The last time Lotus trotted out an “Elite,” it was a funkily be-hatched, sports tourer which, at about 2,000 lbs, was already nearly a thousand pounds heavier than the sleek fiberglass coupe it replaced. Thirty five years later, the beat goes on: as part of its mainstreaming effort, Lotus is showing a new “Elite” concept at the Paris Auto Show that is the heaviest and most powerful model the brand has ever produced. At 3,700 lbs, and offering a hybrid five liter V8 (reportedly based on the Lexus LS600h drivetrain) and a folding hardtop, this Elite appears to be aimed at Ferrari’s California… and more generally, at people who don’t know who Colin Chapman was. Lotus CEO Danny Behar tells Autocar

Make no mistake, there’s a definite market requirement for the Elite. It’s the ultimate compromise of sports car feel with comfort and space. There will always be those who say Lotus should stick to small sports cars, but we didn’t take the decision to design something like the Elite lightly. It is based on months of careful research and planning.

What Behar apparently doesn’t get is that McLaren would be more than happy to take Lotus’s status as the preeminent British sportscar maker if it takes its eye off the ball for a second. And going from the Elise to the Evora to a full-fat, hybrid hardtop convertible tourer is quite the leap of faith for Lotus. Business is business, but brands are brands… and we didn’t realize just how mainstream Lotus was aiming for.

Via Hemmings News comes this delightful find from Chevymall.com: an officially licensed poster comparing women to cupholders. So, did Susan Docherty sign off on that when she was GM’s marketing boss, or is this just more evidence that GM really is a “testosterone saturated, white, American male culture”? Either way, it cements the impression that Chevrolet’s values and image stopped making progress around the same time its market share did… which, incidentally, was about the same time the poodle skirt went out of fashion.

It’s just too bad that, between the ’59 Impala, the poodle skirt, GM’s US market dominance and casual sexism, only the casual sexism seems to have survived.

Scion brand manager Jack Hollis tells the WSJ [sub] that

The sales are nowhere where they should be and they will never be this low again

And with only 29,672 units sold through 2010, he ain’t kidding either (well, except for maybe the last part). Meanwhile, with the Yen headed up, profits on Scion’s small, Japanese-built offerings aren’t in great shape either. In short, it is with good reason that Scion is the subject of the most-recent TTAC Deathwatch. Meanwhile, Scion’s bid for renewed relevance hangs on the success of two cars: the neo-Corolla Coupe tC, and the A-Segment Scion iQ three-seater. TTAC will have an early review of the tC before the end of the week, but before we get into the specifics of that vehicle, let’s ponder the wider question of Scion’s viability. Will these two cars bring back Scion’s sales to their previous levels? Let’s take a look at Scion’s historical sales for answers…

(Read More…)

Several weeks back, Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann was hinting to Forbes that weight loss would be crucial to the Lambo future (he also revealed that the brand’s best-selling colors “are white, black and the grey tones”). As the hype builds towards the release of the new Murcielago-replacing Jota, Winkelmann has released a “manifesto” that he says will guide Lamborghini into a sustainable future.

Alternatively, it could also be seen as an after-the-fact justification for Lamborghini’s decision to ditch the V12. After all, the Jota teaser image released with the Winkelmann-ifesto hints very strongly at a ten-cylinder drivetrain… which means the era of V12-powered Lamborghini flagships is probably about to end. Can one little manifesto really explain that kind of brand-defying break with tradition? Hit the jump to judge for yourself. (Read More…)

This is the Hyundai ix20, a a European-style subcompact MPV in the style of Honda’s Fit. Or, more precisely, in the style of Kia’s Venga. In fact, the similarities between the new Hyundai and its Kia-branded predecessor are strong enough to hint at a future of GM-style brand differentiation issues for the Korean concern.  And here’s the real irony: both cars share a platform with the Kia Soul, an American-style B-Segment MPV (possibly the only car to fit that description). Couldn’t Kia have rocked the Soul and left the ix20/Venga segment to Hyundai? Or was the Venga simply too good-looking to die? Either way, these two taught twins are a bit close for comfort.

Remember the Saturn Vue? It’s back, baby, and more cannibalistic than ever. Starting in 2011, the refreshed Chevrolet Captiva will be undercutting Opel’s Antara, itself a rebadge of the same Daewoo Winstorm. Because what Opel needs right now is to prove that sometimes it’s worth paying a little extra for a German brand on your rebadged Korean Crossover. That’s what you call giving a brand a sense of purpose. Meanwhile, does anyone out there actually miss the Vue?

