A credit to my parents (among many); they turned everything into a “teachable moment”. A new addition to my vocabulary came with a lesson on the root word, and whether it came from Latin, or French or Greek. A new song came with a quick history of Manchester  80′s New Wave, or Delta blues. My allowance was paid after chores and before a lesson on budgeting. A new car magazine had to be read and not just scanned through for pretty pictures.

And so came one of the lessons that ended up changing how I viewed the world. I was in my early teens, and had just discovered Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities, when my father suggested I read Paul Fussell’s Class. “It’s even got some car stuff in there; he talks about how people buy SUVs to look like they’re rich enough to have a country home. Just read it. You’ll like it.”

I devoured Class, as well as Bad, which I considered the advanced, up-to-date version, and never looked at the world in the same way. Not many books have done that. To explain both would take another essay entirely, but both books do a wonderful job of deconstruction consumering, advertising, marketing and most importantly, how all three prey on people’s insecurities relating to social status. Read them and you will feel both immune to “aspirational brand” marketing and also wondering about the class signals given off by friends, peers, people you interact with – and yourself.

Paul Fussell died today at age 88, and while his body of work is incredibly important in an era where class and money no longer have anything to do with one another, and the push to define ourselves through consuming goods has never been stronger. I leave you with the passage below, from Class, where Fussell ruthlessly dissects the semiotics of the automobile (and also perhaps, shows some indirect Panther love – remember, this book was written in the early/mid-80s)

“If your money and freedom and carelessness of censure allow you to buy any kind of car, you provide yourself with the meanest and most common to indicate that you`re not taking seriously so easily purchasable and thus vulgar a class totem. You have a Chevy, Ford, Plymouth or Dodge, and in the least interesting style and color. It may be clean, although slightly dirty is best.

You may not have a Rolls, Cadillac or a Mercedes. . . . The worst kind of upper-middle-class types own a Mercedes, just as the best own elderly Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Chryslers, and perhaps Jeeps and Land Rovers, the latter conveying the preppy suggestion that one of your residences is in a place so unpublic that the roads to it are not even paved, indeed are hardly passable by your ordinary vulgar automobile.”

And of course, some wisdom from my own mother, upon seeing the first $399/month lease deal for a BMW 320i

“Anyone can have a BMW now…and [redacted, her billionaire godfather] drives an old, beat up Buick.”

Two teachable moments, expressed in slightly different ways, updated for our times. Go out and by the books. For the cost of a couple spark plugs, your outlook on the world will never be the same.

I know how much you like big rankings… Last week, I gave you the Top 265 best-selling models in China in April, but you also enjoyed the Top 265 best-selling models in the USA over Q1 2012 and the Top 318 best-selling models in Europe in 2011.

So today, before our worldwide roundup monthly appointment (coming up next week!), I thought I would share with you one more sizeable ranking: my estimation of the Top 100 best-selling cars in the world over the First Quarter of 2012.

Does that make you happy?

No? Well there are 163 additional countries and territories for you to visit in my blog, all one by one. Click. The link. You will love it.

Back to the world.

As I mentioned in my last world roundup, it’s looking like the hybrid era has now started for good around the world…

In spite of a scare (or a historical loss, depending on which way you split the numbers) in March where it was neck and neck with the Prius family, the Toyota Corolla remains the best-selling model worldwide over the period with 285,352 sales, on its way to yet another 1 million+ year. The massive event in this start of 2012 is the thunderous take off of the Prius family, delivering an out-of-this world 242,947 units, which means 1 million Priuses could find a buyer in 2012 alone…

With the my Miata now gone (sold to a friend who has given me the right of first refusal when it comes time for him to sell it), I needed a new car with a bit more practicality, and a low price tag. A quick call to my friend Vasco, who functions as Toronto’s version of our own Steve Lang, led me to the car you see above. Did I mention it’s a manual?

