Do you think that BMW and Mercedes are manly brands? Automotive News [sub] has a different opinion. BMW and Mercedes look childish, the industry rag says. Reason for this decree: The inability of both German luxury brands to show their numbers on time. AN sees two possible explanations for the delay. One explanation “is that the two companies have woefully inadequate sales-tracking software.”

AN does not buy into that one. AN thinks the more likely explanation is a playground showdown, where two boys compare their didis: Read More >

Shanghai GM sold 1.23 million cars in 2011, up 18.5 percent from a year earlier, Reuters reports. This on account of 645,537 Buicks sold in China in 2011, up 17.4 percent. Annual sales of Chevrolet models are reported up 17.9 percent to 555,991 units, Cadillac sales are said to be up 72.8 percent to 30,008 units. But waitaminute – didn’t GM China sell more than 2 million units the year before? Where are they? Read More >

General Motors announced changes to the Chevrolet Volt’s design after a NHTSA investigation into why a Volt caught fire following crash testing.

The changes will go into effect once production restarts at the Hamtramck, Michigan facility, but customer cars already sold will follow a different protocol.

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Dacia showed off their Lodgy MPV today, giving more fodder for Dacia fans who became aware of the brand via their slavish devotion to Top Gear. The Lodgy is a small minivan available in 5 or 7 seat configuration and sold under a Romanian auto brand certain to go on sale in the rest of Europe, but maybe not in the UK.

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Finally, a day later, the two German primadonnas, Daimler and BMW, handed in their homework, and America can get on with its life, knowing that Americans bought 1,243,784 light vehicles in December. This brought annual sales in the U.S. to the official total of 12,778,885 units, up 10 percent over 2010.

Now for the primadonnas. Read More >

Rather than running commercials during the Super Bowl, General Motors is looking to try something more subversive – product placement within other brand’s TV spots during the big game.

Automotive News reports that GM marketing man Joel Ewanick was investigating the possibility of paying other advertisers to insert GM vehicles into their ads. But various contractual elements related to Super Bowl advertising may kill the idea in its nascent stages.

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Canadians already bought the Honda Civic in droves, so it would make sense that another unloved car, the Fiat 500, would do well in a country that favors smaller, more European vehicles, right? Sort of.

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First Hongqi CA7460 rolling off the line at the factory in Changchun

Hongqi, or Red Flag, is China’s most famous automotive brand. Owner of the Hongqi-brand is First Auto Works, or FAW. Hongqi always was, and sometimes still is, the car for the country’s leaders – communist party bosses, and the car for the very influential. A Red Flag is not for the very rich – they take a red Ferrari, or a simple black Maybach. The Hongqi was strictly government business. Hongqi’s most famous cars are the CA 770-series, and the Audi-based limousines and parade cars.

There is, however, another less well known chapter in Hongqi’s history: a tie up with good old Lincoln from the USA in the 1990′s and early 00′s. This article will show what cars came out of this interesting marriage.

On the first picture is the first Hongqi CA7460 rolling off the line at the factory in Changchun, Jilin province. It was November 10, 1998. Read More >

After making rather disparaging remarks about the management culture at Jaguar Land Rover, Tata CEO Ratan Tata is attempting to do some major damage control after he criticized the Brits in a May, 2011 interview with The Times.

Although the article is hidden behind a pay wall, Tata is widely quoted as saying that “…nobody is willing to go the extra mile, nobody.” At the Delhi Auto Show, Tata essentially backtracked on his comments, saying his fairly explicit comments were misunderstood.

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The Ariel Atom: first a “race car for the road” in Europe, then a road car that can also be raced in a spec series. Like the Lotus/Caterham Seven and a variety of other thousand-ish-pound kit-style cars, the Atom has a very different set of dynamic capabilities from what one would find in, say, a Corvette. As a former owner of a Lotus Seven clone, I can attest that it’s easy to get in trouble on the street when driving a lightweight vehicle sans electronic helpers, and the penalties for making mistakes are higher than they are in an Escalade or Phantom.

Want proof? Look no further than the AutoGuide report that a journalist has been killed during a European test drive of the Atom 3.

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Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds again is the clear winner of the December round of Grade The Analysts. She won by hitting the official SAAR (13.65) close enough. She really won by making the highest precision forecast for the Detroit Three. Caldwell also is the undisputed winner of four months of Grade The Analyst, winning her the coveted “TTAC  11” (a.k.a. “The Top Analyst Crown 2011”). Read More >

Usually, when you bring a car from Europe to be made in the U.S., you need to bring something else: Money. You know, for buying real estate for a plant, machinery, that kind of thing. Except when you are Fiat. In that case, a thankful U.S. government hands you yet another 5 percent of Chrysler, as a token of its appreciation, for what amounts to be a token act. Read More >

Japanese allegedly bought 221,960 vehicles in December, up from 179,666 a year earlier, data provided by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association shows. Japan’s domestic sales of new cars, trucks and buses are up 23.5 percent compared to December 2010. This brings the calendar year total to 2.69 million vehicles, down 16.7 percent. Don’t write this into your Excel sheet just yet, because it is only part of the intricate Japanese sales saga. Read More >

Usually, all automakers in the U.S. market report together on the same day of the month. This time it’s different. The world does not know exactly how many cars Americans bought in December and therefore for the year, because Daimler and BMW had not handed in their numbers.

BMW and Mercedes had been in a year-long battle for the luxury crown, a title that oddly enough only has cachet in the otherwise monarchy-averse U.S.A. where kings are used to measure beds and burgers. With annual sales in the quarter million territory, both players would be Mazda-sized, would it not be for the (sometimes doubtful) “luxury” title. Read More >

In what kind of limo did Chou En-Lai and the Great Helmsman ride during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution? The “Red Flag” CA770, of course! Read More >