Fiat Chrysler Automobiles may have only one new model built in North America over the next 18 months after executives pushed back development of others due to brisk sales of current models, Reuters is reporting.

The redesigned Chrysler Town and Country minivan may be the only new car built stateside that FCA plans to launch in the next 18 months, sources told Reuters. The company is planning to bring to the United States three Italian cars — the Fiat Spider, Maserati’s crossover and the Alfa Romeo Giulia — in the same timeframe.

This is the part where we would like to mention that a new Jeep Grand Cherokee and Wrangler are seriously overdue.

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Automotive News is reporting the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety will rate versions of Ford’s F-150 pickup with dramatically different safety ratings after re-testing versions of the pickup, which is a highly unusual move for the safety nonprofit.

The SuperCrew cab version of the F-150 earned the highest marks from the IIHS in its small overlap crash test, earning a Top Safety Pick rating. The re-tested SuperCab registers only a “marginal” rating in the same crash.

The difference, according to Automotive News, are tubular frames called “wheel blockers” installed on the SuperCrew, but missing from the SuperCab and Regular Cab models.

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Merkur? ZOMG SANJEEV Y U NO LS1-FTW?

No surprise, the auto journo that insists on everything LS-swapped is actually a big ol’ fraud. Do as he says, not as he does with TTAC’s Project Car — a 1983 Ford Sierra Ghia previously reviewed with the promise of more to come.

Promises: kept.

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Way at the bottom of the comments on yesterday’s Hyundai Santa Cruz article was a reference to a vehicle that I think, if it was built today, would probably sell better today than it ever did when it was new.

The Isuzu VehiCROSS, for all its faults, is (almost) exactly what people are craving today in a crossover-fueled market: go-anywhere utility, a tall sitting position, and full wrap-around plastic body cladding. Oh, and you either love it or hate it, just like every other new, successful crossover hitting the market in America at the rate of 2.5 new models per second.

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Volkswagen has announced sweeping changes to their suite of tech-driven safety features for the 2016 model year, making a vast array of options available on almost every model within its range.

The features, which are currently only available on the Touareg, will trickle down to a number of other models including the Beetle, CC, Jetta, Passat and Golf in all its flavors.

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Reuters Investigates has a scathing report on foreign workers in Japan at some of Subaru’s most important suppliers. According to the news agency, due to the combination of a booming “Abenomics”, Japan’s 2010 asylum seeker program, and manufacturers looking for cheap sources of expendable labor, foreigners are taken advantage of and treated as second- and third-class workers. Another program meant to help Chinese citizens learn manufacturing skills in Japan is also implicated in helping Subaru take advantage of marginalized immigrant workers.

Subaru isn’t the only automotive manufacturer named as the same suppliers also feed parts to Honda and Toyota.

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The best-selling mid-size sedans in the United States will catch up to their competition by offering boosted fours under their hoods soon, Automotive News is reporting (via Car & Driver).

The long-running Camry will replace its six-cylinder engine with the turbo four, though the Accord is likely to use a new, smaller, boosted four pot to replace its base four-cylinder engine.

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Hyundai America chief Dave Zuchowski told Car and Driver that he expects the Santa Cruz Concept, seen here, to be given the go-ahead from Korean bosses this year.

That means the Subaru Brat-inspired pickup, based on the Hyundai Tucson, could go on sale sometime soon, for which you can pay actual money for a real one of these (maybe with a diesel!) compact pickups. However, the pickup’s viability hinges on a couple key points.

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Nissan scolded one of its dealers Tuesday for releasing an ad showing the battering of a piñata resembling Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Automotive News is reporting.

The ad depicts salesmen repeatedly hitting a Trump-looking piñata and declaring, “At Van Nuys Nissan, Latinos rule.” The ad was made after Trump denounced some undocumented Mexican immigrants as “rapists” in a June political speech.

“We find these advertisements to be neither responsible or respectful, and we do not condone what they represent,” Nissan said in a statement. “We expect our dealers to establish advertising that is responsible and respectful and represents the best interest of the Nissan brand.”

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Jaguar’s coming crossover, dubbed F-Pace, was sent all over the world to test in various climates, and the automaker is sharing its photo album from the trip.

The F-Pace pictured here is only slightly camouflaged ahead of its official unveiling in Frankfurt later this year. The pictures show a crossover that’s expected to take on the likes of the BMW X4 and Porsche Macan when it goes on sale next year — if the automaker is to be taken seriously.

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Thomas Kreutzer’s original post about Discovery’s Fast N’ Loud is one of the most popular articles in TTAC history, for reasons that completely escape me. I’ve never been able to watch more than five minutes of the show. I also have a healthy dose of contempt for the show’s star, Richard Rawlings, and his entirely unsupported claim of a “new Cannonball record” a few years ago. To claim a “Cannonball record” for driving a different route from Brock’s original and then to approach the matter of actual proof with a the-dog-ate-my-homework mindset… well, that’s like telling people that you’re the lead singer in a Justin Bieber cover band but that you can’t actually sing quite like the Biebs and you also forgot to put up any YouTube videos of your performances. What’s the point?

Regardless of the merits of the TV show or the tattoo-commemorated record, however, one thing you cannot deny is that Mr. Rawlings is an extremely sharp businessman and entrepreneur who maximizes his profit from every opportunity. And the latest news from Dallas might be further proof of that.

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Since 2010 — when America’s auto industry was in tatters but also in recovery — General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Toyota USA, and American Honda have lost 5.5 percentage points of market share.

Through the first half of 2015, those four automobile manufacturers produced 56.1 percent of all new vehicle sales in the United States, down from 61.6 percent in calendar year 2010.  Read More >

BMW may be coy about it, but there’s no denying that manual transmissions are dying a fairly ignominious death in most cars. It’s a shame. Manuals are more often found as slushboxes in econo-drones with cloth everything paired to a remedial engine.

Cheap manual transmissions aren’t worth saving. In 20 years, when everything except your mountain bike comes with an automatic transmission, will you look fondly on the Chevy Cobalt’s 5-speed guessing game? Probably not.

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Hey new folks crawling through TTAC in the middle of the night. Are you trying to sign up to post a comment and the website is saying “You Shall Not Pass”? Don’t worry. This is a planned signup outage due to … reasons.

For the rest of you who already have commenter accounts: If all goes as planned, we will have a nice surprise for you tomorrow morning. No, I am not going to tell you what it is, but feel free to put on your tinfoil hats and come up with incredible, incendiary conspiracy theories in the comments.

Acura head honcho Michael Accavitti (left) is head honcho no more. Honda’s luxury brand will now be led by former Division Director of Auto Design at Honda R&D Americas, Jon Ikeda (right), an industrial designer responsible for the 2004 Acura TL.

Ikeda will assume the top post, Vice President and General Manager of the Acura Division, effective immediately as Accavitti is no longer with the company.

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