Originally, my plan was to sell the Miata and pick up a friend’s high mileage but well cared-for E36 BMW 328i. I’d already sold the Miata (for a sum that was impossible to refuse) and was looking forward to getting behind the wheel. The car drove well and was in great shape overall, save for one minor detail – during the government safety inspection, a portion of the frame near the jacking point was discovered to have rotted out. It was a double blow for me, since it wouldn’t be worth fixing, and I suddenly felt a wave of regret over selling my beloved first car, despite my now healthy bank balance.

A quick message to Vasco asking for “anything decent and cheap”, came up with the Volvo. It was his brother’s car, and Vasco had bought it at auction, using it briefly as his own car before handing it off to his older brother. For the last year, it had carried his brother, sister-in-law, their three kids and a large Rhodesian Ridgeback. It was a1998  non-turbo 2.4L with 162,800 miles on the clock, but it had a 5-speed manual and Vasco only wanted $1500 for it.

I hemmed and hawed for a few minutes (and looked at a couple S70 T5s – V70 turbos were all automatic, save for one V70 AWD that was questionable enough to make me walk away) but ultimately decided to take a chance with it. The Carfax came back clean, and although there were a number of scratches and stone chips, there was no rust on the rockers, quarter panels or frame rails. To pass inspection, it would need a further $325 for new rear brakes, parking brake shoes and a tie rod, plus $75 for the inspection and $30 for an emissions test. Another $200 or so for taxes, fees and licensing and it now sits in my driveway.

For now, the V70 will be a great shuttle to take me to Mosport for my bi-monthly karting series, as well as a bit of a beater to leave in parking lots while I have press cars. With the Miata, I always worried about leaving it sitting in outdoor lots for weeks at a time – it was in beautiful shape, but a few steps away from looking like crap. The Volvo is liberating in the sense that it’s totally anonymous, and any cosmetic damage is frankly inconsequential.

Although it’s not the most thrilling to drive, the V70 is enjoyable in its own right. As a manual wagon, it has its own novelty, and even with all those miles on the odometer, the engine is strong, the clutch feels like there’s lots of life left, and the interior is far better than the one in my Miata. The Volvo is also much better equipped (heated seats are going to make the frigid winters infinitely better), will fare far better in a crash and has some decent highway manners. With that said, I will likely have another Miata sooner than later (or something faster. who knows). The Volvo will go to my brother as a reward for his eventual graduation from a very demanding business school (and entry into law school, if he so chooses) – and also because his roommate has the exact same car, down to the wheels and missing roof rack.

Over at Edmunds, the team has started “Project Debt Free”, to prove that one can buy a decent car for a relatively modest sum of cash. They managed to come away with a $3800 1996 Lexus ES300 with fewer miles. Personally, I think our car is more interesting, but it may not have the clockwork reliability of the Lexus. In the spirit of that project, I’ll also keep everyone updated on any maintenance, issues and positive experiences. So far, the car will need some body work (14 years of stone chips has necessitated a re-spray of the front end), not to mention a good wash and a tune-up. But the V70, as boring as it may be, it’s not something I’d be embarrassed to drive, and is just interesting enough to make me look forward to driving it.

By the way, Project G-Body and Project Rallycross are still on. The Grand National is still in the shop awaiting some new old stock interior bits. Once that’s on the road, the hunt for a suitable Rallycross Project will begin.

I suspect a fair bit of cursing, especially for the poor souls tasked with the aforementioned Lincoln. And while badge engineering is a vital (yet terrifying) part of the game, me thinks the designers at VW had more leverage, more money and way more fun making this ride. Because the roof proves it.

A good car schnoz needs some sort of thrust.  Perhaps it is the swept back thrust of any car with a long hood and curvy fenders. Or maybe the pointy forward action of many sedans: to visually reduce the extra frontal area of modern machines. The CC goes forward nicely, as the upper grille and lower fog light trim point to vanishing points beyond the bumper. The bumper, fenders and headlights follow suit…quite logically.