Later this month at the upcoming Paris auto show, Lotus will be revealing the first car that reflects their new strategic vision, a vision of going upmarket and luxurious to compete directly with the likes of Porsche, Ferrari and Aston Martin. The car, originally slotted to fill the role of the much beloved Esprit, will now be “something more” than the Esprit. The midengine supercar is rumored to be powered by the V10 engine that powers the Lexus LF-A. Toyota currently supplies Lotus with all of its production car engines. The LF-A’s announced production run of 500 units probably won’t cover that engine’s development costs, so the rumor makes sense.

(Read More…)

If you exist outside the fast-paced world of the automotive branding community, you might believe that the point of car brands is to sell cars. Needless to say, you’d be wrong. The big buzzword around car brands, particularly the more niche and eco-friendly brands is “mobility.” As in “we must leverage our brand values to provide a broad-based mobility strategy for the cities of the future.” Or, to put it into layman’s terms, “screw cars, we gotta start building scooters.”

(Read More…)

There are no rumors to report here, just a hypnotic video of Mazda working through its new Kodo design language on a compact hatchback concept. As with the Shinari concept, Mazda’s stated goal of becoming “the Japanese Alfa Romeo” is well-evidenced, and though it’s early days yet, the new direction looks promising. But then, anything that looks less like a stimulant-crazed Pokemon than the current Mazda3 would have counted as improvement.

The last time we looked at the evolving Opel Astra coupe, I wondered

what do you call a Buick coupe that could fit under the hood of a classic Riviera?

Though we have a much better idea of what the Astra Coupe looks like, and we know that the Astra sedan/wagon will be called the Buick Verano in the US market, the question remains unanswered. Surely “Buick Verano Coupe” is too bland for what could (in theory) be the next Integra/RSX. Skyhawk? Apollo? Wildcat? Or is the dearth of promising names indicative of the challenges facing any compact Buick Coupe?

The use of automotive journalism in car commercials never ceases to fascinate. For example, do consumers really consider Audi over BMW because Audi won three straight Car and Driver comparisons? Has an ad built around the winning of a Motor Trend Truck Of The Year ever “moved the needle” for an actual buyer? More importantly, does Autoblog Dot Com take actual decibel readings before declaring the Chevy Cruze’s interior “Lexus Quiet,” or is that just, like, their opinion? This is, after all, one of the most prominent uses of an automotive blog’s work in car television advertising to date… and for all the advantages that car blogs hold over the buff books, old-school, scientific testing isn’t one of them. On the other hand, at least our online colleagues aren’t quoted stooping to the level of Automobile Magazine, which apparently compared the Cruze to a Cadillac. But are Cadillacs “Lexus Quiet”?

The de-Ramification of the Dodge brand took another important step today, as Dodge previewed its new Ram-free logo. Similarly, the new 2011 Durango (on which the updated logo appears) has also had the Ram taken out of its Rama-lama-dingdong… er, technical underpinnings. Once a big BOF bruiser, the Durango has had a unibody makeover along the lines of Ford’s Explorer, making 2010 the year of the Cross-retro-ver. But will the old SUV brands remain relevant after becoming poster boys for automotive and cultural excess back when gas prices spiked? More importantly, does anyone actually like the new Dodge badge?

In recent interviews with Automotive News [sub] and AutoObserver, GM’s recently-hired marketing boss Joel Ewanick dished out some of the insights that have earned him the reputation for being an ace image guy. He tells AN [sub] that

Consumers don’t buy General Motors. General Motors sells nothing

Oh, really? Because GM decided to remove the GM Mark of Excellence from its vehicles right around the time it emerged from bankruptcy, the better part of a year before Ewanick was brought on board. Since the first Government Motors joke emerged on the internet, GM has sought to distance itself from its corporate umbrella’s brand… and this is the insight Ewanick is bringing to the organization? Hell, Automotive News [sub] suggested that “Stop mentioning General Motors” when he was hired in June of this year. Which leaves Ewanick only one choice: don’t talk about General Motors more than anyone might imagine.

(Read More…)

Chrysler execs met with some 400 potential Fiat dealers today to discuss plans for a new network of Fiat and Alfa-Rome brand stores in the US, and as we have noted, a certain amount of overlap can be expected. Chrysler says that “as many as 200” stores could be opened for the Italian brands, but the company has only identified 119 metropolitan markets in 38 US states where it projects sales growth in small car sales. Even with only “about 165” stores planned for the initial rollout, quite a few markets could host dueling Fiat/Alfa stores. According to the NYT’s Nick Bunkley, Idaho, Iowa, Alaska, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, The Dakotas, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming will not receive Fiat/Alfa dealerships. Meanwhile, the AFP reports that Chrysler plans to sell 50,000 Fiat 500s in 2011 alone, meaning each of the 165 stores will sell an average of 303 units per year.

(Read More…)