Subminiature, or „kei“ cars ( from kei-jidosha – subcompact cars) have been a Japanese phenomenon. At one time, their combined share was 1/3 of Japan’s market. Unlike anime and Pokemon, the 660 cc vehicles never much made it beyond Japan’s shores. And recently, the sales of the pocket monsters on wheels had been flagging. Last February, the little critters had recorded their first rise rise after 15 months of going down – by a hair of 0.7 percent.

According to today’s Nikkei [sub], “improvements in hybrid and electric technology are dulling the fuel-efficiency edge that minivehicles have long had over larger cars. To maintain their advantage, makers of minis are putting their autos on diets, shaving weight wherever they can to eke out better gas mileage.” Read More >

What happens when MINIs stop being mini and start getting real? Huge sales in America, probably. Luckily the return of the Moke is not as mawkish as we might have feared.  And with four actual doors, passengers won’t have to perform fakir-worthy contortions to reach one of the rear seats alá MINI Clubman. Look for the Countryman at your local upscale supermarket parking lot starting in early 2011.

For a reviewer, getting handed a car with delivery miles on the odometer is an instant promotion to tribal shaman. You’re given a quick pat on the back before being shoved into a hut with the village’s prettiest virgin. Needless to say, this privilege comes with the sacred duty of keeping the virgin in tip-top shape, otherwise your term as high-muck-a-much will be pretty short-lived. Unfortunately for my political aspirations, the Mazda2 loves being ridden hard. It squeals through corners, snarling like a dog in heat. There’s a lot more fun to be had here than the tiny 185/55R15 Dunlop Sports suggest.
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Today’s tester is a Red Alfa Romeo. So I really shouldn’t be telling you how its name is derived from the cities of Milano and Torino. I shouldn’t be revealing that it’s based on the Fiat Punto and I really needn’t elaborate about its underhood gadgetry, because in days of yore, “Red” was all you needed to know about an Alfa Romeo. On the other hand, to paraphrase Dylan, things have changed.
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BMW is playing some PR roulette  at the DC Auto Show [via Autoblog Green] with a “study” ostensibly proving that people who lease an electric MINI are “delighted” with the car. As if self-selection weren’t already an issue in a study of people who voluntarily spend $850 per month on a small hatchback, the 57 respondents (out of 450 MINI E guinea pigs) were (you guessed it) self-selected. Why the University of California Davis allows its name to appear on this blatant PR fabrication is difficult to fathom. Especially considering the MINI E rollout was a disaster, the product was compromised, and there are plenty of MINI E critics out there.

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Retro cars sell on looks. Take the Chrysler PT Cruiser as an example – automotive perfection it wasn’t, and yet it sold like iPods on a Black Friday. Others, like the Mini Cooper, proved that retro cars can look like the past and drive like the present. But worth driving or not, almost every retro car introduced over the last few years has been a marketing sensation, bringing easy revenue and much-needed customers into an otherwise dull product line, and reviving deserted showrooms. No surprise, then, that upon reviewing the stellar sales of the Ford Mustang, Mini Cooper and the Volkswagen New Beetle, Fiat’s chiefs in Torino decided that it was time to launch a true Italian vendetta. It didn’t take long to find inspiration: the instant choice was the Fiat 500.
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Honda’s half-hearted approach to hybrids is about to be shaken up, possibly leading to the development of a hybrid system that goes beyond Honda’s traditional integrated motor assist (IMA) system. Automotive News [sub] reports that Honda CEO, Takanobu Ito has told his Research and Development staff to develop a hybrid which beats the Toyota Prius in fuel economy. Or else. This development probably has something to do the failure of the Honda Insight (Prius sales in 2009 were 139,682. Insight sales for the same period: 20,572); as Honda Executive VP, John Mendel said “Are we happy with how sales are going? No, we’re not happy.” Mr Ito made it clear that Honda’s hybrid line up is a top priority. “We want to develop and expand our hybrids,” said Ito. “We made some major sacrifices to shift people and resources to do that.”

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Semantics! What do you call the Flex? Ford thinks the mini-van label is taboo. So is a FWD Flex more of a CUV than an AWD Sienna? What’s the Mazda CX 9? I happen to think the Journey is a replacement for the discontinued short-wheelbase Caravan. Does it really matter? Chrysler is still dominant, especially when the Journey is included. The Odyssey is the bestselling single nameplate, but obviously the Chrysler twins have it beat. But the Chrysler off-shoot VW Routan is croaking. And the Flex is not exactly flexing any serious sales muscle. And I included the Mazda CX 7 here to confuse you further because I forgot it with the CUVs. Rather than argue about it, let’s just come up with a new name for the whole category that included CUVs and MPVs. Chart follows: Read More >

Kelley Blue Book has released its annual resale value data, and according to the WSJ, Toyota, Honda and BMW remain the top brands in five-year residual value. Still, Toyota’s average residual value dropped from 42.7 percent to 38.8 percent, while Honda fell from 44.5 percent to 38 percent. Those drops mirror an industry-wide decline in residual values, which had hovered around 35 percent for some time, but have fallen to about 32.6 percent for 2010 models. But American brands have bucked that trend:

KBB estimates Ford’s 2010 models will keep 32.4% of their value after five years. That’s an improvement—for 2009, KBB put the residual value of Ford’s models at 31.7%. Likewise, GM’s 2010 five-year residual value is 31.3%, up from 29.5% a year earlier. Chrysler’s figures are 29.5% for 2010 models, compared with 29% for 2009 models.

