Automotive News Europe [sub] spotted a new trend in Tokyo: Daredevil CEOs:

“On Nov. 27, Toyota boss Akio Toyoda wowed a crowd of spectators in Japan by racing through a lineup of Lexus LFA supercars in the new Toyota 86 sporty coupe. One day later, Honda CEO Takanobu Ito hopped on a Honda MotoGP racing motorcycle and blasted around the company’s Twin Ring Motegi racetrack.” Read More >

One of the most closely watched quality indicators in Europe and especially in Germany is the annual TÜV-Report. With German thoroughness, the report tells exactly which cars were naughty or nice. It’s the law:  Three years after you buy a new car in Germany, it must be inspected by the Technischer Überwachungsverein. Thereafter, every two years. This is not your run-of-the-mill drive-to-the-gas-station-get-a-sticker exercise. At the TÜV, each car undergoes a thorough and invasive physical. Fail the physical, and it’s back to the shop. Fail again: No inspection sticker, get that POS off the road. No wonder that a date with the TÜV is considered as even less attractive than a meeting with the proctologist. One out of 5 cars fail the test on the first attempt.

Once a year, the TÜV compiles its TÜV-Report, using the actual results of the check.  This is no J.D.Power CSI. This is the real world, a report compiled with screwdrivers, flashlights, emission probes, brake testers. Executives at automakers await the report with high anxiety. Bad positions on the list can be career-ending.

The TÜV-Report 2012 will be published on December 16. Some results are already dribbling out, but the list itself remains under wraps. We twisted some arms and finagled an advance copy (your Teutonic old boys network at work.) Let’s see who will be promoted and who should polish his resume. Read More >

Checking out the competition has a great tradition at auto shows. Executives usually try to avoid doing it in front of rolling cameras. They don’t want to end up like Volkswagen’s Winterkorn, who immortalized himself in his “Da scheppert nix” candid camera video, while admiring the non-rattling steering column of the latest Hyundai.

Now imagine the dropped jaws at Nissan when the crew at Nissan’ Global Media Center floated the crazy idea to have their own walk around of the Tokyo Motor Show, and to – gasp – say good things about the competition? Read More >

Chris writes:

Dear Sajeev,

Love the website and love your reading your column. My question is I am looking to get a minivan within the next 6 months to a year. I am only looking to spend around 8 grand on one. I am leaning heavily towards Chrysler’s vans, and found some really great deals on older ones with low miles. But then I read your article about how it’s not always good to go with older, low mile automobiles. So would I be better to get say, a 2002 model Town and Country, with a little over 100 hundred thousand miles? Or should I not even bother with Chrysler at all? I was leaning towards a Windstar as well, but then there’s that whole rear axle breaking thing, and I quite enjoy living. In your personal opinion what is the best minivan for my budget.

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Toyota will still be #3 in cars made this year, but in terms of profitability, it has become an also-ran. Toyota shares that fate with their Japanese peers at Nissan and Honda. The Nikkei[sub] tabulated yen-denominated group earnings of 10 major automakers worldwide for the July-September quarter and comes to the conclusion: Read More >

Would you like to know how to build one of the world’s fastest (top speed 202 mph) and most agile (Nordschleife time 7:14.64) supercars? If you want to have a look at how the Lexus LFA is built, then you need to buy one. As part of the ownership experience, you become access to the “LFA Works” at the Motomachi plant in Toyota City, and you can witness how your car is made. At upwards of $375,000 MSRP for the car, this will probably also be one of the world’s most expensive factory tours. Fiscally responsible as we are, Thetruthaboutcars.com brings you a miniature Motomachi. Let the tour begin … Read More >

The car business is tuning into a mutual admiration society.  Volkswagen wants to be like Toyota, Toyota wants to learn from Nissan. Now, GM wants to learn from Volkswagen. GM’s Vice Chairman Stephen Girsky says that the new benchmark for GM is Volkswagen. Read More >

In Once Upon a Car, Bill Vlasic artfully employs quotes gained through over 100 interviews to make readers feel like they’re “in the room.” Assuming that Vlasic has accurately reproduced the original dialogues, we learn how senior executives really talk… (Warning: Graphic language after the jump.) Read More >

Over the last few weeks we traveled to South Korea, Sweden, Canada and Romania. It’s been a while since we haven’t been to Africa, so this week I have decided to stop in South Africa.

If lions, rhinos and zebras are not exactly your thing, that’s ok, I’ve prepared 159 additional countries for you to visit in my blog, so click away!

South Africa is a production hub, and this has an impact on the best-selling cars there, on either side of the scale…

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Some claim the Japanese don’t import enough cars. After what happened on Sunday near Shimonoseki, Japan, high value imports should experience a sudden blip.

On a freeway in southern Japan, at least 10 supercars were involved in what The Telegraph calls “likely to be the most expensive car crash outside of a car racing track.” Total damage is estimated at around $4 million. Read More >

Avoiding the usual Auto Journo networking opportunities like the plague leaves me with the road test equivalent of everyone’s sloppy seconds.  But there’s a good story behind a nearly dead model, unless we are talkin’ about the Chevy Malibu. Without the charms of a 6th gen Honda Civic or Panther Love (‘natch) this whip’s demise couldn’t come soon enough. A recent sales chart proves the point: a sad commentary for a car that was once hailed as “the car you can’t ignore” by people genuinely interested in making a CamCord fighter…so how exactly has the ‘Bu faired since then?

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It looks like Carlos Ghosn is tired of talking about the inaction of the Japanese government with regards to the killer yen. He told his people to start packing. The Nikkei [sub] reports today that Nissan will stop making in Japan newly developed cars for export from Japan.  New cars will be produced at overseas plants.

“Under current foreign exchange rates, there can be no shipments from Japan of totally new projects,” Nissan’s COO Toshiyuki Shiga said. According to the report, anything with a new chassis that is intended for foreign markets will begin its life in those foreign markets. Says The Nikkei: Read More >

There was a time when car salesmen had to sit in dark windowless rooms and watch the worst infomercials ever imagined. Take for instance…

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When it rains, it pours. Both Alex Dykes and I were lucky enough to get a slot in the West Coast media introduction for the 2013 Lexus GS350, GS350 F-Sport, and GS450h. Rather than do a “Take One” and “Take Two”, we decided to handle it the way OutKast would. Alex, like OutKast’s BigBoi, will be delivering a robust, well-rounded album, er, review, chock-full of on-road impressions and wide-angle interior photography. I will play the Andre3000 role (of course) and share with you The Love Below: performance-related impressions from driving four different GS variants, along with the Mercedes E350 and BMW 535i, through Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s short road course.

Put the needle on the record and the pedal to the metal: it’s time to meet the new Lexus.

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Regular Vehicle Sales Japan November 2011

All things are relative: Now that we are comparing with absolutely dismal numbers in the preceding year, November car sales in Japan look downright healthy. Sales of new cars, trucks and buses were 252,236 units, up 24.1 percent from a year earlier in November, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association says. The numbers do not include sales of separately reported minivehicles. Read More >