members and other Washington officials are acting in the fiduciary interest of taxpayers by flying to car shows is another question. Read More >
This is the new Boxster. We will all call it the “981”, because that is its marketing-designated “engineering project name”. It’s supposed to have a little more power, a little more room, a little less weight, and a little more oomph on the window sticker…
A non-profit group backed by some major OEMs sent out a press release claiming that diesel vehicle sales are up by 27 percent in 2011 while hybrid sales are down by 2.2 percent. So, D’s up, hoes hybrids down while you motherf***ers bounce to this?
When thinking about creating cost efficiencies, moving jobs to Asia usually comes to mind. GM has a different plan to bring profitability back to its hemorrhaging Opel unit. GM is considering bringing Chevrolet production from its Korean plants to Europe. In exchange for delivering jobs, GM expects concessions from the unions that would clear the way for a major cost-cutting operation necessary to stop the bleeding and to save the German patient from otherwise certain death. This is at the heart of a detailed report just filed by Reuters correspondents Christiaan Hetzner in Frankfurt and Ben Klayman in Detroit. Read More >
A TTAC lurker writes:
Sajeev, I’m local to Houston and greatly look forward to my daily lurk on TTAC. I just had to respond affirmatively to the latest piston slap about HID’s and Panthers. Read More >
Scion’s “First 86” promotion opens tomorrow at noon EST. The first eighty-six deliveries of the new FR-S will be allocated to “winners” of the competition. To enter, one simply has to be willing to put $500 down within 72 hours — and willing to take delivery of the FR-S when it’s ready.
I am willing to do both.
While hit rapper Drake may favor Range Rovers as his ride of choice, the may have been talking about the new Buick Encore when he rapped on his hit song “Headlines” “You gon hype me up and make me catch a body like that”. The Buick Encore, barely unveiled just 48 hours ago, has generated lots of hype at TTAC, and according to Automotive News, has already “bodied” a future GM product – the GMC Granite.
Fiat is hoping that their new 500 Abarth will inject some new energy into their lineup, just like couples stuck in a flagging marriage hope that immersing themselves into “the lifestyle” will add some spice and excitement to a union long past its expiration date. The 500 Abarth will likely have some demographic overlap with guests at Hedonism II, since it will likely be enjoyed by pudgy, swarthy men with outsized egos and overly made up female professionals.
100 percent less snark, 100 percent more cheesy innuendo after the jump.
We used to have a column named Ur-Turn where we did published reader views “as a showcase for the diverse perspectives of TTAC’s readers.” Here is a truly diverse one, and the return of Ur-Turn. It comes from our reader Chris DeMorro. As Jack Baruth so eloquently had put I,. “General Motors and Ford both spent obscene amounts of money to fly social media influencers to Detroit from all over the world.” Chris is one of them. Chris was at a couple of these events before, and as an experienced influencer, he is well qualified to write about them.
Full Disclosure: I am one of the 146 “social influencers” flown out by Ford to NAIAS the past few days. It was my third such event in a year, having been flown out to last year’s NAIAS show, and the “Forward with Ford” technology conference last summer. I have also been a Ford fan my whole life.
So I’m off to a great, totally un-biased start. Read More >
GM is ready to reduce output of the Volt plug-in hybrid. Wait, that’s putting it a bit harshly. GM is ready to “match supply and demand,” as GM vice chairman Steve Girsky told Reuters yesterday. GM wants to monitor sales for a few more months until the matching begins. Read More >
Like small SUV’s, the small towns of the South have a bit of a split personality. On one side of the brain are the transients. They generally don’t care who you want to marry, whether you own a firearm or not. Or what political party you favor. They are here for the (few) jobs and the cheap real estate.
The you have the Bible belt ‘conservative’ with a big old silver confederate belt buckle in the middle. The ‘Good Old Boys’ liked things just fine before their town became known and sure as heck don’t want anything to change now. Their ideology is right wing, family focused, and you can take it or leave it.
They are genuinely nice to you.. so long as you’re not too weird.
But if you’re too much of a drag on business, weirdo, the door does swing both ways. Much the same way as the door ended up swinging both ways for this Chevy Tracker.
A double shot of news on the General Motors SUV front. Automotive News is reporting that Cadillac considering a small SUV to compete with the BMW X3. A separate article suggests that the General will give auto writers another excuse to bitch about the lack of body-on-frame SUVs, with its decision not to import the Thai-engineered TrailBlazer.
A Lamborghini involved in a street racing incident in Vancouver, B.C. was sold off by the British Columbia government’s Civil Forfeiture Office.
When we talked about Japanese auto sales in 2011, we told you that sales of imported cars were missing, and that they would be available today. They are. Aided by a shortage of domestic cars and a strong yen, Japanese connected with their inner gaijin and bought 22.5 percent more imported cars in 2011 than in the year before. According to data released by the Japan Automobile Importers Association, 275,644 foreign-built vehicles entered the allegedly closed Japanese market, gaining a market share of 10.3 percent. Read More >
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