TTAC readers looking for a more pro-GM news source may want to check out Bloomberg for their next dose of pro-GM news. A story on Cadillac’s revived fortunes contains all kinds of enthusiastic copy and positive quotes, but still manages to bury the lede way down at the bottom of the story.
Audi has – via Audi Connect – turned its cars into mobile WiFi hotspots for a few years already. Now comes the killer price: For just $15 a month, you can have all you can eat wireless internet in your car. (Read More…)
VW and Fiat are in talks regarding a possible sale of Alfa Romeo. The sale of Alfa Romeo to Audi would also include the Pomilgiano assembly plant in Naples, which once made Alfas, but currently produces the Fiat Panda. Magnetti Marelli, Fiat’s famed parts maker, may also be included in the deal, as Fiat looks to raise cash so it can buy the remaining shares of Chrysler off the UAW’s Voluntary Employee Benefits Association. (Read More…)
Why, why, why the hell is the new BMW 328d called the 328d? It’s a 3-Series, so that part’s legitimate, even if today’s 3er dwarfs the old Bavaria. It’s also a diesel, so the “d” seems appropriate, even if the absence of a “t” rankles a bit among those of us who remember the 524td. Not that “t” always meant “turbo” in BMW-land; sometimes it meant “touring” like fast, sometimes it meant “touring” like station wagon.
The problem is this: the “28” in 328d suggests a 2.8-liter engine. Just like the 528e had. Well, actually, that was a 2.7-liter engine. The same engine appeared in the 325e, where it was also 2.7 liters. Still, those are relatively white decklid lies compared to the effrontery of putting a two-liter engine in a car and badging it as a 2.8, right? There has to be a rhyme and reason here somewhere, surely. And it there isn’t, then surely there’s a way to put some sense and sensibility back into the German-car game, right?
Good news: I, your humble author, have a solution.
Take a look at this piece of…
272,522 miles. No fooling. This 1996 Volkswagen Passat 5-speed sedan has traveled a distance nearly equal to 11 times the circumference of planet Earth.
It also visited the dealership well over 50 times during that time period as well. Which is just barely good enough for…
My annual pilgrimage to the New York Auto Show reminded me of just how much hassle it can be to park in the world’s most important city. (It’s the world’s most important city because it is the setting for the HBO show, Girls). For people who are not wealthy and/or well-connected, simply finding a place to dump a car off for a day or so can be fraught with drama. Not only are most Manhattan garages well into the $45-a-day zone, that price doesn’t get you any of the things most Americans take for granted in a parking spot — in/out privileges, access to their vehicles to drop off shopping items or pick up a change of clothes, or even a half-hearted hope that they might be able to leave a valuable item in the trunk. I wound up leaving my rented 2013 Caravan jammed up into a not-a-space in the Port Authority Bus Terminal’s garage, walking a few miles each way to the Village to see a couple of musicians perform, and begging the Port Authority cops to let me have my car back at three in the morning.
Things will get worse in the world of urban parking before they get better… but what if you could fix most of these issues at a reasonable cost?
A couple weeks back, Tetsuya Tada, father of the Scion FR-S, wistfully meditated on his desire to see more variants of the Scion FR-S, including a shooting brake. Rather than dismissive them as fantasy-bait for the enthusiast set, TTAC determined that there is probably a good business case for developing more variants of the Toyobaru platform. After all, you can’t spend billions on an all new platform and only build one low volume niche model off of it, right?
For anyone rooting for this scenario, there’s more encouraging news. Toyota executives are pondering an upward expansion of the Scion brand, and the FR-S could be the focal point of that initiative.
You won’t see them at the 2013 New York Auto Show, but Audi took the wraps off the MQB-based A3 and S3 for North America at a private event today.
Fans of the old BMW 335d won’t have to wait much longer for an all-new 3-Series diesel. On the other hand, Audi lovers will have to sit tight for an A4 diesel.
The car companies say that those little “donut” spares shouldn’t be driven at highway speed, and that they shouldn’t be driven for long distances… but they also say that you shouldn’t use a Vise-Grip as a steering wheel! Just the other day, I watched a Mazda 323 with two space-saver spares (on the left side, of course) dicing with a tippy-looking Wrangler at 105 MPH on I-25 in Denver, and I remembered this A6 with three not-so-high-speed-rated wheels, spotted during the coldest Half Price Junkyard Day I’ve ever experienced. Let’s admire it! (Read More…)
Despite Audi CEO Rupert Stadler’s warnings that the effect of the Chinese New Year affects the usually glorious Audi numbers, Audi’s February sales still are something to be proud of. (Read More…)
Audi’s global deliveries were “clearly lower” than in January, Audi’s CEO Rupert Stadler told Reuters reporter Andreas Cremer in Geneva. Audi’s global sales were up 16.3 percent in January. There won’t be a minus said Stadler, even while fighting the lunar calendar, Audi will report a single digit plus.
Audi’s numbers won’t be the only ones that won’t look as good as the month before.
My grandma was a bit of a card shark. You name the game, she played it.
You would think that she would show a teeny bit of mercy to a six year old kid like me back in the day. Nope. Not a chance. Whenever she was about to beat me… yet again… grandma would flash an ear to ear grin on her face and bellow out her trademarked version of checkmate.
“Stevie? Do you want the old news? Or the bad news?”
I would flash my own waning innocence in these matters and say, “What about no news?”
No news, indeed. If you are looking to find yet another new name to take on pole position in our weekly mileage race, think again.
The Chinese-Israeli co-production Qoros has not sold a single car yet, but it already finds itself in the legal hot seat. Via a temporary injunction of a court in Hamburg, Germany, Audi precluded Qoros from using – the letter Q.
Dear Steve & Sajeev,
For 14 years I have owned a 1998 Ford Windstar Northwoods Edition with the indomitable 3.8 Liter engine. I love this van! It’s been so reliable. $38,000 and 4 transmissions later, and old rusty is still trucking. Only had to do 4 head gaskets. (Read More…)
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