With Hyundai’s Genesis being handily outsold by the updated Mustang and Camaro, we’ve been expecting Hyundai to update its rear-drive sports coupe… and here is the first official fake image of the new look to fool us into thinking it was official. As expected, the new GenCoupe sports the new family front end, and a more sculpted hood. With more power from its updated V6 engine, expect the new-look Genesis to take the fight back to the Detroit muscle cars… especially when it’s joined in the Hyundai stable by a more performance-oriented Turbocharged version of the Hyundai Veloster.

While the flagwavers at Saabsunited wallow in the good news that the Swedish king announced at an annual moose hunt near Trollhättan that Victor Muller is a great guy, far away in Detroit, GM spokesman Jim Cain issued to Reuters what sounds like the death sentence to the sale of Saab to China’s Youngman and Pangda:

“GM would not be able to support a change in the ownership of Saab which could negatively impact GM’s existing relationships in China or otherwise adversely affect GM’s interests worldwide.”

The exactly same statement was sent to the Wall Street Journal, and GM will send it to anyone who asks what GM thinks of the deal. If Muller would have asked before announcing the sale, he most likely would have received the same answer.

Translation:   Read More >

With a 35% import tax on new cars, Argentina is already a touch market for foreign brands seeking to bring cars into the country. But the Argentinean government has just made it  little bit harder by demanding that importers export an equal amount of Argentina-made goods for every car imported. As a result, Bloomberg reports that Porsche’s importer is exporting Malbec wines and olives, Mitsubishi’s importer is getting into the peanut export game, and Subaru’s representative is shipping chicken feed to Chile. BMW, which has had recent difficulties importing into Argentina, is focusing on its core business, exporting auto parts and upholstery… and a little processed rice to make up the difference. But why are these major manufacturers getting into all kinds of strange side businesses just because Argentina wants to improve its trade balance and foreign currency reserves? Simple: Argentina is South America’s second-largest economy, and it’s been growing at over 5% per year since 2007 (i.e. when other markets were shrinking). So if the government wants imports balanced with exports, well, Porsche’s importer is just going to have to get into the wine business, isn’t he?

Every car at an auto auction is a failure. Well, maybe not the 4Runner that Bertel and Ed saw with me that had 459,000 miles (it sold for $1800 by the way). But there always comes a time or a point where an owner will say, “Enough!” and proceed to accept a wholesale price for a retail vehicle.

There are many reasons for failure… and here are some of the most common ones I find at the auctions…

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An Oregon man attempted to escape conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) by claiming he was “sleep driving” and not responsible for his actions. On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals shut down the argument as utterly irrelevant. Even if what he said were true, driving while drunk and asleep would still be a crime.

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In case you need a car to race at the Le Mans 24 Hours, the FIA World Endurance Championship, the Le Mans Series, the American Le Mans Series, the International GT Open and others, Porsche suggests to consider its heavily reworked Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. Read More >

I was in the air to Tokyo when Nissan announced its half year results in Yokohama. But Nissan was kind enough to send me a video they produced in their spanking new Yokohama studio. In an interview with CFO Joe Peter, Nissan’s Dan Sloan discusses not just Nissan’s good numbers, but also the strong yen (which makes them look less good), Thailand, and the outlook for the rest of the year.

Floodwaters in Thailand show no signs of receding, and continue to affect car production in Thailand and around the world. Toyota’s three Thai plants in Samrong, Gateway and Ban Pho are dry. They have been shut down for a lack of parts since October 10, and the closure will continue at least through November 12, Toyota says in a statement. Read More >

Subaru’s North American operations have long been known for advertising catastrophes, but rarely have they laid an egg as big as the October 2010 viral campaign for the “2011 Mediocrity”. The car chosen to be the butt of the joke was an old Kia Optima, which simply proved that neither the ad agency nor Subaru had the guts to start with a brand-new Camry. If Subaru was hoping for a sales boost for the new Legacy, it didn’t happen.

The campaign’s long gone, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a moment to look at some pictures and make some snarky comments, right?

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New car sales in Europe’s largest market Germany are settling into levels slightly above last year, as registration data by Germany’s Kraftfahrtbundesamt show. With 258.253 cars sold in October, sales in the month were 0.6 percent above the same month in the prior year. 10 months into the year, Germans registered 2.66 million new cars, up  9.8 percent compared to the same period in 2010. Read More >

China’s People’s Daily, the newspaper owned by the (alleged) communist party, carries a sobering analysis of the state of the Chinese auto industry. It is not that it will crash in to oblivion as some predicted. But it will not grow as fast as automakers build factories. Serious overcapacity and possibly the long predicted shakeout of China’s chaotic auto industry will be the likely result:

“China’s automotive market has suddenly entered an adjustment period and almost all the automotive enterprises of China were caught unprepared. Since April 2011, the automotive output and sales volume have both been declining for three successive months. Read More >

Back in 2005, Ford was ordered to pay some $43m to the Jablonski family whose Lincoln Town Car had caught fire after being rear-ended. According to the Associated Press:

As a result of the crash, according to the ruling, a large pipe wrench in the Jablonski car’s [trunk] was propelled into the vehicle’s gas tank, causing the blaze.

Attorneys for the family argued during the 11-day trial that the fuel tank’s positioning behind axle was among things flawed in the car’s construction, and that Ford should have warned car owners or retrofitted the vehicles with safety devices.

Ford countered that no similar accidents had occurred involving the same Town Car model as the one driven by John Jablonski, that the vehicle’s fuel tank was in “the optimum location for that car,” and that the crash should be blamed on the motorist who rear-ended the Jablonskis.

That ruling, with its echoes of the Pinto fiasco, could have validated a long-cherished belief of the personal injury attorney profession: that gas tanks rear of the rear axle are fundamentally dangerous (see above). Of course that’s not the case, and the Town Car in question was given a five-star safety rating by NHTSA. Accordingly, the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the ruling, finding that

the lawsuit on Dora and John Jablonski’s behalf did not give sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude Ford negligently “breached its duty of reasonable care” in designing the Lincoln Town Car

FordInsideNews reports

According to two independent sources within FoMoCo, FIN has learned that Lincoln has killed off plans for the MkC. Instead, Lincoln will focus all compact energies upon their new CUV, which is internally named the MkD. According to one source, Ford feared that the MkC would cannibalize sales of the larger MkZ sedan… According to a source who has seen the “MkD,” the Escape based CUV sports a design that is more of a tall hatch rather than a traditional CUV. When it comes to interior dimensions, it will be slightly less than that of the Escape

OK, let’s get this straight: a Focus-based “MKC” competes with the MXZ but a next-gen Escape-based CUV doesn’t compete with the MKX? It’s good to see Lincoln trying to focus its efforts, but it’s hard to say that a reborn Mercury Mariner is the place to be focusing. Meanwhile, this wasn’t the only spooky news coming out Ford’s struggling luxury brand over Halloween weekend…

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The import empire struck back last month, as Honda and Hyundai jumped in segment sales and Chevy’s Malibu got battered down towards the bottom of our monthly chart. Four of the top five midsized sellers in October were import nameplates, although the two biggest year-over-year growers were Chrysler’s 200 and Kia’s Optima. Meanwhile, VW’s Chattanooga-built Passat is still rolling out, but still managed to post 5,000 units in its first month.  Year-to-date rankings remain unchanged from last month, although Accord could easily squeeze past Fusion to snag third place by year’s end.

Nine months in to the year, the BMW Group already delivered 1,232,584 units to customers, up 16 percent from the same period in the previous year. BMW is well on track of meeting its 1.6 million goal this year. And who says you can only make money when you are one of the top 5 carmakers? Read More >