Consumer Reports failed to give the Range Rover Evoque its “Recommended Rating”. Instead, the BMW X3 nabbed the coveted title. Too bad the hordes of auto journos and status-concious customers have spoken.

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I grew up in Germany during a time without speed limits on our highways. I probably drove 500.000 kilometers, always at the maximum, and thats the kind of school required to win Gumball. But even with all of this experience I felt that I could hurt someone if I made a mistake. And after 10 years of extreme driving I decided to quit street racing. Most Gumball participants don’t know the limits of their cars and fail to avoid obvious dangers.

Thus spake Kim Schmitz, later known as “Kimble”, and then finally as “Kim Dotcom”, regarding his decision to stop participating in the Gumball Rally. As many TTAC readers know, Mr. Dotcom recently found out the hard way that there is one thing more consistently dangerous than “500,000 kilometers at the maximum”: endangering the fiscal interests of the corporations which own the United States Government lock, stock, and barrel. It’s one thing to be Roman Polanski yucking it up in Paris for three decades after he sodomized a child and fled the country. Quite another to allow someone to download Katy Perry’s newest CD without paying for it. That’s Justice, American Style.

It’s a shame, because Kimble was a car guy, even if he wasn’t quite the kind of “car guy” we normally get here at TTAC… and when it came to wrecking hyper-expensive vehicles, nobody did it better.

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Before we go any further in depth into the BMW M550d, X5 M50d or X6 M50d, just know that all three models will not be coming to North America.

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When I saw the interior of today’s Junkyard Find, I knew: I must have that Corinthian Leather bench seat! Maybe I’ll put it in the back of my ’66 Dodge A100 van, or maybe I’ll just convert it into a comfy, Ricardo Montalban-grade garage couch. Either way, I returned to the junkyard yesterday with a sense of grim determination: that seat will be mine! (Read More…)

Chrysler will hire 400-500 new workers to help build the upcoming Dodge Dart compacts at its Illinois plant.  The workers will be added to the plant’s current shifts.

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As if the Ford Escape pricing details weren’t exciting enough, Toyota has priced their new 86 sports car in Japan, with a base price of $25,848. But to get anything approaching normal equipment levels, you’ll pay $31,000

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Two weeks ago, Bertel stole from me we brought you the very first pictures of the China-only RUF XL, a Porsche Panamera stretched by 40 centimeters exclusively for the limousine-orientated Chinese car market. The story has since been all over the internet.

Today, I present you the first pictures of the interior. This Porsche sure looks like a comfortable place to smoke a cigar, play with your second and/or third wife and to tell the driver to take it easy, or to go like stink. (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…)

We all make fun of the Cordoba now, but we mustn’t forget that Chrysler’s personal luxury coupe sold quite well back in the day, helping slow the company’s slide towards what appeared to be certain doom. I’m going to follow up yesterday’s junked early-70s personal luxury coupe with one built a little later in the decade. (Read More…)

The Buick Excelle is China’s top selling car in 2011, moving 254,000 units? Buick sold roughly 178,000 vehicles in the USA by contrast.
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