Anywhere there’s a gold rush, competitors have to worry about getting caught on the bust-end of a boom-bust cycle. With the growth of China’s car market projected to roll all the way to about 20m units annually, automakers hoping to cash in on booming sales have to wonder whether their investments in Chinese capacity will actually be used efficiently. And, as the European market is learning, government consumer incentives can also inflate projections, only to create a collapse in demand after they are phased out. These factors have combined to create a bit of a panic about the possibility of a Chinese-market oversupply, as financial analysts start reigning in automakers’ rampant Sino-optimism.

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Ken Dowd writes:

I’ve got high compression readings of over 190 lbs on all cyls on my TR4.  The head has been reworked twice that I know of, about .050 has been shaved.  I got these readings after putting the engine back together with all new sleeves, pistons, rings and a head/valve job.  I CCed. the head at 55cc and crunched  the numbers on several online compression ratio calculators and figured my compression to be about 9.5:1   Compression ratio on the stock engine is 9:1. Would you expect to see such  high compression readings with such a small increase in compression ratio?

I’ve searched the world over and cannot find a spec for compression on a healthy 2138cc TR4 engine.  Do you have any experience with after market solid copper oversized (thicker) head gaskets to bring down compression? That is the only thing I can come up with. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

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The Florida legislature gave final approval yesterday to legislation giving municipal governments permission to operate red light cameras in return for a significant cut of the profit generated. The state Senate voted 30 to 7 to adopt a bill that had been approved last week by the House by a 77 to 33 vote. Passage of the measure represents a significant victory for American Traffic Solutions, a firm that installed and operated red light cameras in violation of state law on the gamble that the legislature would eventually authorize photo ticketing.

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Here is one sad aspect to the inevitable consolidation of the wild and wooly Chinese car industry: It will reduce the amount of humorous material. Case in point: Zhejiang Gonow Auto, known as the creator of such memorable cars as the „Gonow Aoosed GS” will most likely not grace us with more unforgettable nameplates. True to its name, Gonow is gone. Well, not really. Read More >

When I was a kid copywriter on the Volkswagen account, grumpy but thorough VW engineers drummed one tenet of green into me: You don’t save gas with secret carburetors which the oil companies hide. You save by shedding weight. The less weight to push around, the less energy is needed to do the pushing. From the First Law of Thermodynamics to Einstein, all will agree. Like we agree on the need for a balanced diet. Then we go to the next Wendy’s, and order a triple Whopper. Despite the wisdom, cars tend to gain heft over the years like an erstwhile skinny Italian bella ragazza after the age of 30.

With tougher environmental regulations spreading across the globe, and CO2 mutating into a climate-ogre from something that used to provide the fizz in a soda, automakers remember the old engineering rule: Less weight, less gas, less crud. Read More >

Shai Agassi’s Better Place possibly clinched a possibly better deal than having three taxis running around in Tokyo. Possibly.

According to the Financial Times, Better Place signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s Chery “to develop prototypes for electric vehicles to be used in regional sate-sponsored pilot projects.” This could give Better Place access to what the FT calls “potentially the biggest future market for battery-powered cars.”

The system remains the same: switchable batteries that will be swapped at charging stations faster than you can swap-in the extra battery of your camera. If you can find it. Israel and Denmark are running tests. But these are tiny countries, and this is China. Read More >

It seems obvious that I’m making the CC Clues too easy. So we’re going to do something else here: a replay of a very difficult Mystery Car Identification contest that ran on another site back in the day when they still did such mundane things. And what made me think of it? It ran for several days, and yours truly finally nailed it; my life’s greatest achievement. It gave me the inspiration for the CC Clue a few years later. We’re going to have to use the honor system: if you actually remember it (I doubt you will), please refrain. Because the guesses alone are going to be fun. And we will duly acknowledge said author and web site when the contest ends.

Hint: This is a production scoop, not an aftermarket or custom item.

Update: This car was not necessarily found on the street!

Contest Over: We have a correct guess: Dave Shulze, who said 1954 Fiat 8V. Excellent job!

I realize in retrospect that this may not have been such a brilliant idea given the how easy it is to find everything on Google. Oh well; seemed like a good idea at the time.  BTW, I gave away the Mazda Rotary Kit to the first ever CC Clue winner. Sorry about not having prizes. It’s for the honor!

Here’s the link to my cyber-buddy Murilee Martin’s contest at Jalopnik:

http://jalopnik.com/301258/what-was-that-mystery-car-1954-fiat-8v

Ironically, I thought it was the front facing hood scoop I was identifying; I didn’t realize it also had two smaller rear facing extraction scoops too.