Yup, that’s pretty pointy. The CC’s rather toothy grin is sinister from this shot. The headlight design adds more complexity to the curves, so let’s dig deeper.

There’s a dazzling array of LED, HID and conventional lighting presented here. Each element demands a unique look to perform to their engineering specs, and I like how they all blended into an assembly that is cohesive, forward thrusting and very eye-catching.

And from the top, where most of us see them, these lights have a much cleaner look.  It’s very German. Even better, it still conveys the forward thrust of the entire front fascia.

Damn camera phone.  Washed out or no, you see how the forward thrust of the front end (witnessed by the profile of the headlights) turns into sweeping lines. Some go up (beltline and DLO daylight opening) and others go down (roof, decklid). The whole package is fluid. Most importantly, the CC doesn’t look as tall as a CUV: say that three times fast!

Combined with modest chrome trimmings and the requisite large hoops, the CC projects an upscale demeanor, as a downmarket Mercedes CLS.  Well duh, you already knew that!

No black plastic triangles!  Thank goodness for German engineering and design harmony.  My only beef is the massive A-pillar, thanks to the low cutline.  The CC would flow better if that line started at the base of the windshield and gently/naturally landed at the base of the DLO.  Some designers make it work by the pure talent in their hand/wrist muscles…others use a curve template not unlike the plastic thingies in a Spirograph game. Either way works.

This B-pillar is just way too thick.  I’m sure there’s a good reason why, but it takes away from the package…in terms of styling.  Too bad about that.

Another DLO that avoids black plastic triangles!  Some design team obviously had a lot of money and plenty of time to make a unique roofline!  The curves are just about perfect: when you frame any “four door coupé” in this manner, things get downright beautiful.  Which makes me lust for the renaissance of coupes a little less…NOT!

Do you feel the thrusting lines speeding to the CC’s hind quarters? Also note the subtle tension between the hard bends in the sheetmetal…dare I proclaim this as a coke bottle figure? I probably dare not.

My big letdown from the side: these static and dowdy door handles.  I wish they had more up-down or left-right flow, combined with negative area (where your fingers go) that looked less like a cartoonish smile.  A good benchmark for my opinion lies in the Mercedes CLS and the last two generations of E-class. VW obviously spent a ton of cash on the roof, too bad they couldn’t make a business case for complementary portal openers.

Then again, look at that photographer dude’s massive forehead.  WTF does he know about looking cool or anything else?

Combine the coupé roof line with a touch of tumblehome and the hard crease above the door handle and this is most certainly a nice bit of Sedan Porn. At such a reasonable price…compared to an Aston Martin Rapide!  I even like the symmetric integration of the fuel filler door into the equation.

The facelifted taillights really make the CC shine.  I never cared for the static circles/ovoids of the last model, they detracted from the package. The new lenses sport complementary shapes and a linear theme that adds a dash of excitement to the posterior.  Kinda like going to a churrascaria instead of an ordinary steak house when you need a good slab of beef. Kinda sorta.

Not a big fan of the black trim below the rear glass.  While I understand that solid glass is pointless and costly on a roofline this fast, perhaps instead the trunk needs to extend to cover this gap? This just looks…well, cheap.

Note how (most of) the lines inside the light visually extend to a vanishing point somewhere in the middle of the trunk.  It’s a nice extension of the theme created by the headlights.  Again, a wonderful improvement over the original CC.

Much like the hide-away trunk locks of yesteryear, I encourage hiding stuff under an emblem. And this VW door/rear camera holder/whatever else is pretty frickin’ awesome. Some ideas never go out of style! Or at least they never should.

Here’s a cost cutting concession I do admire.  Instead of one hunk of chrome, this three-piece wraparound unit ensures you never replace a large trim item because of accident damage to the bumper’s rounded corners. I’m sure insurance companies also approve.

