Traffic? Politics? People who invoke the name Jesus 67 times in a two minute conversation? Those are universal ‘triggers’. But what about cars? I used to have this unyielding urge to yank off every motorized belt I saw. Even to this day I have nothing but wrath for car with this pseudo-safety feature.

Then there are the ‘shift now’  lights. If I wanted corporate and government nannys to invoke their ‘pearls of wisdom’, I wouldn’t black tape their suggestions. What else? Catalytics that don’t last. New car smells that do. The list is long and the day is young. So let us know what intrusions should be slaughtered and catapulted into the foolish knight.

Writer’s note: This can be car features, cars, dealers (even used car dealers), highways, toll roads, car magazines, roadkill, service centers that lube your wealth, the local DMV. Heck, even the odd activities of your fellow commuters. Anything you want really. After all, we consider this place to be an autonomous collective these days.

Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG), Toyota’s Cologne-based high-speed division, has set a new Nordschleife record for an electric vehicle. The TMG EV P001, equipped with two electric motors and 800Nm of torque, did the Nordschleife in 7 mins 47.794 secs, outdistancing the Peugeot EX1 EV’s which did the circuit in 9 mins 1.338 secs. Read More >

Just because police can search an automobile does not mean they can search its driver, according to an August 15 ruling by the North Dakota Supreme Court.

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According to government statistics, “grooming” while driving is a major hazard, only slightly less dangerous than using a cell phone, eating and drinking, and talking to passengers. This video drives the point home that  grooming, talking to passengers, and even the slightest hint of eating can be deadly. In this case, the man was lucky and walked. Next time – who knows.

After a tepid July, analysts predict a likewise unenthused August when it comes to new car sales in the U.S.  The consensus of Bloomberg’s panel of 14 analysts is a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 12.1 million. Read More >

In Albuquerque, a police officer is caught with his pants not quite down, but nonetheless having sex on the hood of a car. From the pictures released, it looked consensual.  This is not what can be said of the conduct of a Philadelphia police officer. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Keith Corley II, a 4 year member of the Philadelphia police department, was charged with raping a woman in the back of his squad car while on duty in the 18th District in West Philadelphia. Read More >

Sales of regular automobiles in Japan were down 25.5 percent in August, compared to the same month in the previous year, data provided by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association shows. This sounds worse than it is: In August 2010, sales had jumped 46.7 percent, result of  a last gasp of government subsidies which were coming to an end. Read More >

Please excuse the self-congratulation, but little breakthroughs like this are a big deal for a site like TTAC. The American Journalism Review has a fantastic piece by Frank Greve on the murky and corrupted world of professional car reviewing, which is well encapsulated in the piece’s subtitle

The world of car reviewing is replete with expensive perks and fantasy vehicles. Consumer advocates need not apply.

And after running through the litany of corruptions endemic in the system, Greve concludes:

Web sites like Jalopnik and The Truth About Cars deliver more independent, aggressive and timely coverage for car enthusiasts than traditional car magazines like Motor Trend.

With all due respect to MT (which is but one of many), that sounds like the truth to me. As does Greve’s description of how press cars are allotted (by the likelihood of a positive review). And for one of his examples of the system at its worst, Greve describe an incident involving TTAC’s own Jack Baruth and the aftermath of his no-holds-barred review of the Porsche Panamera.
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Many years ago, I bought a yard-sale box of old 35mm slides in order to score the reusable glass slide-mounts. A few of the original images were interesting, so I hung onto them. With all the scanning of old slides and negatives I’ve been doing for the ’65 Impala Hell Project series, I’ve also been searching for interesting automotive images among the rest of my collection. This photograph from 1964 Pasadena (as in “The Little Old Lady From”, which was a hit song in ’64) contains quite a few interesting vehicles. I’m going to follow up my 1973 San Francisco Car ID Challenge with the 1964 Pasadena Car ID Challenge: what vehicles do you see in this photograph? Read More >

First of all, let’s not fool ourselves: this is quite the hypothetical question. For one thing, Fiat is unlikely to federalize the Doblo cargo van that this “Work Up” is based upon until a subsequent generation comes out. In the meantime, the only Fiat Professional vehicle the US market will be getting anytime soon (thanks to CKD production at Warren Truck, according to Allpar) is the Ducato van, which competes fairly directly with Daimler’s Sprinter.  But, hypothetically, could this Doblo “Work Up” find a market in the US? Let’s look at what it offers…

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[Skip ahead to 2:08 (or don’t)]

It’s the stuff of a Ray LaHood nightmare. Automotive News [sub]’s lede comes screaming out of the blackness:

BERLIN — Ford Motor Co. has adapted its Sync in-car connectivity system to cope with high speeds on German autobahns.

But you can’t wake up, Mr Secretary of Transportation. For this is no dream…

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Bloomberg [via the Financial Post] reports that “one of the five biggest European banks” is “close” to loaning Saab $157m  so that it may pay workers and suppliers, in order to move towards restarting production. According to DI.se, the deal is predicated on Saab securitizing the loan with shares of Saab Great Britain or other “alternative assets.” But apparently whatever the banks ask for, Saab will try to give, as Theodoor Gilissen Bankiers analyst Tom Muller explains

They need the money immediately. I hope they solve it this week, otherwise I think it’s over for Saab. It’s a very dire situation.

He’s not kidding…

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Hey, it coulda happened!

TTAC commentator HeeeeyJake writes:

Hey Sajeev,

I love the column and I’m a daily TTAC reader, though I rarely comment. We have been a Panther household since the mid nineties, and have had great luck with our vehicles thus far. My parents had two ex-Budget rental Town Cars, a white ’93 with blue interior, and a medium willow green ’96 with that greyish-beige. I had a pearlescent silver ’91 in high school with black interior and a black canvas top (I added ’02 Cartier wheels , P71 front springs, and a dual exhaust with turbo mufflers). All were zero-problem vehicles. Which brings us to our current Town Car, an ’07 Signature Limited, fresh out of warranty, which is also an ex-rental, but I do not know which company.

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Often times concept vehicles portray an already-decided future direction. Other times, concepts are built to suggest one possibility in an ongoing debate about a model’s future. Land Rover has taken the latter approach with its new DC100 concept,  telling Autocar that the Frankfurt-bound concept

builds upon essential elements of the Defender’s character and allows us to open the debate and inspire people to dream about Defenders of the future. The DC100 isn’t a production-ready concept, but the beginning of a four-year journey to design a relevant Defender for the 21st century.

Will the new Defender get an all-new version of its rugged, body-on-frame chassis, or will it move to a re-engineered version of the T5 platform that underpins the Discovery and Range Rover Sport? That’s all still to be decided as Landie navigates a sales and regulatory environment that makes life extremely difficult for old-school SUVs. And because the Defender has lost much of its developing-world market to more reliable Toyota 4x4s, I’d guess the next Defender will be a less-traditional interpretation of the original. While that’s all being hashed out ahead of the 2015 launch date, at least we have an attractive concept to go along with a compelling debate.

Bloomberg reports that Fiat is considering moving production of planned Alfa/Jeep-branded compact CUVs from its Italian Mirafiori plant to the US, as a rising Euro forces tough production choices. Production of some 280,000 units per year were planned to start at Mirafiori in late 2012, but Fiat may now build an as-yet unannounced subcompact there instead. According to Bloomberg’s reporting, Fiat/Chrysler CEO Sergio

Marchionne, while confirming his commitment to invest at the Turin facility, told Piedmont Region President Roberto Cota Aug. 29 that he may change the production plans for the plant.

“Fiat is evaluating which model it will build at Mirafiori,” Cota said after meeting the CEO.

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