Well, the TR-6 must have been way too easy. Revver had it before my hand fully returned from hitting the “publish” button. I hope this one is going to be a bit more challenging, but you guys are amazing.

It’s yellow convertible week at CC, and I have one too many. And since I have a lovely early sixties VW Cabriolet (un-yellow) in the can, this less desirable early seventies Super Beetle Cabrio gets nudged into the Outtake position.  No hard feelings. Read More >

Fleet sales were up 47 percent in the first quarter of this year, driving sales at a number of automakers. Ford, in particular, is targeting fleet sales unapologetically by touting a recovery in resale values for the Blue Oval Brand. Ford’s Mark Fields tells the Freep:

We love fleets at Ford…Ford remains focused on our disciplined approach to daily rental, making sure we help keep growing residual values

At Chrysler, which suffers from some of the lowest resale values in the business thanks in part to a longtime addiction to fleet sales, the response seems a bit more… conflicted.

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Deutsche Straßen sind nicht der Nürburgring.

But there I go, quoting German Minister of Transportation Peter Ramsauer out of context, and in the original. Herr Ramsauer’s rebuke comes on news of a late-night crash involving a future Mercedes ML Class prototype, that resulted in the death of a 26-year old man over the weekend. The crash took place on a stretch of non-speed-limited autobahn between Singen and Stuttgart, favored by Mercedes and Porsche for high-speed testing. Apparently the victim had been involved in a minor accident and was trying to exit his vehicle (stalled in the left lane, according to Der Spiegel) when the Mercedes test mule slammed into his car, killing him instantly. The 52-year old test driver is under investigation for negligent homicide.

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… you’ll get covered in red food coloring? Or is this ad by Mudra Group for the Bangalore Traffic Police [from Copyranter via Daily Dish] trying to say something else? Meanwhile, when do we get an Oprah Winfrey version of this spot?

Back in October, GM’s then-CEO Fritz Henderson announced that GM would make a stand on market share, refusing to allow its share of the US market to slip below 29 percent. Oh wait, that was Gary Cowger’s campaign of 2003, which saw GM execs wearing symbolic “29” lapel pins. Where Henderson actually drew GM’s market share line in the sand six months ago was

At this point about 19 percent… We’ll finalize that, but I’m not interested in going down from that

And according to the Detroit Free Press, GM actually achieved that goal in December, logging a 21 percent share based on Autodata findings. Unfortunately, things have been slip-sliding ever since. In February, GM’s share fell to 18.1 percent, and last month it fell even further, to 17.6 percent.

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CAFE got you down? Worried that it’s only a matter of time before the feds come for your V8? You can relax a little, as General Motors is announcing that it will spend nearly a billion dollars rolling out its next generation of small-block V8 engines. According to Automotive News [sub], GM is dropping $893m to upgrade or renovate engine plants in Tonawanda, NY; Bay City, MI; Bedford, IN; Defiance, OH; and St. Catharines, Ontario. These new plants will build GM’s next generation of all-aluminum V8 engines, which will use direct-injection and a new combustion system for improved efficiency.GM won’t say what vehicles these new V8s will be offered in, but expect this to signal the end of the road for the Northstar family of engines as well as replacing the outgoing small-blocks. And what of GM’s commitment to reducing emissions? According to The General’s presser, all of its future small-block V8s will be E85-capable, meaning they qualify for the CAFE ramp-up’s Flex Fuel Vehicle credit loophole. As such,

their fuel economy is determined using a special calculation procedure that results in those vehicles being assigned a higher fuel economy level than would otherwise occur.

Which helps explain why Sen Chuck Schumer (D-NY) doesn’t mind publicly lobbying for V8 production at Tonawanda despite his strong belief in Global Warming: the regulatory fix was already in.

In a study for the International Council on Clean Transportation [full study in PDF format here], Lotus Engineering sought to prove that major reductions in the mass and fuel consumption of mass-market vehicles would be possible by 2020 through the use of new materials and architectures. Starting with a Toyota Venza crossover, Lotus was able to show that a 38 percent reduction in vehicle mass (not counting the powertrain, 33 percent reduction including powertrain) will be possible with a mere three percent increase in component costs.  Based on DOE estimates, that means the Venza’s efficiency could be improved by 23 percent solely through changes in materials and design, with future powertrain efficiency gains adding cumulative benefits.

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