You’ve seen nothing yet, thinks Japan’s Nikkei. “The latest round of partnerships is widely seen as just the beginning of a major shakeup of the automaking industry,” says the paper that is usually well informed about these matters.
“Both Mitsubishi and Suzuki should take cues from Nissan Motor Co, which was rescued from the brink of bankruptcy in 1999 by French firm Renault SA.” says the Nikkei: Translation: Don’t just have small minority share and swap deals. Sell majority control to partners with deep pockets. And get ready for a serious battle for world market domination. Read More >
The NY Times is saying that the deal to sell the outgoing Saab 9-5 and 9-3 tooling is done. We reported that it was going to happen, and that BAIC had the money lined up. The amount spent for the machinery and rights to build the two models was not disclosed. And of course, that still leaves the final outcome of Saab and the new 9-5 unresolved. Read More >
Six hours to showtime. We have 58 vehicles and 1 motorcycle for today’s sale. It will be a very interesting day between the first dealer conversation and the last car that rolls (or gets pushed) through the lane. We’re going to be managing an on site sale for a large financial institution that is most definitely not in the car business. Their business is the money business. They will demand 59 checks in hand within 24 hours, and these vehicles must help keep their books healthy for the end of year bonuses. Read More >
My wild guess that today’s Kurbside Klassic Konvertible had a degree of rarity has been confirmed. According to Jamie who has his ’86 ragtop posted at cardomain, only 4,759 of these un-Grosser 600’s were made. And he also found a period ad for our car. Now we know that the little buzz-bomb 2.2 turbo was a real sleeper, and could whip the 600ES to sixty in…wait a minute! I just looked at it a again. It says zero to 50 in 5.8 seconds. And I thought (wrongly) that the pathetic 0-50 bragging rights era had ended by 1986. Full ad after the jump (too big): Read More >
It’s good to see an occasional glimpse of the good old Mercedes, solving the great unsolved automotive engineering challenges through sheer triumph of the will. Yes, today’s convertibles are already dramatically calmer than the ’65 Fury that tried to give me a head start on dread locks. But good enough is not good enough at Mercedes. For over a decade, their engineers have been toiling on the challenge of the truly turbulent-free convertible. Their efforts have paid off in the form of the new 2011 E-Class convertible, due this May in the US. All the (un) hair-raising details and more pics of Aircap in action follow: Read More >
Autocar is reporting that Kia has its ever-eager eyes on the affordable RWD sporty coupe market. It’s 2008 Kee coupe concept could borrow the Genesis coupe’s RWD platform when it eventually makes its appearance.
In an exclusive interview Kia design director Peter Schreyer told Autocar that the Kee wasn’t in the European product plan for the next two years, but also confirmed that he is very keen to bring added strength and desirability to the Kia brand with such a car.
BigLorryBlog has been the site for some recent bragging about “mine is longer than yours”. The latest entry, a wind turbine blade,comes with an actual measurement, a whopping 61.5 meters (202 feet). But the previous entry (after the jump) is nothing to be embarrassed about either, even thought it lacks any official measurements. Note that neither load was being pulled by a Hummer. Read More >
Chopped and Diced has a nice set of turbine pictures, including the big trucks from Ford, GMC, and Chevrolet. The trucks probably made the most sense for a practical turbine application, given their steady power output requirements and low maintenance. But diesels just haven’t been beat when it comes to high thermal efficiency, which tops 50% in the case of the giant ship engines we showed you last week. More turbine trucks and an insane looking home made turbine bike after the jump: Read More >
The Friends of the National Automotive History Collection have voted the Ford Flex as their “Collectible Car of the Future” of 2009. According to the NAHC’s press release, the award process “asked members to predict which of this year’s new vehicles will turn heads in the Woodward Cruise of 2034.” Of course, this criteria allowed only Detroit iron into the running, a stricture that we won’t hold you to here. We don’t care where in the world your nominated vehicle is built or sold, we just want to know what new car sold anywhere will be a coveted classic in 20 years. Our first nomination comes from TTAC commenter gslippy, who figures
Early Nanos will become collector’s items someday, just as the Honda N600 has.
That’s a solid nomination to start things off with, to which I would simply add the BYD F3DM. Not only is it the world’s first mass-produced plug-in hybrid, it has also sold miserably, further adding to its future collector value.
The Tata Nano is sprouting new variants in its global ambitions and to fend off the competition. Even before the little Basmati burner ramps up to large-scale production in its new dedicated factory, and possible franchise manufacturers take the bait, news of its offshoots never ends. Tata is managing the Nano brand’s exposure just fine. Lets start with the ultimate in mixed metaphors, the Darth Vader helmet-inspired “Design”: Read More >
I have a 2000 Ford Ranger, 2wd 3.0L V6 with 143k miles. The CEL has been on for at least last 70k and I finally went to AutoZone and got the code read. Turns out the O2 sensor is bad and the EGR valve is stuck. Is that the kind of thing that I can fix myself? I don’t want to put a whole lot of money in this truck seeing as it has a lot of miles and has been running reasonably well, if inefficiently (21 mpg all highway), for so long. I have an ok tool set and I do my brakes, but I recently paid $70 to have the fuel filter replaced-I’ve done it before and I didn’t want to do it again. The truck is going back to my parents to be semi-retired and put into “farm use” so I wouldn’t mind fixing it up a little before giving it back but I don’t want to spend a lot.
TAC, an Australian government fund to benefit injured road-accident victims, has been airing intense and graphic safe driving ads since 1986. Their latest campaign is a montage from the past twenty years of their ads. The first one here is called “Everyone Hurts”. That would include the viewer, I assume. Not effective enough? There’s a longer five minute version that should do the job after the jump: Read More >
Das Autohaus [sub] has it from India’s Economic Times that VW and Suzuki are planning a low-priced mini-car which could give Tata’s Nano some problems. Read More >
Six hours to showtime. We have 58 vehicles and 1 motorcycle for today’s sale. It will be a very interesting day between the first dealer conversation and the last car that rolls (or gets pushed) through the lane. We’re going to be managing an on site sale for a large financial institution that is most definitely not in the car business. Their business is the money business. They will demand 59 checks in hand within 24 hours, and these vehicles must help keep their books healthy for the end of year bonuses.
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