This is my biggest problem with the CC, as it’s cheap and easy to avoid. Why is the VW emblem so large that it demands a hood relief?  Plus, it’s sticking forward and generally not minding its own business.  Car badges are stalking sheet metal like your ex does all over Facebook.  I long for the day when badge engineering (literally, that is) takes a page from the “Less is More” school of thought.

The CC is quite a lovely and classy machine for the somewhat average car buyer, so why did VW give it a gigantic wart in the shape of their corporate logo?

Thanks for reading, have a great week.

This video, which was sent to me by a particularly reclusive Canadian cyclist, is forty-one minutes long. It was made by a Fisker Karma owner and it contains an exhaustive review of the Karma’s infotainment system. If you aren’t in the market for a Karma, it is virtually unwatchable.

If you are in the market for a Karma, it’s perhaps the most important video you will ever see.

Brian Greenstone is an Austin-based programmer who owns both an Aston Vantage and Fisker Karma. He claims to be an expert on user interface design and he has an award from Apple to support the point. During the course of his video, he comprehensively deconstructs the way the Karma works. Anyone who is even considering a Karma should see the video. It is detailed, specific, and informative. It was also created by someone who paid his own hard-earned money for the vehicle.

Now, for contrast, let’s take a look at Dan Neil’s advertorial:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Neil says:

Meet the world’s MOST INTERESTING CAR! Every square centimeter of the Fisker Karma riots with clarity, and design intent, and vested individuality, and scorn for convention we haven’t seen since the Tucker Torpedo…

After watching Mr. Greenstone show you how the user interface requires a press on the “up” arrow to move “down” the menu and have permission to touch menu items which were clearly visible previous to said up-touching, it’s highly unlikely that you will agree with Mr. Neil about the whole “riots with clarity” business. Aren’t riots usually affairs which, by definition, are short on clarity? But I digress.

The difference in the two videos is clear enough to supply an entire riot’s worth of clarity, actually. Greenstone’s video is meant to demonstrate how a Fisker Karma works. Dan Neil’s video is meant to be an advertisement for Dan Neil first, and perhaps the Karma second. It’s hard to imagine that anyone who is seriously considering the purchase of a Karma would learn anything from watching Mr. Neil pop his collar and fumble through the pronunciation of “gestalt” — but Greenstone’s video should be required watching for any Karma intender.

Greenstone’s Karma video isn’t the only effort of its kind out there. It’s simply one of the most intelligent and thorough videos available. In the years to come, it’s very possible to imagine that most people will bypass TTAC and its competitors and hit the owner videos the way they currently bypass Motor Trend and visit us. What will the future of auto journalism be then? Will we simply aggregate user-generated content in one place? Will we pull clicks solely by having early access to vehicles before the public? How beholden will we all be to the manufacturers when that’s our only way of keeping an audience? Or will your children tune in to the TTAC Hologram channel to watch my son live-blog an escape from the highway patrol in a hydrogen-powered hovercraft?

Karma intenders don’t have to even think about questions like that. For them, as William Gibson once famously said, the future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed.

I’d like to lend you a car for the weekend. It’s going to be sunny, and you can head off early before the crowds get out. Take a nice road-trip: maybe, as I just did, blast up the Sea-to-Sky and into the rolling foothills beyond the Pemberton Valley.

Your choice, take anything below.
Car A: 0-60mph in 5.3 seconds
Car B: 0-60mph in 5.7 seconds
Car C: 0-60mph in 5.3 seconds
Car D: 0-60mph in 5.7 seconds
Car E: 0-60mph in 5.6 seconds

So, what did you pick? Click the jump to find out.

Apologies for the heavy-handed and clunky approach, but A through E, the cars are: 2012 BMW X5 alphabet-soup-with-the-V8, 2012 Volkswagen Passat VR6, 1984 Ferrari Testarossa, 2012 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart, and a 2012 Ford V6 Mustang. Oh, I almost forgot: you could also take a sixth option, Car F, which will do 0-60 in 6.9 seconds.

Lucky for me, that’s the one I chose.

