TTAC News Round-Up: Mazda's Crossover Mania, Hyundai Lands a Lambo Man, Toyota is Just The Tops

Aaron Cole
by Aaron Cole

Newly promoted, high-priced executives at Mazda seem to think there’s something to this crossover fad.

That, Hyundai’s landed a Benjamin Button to lead Genesis and I wish I would have known how cheap I could have purchased an F1 team … after the break.

New Mazda boss keying on crossover sales

New Mazda North America chief Masahiro Moro will push the company to sell more crossovers next year when he takes the reins, according to Automotive News.

Moro will take over for outgoing, longtime CEO Jim O’Sullivan on Jan. 1, and Moro said that he’d like the automaker’s business to be based more on its high-margin crossovers and less on its slim-profit sedans, such as the Mazda3.

“In the past, we have had a business model with too much reliance on Mazda3 series,” Moro told Automotive News. “With that business model, it is very difficult to make good money.”

To bolster that bid to sell more big vehicles, Mazda introduced its CX-3 in 2015 and will bring a new CX-9 in 2016.

More “boom-boom,” less “zoom zoom,” I suppose?

Former Lamborghini exec leading Hyundai’s Genesis division

Manfred Fitzgerald, who led Lamborghini’s brand and design up until 2011, will take over at Hyundai’s new Genesis brand, the automaker announced Monday.

Fitzgerald will be based in Seoul, South Korea, and will be responsible for the fledgling brand’s strategy and marketing, according to the statement.

Apparently Fitzgerald is 52 years old, which you’d never know by the above photo.

Toyota will likely retain crown for world’s largest automaker

Toyota outsold Volkswagen for the fifth-straight month in November, which means that the Japanese automaker will likely retain its crown for 2015 as the world’s biggest automaker.

(Volkswagen, you may have heard, has had a little difficulty selling cars since the summer.)

Reuters reported that Toyota said group sales have slid 1 percent year-to-date over last year, but that the automaker shipped 9.21 million cars in November.

Renault bought Lotus F1 for less than you think

How does $1.50 sound? That’s how much Renault paid for the flagging Lotus F1 team, according to Motorsport.

The complicated stock transaction boiled down to just a single, British Pound, according to the report. Grigny will be the immediate owner of the team, according to Motorsport, and is a subsidiary of Renault. Grigny was involved in Renault’s last F1 bid, when the former was called Benetton.

All Pastor Maldonado needs to know is whose name to put on the check.

Recalls coming at year-end, but 2015 may come second

A flurry of year-end recalls for vehicles are bringing to a close a busy year for safety regulators, but that may not top last year’s record 64 million recalled vehicles, The Detroit Bureau reported.

The year-end rush may have something to do with the fact that Congress recently passed stiffer penalties for automakers as part of its federal highways bill.

Federal regulators have handed out record penalties already to automakers this year including $105 million to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and $900 million to General Motors for its faulty ignition switches.

Aaron Cole
Aaron Cole

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  • TrailerTrash TrailerTrash on Dec 28, 2015

    Don't you dare stop the focus of the Mazda3. It is simply a beauty and what really brought the Mazda brand back to where it is today.\ I don't mind thinking about margin...but can we try to do more than two things here? I see a car company suddenly moving from the control of the engineers and car guys to the offices of the bean counters and return of shareholder investments. That's all good, but remember what brought us here. Go back and watch the old movie Executive Suite again and try to get the picture.

  • Tekdemon Tekdemon on Dec 31, 2015

    It's rather ridiculous how much money Mazda wants for a CX-3 but the market weirdly places a premium on things that are crossovers, even if they appear to be the same damned size as a car.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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