This coming week is the week when all car manufacturers wish they would have a split personality.  The New York Auto Show and the Shanghai Auto Show will take place in the same week. Jack Baruth will take Manhattan. (Hey, Jack: The famous Headquarter’s “Steakhouse” is right next door to the Javit’s Center.  Scores is just a few blocks south.) I’ll take Shanghai and my camera. I’m sure Jack will come equipped. Maybe.

As a special service to the Best & Brightest,  YOU can put in requests for what we shall take pictures of – apart from the obvious.

We’ll try to fulfill all requests – to the best of our abilities.

What keeps powertrain engineers up at night? C’mon, get your mind out of the gutter. The move towards downsized, turbocharged engines is creating a number of new engineering challenges, and “torsional excitations” grabbed the spotlight at this year’s Society of Automotive Engineers Congress. Steven Thomas, manager of Ford’s global transmission and driveline, research and advanced engineering, illuminated the issue [via Wards].

As we reduce the engine torque, particularly just off idle prior to the boost coming on, we’re going to adversely impact the ability to accelerate the vehicle. I would challenge you all to think about new ways of dealing with this. We could really use new designs to deal with these challenges to optimize the fuel economy, but at the same time deal with (noise, vibration and harshness) and performance issues presented by these new engines.

The problem: the increased inertia of forced-induction engines. The practical example: a turbocharged Fiesta. A worthy adversary, a worthy cause. Let’s do this.
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The ever-evolving world of auto journalism ethics took an interesting turn recently, when GM’s European brand Opel offered 200 journalists the opportunity to test “some interesting models from our product range” on the Mediterranean vacation island of Mallorca. What raised the eyebrows of the German Journalist’s Association: the fact that the test offered access to only a few new features (stop-start on the Astra Sports Tourer diesel, and a six-speed autobox on the Insignia OPC), while offering journalists the opportunity to bring their families along at “a special rate neogtiated by Opel.” The GJA called the offer “practically an attempt to bribe journalists,” prompting Opel to withdraw the offer. Hit the jump for a translation of Opel’s statement [via Autobild].

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If The Nikkei [sub] is informed correctly, and given the recent track record with these matters, that’s a big if, then workers in the Japanese auto and electronics industries will be compensated for the hardships they endured after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami:  They will get two extra days off per week. According to today’s Nikkei story, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association proposed that manufacturing industries should alternate production holidays this summer as a way to conserve electricity amid a constrained supply.

“Automakers, for example, could halt production on Mondays and Tuesdays, with electronics firms taking Tuesdays and Wednesdays off, according to JAMA’s plan, which was presented at a briefing on energy-saving measures hosted by the Japan Business Federation, better known as Nippon Keidanren,” writes the Nikkei. “On each day, the shutdowns would extend industry-wide.” Honto? Read More >

Buick has gone back to China in order to find the way forward… and based on these renderings of the soon-to-be-launched Envision Concept, their designers have been spending some time with Mazda’s “Japanese Alfa Romeo”-focused stylists. Which is an interesting state of affairs: When Buick’s US managers lost their way, GM’s Chinese staff rediscovered the essence of the brand in designs like the Riviera and Invicta concepts. Now, it seems that Buick’s Chinese stylists may be starting to lose the plot, turning out this effort that looks like it could carry nearly any auto brand in existence. Is it time to bring Buick design back home?

The South Norfolk Regional Growth Fund has denied Lotus’s request for a £27.5m loan intended for expansion at its Hethel headquarters, reports Autocar. In a statement the sportscar firm, which is in the midst of a major turnaround, said

Despite the clear synergies between Lotus’s growth plans and the fund’s objectives to enable private sector organisations to invest in projects that would create jobs and secure long-term growth, the bid team decided that the money was better invested elsewhere

Now why would that be? After all, even Lotus’s own adviser, Bob Lutz, gives the firm a 60% chance of success. What investment could possibly offer better odds than that? But don’t cry for Lotus. The firm’s parent company, Indonesian automaker Proton, has secured some £270m in private loans from six banks with which to fund the brand’s turnaround. The only question now: will the funding shift from British taxpayers to Asian bankers mean a shift in production away from the UK, as Lotus had threatened might happen if the RGF loan didn’t come through? There’s no word on that yet, and based on Lotus’s desire to loft its brand into Porsche/Ferrari territory, we’d have to argue against leaving the country that birthed the brand.

