Volkswagen keeps dominating Europe’s Top Ten list (as compiled by Jato) in January. An 11.3 percent decrease of the Polo did not cost it its number two place, thanks to the number three Ford Fiesta dropping even more. Read More >
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Category: Nissan
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Nissan ReviewsThe Nissan name was first used in 1933, but the company's history goes back much further. Originally known as Kwaishinsha Motorcar Works, the company produced its first automobile, the DAT, in 1914. DAT later became Datsun (son of DAT) in 1931 and Datsuns went on to become the first mass-produced vehicles in Japan. Americans got their first look at the Datsun in 1958 - the 1200 Sedan. The Datsun 240Z was released as a 1970 model and it became the best selling sports car in the world, selling 500,000 units in less than 10 years. |
The Corolla and the Civic get all the attention when we think about the Japanese subcompacts that put the fear into Detroit during the final years of the Malaise Era, but we mustn’t forget Nissan’s replacement for the rear-drive Datsun 210: the Sentra. You don’t see many early Sentras in junkyards these days; they haven’t been a common sight in The Crusher’s waiting room for a decade or so. Here’s one that I spotted in California earlier this month. Read More >
Today is a turmoil day in the auto industry. Where brands and cars came in on top of the J.D. Power 2012 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study, champagne bottles were uncorked and press releases were issued. Where brands landed in the bottom rungs, panic meetings were called, fingers were pointed and resumes were polished.
Overall, it is a good day for the industry. Read More >
Back in the late 90’s VW was, “Getting the Bugs Out“. In more ways than one VW had found that special elixir of popularity and hipness that made it a media darling.
Before the flower vase era of VW there was the “Second Coming of Chrysler“. Cab forward designs and horsepower aplenty gave Chrysler a foundation for high profits and massive market gain. If Y2k had indeed ended the world as we knew it, these two automakers would have been memorialized success stories.
Since these Clinton era prodigies, only a few car manufacturers have really broken the ranking order for car companies in the North American market. Hyundai, Toyota, Subaru and NissanRenault. Hyundai has been the most clearcut beneficiary of modern tastes. However no success story in this business lasts. Just look at VW and Chrysler.
So who do you think will be the next success story of the first half of this decade? Will it be one of the manufacturers already mentioned? Or perhaps some other automaker that has yet to truly flex it’s muscles?
This seems to have gone under the radar of the autoblogosphere but according to the conservative Daily Caller, (and confirmed by White House economic chief Gene Sperling) President Obama’s proposed 2013 (2012 fiscal year) federal budget will include a provision to increase the tax credit on Chevy Volts, Nissan Leafs and any other new-technology vehicles including those powered by natural gas to $10,000.The current subsidy is $7,500 per car.
Based on a Speed:Sport:Life article. Several TTAC readers have pointed out in the past that the “dollar theory” of tire traction fails to account for dynamic weight loads, so consider that pointed out up front — JB
It seems like yesterday, as the man sang, but it was long ago. In April of 2008 I ordered a new Audi S5 in a rather unique color — the “Lime Green” used by Porsche in 1973 and referred to as “Lime Green” and “Viper Green”. Not “Signal Green”, mind you: that’s a different color, with more blue, and less cheer, in the mix. The car arrived in September of 2008. I drove it for two years and 38,000 miles before selling it for approximately five grand more than “regular” S5s were fetching.
Over the last few weeks, we have travelled to Germany, Czech Republic, Oman and Israel. Today we are stopping in Belarus, part of the USSR until 1990 and home to just under 10 million inhabitants.
Now if Cold War reminiscence, endless forests and Orthodoxy are not really your thing – well that’s not my business hey but I’ve got you covered: I have prepared 159 additional countries for you to visit in my blog, so don’t be shy and click away!
It took a while for Belarus to get rid of Russian influence but this year the best-selling car in the country is not Russian…
All the details after the jump…
This article appeared in S:S:L in April of 2009, so adjust comments regarding the “current” Honda and Acura lineup appropriately, thanks! — JB
I remember the event as if it were yesterday, although in fact it was twenty-six years ago. My relentless, Rommel-esque campaign to get my mother into a 1983 Honda Civic 1500S had very nearly reached a successful conclusion. For months I had worked tirelessly to steer Mom towards a Honda dealership for our new “family car”, always with the ostensible and sensible goal of purchasing the $6,995 1500GL wagon. Once we were inside the doors of the dealership — doors I had personally darkened many a time before then, since it was only a four-mile walk each way from my house — it would be a simple matter of bait-and-switching her away from the wagon and into a bright red 1500S hatchback. I’d walked to the showroom the day before and verified the presence of one, priced at a compelling $6,495.
