So where were we? Oh yes. After wandering the earth (and working in a call center) for the first few months of 1995, I ended up at a very small Ford dealership located in the heart of Columbus, Ohio. On my first day, I was paired with another fellow who was also starting out at the dealership. I’ll call him… Rodney. He was an outgoing, cheerful thirty-one-year-old man who looked remarkably like the Colt 45-commercial-era Billy Dee Williams. Rodney was very interested in the dealership’s demo program, because he didn’t own a car. Every day he walked from his apartment a mile or so away, and every night he walked back home. The general manager took pity on him and broke the thirty-days-of-service-before-a-demo rule to put him in a Ranger Club Cab.

I started slowly at the dealership but by the time the 1996 model year rolled around I was regularly one of the top two or three guys on the board every month. More importantly, I was the most effective advocate in the shop for the Red Carpet Lease 24-month program. One month I moved 16 units and leased 14 of ’em. At least three of those were people I’d had to dissuade from writing me a check for the whole car on the spot. That’s right, I converted cash buyers to lessors. Why? There was a fifty-dollar spiff.

I was eventually rewarded for my performance by being permitted to order my own demo, just like the 55-year-old Brylcreemers who had been serving at the store since before ‘Nam. I knew exactly what I wanted. Start with a 1996 Thunderbird LX, black with beige interior. Add just three options: Compact disc player. Power Moonroof. And, most importantly, a 4.6 “mod motor”. The order was accepted at the factory. I was four weeks away from my ‘Bird. But Rodney had some other plans involving Ford’s aging coupe…
Read More >

GM and Ford reported new monthly record sales in China, says the usually reliable government-owned China Daily. Really?

Ford said its China sales rose 17.8 percent. Ford is a relative nobody in China. File under “never mind.”

GM China’s May numbers are much more remarkable. They need to be carefully read. Tread carefully: Cleverly hidden landmines ahead! Read More >

There’s no doubt that cars can be time machines… but so can cameras. These pictures of the LUC Chopard classic car rally in Moscow were taken a week ago today, but thanks to the impeccable cars, time-warp setting and old-school photo techniques, they somehow manage to capture the flavor of a lost era. Even when a blinged-out Infiniti QX intrudes, reminding the viewer that these are just a bunch of plutocrats playing with their expensive toys circa 2010. As is so often the case, the fantasy is far more satisfying than the reality. It’s Sunday… why not indulge a little?

[Courtesy: EnglishRussia, Hat Tip: commenter rodehardputupwet]

TTAC’s May sales analysis can’t stop, won’t stop, with this look at medium and large non-luxury SUVs. Only GM made real progress over May 2009’s numbers… everyone else is lucky to be treading water here.

With Honda and Toyota suddenly taking hydrogen fuel cells seriously, Hyundai-Kia is jumping on the bandwagon. Byung Ki Ahn, general manager of Hyundai-Kia’s Fuel Cell Group tells Autocar

There are already agreements between car makers such as ourselves and legislators in Europe, North America and Japan to build up to the mass production of fuel cell cars by 2015. Hydrogen production capacity and refuelling infrastructure will be improved. Pilot-scale production of 1000 fuel cell cars a year will begin for us in two years. Our first cars won’t be fully commercialised [they will probably be leased , not bought outright] but they will allow us to make the final stages of development progress before we begin commercial production of around 10,000 hydrogen cars a year in 2015

Read More >

What?: A race between a MINI Cooper S and a Porsche 911.

Where?: Facebook, and presumably an extremely twisty track.

Why?: Brand equity. Publicity. Mid-life crisis sales. Making sure nobody knows the Cayman exists.

After on-again and off-again attempts at an Eurasian marriage (which I would unreservedly endorse,) Mitsubishi and PSA are doing the thing currently en vogue in Europe: Live happily in sin, and produce little ones. Very little ones. Read More >

It’s out. Volkswagen’s best kept secret is out. At VW do Brasil’s website. The price for the mid-size (for Brazil) Volkswagen Amarok is out. It’s way out there. You can pre-order now. Ready? Take your checkbook out. Breathe deeply … Read More >

Google Trends says it’s so, according to gm-volt.com [via Autoblog]. The Leaf also has 54,000 Facebook fans to the Volt’s 24,000. Plus, the Leaf has 130,000 people on its official “interest list” while the Volt boasts a mere 42,000. The danger here: that Leaf beats the Volt to becoming the EV segment’s first successful brand, earning it “the new Prius” status that Bob Lutz so badly wanted to bring home to Detroit. [Hat Tip: gslippy]

China is an important market for Daimler. China already buys more S-Class cars than any other country. Why not buy a chunk of Daimler and get it over with? The Chinese would find open doors: Daimler’s CFO Bodo Uebber “would welcome it if there are Chinese names in our shareholder structure.” Read More >

Chrysler is sending out recall notices to owners of 25,000 Dodge Calibers and Jeeps. The reason: Accelerator pedals could become stuck and cause unintended acceleration, Chrysler said according to a report in Reuters. Sound familiar? Wait, there is more … Read More >

The chart is the problem: VW wants to sell a million cars in the US by 2018, and if Audi’s going to account for 200k of that volume, the VW brand has to get its sales headed towards the 800k range. Ostensibly, the pictures are the solution: with the Passat and Tiguan selling like they have herpes, these updates are going to be an important element of how VW gets from where it is to where it wants to be. And though neither of these images are of the highest quality, they point to some serious dullification. Apparently VW’s bid for “mainstream relevance” mean turning its vehicles into snooze-mobiles. But is the Toyota school of styling going to put Vee-Dub over the top?