Relaunching Alfa Romeo has been an expensive undertaking for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and the brand continues to hemorrhage cash while FCA scrambles to get the Giulia and upcoming Stelvio into driveways. While discussing the company’s fourth-quarter earnings, CEO Sergio Marchionne confirmed that Alfa was a financial vortex last year and will remain that way until Americans see more than just the occasional 4C cruising down the boulevard.

It cost a fortune to develop the Giorgio platform that underpins the new Alfa models — Marchionne claims FCA spent $2.7 billion on the relaunch. To recoup some of those expenses, the brand is going to share its fancy new bones with Maserati, Dodge, and Jeep vehicles.  Read More >

Update: TTAC has received information refuting the claims below. You can read the update here.

While Ford finally confirmed the return of the Ford Ranger and Bronco at the North American International Auto Show earlier this week, the automaker remains stingy with details on the reborn models.

Ford aficionados — and Bronco lovers especially — want to know if the resurrected nameplates will offer the same magic as their dear, departed forebears. Perhaps eager to quench the public’s thirst for information, a shadowy Ford employee posted juicy — and potentially disappointing — details during a Reddit AMA. Read More >

Unless your local police force harbors a crop of non-conformists, it’s easy to believe rear-drive Chevrolet sedans bowed out in the 1990s.

Of course, that’s not true. General Motor’s Australian Holden division saw fit to continue sending a limited number of rebadged Commodore sedans our way, long after the Impala and Caprice faded into the history books. Gussied up with a few tell-tale styling cues, the Commodore easily morphed into the performance-oriented Chevrolet SS and fleet-only Caprice PPV. Both models sell in limited numbers on this side of the Pacific, but not for long.

With Holden poised to pull the plug on Australian manufacturing later this year, the old-school Commodore has only months left to live. That means the exotic, badge-engineered American brothers will cease to exist after the 2017 model year.

Read More >

After claiming that the upcoming Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer SUVs would use a variant of the next-generation Grand Cherokee’s unibody platform, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has changed its mind.

Speaking at the North American International Auto Show, FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne said the top-end SUVs will instead adopt body-on frame architecture. The change tosses the vehicles’ lofty predicted price ceiling — $140,000, according to Jeep boss Mike Manley — in the trash heap. Read More >

One year after Faraday Future (FF) revealed its futuristic and racy FFZERO1 concept, the company has pulled back the curtain on its first production car.

The FF 91 is cut from cloth similar to the recently revealed Lucid Air. Both cars are being built by California-based, Chinese-backed companies. And both are scheduled to follow Tesla into the EV Super Sedan market as Trump’s first term hits its midpoint. Read More >

How many small sedans from one manufacturer can the market handle?

That’s the question being asked in the wake of a report that claims Mercedes-Benz has a new small sedan planned for both overseas and North American markets. According to Autocar, the German automaker will soon debut an A-Class sedan to fill the narrow gap between the CLA and C-Class.

Low-end Mercedes buyers are about to be spoiled for choice. Read More >

For a solid 15 years — longer than the combined duration of World War I, II, and Korea — Volkswagen has made a habit of teasing consumers with boxy concepts that draw inspiration from the company’s far-out Microbus of yesteryear.

It doesn’t matter whether the automaker is flying high, like it was at the turn of the century (and decade), or digging itself out of a scandal, like it is now. There’s always a piece of flower power vaporware lurking nearby, ready to trigger increasingly distant memories of a free-wheeling, free-love past.

We’ve been tentatively promised some sort of modern-day Microbus since the New Beetle still seemed somewhat new, but to no avail. Well, times are changing, and along with it, technology. But VW’s tactics aren’t. Read More >

After inking the deal that brought Mitsubishi Motors under his corporate umbrella, Nissan-Renault chairman Carlos Ghosn said the acquisition would have a “massive” impact on the struggling automaker.

By sharing the alliance’s technology, platforms and engines, Mitsubishi can look forward to a brighter, product-filled future, he claimed. Full integration is still years away, but a new report sheds some light on the first all-new product born of the $2.29 billion deal. Read More >

The Subaru BRZ has been struggling along since hitting its sales peak in 2013, and its recent refresh hasn’t done much to help it rebound on the sales charts.

Now, thanks to conflicting information from Subaru itself, the future of the rear-drive coupe is as clear as San Francisco Bay at 7 a.m.

Read More >

Another week, another pushed-back launch date for a next-generation Fiat Chrysler Automobiles product.

Last week, supplier sources claimed the range-topping Jeep Grand Wagoneer SUV was on hold, but this morning brings news of a delay for the next-generation Ram Heavy Duty truck line. Read More >

(Update: Specifications for the 2.5-liter engine have been added.)

Dynamic Force. It sounds like the name of a military offensive from the early 2000s, but it’s also the name of Toyota’s next-generation gasoline powerplants.

The automaker has revealed the first of a slew of new engines that should power 60 percent of its vehicles within five years. Oh, and there’s new transmissions and hybrid components to go with them. Read More >

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has high hopes for the upcoming Jeep Grand Wagoneer and its ability to challenge Range Rover and Mercedes-Benz for premium SUV buyers. The proposed model’s $140,000 price ceiling keeps FCA execs up at night in giddy anticipation.

However, there’s a problem: Before FCA hoists that sparkling and lucrative cherry atop its Jeep sundae, it first needs to build the damn thing, and that’s easier said than done.

Which is why the Grand Wagoneer — the three-row ultra-lux SUV that Lee Iacocca could only dream of — is on hold. Read More >

The next-generation Ford Fiesta had its coming out party at a corporate event in Cologne, Germany today, and there’s no mistaking the updated B-segment runabout.

Ford clearly wasn’t willing to mess with the exterior too much, but changes abound on the 2018 model year Fiesta. That includes an industry-first advancement made to its available three-cylinder motor. Read More >

As the season for giving approaches, Alfa Romeo is saying it might gift its rear-drive Giorgio platform to other Fiat Chrysler vehicles.

Last week, at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Alfa’s Reid Bigland not-so humble bragged to journalists that the platform is so good it would actually be difficult not to share it across brands.

Read More >

In automotive terms, Volkswagen’s go-to MQB platform might end up having a lifespan somewhere between a Fox and a Panther.

Eager to stretch its meager dollars to Gumby-like proportions, the embattled automaker has announced that the platform underpinning most of its vehicles won’t die after two generations. Nah, let’s make it three, VW brand chief Herbert Diess said.

That means some vehicles, such as the stalwart Golf, will eventually ride on a platform old enough to drink in the United States. Read More >