And here it is.

Jack has already given us a piece on the pandemic prevalence of speed and power. His take? A call for a higher-bracket measurement; the 0-80mph benchmark that we now need to separate the nose-candy Fezzas from the front-driver family-wagens.

I’d like to pick up the threads of an earlier bit, one of his usually thoughtful screeds from the Avoidable Contact series. As Jack points out there, the world certainly doesn’t need a Hyundai Sonata that could easily walk away from Crockett and Tubbs if they miss even one shift.

But we’ve got one. We’ve also got a WRX that could go toe-to-toe off the line with my beloved Porsche 959, and in the Shelby GT500 we’ve got a Mustang that’s capable of outrunning the F40 at the top-end. A Mustang!

When I was a small boy, car magazines always had a page at the end of the review that included the various measurable properties of the car in question: 0-60, quarter-mile, skid-pad and so on. It was Very Important to memorize all this information, such that one was properly prepared for playground debate. If the new V8 Camaro pipped the V8 ‘Stang through the quarter, then it was the better car. If an available handling package meant the ‘Stang redeemed itself on the skid-pad, then it was better.

These things could be empirically and scientifically sorted out through the application of careful testing. We nascent gearheads had all the information required to bench-race any of the top performance cars and crown a winner without shadow of a doubt.

Then along comes something like the GT-R. With the heart-heavy sigh that comes from knowing this statement will probably cause unrelated debate, the Nissan GT-R is the fastest car in the world. If it’s not, then the gap is so close as to be unimportant. Godzilla has made the supercar irrelevant.

But there’s something missing about the car, a sense that perhaps instead of signing your name on the purchase order you should be handed an old-school NES controller: Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right A B Start. It’s not uninvolving – dear me, no – but it feels artificial somehow. It feels like cheating. Godzilla? More like God-Mode.

And another thing, it’s inconveniently fast for the road. I’m sure there are visceral thrills to be found on the racetrack – and if you own a GT-R, for God’s sake sign up for a trackday and get it out of your system – but I don’t live on or particularly near a racetrack. I live in a province with absurdly low speed-limits, an active police force, and a Motor Vehicle Act that allows the constabulary to take away your vehicle if you exceed 40km/h (25mph) over the posted limit.

There’s a place just before my freeway exit where the limit drops from 90km/h to 70km/h at the tail end of a long, straight hill. When I was driving a Hyundai Genesis with the V8, I had multiple moments where I’d enter the zone without thinking, having picked up a few extra klicks in the whisper-numb Korean without noticing it, and have to quickly correct my speed. I’m not normally in the habit of driving without an awareness of my velocity, but the effortless wafting of the Genesis was very deceptive, as with so many modern cars.

Power is no longer a luxury item. It is a universality of the modern motoring experience. What’s more, from an enthusiast’s perspective, it’s a real-world liability.

We are all suffering from a glut of horsepower. It’s a silly measurement anyway: bragging rights for Victorian steam-donkey owners. Real joy is not doled out in pound-feet or kilowatts and cannot be measured at the drag-strip or on the skid-pad. True driving pleasure is entirely an ethereal thing, which is why it’s so hard to get right.

“Driving a slow car fast is more fun than driving a fast car slow,”; it’s a tired old saw, but not without merit. I’d change it to, “driving a fun car fast is more fun than driving a fast car fast.” Whether or not a car is enjoyable to drive is almost entirely divorced from its performance prowess.

We wait to welcome the FR-S and BR-Z with open arms, surely, but we also hail the CX-5 and the Sonic Turbo, the Kia Rio and the Volkswagen GLI. I hope that somewhere in a lab in Honda, engineers are studying the Fit in hopes of finding that last gleam of Soichiro’s original spirit.

The Miata (fine, MX-5) takes a lot of stick for being a “girly” car. It projects none of the be-louvered aggression of other sports-cars, and certainly doesn’t produce anywhere near the numbers.