As fate would have it, however, the red 1500S had sold, leaving just a black one available. (The 1983 Civic 1500S, the only Civic of that generation to carry the “S” tag, was available in just two colors: black and red.) No matter: we’d take it. In just a few nearly tearful moments, I convinced her that the 141-inch long, two-door hatchback was an ideal car for a single mother and two growing boys. The sales manager, displaying the utterly despicable greed that is still a hallmark of Honda dealers today, allowed us to buy the car at sticker. Providing, that is, we would pay an additional $349 for a two-speaker cassette player and $99 for a useless tape stripe.
That Civic was a truly great car. Economical, quick enough, sporty-looking, bulletproof, fun. It certainly would have lasted my mother a decade or more, had she not been struck just two years after the purchase by a drunk driver in a Cadillac deVille. The impact put parts of the back seat into the front seats. Hondas were not terribly crash-safe in those days.
Still, the ’83 Civic was the best Civic in history up to that point. The ’84 “breadvan” Civic was better. Much better. The Civic that followed was even better, and so on, until we reached the point of the 1999 Civic Si coupe, widely acclaimed as nearly everyone’s favorite Civic. And then a funny thing happened.
Someone (I can’t find it, our search function sucks) once said that “when Bertel Schmitt reviews a car, he does it from the back seat, with a driver.” Which is true.
Heads of state will agree, being driven is the most dignified mode of transportation. Add to that the fact that the Lexus GS 350 has been driven and reviewed multiple times by Jack Baruth AND Alex Dykes, and you will understand why I chose to review the Lexus GS 350 from a position of power: From the back seat. Which, after all, is the most appropriate perspective to view a luxury vehicle from. Read More >
The trip had been keeping the gaggle of foreign reporters that cover the Japanese auto beat awake for weeks.
“Are you going on THE TRIP???” “Yes. Did you hear Toyota is actually PAYING for flight and hotel?” “REALLY?” “I kid you not.” “NO WAY!”
Not prone to believing in miracles, I called Toyota to find out what flight and hotel to book. “Oh, no. We’ll take care of you.” Unheard of. Read More >
Having won a somewhat controversial victory in New York’s “Taxi Of Tomorrow” competition, the Nissan NV200 has now arrived for civilian use.
Was it luck? Was it hard work? A mixture of both? After escaping a near collision with fate in Iwaki, and not even getting its feet wet in Thailand, Nissan emerges as the most successful after the trials brought on by the unholy triad of tsunami, flood and yen. We said this a while ago when we compared 2011 production numbers of Japan’s majors.
Today, we go to Yokohama to check the balance sheets. Read More >
New car sales in China imploded in January. This will be the message when the official data by the CAAM are announced. Which should happen any minute.
The signs are ominous: Yesterday, GM China, TTAC’s in-house leading indicator, announced (in a way) that sales in January had been down by 8 percent. Then, China’s largest carmaker SAIC said that its January was down 8.5 percent. Today, the China Passenger Car Association told China Daily that the car market in China had nosedived16.5 percent from a year earlier to 1.17 million units in January. Late in the afternoon in Yokohama at Nissan’s quarterly earnings conference, Nissan’s Corporate Vice President, Joji Tagawa proudly pronounced that Nissan sales “declined only 16 percent” in China, while the Chinese car market as a whole registered “a negative 28 percent,” and isn’t that wonderful?
Whoa!!!! What’s going on?
Is the sky over China finally falling? It sure looks like it. Read More >
We just got our first look at the 2013 Nissan 370Z, set to be unveiled at the Chicago Auto Show on Wednesday. The changes are brief but good god, what did they do to those wheels?
The latest crop of Super Bowl car ads boasted some high-production-value salaciousness, but no car advertisement will ever come close to the perfection of the Quaaludes-and-disco Black Gold Man and Black Gold Woman and their gorgeous 10th Anniversary Edition 280ZX. Yes, many of you have seen this ad before, but I will not rest until all have experienced Black Gold (plus I’ve included a few Bonus Sexy Malaise Era car ads after the jump). Read More >
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