No, this is not a 1961 Rolls Royce Phantom. Fooled you. It is a ‘wedding car’ made by a Chinese company called Qingdao Soar Automobile. According to Carnewschina (which has more pictures,) (Read More…)

Today, Toyota announced its official December and end of calendar year production numbers. In December, Toyota’s worldwide production was up 13.1 percent to 757,226 units as ToMoCo hustles to make up for sales lost under Japanese tidal waves and Thai floods. For the year, worldwide production of all TMC divisions (including Daihatsu and Hino) dropped 8.2 percent to exactly 7,858,091 units. (Read More…)

Automakers in the U.S., Europe, and Japan are getting increasingly worried about the Korean Twins, Hyundai and Kia. Both had already outpaced the U.S. and European market last year. Today, Kia announced aggressive plans  for both regions. (Read More…)

The good folks who are still convinced that the Japanese car market is closed, can count themselves lucky. Would they have been with me today, they might have doubted their beliefs and strayed from the faith. Today, Lexus finally rolled out its new GS line in Japan. America had already seen it last Summer, and two TTAC testers actually drove the cars.

Today, two straight-laced Lexus executives told reporters in Tokyo that imported cars are so successful that Lexus would like to have some of that success and that they strive to take some of the imports’ growing market share.  Kazuo Ohara, Deputy Chief Officer of Toyota`s luxury arm Lexus said: (Read More…)

Out are “Drive One” in North America and “Feel the Difference” in Europe. In is “Go Further.” Ford is getting a new slogan, all around the world.

Reuters asked around and received little praise for the tagline. (Read More…)

Today, Toyota announced its revised sales plan for the calendar year 2012. The plan exceeds an already ambitious plan submitted in December. It also exceeds the numerical comprehension skills of journalists from the Wall Street Journal on down. (Read More…)

 When we talked about a four door version of Volkswagen’s hot-selling (in Europe, not available stateside) small car, the Up!, one commenter in particular equaled the car to a happy meal container and its owners to baby killers. A small car can be very safe – if its engineers know what they are doing. It just so happens that that little happy meal container is proof of it. It  was elected one of Europe’s safest cars. (Read More…)

The story on Saab pulling the plug on the diagnostic computer, and hence on repairs that need that access, ruffled a lot of feathers.  The Church of St. Victor is so angry at the apostate article that it broke its self-imposed code of silence and mentions TTAC by name. Delusional as they are, they believe that their links send us traffic. Selfless as we are, we probably have done more to Saabsunited’s fame than any other site. Ingrates as they are, they call our story

“the most stupid article I have ever seen! This website has no clue how things work and this is why we never refer to them… I’m making a one time side-step from that policy!”

In their rage, they overlooked a small detail …

(Read More…)

Saab owners receive two pieces of bad news today: Their allegedly “iconic” and “quirky” brand that supposedly embodies everything that is good in Sweden, turns out to be a dud. It landed with a thud at the very bottom of the Consumer Reports 2012 Car-Brand Perception Survey.

Probably more disconcerting to a Saab owner: Repairs that are more complex than the exchange of wear parts have become next to impossible, because someone at Saab literally pulled the plug. (Read More…)

Tesla is one of the ten highest rated car brands in America, says the Consumer Reports 2012 Car-Brand Perception Survey. Is that a good thing? Marketers are troubled by this development. The trouble is not that a newcomer like Tesla is rated so highly.

Overall, the halos of the top brands are fading fast. (Read More…)

Once a month, TrueCar publishes what they think are the best deals of the month. They also give you the best day to get those deals: TrueCar “is forecasting that Saturday, January 28 will be the best day of the month to purchase a vehicle with an average discount of 8.19 percent.”

Wouldn’t it be just awful if the best day would be, say, Friday the 20th, and now they tell us? Anyway, here is the list of the best cash, finance and lease deals. (Read More…)

Distracted driving is very much in the news, and so far, cellphones were fingered as the culprits. Now, there is a study that finally identifies the biggest distraction: Passengers. A study by State Farm, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health goes to the bottom of what experts have known for long: Peer passengers increase driver crash risk, especially amongst adolescent drivers.  (Read More…)

Some car dealers are missing the bad old times when Detroit was preoccupied with problems at home. Carmakers again have the bandwidth to look at “the channel,” and some don’t like what they see. Suddenly, dealers find themselves at the receiving end of harsh criticism. Both Chrysler and GM dealers are receiving  a derriere chewing. (Read More…)

Renault and Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn continues to prepare the battlefield of world opinion for a drop in Europe. According to Ghosn, Automobile sales in Europe could decline two to three percent. For Renault’s home market, he expects a drop of five to six percent, Ghosn said in an interview with France Inter radio: (Read More…)

Launching the “world’s cheapest car,” the Nano, into one of the world’s fastest growing auto markets, India, looked like a surefire concept back in 2009.  Today, it looks stupid. Like many surefire concepts, the Nano turned out to be a dud. Says India’ Economic Times:

“After several years of disappointing sales, it has now become clear that the snubnosed hatchback’s unique selling point — its price — was actually a commercial sticking point.  (Read More…)