I’m going to wager that, as a percentage, ninety-nine and a bunch more nines of TTAC readers have their driver’s license. I mean, it’s not like the ranks of our readers are filled with youth wielding keyboards their parents’ basements or anything.
With such an august readership, I’m certain there is a story or two here about getting one’s driver’s license. Like mine, for instance.
Two new models are entering the not hot wagon market in North America. While one wagon entry is aimed squarely at the near-luxury market, the other aims higher and challenges established luxury wagons.
Our question today is this: Will either of the models work?
It’s an “eye of the beholder” kind of thing. Like in the Twilight Zone episode of the same name, sometimes a great-looking vehicle stands out as a freak in a world of uglies. Some models we just don’t appreciate like we should. We grow accustomed to a singular form of beauty.
We’ve turned our critical gaze on past and current models before, but this time we’re asking you to to focus on new (or refreshed) for 2018 models. There’s no shortage to choose from. Honda’s all-new Accord; the heavily (and questionably) revamped Toyota Camry; the frowny-face Ford Mustang; the glitzy rolling mass of the newly sculpted Lincoln Navigator. Throw the Kia Stinger in for good measure.
You’re in good company for this question. However, is the Class of 2018 a bunch of lookers, or is it just a pack of duds? (Read More…)
This week, the population of Las Vegas will explode with leagues of auto industry people attending this year’s SEMA Show, an extravaganza filled with aftermarket car products and over-the-top custom vehicles.
Pretty much every gearhead on the planet has affixed an accessory or five onto their rig — with varying degrees of success. From underglow lights to themed valve covers, most of us have at least one aftermarket accessory we’ve affixed to a car that we now look back upon with deep regret.
Automotive trade shows serve as a wonderful opportunity for manufacturers and suppliers to showcase upcoming products to the people most interested in them. However, carmakers understand that you have to take time to feed the global hype machine, which usually means tossing a few concept vehicles into the mix. While some of these designs serve as tantalizing preludes to real-deal automobiles, others are fantastical fabrications — representing little more than an interesting idea that will never reach production.
This year’s Tokyo Motor Show saw plenty of vehicles straddling the line between faintly tangible and utterly incorporeal in terms of future production. Sure, we know not every prototype will accurately represent subsequent real-world models. Subaru’s Viziv may not be a dead ringer for the next WRX, but it at least gives us a sense of where the design team is heading. The same is true for Honda’s Sports EV or Mazda’s incredible-looking Vision Coupe and Kai concepts.
However, for every concept car earnestly trying to convey a new design language or highlight upcoming features there is also something so implausible that it leaves you wondering why the manufacturer wheeled it out in the first place. Which brings us to today’s question: are these over-the-top automotive prototypes meaningful or a complete waste of resources? (Read More…)
Glossy magazines present multi-page spreads on their winners. Poorly funded websites present annual lists of their favorites. Other organizations that rate all sorts of consumer products give out actual, physical plaques and trophies to their winners.
Yes, we’re talking about automotive awards today. Everybody’s doing it, and with a bit of searching, one might even find a particular grouping of awards which suits their particular special interest.
But do you care?
As often happens here at TTAC, yesterday we brought you a story that illustrates the Chrysler brand’s slow decline — both in sales and in status. Yes, the brand is pulling out of several countries, even as sales in its home country have declined, year-over-year, for 23 straight months.
The Chrysler brand, once the pinnacle of American near-luxury, has been shedding models at breakneck speed. With just a minivan and an aging full-size sedan in its lineup (due for price cuts in 2018!), even Rolls-Royce’s stable sports more occupants. Meanwhile, sales have followed suit — slipping from 649,293 U.S. vehicles in 2005 to 231,972 units in 2016. The brand will be lucky to break the 200k marker this year.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles doesn’t seem content to let its one-time prestige brand wither to oblivion, however, so two saviors are on the way: a three-row midsize crossover due for 2019 and a full-size crossover scheduled to appear for 2021.
It seems that Chrysler could use a little attention; something to get eyeballs on the company. The brand that brought us the New Yorker, Fifth Avenue, Imperial and, for better or worse, the Crossfire, could use a halo vehicle. Something aspirational. Certainly, sales considerations aside, a full-size crossover (rumored to carry the Aspen name, yet again) doesn’t strike us an appropriate range-topper. What would you like to see Chrysler build? (Read More…)
Ages ago, we asked about your favorite car-related marketing campaign. Your answers were varied as they were well-thought out – Nissan’s toy 300ZX, Iacocca daring us to find a better car, and VW’s Star Wars ad.
