In the brouhaha over Ferrari’s alleged trademark violation, Ferrari did the smart thing and surrendered. Ferrari withdrew the “F150” name for its new Formula One race car. Ford had brought suit in federal court, alleging that “Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the ‘F150′ in order to capitalize on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark.” Read More >
The attentive reader of TTAC is not surprised by the news provided by Automobilwoche [sub] that Toyota will introduce a plug-in version of its iQ by 2012. It had been on Toyota’s green roadmap for months. The (not really) surprising news is: You won’t be able to buy the EV iQ when it gets launched. Read More >
As reported here, GM’s and Volkswagen’s Chinese partner SAIC will halt the trading of its shares on Monday in anticipation of a major plan. The plan doesn’t appear to be fully hatched: According to People’s Daily, “SAIC will make an announcement on the plan in five trading days.”
But what’s that secret plan? Speculations by our commenters range from buying more of GM to buying Saab. One of the Best & Brightest appears to be close to the truth – as far as we can fathom at this point. Read More >
Keith writes:
Hi Sajeev and Steve,
God, I hope you can help me out with this one. I’m not much of a writer so I’ll skip to the relevant points:
1. I have a 1993 Chevy S-10 with ~100k miles that I paid about $1500 for. I just found out it needs $2000 in transmission/brake work (it also needs a new muffler at some point, but that’s not urgent). Many are urging me not to put money into the Chevy, but use my $3000-ish in savings to buy something else. I’ve always had terrible luck with beaters– I’m on car #8 at 22 years old– and I am very reluctant to buy another collection of unknown mechanical problems. Apart from the work needed, the truck is otherwise in pretty good shape.
2. I’m a student by night and an office worker by day, live in Orange County, so there are no real weather or space considerations. I just need a commuter car that *works* and possibly has some hint of style or sportiness.
3. My credit is absolute shit. As far as I know, my score is around 610 currently. I know that the credit markets have supposedly thawed somewhat, and if I were to use the money as a down payment I could hopefully swing a loan for a car in the $10k-13k range.
Right now I’m leaning towards a Miata on the beater side, financing something in the $10k range such as a used Mazda 6 or Fusion, or stretching things and getting a new Kia Soul around $13k-14k. Alternatively, I could spend the money on the truck and hope that engine problems don’t develop anytime soon.
Thoughts? Saving up more money isn’t really an option since without the transmission work the car doesn’t really have much longer. Thanks for any advice!
Two years ago, Nissan sent a bizarre little beach buggy of a concept, called the Qazana, to the Geneva Auto Show. At the time Autoblog’s Chris Paukert called the concept that would become the Nissan Juke “so bizarre it almost looks French”… but little did anyone know the French would eventually claim the Juke’s heritage. Now, Renault, the French leg of Carlos Ghosn’s Renault-Nissan alliance is bringing their own interpretation of the compact-coupe-ute with this, the Renault Captur. Will it being searing eyeballs on the French street any time soon? Ghosn only knows…
Quoth the release:
The official Porsche Facebook fan page reached a social media landmark, when it welcomed its one-millionth fan recently. Especially for its one million devotees Porsche invited them to sign-up via Facebook to have their name inscribed on a special Porsche model. More than 27.000 Fans decided to have their signature on a real Porsche. This vehicle, the 911 GT3 R Hybrid, will be displayed as part of a unique exhibit at the Porsche Museum in February 2011. Enjoy a special Porsche model with a personal touch.
For a look at the car, and for a special photo-illustration of what a Panamera signed by all its “fans” might look like, click the jump.
Bloomberg reports
GM plans to pay bonuses to most managers equal to 15 percent to 20 percent of their annual salary and as high as 50 percent to less than 1 percent of its 26,000 U.S. salaried employees, said one of the people, who asked not to be named revealing internal plans. Bonuses for Chrysler’s 10,755 salaried workers will average about $10,000, with a small group getting as much as half of their salary, one of the people said.
And with GM and Chrysler heading into contract negotiations with the UAW, this is not going to be winning the manufacturers many friends among the union.
“The union is going to be very angry about this,” Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, said in an interview yesterday. “If these kinds of bonuses are paid to salaried workers, then the union’s demands will increase, knowing management can’t claim an inability to pay.”
But wait, isn’t GM giving hourly workers the biggest bonuses in company history? What’s going on here?
