Ladies and gentlemen, today I must reveal a depressing opinion about Mazda: I believe they no longer zoom.
Yes, folks, that’s right: I believe that Mazda, everyone’s favorite “zoom zoom” brand, once home to all the cool “zoom zoom” cars, is no longer in the “zoom zoom” business. In fact, if they were to make those commercials again today, the little boy would say “sip sip,” and the ad would show Mazda’s lineup slowly descending a hill in top gear in order to maximize average fuel economy.
I recently had the opportunity to attend the Philadelphia Auto Show, where I found myself sitting in a shiny, new 2015 Ford Flex. For those of you who aren’t up on your modern Fords, this is the one that looks like a port-a-potty tipped on its side.
Today marked the introduction of the second turbocharged Ferrari, the 488 GTB. Replacing the 458 Italia, the 488 is another move towards the eventual replacement of naturally aspirated Ferrari engines with turbocharged units.
Most car enthusiasts know that rental cars are the most abused vehicles on the road. We know this, of course, because we are the ones who abuse them.
In the nameplate’s best-ever year, Nissan sold 86,945 Titans in the United States.
Nissan USA wants to sell 100,000 Titans annually when the new model, with its more extensive lineup, arrives for the 2016 model year.
• Titan sales declined 20% in 2014
• Titan volume peaked at 87K in 2005
• F-Series, GM, Ram combined for 1.9M full-size truck sales in 2014
A 15% uptick from that record-setting year – the Titan’s second full year in the U.S., 2005 – doesn’t sound like an insurmountable leap forward. But an increase to 100,000 units would represent a six-fold improvement over the Titan’s U.S. sales average from the last three years.
According to Automotive News, Nissan North America’s chairman, Jose Munoz, told a crowd at the J.D. Power Automotive Summit that their aspirations are “modest,” and that when it comes to the automaker’s expectations for the Titan, “We’re very bullish.”
But is it reasonable to expect that the Titan could penetrate the market with Toyota Tundra-like force? (Read More…)
Twenty years ago, BMW was the coolest automaker in the world. I know this because I – as a young lad of less than ten, growing up in the 1990s – desperately wanted my father to purchase a BMW. And he – as a rational, middle-aged man in his 40s – ended up in a Camry with cloth seats and a tape player. He wasn’t the BMW type. He wasn’t cool enough. Back then, few were.
I’m sure there’s a good reason it hasn’t been done yet, but I’m going to ask for it anyways: how about a 3.5L EcoBoost V6 Mustang? Why not call it a Shelby GT500?
It’s likely that most of us don’t remember the first time we ever rode in a motor vehicle— in most cases, that would be the ride home from the hospital after being born— but I’ll bet that most can figure out what that car, truck, motorcycle, or Comfortractor was. In my case, the first car I remember was my dad’s ’67 Ford Custom 500 sedan, but I happen to know that my first car ride was on icy Minneapolis streets in January of 1966, and that the car was a 1956 Oldsmobile 88. How about your first road trip? (Read More…)
Today’s QOTD comes from Grandma, who is on vacation in Florida. Grandma writes:
i have a a chevy sonic rental. i parked it, it is so small it was a breeze lots of 2014 mercedes sitting in dealer lots here. saw 2 bmw electric cars. the back lights look like the kia soul. it looks cute, but none of the beemer [sic] sophistication. don’t know why they have to make electric cars look so quirky.
It’s not quite the 31st yet, but since a few of us won’t be at our computers on New Year’s Eve (*ahem*), I figured this is an opportune time to turn the floor over to the B&B.
Today’s Question of the Day is remarkably simple, but it took a reader suggestion to make it appear.
On the news of OPEC’s decision to keep oil production at current levels, there is almost certainly going to be a rout in the price of oil.
While helping my grandmother hunt for a new car, I tried to steer her towards a Mazda3 Sport. She didn’t take to the “game changer” (which is the tagline for the car’s marketing campaign, not an attempt to cash in on my catch phrase), but I did notice a similar example on the lot.
Last weekend, while I was helping to run the seventh annual 24 Hours of LeMons Fall South race, I got into a debate with LeMons Chief Perp Jay Lamm over which team should get the accomplished-the-most-with-the-worst-car trophy, the Index of Effluency. The 1982 Renault Fuego Turbo of Interceptor Motorsports, which made its debut at that race, managed to turn 19 laps during two days of racing (the winner did 377 laps) and finished 105th out of 110 entries. My opinion was that the Fuego Turbo was the worst car sold in the United States in 1982 and thus Interceptor Motorsports deserved Index of Effluency recognition for their achievement, but the Chief Perp felt that plenty of Detroit-built cars from the Malaise Era were even worse. In the end, we gave the prize to a 1979 Wagon Queen Family Truckster (which finished in P73), but I still think that you’d be hard-pressed to find any 1982 model-year car that approaches the Renault Fuego Turbo for across-the-board terribleness. (Read More…)
A few days ago, Jalopnik posted a link to a classified site in Colombia that listed a bunch of armored cars for sale. These aren’t the MRAPs patroling the streets of Ferguson either. Hell, they’re even more discreet than the typical black Suburbans you see roaming around D.C.
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