Absent from all of the above? Celebrity endorsements… unless you count Ken & Barbie in the Z ad. This time around, we’re asking you what’s the most memorable car ad (for better or worse) featuring someone straight out of central casting?
Cadillac enjoys some of the highest average transaction prices among premium auto brands operating in the United States. After years of Lincoln MKS disappointment, the new Lincoln Continental actually looks the part. Globally, Cadillac sales are rising month after month after month. In the U.S., Lincoln is rare among auto brands in a declining auto industry in 2017: sales at Ford’s upmarket brand have risen 3 percent this year.
Indeed, while discussing the apparent appeal of the Tesla brand last week, Jack Baruth said, “You might say that General Motors and Ford are going to build better, more reliable, and more thoroughly developed electric cars than Tesla can, and you’re probably right.”
“But the world doesn’t want an electric Cadillac or Lincoln,” Jack accurately points out, “for the same reasons it doesn’t want gasoline-powered Cadillacs or Lincolns.”
Regardless of how you grade the momentum of Cadillac and Lincoln, they are mere blips in the global luxury automobile market and remain rather inconsequential players in their U.S. home market, as well. Will that change in your lifetime? (Read More…)
We’ve asked you before about the particular brand you’d resurrect if given the power to bring just one back from the dead. A different Question of the Day also inquired which models trumped the previous generation by bringing fresh ideas and improvements to the redesign.
Today, we follow similar lines and ask which model was killed off too soon; which vehicle deserved one more generation.
There’s a questionable spy photo of the next-generation Ram 1500 floating around. “Questionable,” because since the dawn of time, a Ram pickup, whether prefixed by “Dodge” or not, has retained solid, distinctive, and simple lines.
Unfortunately, the 2019 model seen in the photo appears with an odd mish-mash of Silverado and Tundra styling cues in place of today’s handsome front fenders and traditional crosshair grille. This got the TTAC chatroom talking. After all, the Ram nameplate is well-known for taking a styling direction and running with it for decades. Two styles over 40 years, essentially.
That got us talking about the most memorable Rams, the most quintessential and #iconic Rams, and, eventually, to the most famous Ram of them all. (Read More…)
Hands up: how many of you guys and girls reading this have a radio in their car? Good, that’s just about everyone. Now, how many have a favorite tune or genre of music they crank to eleven when hitting the road? That’s what I thought.
Rock ‘n’ roll and fast cars have been intertwined since the ‘50s, and if one had to count the number of car references in rap music, well, we’d be here all day. So here’s today’s question: on what do you hit “Play” when it’s time to drive?
There’s no need for detail. Nuance is unnecessary. Set aside demands for specifics.
What’s the worst type of vehicle known to humankind in 2017?
There are leaders in every category, of course. But the fact that the Ford Transit Connect is surprisingly fun to drive doesn’t make the small commercial van sector particularly appealing. Likewise, there are laggards in every category, too. Yet the Mitsubishi Lancer’s uncompetitive nature doesn’t cast a broad brush across the entire compact sedan segment.
Somewhere, however, in some corner of the vast U.S. auto industry, resides an entire segment of vehicles that is, as of 2017, the worst. It’s the segment that provides the worst return-on-investment. The vehicles in said segment haven’t moved the game forward in the same way full-size pickup trucks or American muscle cars have their own category. There’s no obvious class leader or class embarrassment because every vehicle in the category lacks true sensibility.
What vehicle category are we talking about? (Read More…)
Last month we featured a Question of the Day about the worst model names ever glued onto the back of a vehicle. Everyone had fun trashing corny, little-known nameplates from here and abroad, as well as the various and oft-nonsensical letters applied to the back of many North American offerings today.
Today we flip this question and talk about the best model names. What’s your selection for the best vehicle names out there?
Alert readers will have noted by this time that I have lived my entire life in the refrigerator that is Eastern Canada. Snow appears early, sticks around like an unwelcome houseguest, only to begrudgingly depart sometime after Cinco de Mayo. My father often says his retirement plan consists of loading a snowblower into the bed of a pickup truck and heading south. The first place he stops where someone asks “What’s that?” is where he makes his new home.
On Friday, I regaled you with my tale of finally paying off a car (thanks for the kind words in the comments, readers). Since I’ll be keeping the Charger, and live well into the snow belt, I will soon need to get it ready for winter.
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