Reuters is reporting police have raided Toyota’s office in Tokyo in connection with the arrest of communications chief Julie Hamp over alleged drug importation offences.
When asked, a Toyota spokesman declined to comment on the nature of the police presence, but said the company is cooperating with police.
Hamp, the first female senior executive at Toyota, has a long road ahead of her if there’s enough evidence to bring her to trial, as we covered last week.
[Source: Reuters]
The Tesla Model 3 duo will seem like vaporware for a while longer, as full production of the low-cost EVs won’t start until 2018.
I usually have more fun with $5,000 cars than with $55,000 cars.
It’s not because I’m cheap. Well, let me rephrase that. I love investing in a quality vehicle, but in the world that is wholesale auctions, I rarely get to see them. You can find nearly anything at the auctions that has been traded-in, repossessed or not picked up at the end of it’s lease. What you can’t find are the keepers.
Toyota imported only a bit over 5,000 of these IS F sports sedans from 2008 thru 2014. The number brought to auction so far in 2015? 35. Annualized, that’s less than a 1.5% turnover rate in a business where anywhere from 20% to 60% of late model vehicles will revisit ‘wholesale heaven’ before getting shucked back into a retail dealership.
After a week and change behind the wheel of this 2014 Lexus IS F, I finally figured out why you see so few of these vehicles at the auctions. It’s the one missing ingredient that nearly every enthusiast publication glosses over when they review any high-end sports car.
The real world ownership experience.
“I was pulling into a parking lot and I stopped so I could back into a spot. I had a friend of mine in the passenger seat. I backed into the spot, and was in a stopped position. I was in neutral (the vehicle is a manual 5 speed). My friend got out of the car, I had my door open as well. As my friend got out of the passenger side and was closing the door both airbags deployed.”
Not exactly what you’d expect, right?
Land Rover USA sales jumped 19% to 5,382 units in May 2015, the fifth month out of the last six that Land Rover volume has crested the 5,000-unit barrier. Land Rover accomplished that feat just once in the previous twelve months.
More interesting than the brand’s surge – sales are up 25% year-to-date – is the fact that Land Rover shot off to a record start in 2015 with little impact from the LR2-replacing Discovery Sport. Read More >
Though the Nissan IDx is still dead, Chief Creative Officer Shiro Nakamura believes a more “innovative and exciting” Juke may make up for the loss.
Last Friday, the U.S. Transportation Department’s Office of Inspector General dropped the sledgehammer on the NHTSA over its failings in automotive safety.
The Toyota Prius can be had in compact, wagon and original recipe, but there may soon be another addition to the family: an SUV.
Volkswagen USA CEO Michael Horn says the automaker expects “limited growth” until its new SUVs arrive, while one of its suppliers sets up shop in Tennessee.
A hatchback version of the 2016 Chevrolet Cruze was shown to dealers at the brand’s national meeting in Vegas last week, with plans to sell it in North America.
Michael writes:
This August, we will have a 23-year-old German au pair coming to live with us. She will be taking care of our three boys – ages 6, 4, and 1. I am looking for transportation for said au pair that fulfills the following criteria:
FCA isn’t content with taking the horsepower crown with the Dodge Charger Hellcat. They also want to win the torque war amongst the heavy-duty pickups and grab a first place towing trophy in the process.
It’s the kind of disgraceful corruption that would have seen its perpetrators swinging from a tree in a more forthright age: an alleged $2 million bribery program that has already seen a Redflex consultant plead guilty to charges of delivering over $570,000 in cash and other bribes to Chicago’s former managing deputy commissioner of transportation. (Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, who was long, ahem, a tireless ally of Redflex before reluctantly ending the city contract with the firm when all the evidence on the issue because too obvious to be ignored any further, was re-elected in a runoff election recently.)
But the blood-soaked hands of Redflex, whose cameras often increase accidents at the intersections where they are making money for the company, have been putting money in other pockets outside Chicagoland.
It’s Monday, so let’s start it off by ignoring the demands of your cruel overseers in The Man’s salt mines and turning to a subject that’s sure to get all automotive enthusiasts riled up: Ralph Nader! Read More >
Should you happen to be in Cheswick, Penn. next Sunday, you could be the new owner of a 2014 Hennessey Venom GT, or a Ferrari once owned by a Penguin.
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