I recently rented a midsize sedan from Hertz.  Hoping for a go in the latest Fusion, I was instead placed into a new Camry, though it may have been a 2007 Camry.  Differences between the two are only discernible to Toyota engineers, though a new campaign gives dealers the ability to tell them apart using a VIN decoder and a magnifying glass.

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The North American International Auto Show press days have come and gone.  That means journalists no longer need to get dressed every morning, and can return to clipping their toenails while blogging in their bathrobes.  OEM staffers get to return home – unless, of course, home is Detroit.  Then they’re counting down the days until New York.

For those who missed the show, never fear: I’ve rounded up everything important and summarized it in one highly useful story.  It’s almost like you ate the food yourself. Read More >

Johan de Nysschen, at home in Hong Kong

New Infiniti-boss and former Audi U.S. chief Johan de Nysschen wants to bring Infiniti home to Japan. He had said this to me last September in his office in Hong Kong, and he reiterated it again in Detroit when talking to the Wall Street Journal’s man in Japan, Chester Dawson. Back home in Yokohama, people are sucking air through their teeth. “Muzukashi desu ne.” This will be difficult. Read More >

Toyota sold 236,659 Prii (all kinds) in the U.S. alone in 2012, all of them imported from high-yen Japan. This is a major drag on the car’s profitability. Long import routes are a hindrance, offshore production also tends to impact the granularity of options and trims. U.S. production of the Prius was expected for last year, it did not happen. Yesterday, Shigeki Terashi, head of Toyota Motor North America Inc. came as close to announcing as possible that Toyota plans to produce the Prius in North America. He didn’t really say it, and you needed to be Japanese to hear it. Read More >

Is the era of beige finally over? This concept is supposedly a preview of the new Corolla, due in 2014 – and it’s far more striking than the JDM version reviewed by our own BS.

New car registrations dropped a painful 16.3 percent in Europe in an acceleration of a long, and initially slow a downward trend. The European carmaker association ACEA calls the decline ”the steepest recorded in a month of December since 2008.” For the year the EU market was down 8.2 percent to 12,053,904 units, which is the “lowest level recorded since 1995,” says the ACEA. Read More >

TTAC commentator TheDward writes:

Sajeev! Thank you for taking the time to read this. My dad is dealing with some bullsh@t, and we could use your advice. His daily driver is a 2006 Taurus with 155k miles. (Bull huh, I get it! Snort! -SM) Read More >

In 2007, our founder Robert Farago wrote this piece. It is still bouncing around on Facebook. It never stopped being true, and it became extra pertinent with the launch of the new Corvette. People often accuse us of being “biased” against GM. My answer in private, today for the first time uttered in public, always was: “Not true. GM is biased against TTAC.”

In May 2011, with Ed still at the helm, I dragged him to Detroit, and up the escalators of RenCen to make an end to the useless war, and to make peace with GM. Sitting in Selim Bingol’s office, I explained that their old antagonist Farago is gone, replaced by young Niedermeyer and old warhorse Schmitt. New people at GM, new people at TTAC, let’s go forward. As an answer I had to hear from Bingol that at GM “we don’t negotiate with terrorists.” The meeting froze. I could unfreeze it. Former advertising people know how to talk their way out of a bad meeting, current PR flacks should have similar capabilities of instant insincerity. Smiles, handshakes, contradicted by body language. GM promised that all is good, it wasn’t.  TTAC remained toxic at GM. The cold war continued. I did not know that Farago had tried before. Read this story from 2007. He sure did.  – Bertel

Our man Mehta recently ran into a GM PR flack at an industry event. When Sajeev revealed TTAC as his spiritual home, the GM underling shook with rage. Still, it being the South and all, pleasantries were exchanged. After sweet talking the spinmeister, Sajeev promised I’d call and oil the troubled waters. Read More >

Lawdy! Lawdy! Guess who’s 40!

Well, it happened. After a weekend where my daughter scores the game winning basket and the trade-ins numbered 6432, I hit the golden age of middle age.

As for the 1983 Jeep Grand Wagoneer in the picture, would you believe 403,224 miles? That little factoid was just the very tip of a long data drilldown.

Not to mention a few unusual future contests between the automakers in what will now be called the Trade-In Quality Index… or TIQI for short!

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Volkswagen has ended the year on a strong note. Shrugging off the troubles at home in Europe, Volkswagen increased its global group sales by a respectable 20.7 percent in December of 2012, bringing its global group sales for the year above the 9 million mark at an 11.2% increase compared to 2011. Read More >

Here in Colorado, the self-service wrecking yards tend to be museums of four-wheel-drive cars that disappeared into obscurity a couple of decades back. When it comes to Toyota, everyone knows about the Celica All-Trac, and of course you still see the occasional mid-80s Tercel 4WD wagon. Go to a Denver junkyard, though, and you’ll see lots of Corolla All-Tracs. But a Camry All-Trac? We’ve all heard of them, but this may be the first four-wheel-drive Camry I’ve ever seen in person. It was fitting that I found this one during my freezing-cold Half Price Sale adventure on Saturday. Read More >

The Tokyo Auto Salon was mobbed, to a high degree by youth that allegedly has no interest in cars, or procreation. They come to the Auto Salon for two reasons: Cars and girls. Both are plentiful. On Friday, we promised you in-depth coverage of this important topic, and here it is. Like with our hachi-roku coverage, we try to give you a feeling for the overwhelming number of underdressed women by giving you TTAC’s biggest picture collection of all times.

CAUTION: The content may be NSFW in certain places that object to bare skin, racy outfits and musings about deviant behavior. Do not click and/or complain if that offends you.

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On Friday, we mentioned that Toyobaru’s hachi-roku absolutely dominates the Tokyo Auto Salon into total submission. Just about any booth (save that of Honda, Nissan etc.) has the almond-eyes of one or more hachi-roku looking at you. On Friday, we promised you visual proof. Here it is, and it is a monster. It is the biggest collection of hachi-roku pictures this side of Gunma. Read More >

Back when Pick-N-Pull and Pick Your Part both operated yards in Northern California, Half Price Day sales used to take place at least every couple of months. Everything was half off on those days, which meant you could get transmissions for something like 30 bucks, complete engines for $75, and so on. Then, back in 2009, El Pulpo packed up and left NorCal, which meant that the competition didn’t have as much motivation to put on such sales. Now that I’m in Colorado, it appears that U-Pull-&-Pay also does the occasional Half Price Day… and this time they chose the coldest weekend of this winter. Read More >

It’s been a lost in translation situation, but from what I could develop here at the Tokyo Auto Salon, the oddly shaped and oddly named 555TES Minute-S is a “three-wheel compact commuter” powered by a Yamaha 250-cc engine coupled to a Toyota Aqua hybrid drive. Here it is in motion: Read More >