But it’s not a car that’s about bragging rights, not a car for peacock strutting or posturing. It is, in short, not a car you drive for other people. It’s a car you drive for yourself. And that’s what makes for a truly great machine, no matter what the numbers might say.

Throughout the history of the automobile in America, one city has been synonymous with the industry and culture of cars. Booming with America’s great period of industrialization, Detroit became the Motor City, the hometown of an industry that created a blue-collar middle class and a culture based on personal mobility. But as America has entered the post-industrial age, as the focus of our economy has shifted from production to consumption, Detroit has been left behind. Long used to defining consumer tastes, Detroit was caught unawares by the changes wrought by globalization and the rise of information technology. And as America’s traditional auto industry struggles to redefine itself in the new economy, another Motor City is rising to meet the challenges of a new age.

Though not often recognized as such, Los Angeles has long been America’s “other” car capital. Developing during the rise of the automobile, Los Angeles has become a place where automobile ownership is not just a necessity, but a fundamental aspect of the culture. And as a result of its headlong embrace of the automobile, Southern California has contributed some of the most important elements of automotive culture. From the drive-through fast food joints that now dot America’s landscape to Harley Earl’s design revolution, from hot rod culture to smog control, it is impossible to imagine modern American life without L.A.’s unique automotive achievements.

Industrial-age Detroit was surely grateful for Southern California’s innovative attempts to reshape society around the cars it produced. But as long as the automakers dominated the wealth produced by America’s love affair with the automobile, Los Angeles was seen as little more than Detroit’s best customer. Though an important ally in promoting automotive culture, Los Angeles’s value to the industry was little more than offshoot of its major industry: entertainment. But as global competitors entered the US market, Southern California’s car-crazed culture became one of the first to embrace the imports. And as Detroit’s near-monopoly began to erode, the balance of power shifted: from this point on, consumers would drive automotive tastes with increasing independence.

With this shift, Los Angeles began its ascent in the automotive world. While Detroit lay mired in the industrial age, Southern California developed a taste for the new global menu of automotive options, and simultaneously embraced the new revolution in information technology. Its status as a taste-maker grew, and its focus on consumer opinion, fashion and communication put it in close touch with the values that were reshaping America’s economy. Now, with the information and consumer-economy revolutions largely realized, Southern California is becoming the new center of gravity for America’s auto business.

In fitting with the values of this new world, L.A.’s automotive juggernauts neither produce nor themselves sell automobiles. Instead of factories and dealerships, they have invested in server farms and data models. Rather than controlling information to maximize profits in support of an industrial supply chain, they create and share information in service of the consumer and market efficiency. And through this revolution, the two titans of Southern California’s “automotive industry,” Edmunds and Truecar, have become some of the biggest players in the business of buying and selling cars.

Edmunds.com got its start just as Los Angeles was coming into its own as the capitol of American automotive consumption, and well before the information revolution began to take hold. In 1966, it began publishing booklets which consolidated automotive specifications as a tool to help buyers make informed decisions. Over the years, it has evolved this service from print to CD-ROM, to web page and mobile app. And with new technology, it has dramatically expanded its services, offering everything from news, reviews, and specifications to industry analysis and forecasting, from a live consumer-advice hotline to dealer reviews and its “True Market Value” pricing tool. Never losing focus on its original insight, that consumers need help navigating the crowded new car market, Edmunds has embraced every new technology to expand on its mission and become the most established gatekeeper to the burgeoning world of online auto research and sales.

Entering Edmunds’ brightly-colored offices in Santa Monica, it becomes instantly clear that the company looks to Silicon Valley rather than Detroit. With its whiteboard walls, open cubicles, espresso machines and video game room, the ambience is clearly inspired by Google rather than GM. And like Google and Facebook, Edmunds is finding that its consumer service is just the beginning of its opportunities. So massive is the traffic that Edmunds’ car buying website generates, it has developed its own value as a model for the larger market. As the patterns of research at Edmunds.com shift, the company can track changes in interest in specific cars and brands with an ingenious in-house application, giving it insights into the market that no automaker  can ignore. By serving consumers with the latest technology, Edmunds can not only generate huge revenue from advertising and sales leads, but create valuable intelligence for the industry as well.