Reuters reports:
Trading in the shares of China’s top carmaker SAIC Motor Corp will be suspended from February 14 pending a material corporate announcement, SAIC said on Friday.
SAIC, the Chinese partner of General Motors and Volkswagen, and owner of the MG Rover plant in Britain, said it has been notified by its holding company SAIC Group that it is working on a major plan involving SAIC and discussions over the proposal are continuing, it said in a filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
SAIC said it expects to make an announcement regarding the plan in five trading days following the trade suspension.
SAIC owns about one percent of GM, it is the majority owner of its Shanghai-GM joint venture and controls GM’s Indian-market operations… in fact, the last time SAIC suspended shares this way was when it took over GM’s Chinese and Indian ventures. So, what’s next? The mind boggles…
Two years ago, when Kia Souls were just starting to arrive on dealer lots, the Peter Schreyer-styled mini-MPVs looked like “visitors from another planet” on lots filled with old-style Optimas, Spectras and Rios. Today, the Soul fits in fine with its newly-styling siblings… now it’s the old, dumpy Rio’s turn to feel out of place. Along with the frumpy Sedona, the littlest Kia reminds visitors to the Kia lot that once upon a time, not too long ago, Kia’s cars really were an automotive last resort. It’s not that these are fundamentally bad vehicles, but compared to the pop and sizzle offered by their new siblings, they simply aren’t trying to be more than basic transportation. But now, with a new global Rio set to debut at the Geneva Auto Show, even the littlest Kia is getting in on the family’s new flair for visual drama.
The South Dakota House of Representatives voted 43 to 24 on Tuesday to prohibit the use of red light cameras and speed cameras in the state. A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by state Representative Peggy Gibson (D-Huron) took aim at the controversial automated ticketing machine set up in Sioux Falls, describing the due process denied innocent motorists ticketed by the system.
“My constituent not only did not own the car that was photographed, but she was not even in Sioux Falls at the time,” Gibson said Tuesday. “In other words, she was presumed guilty of a traffic violation she did not commit in a car she did not own, but she had to go to great lengths to prove her innocence.”
Car sales in India powered ahead in January. India added 184,332 passenger cars to its roads, up 26.3 percent. According to the Hindustan Times, this was “the highest ever in a month eclipsing the previous record set only three months ago.” Allow me to use this opportunity for a small lecture on the use and abuse of auto industry statistics, in Asia, and around the world. Read More >
Good news! The 2012 Acura TL has had a beak-ectomy. I was so personally affected by the super-Accord’s gorgeous front end that I spent a full hour talking about it to the, ahem, auto-show professional assigned to said entry-luxury sedan. She was quite knowledgeable, and when she wore her heels we happened to be exactly the same height.
China’s prognosticated car bubble does not appear to experience its prognosticated burst. One by one, Chinese sales numbers for January are coming in, and none of them are bad. Read More >
Chrysler and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has given Forbes’ Joann Muller what I believe to be one of his best interviews since arriving on the US scene. In it, Sergio dishes on everything from the bailout (“I risked everything – I got 35 percent of something that was worth nothing”), to Chrysler’s 2011 sales target (“a very, very tough uphill battle”), to its new product
I couldn’t have done more from a product standpoint than I’ve done. I mean you know, I tried every trick in the book that I knew and I invented some, but you know, 16 products in 12 months – at least that part of it was a record. The rest of it is to be proven.
But the strangest revelation from Sergio is that Alfa Romeo’s future success will be, in a manner of speaking, “Imported from Detroit.” Read the whole thing over at Forbes, or hit the jump for Sergio’s vision for his red-blooded Italian brand.
The WSJ reports that Mexico is emerging as one of the big winners the the automotive sector recovery, as Edward Solis, President of the Mexican Automobile Industry Association crows
We have a number that historically we’ve never had before. Fourteen of every 100 vehicles sold in the U.S. are Mexican-made in the month of January. Obviously, we can’t say that it marks a trend, that it’s going to continue like that, but it is very interesting that in our principal market we are growing in such a dynamic way.
Full-year US market share for Mexican-assembled vehicles was 11 percent for 2010, but with Hecho-en-Mexico cars like the Fiesta and new Jetta coming on strong, expect that to keep growing. Just don’t tell the hosts of Top Gear!
Recent Comments