KBB’s top ten models for five-year residual value after the jump.

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If you are a daily reader of the Nikkei, as we are in the Schmitto-san household, you can sometimes lose your confidence in Japanese precision and accuracy.

Yesterday, we quoted the Nikkei as saying that “sales of new cars and trucks rose 36 percent year on year to 293,410 units in November, marking the fourth straight month of increase, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said Tuesday. Passenger car sales surged 43.8 percent to 268,450 units.”

Today, we read in the Nikkei that “new-vehicle sales increased 18.3 percent to 436,535 units in November for a third straight year-on-year gain, according to industry data released Tuesday.”

Shitsurei?
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Last weekend we got to know what car you are. Not surprisingly, we have quite a range of personalities in the TTAC parking lot: everything from a MB (Grosser) 600 to a Toyota Echo 2 door. Now we get to know about the big love (or ex) in your life. That’s a bit trickier, especially since mine reads everything here religiously. I thought hard about the Nissan Pao, because its trim size and distinctive and quirky aesthetics certainly work. But the Pao is too underpowered, and strictly a city car. Fun to look at, but no go. So it’s a toss up between a Mini Cooper S and the Fiat 500 Abarth. I have to give the nod to the little Italian, even though Stephanie is more of an Anglophile, for two reasons: The Mini is too common, and the Abarth is an unknown. Stephanie and I fell in love on Thanksgiving weekend 32 years ago, and were married the following January 7th. Hows that for taking a flyer? Just like buying the first hot-rod Fiat 500 that arrives on these shores.

How often does a truly revolutionary car appear? Let’s disqualify uranium powered flying cars on the cover of Popular Science and other quirky eccentrics from consideration, but focus on mass production cars that profoundly and permanently changed the autosphere. Narrow the field further to the small-size end of the US market post WWII, and the number of candidates is all of…two. The VW Beetle completely turned the US car market (and careless drivers) on its head, both in its technical specifications and in creating a mass small-car market. The Beetle had a brilliant twenty-year run, and just as it was running out of compression, it handed the baton to that other revolutionary, the Honda Civic.

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After the 1 series, BMW pretty much committed themselves to the smallest car, because it was the smallest number, they were going to make under the BMW marque. Or did they? You see, there is actually another number lower than 1 and BMW plan to release a series of cars based on that number. Now we’ve known this for some time, but Car-Chat.info put forward a very real scenario. Since the 0 series will be smaller than the 1 series, that means it will go head to head with BMW’s other marque, the Mini. Now, one could be optimistic and say that 2 cars under different brands could grab a bigger slice of the market or, one could be realistic and say that cannibalisation is afoot. BMW aren’t stupid, which brings forward the very real possibility that BMW could phase out the Mini brand. At top production rates, Mini produce 240000 vehicles a year. That’s niche levels. And who wouldn’t want a BMW badge instead of a Mini? Yes, there may be a few “Italian Job” fans upset and a couple of “Germans kill iconic brand” headlines in the UK gutter press, but when you think about it, it kind of makes sense. At least as long as a front-wheel drive BMW doesn’t strike you as too blasphemous (and BMW doesn’t seem to have a problem crossing that Rubicon). So now TTAC posits a question to the B&B: Does the world really need Mini? Are we hanging onto a brand which doesn’t fit viably in the today’s market?  Or is an FWD BMW the real mistake?

Chongqing Lifan, a Chinese car maker that is more known for its prodigious motorcycle output, launched its collector’s edition of their 320 model last week. The car is priced at 39,800 yuan ($5,830). Even China’s Gasgoo thinks that the Lifan “resembles a Mini Cooper.” But hey, BMW has motorcycle roots also.

The marketing strategy of the “collectors model” is interesting. The Lifan 320 prototype was officially launched at the 2009 Shanghai Auto Show in April. At its launch, the Lifan 320 was priced at 48,800 yuan ( $7,086).

The collector’s edition of the 320 comes with many upgrades, but is lower priced “to target fashion-conscious young buyers.” Hmm. Having trouble selling the knock-off?

Maybe the brand conscious Chinese fancy a real Mini. Or not. In the first nine months of 2009, BMW sold  59,400 BMWs and only 2,934 Minis. It’s a big country. They want big cars to go along with it.