Though Edmunds’ business model may now embrace the industry as well as consumers, it hasn’t lost sight of its original mission. Indeed, as it has assumed leadership in the burgeoning auto consumer services industry, it has embraced its role as an advocate for automotive consumers in every venue. Leading this charge is former CEO and current Vice Chairman, Jeremy Anwyl, an intense, often-iconoclastic dynamo who has become the closest thing the automotive business has to a public intellectual. Rising to prominence through his regular commentary and industry analysis, Anwyl has become a regular figure at Washington D.C. hearings on everything from fuel economy regulations to distracted driving. Over a brief lunch, he jumped with ease from topics as diverse as EV tax credits and NHTSA incident reporting to sales forecasting and media criticism, fusing a generalist’s fascination with every aspect of the automotive business and culture with an unshakeable focus on serving consumers. While Detroit’s executives often seem inward-looking and overly focused on their traditional industry patterns, Anwyl demonstrates the importance of an automotive culture that engages every arena in which automobiles play a role. His ability to serve as the auto consumer’s advocate-in-chief, not only serves Edmunds’ mission and image well, it helps cement the consumer power that launched his company to prominence.

But Edmunds’ rise, from booklet printer to market-making, policy-influencing juggernaut, has not gone unnoticed. Numerous companies have tried to match its success and compete for its influence, but few have given it any real trouble. The simple fact is that Edmunds has been working at its mission so long, and has been so in tune with cultural and technological shifts, that any rival would have to make enormous investments in order to match its suite of services and aura of leadership. And yet, in just a few short years, one company has managed to break through Edmunds’ near-monopoly, and join it as the second Southern Californian juggernaut of automotive consumer services. That company is TrueCar.

The short roots of TrueCar’s stunning rise to prominence lead back to Edmunds. Formed by a core of Edmunds employees, TrueCar grew out of just one element of Edmunds’ sweeping empire: the “True Market Value” pricing tool. While the larger site spread its resources across an entire ecosystem of consumer information and advocacy, TrueCar’s mission was laser-focused on creating the best real-time pricing tool on the web. By investing in every possible source of data on new car sales, and by developing a slick, intuitive interface focused solely on delivering localized market price transparency, TrueCar has been able to claw out a niche in one of the most lucrative automotive consumer services. And though Edmunds downplays comparisons with TrueCar, it’s clear that the upstart firm has established itself as a major player.

TrueCar’s more focused culture is evident in its almost zen-like offices high atop Santa Monica’s historic clock tower. In sharp contrast to Edmunds’ primary colors, copious espresso machines and young employees blowing off steam at the company pinball machine, TrueCar’s headquarters are smaller, less self-conscious, and a more obviously-focused workplace. Not that TrueCar couldn’t have a vast Google-like complex if it wanted: just last year, in the depths of of the economic downturn, the company brought in a $200 million round of investment. But, as CEO Scott Painter explains, TrueCar’s spends its millions largely on acquiring and analyzing pricing data. Where Edmunds seeks to offer a complete research and shopping experience, Painter refuses to break focus on pricing until total market transparency is achieved.

But where Edmunds’ broader focus has allowed it to assume the mantle of consumer advocate in a generally non-confrontational manner, TrueCar’s narrower but deeper approach to serving consumers has ruffled feathers among dealers and manufacturers. For an industry long used to consumers overwhelmed by the vast variety of brands, models and trim levels, and for dealers who have long relied on asymmetrical information to pad their profits, TrueCar’s crusade for pricing transparency has tipped the balance of power so far towards consumers as to be seen as a threat.