Ford is finally waking up from sleeping through the fact that China became the world’s largest car market 2 years ago, and that China will most likely grow explosively for the next 20 years. Ford will introduce 15 new vehicles in China by 2015, the company told Automotive News [sub]. Ford will also more than double the number of its 340 dealerships in China by 2015. Ford furthermore is looking at doubling the work 1,200 strong workforce at its joint venture with China’s Chang’an.

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With Fiat flying towards taking a majority stake in its Chrysler subsidiary, Reuters reports that the necessary private loans are very close to being arranged.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp are in advanced discussions with Chrysler to finalize a deal that will replace all of its roughly $7 billion government loans with term loans and bonds, these people said on Thursday.

In addition, the banks will also arrange a revolving credit facility for the automaker’s future liquidity purposes that will remain undrawn, these people said. The revolver will not be used for paying down government loans.

Look for Chrysler to wrap up a deal sometime after it reveals its Q1 financial performance next month.

Under current Cuban law, only cars built before the 1959 revolution can be legally bought and sold. This has kept Cuba’s pre-revolution American cars running, creating the island nation’s unique automotive landscape. But now, reports NPR, proposed liberalizations of Cuba’s property laws might threaten Cuba’s fleet of classic American cars. Though reforms could bring much-needed investment to Cuba, they would also mean an end to the laws that have kept Cuba’s streets looking like a time capsule from the late 1950s. But luckily Cubans have come to feel deeply attached to their classic American cars, vowing to keep them running as symbols of Cuba’s history.

As for Cuba’s classic cars, mechanic Jorge Prats says he thinks they’ll be around for at least another 50 years.

“These cars are a part of our national identity now, like rice and beans, or roast pork,” Prats says as he shows off his two-toned, bright red-and-white 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air coupe. “We take care of these old American cars as if they were another member of the family.”

Users of the Dulles Toll Road in Northern Virginia filed a federal class action lawsuit yesterday seeking refunds from toll hikes imposed to fund a $7 billion mass transit project. Great Falls resident John B. Corr and Hillsboro resident John W. Grigsby argued that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) has no authority to set toll rates and that the diversion of over $130 million from motorists constitutes an illegal tax.

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A few days ago, we looked at Volkswagen and said that “we expect a growth of group sales well over 10 percent in the first quarter” when Volkswagen does publish its Q1 data by the end of the week. Wolfsburg did not disappoint. Volkswagen sold 1.97 million cars globally in the first three months of 2011. In the same period of last year, it was 1.73 million vehicles, for a growth of 13.7 percent.

The “increase means Europe’s largest automaker also clearly outperformed the overall market, which grew 8.1 percent,” proclaims a statement emailed from Wolfsburg. Group sales in March were also respectable: 767,200 units, up 8.1 percent over March 2010, and a new record.

From the perspective of America, where Volkswagen has been relatively luckless ever since the success of the Bug, these numbers may look surprising. Read More >

The March 11 tsunami is having long term effects on Japanese car production. Toyota, the world’s and by far Japan’s largest car company, is severely impacted. Toyota just announced that vehicle production from May 10 to June 3 will proceed at approximately 50 percent of normal. Read More >

It was easily one of the best entries in the old CAR magazine “Good, Bad, and Ugly”: “Good: Her name is Rio… Bad: …and she’s crap.” Don’t look for this new-generation Rio to receive the same dismissive insult, at least not among the journalists who actually have a chance to drive and honestly evaluate the vehicle.
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Back in November of 2009, when GM announced that it would repay its government loans, it didn’t take much investigation to realize that The General was simply shuffling government money from one pocket to the other and that true “payback” was still a ways off. The New York Times asked me to write an op-ed on the subject, and I took the opportunity to point out the reality of the situation and note

G.M.’s global interests are far too diverse for it to serve its taxpayer owners faithfully, and it can’t afford to subjugate its business prerogatives to the political needs of its major shareholder in the White House. So, unless Americans develop a sudden obsession with G.M.’s $40,000 Volt electric car just in time for an I.P.O., taxpayers will be stuck with tens of billions of dollars in losses.

Afterward, while our government contemplates its runaway deficit and getting rid of its 8 percent of Chrysler’s equity, perhaps we’ll get an admission that General Motors still owes the American people. Without one, the relationship between the public and the automaker, and the Obama administration as well, may never be the same.

And now that our government finds itself “contemplating a runaway deficit and getting rid of its 8 percent of Chrysler’s equity,” would you believe that a similar federal money-shuffle is under way? Believe it.

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