Towards the end of 2011, TrueCar, falling victim to its own success, came into conflict with dealer groups, manufacturer “dealer marketing allowance” schemes, and state regulators tasked with protecting local franchise laws. In the wake of that confrontation, TrueCar has had to make some specific changes in how it operates its business, but the industry’s reaction showed that TrueCar’s mission to deliver real pricing transparency was changing the way automotive retail works. And as Detroit has proved over the last 40 years, businesses who cling to a comfortable past in the face of inexorable historic forces get left behind.

Though Edmunds and TrueCar eye each other warily, and though there is certainly some overlap in their business models, they aren’t really competitors. Together, they form the vanguard of a movement to use information to empower consumers, and I would argue that a consumer that wants to make the most of this new movement would use Edmunds to help decide what kind of automobile might suit them best, and use TrueCar to help price and negotiate for it once that decision has been made.

Competition between the two will make both better, which in turn will arm consumers with ever-greater power in the marketplace. In this way, the two behemoths of online car buying services will continue to strip power from the automakers, force them to pay closer attention to consumers, and drive the innovations that will allow producers to more efficiently serve an increasingly-informed market. And as this dynamic plays out, the producers and marketers of Detroit and elsewhere will have no choice but to recognize the rise of America’s new Motor City in sunny Southern California.

In his uneven but interesting book Guitar: An American Life, Tim Brookes notes that acoustic players “pick up a guitar in order to meet college girls but wind up talking to other middle-aged men about their fingernails.” I started racing so I could put my merciless, Edward-Green-shod foot on the neck of other competitors in the twilight zone that separates victory from certain death, but I’ve wound up spending my weekends telling other middle-aged men to unwind their steering wheels at corner exit.

This past weekend at Summit Point’s Shenandoah course, I preached long sermons from the Book of Corner Exit to three of those middle-aged men: a novice in a Panamera Turbo, a prodigy in a C6 Vette, and my own crumbling self, piloting a Coyote-powered Mustang GT in an ultimately futile attempt to outpace a colleague in a new 991 Carrera S. Together we pursued the discipline of the Quality Exit, with varying results. To misquote the poet: “O you who turn the wheel and look to chiclets, Gentile or Jew, click the jump to find out how we did.”

Over the past five years, the TrackDAZE crew has come to set the gold standard for East Coast track events. They run on time, they have an extremely low rate of incidents, and they pay attention to the details. It’s part of the organization’s policy to give each student an instructor who is familiar with the type of car driven by that student. This is easily done for Civic and Corvette drivers, but when a fellow signs up for his first-ever trackday and he’s driving a Panamera Turbo… where do you find a club racer with wheel time in one of those?

Well…

My relationship with Porsche and its eleven-second hyper-hatch has been a bit fractious, but I do have wheel time in the car and I understand what’s required to get one around a racetrack. Other than a tendency to fade their dinner-plate brakes after a few fast laps, Panos don’t present much challenge to a reasonably experienced driver.

Instructing in one, however, is a different issue. In a perfect world, all driving students would have new Civics with ABS, stability control, and two sparkplug wires pulled to ensure that they can’t go fast enough to keep the instructor from properly coaching/criticizing/texting/sleeping/enduring a particularly vicious hangover. The Panamera, by contrast, typically combines three separate sets of known instructor phobias:

• The Car That Is So Big It Needs A Three-Point K-Turn To Negotiate Slow Corners
• The Car That Is So Fast It Will Simply Teleport Its Occupants Into A Concrete Wall If The Student Hits The Accelerator At The Wrong Time, Even For, Like, Just One Second
• The Car That Costs So Much Freakin’ Money That Each One Of Its Owners Is A Horribly Wealthy Person Who Is So Horribly Successful That They Are Horribly Disinclined To Take Orders From Some Random Dude Who Just Happens To Be Sitting Next To Them For Some Reason And Who Is Keeping Them From Setting The All-Time Racetrack Record For Going Fast And Stuff Which Is Why They Paid All This Money For The Car In The First Place And Hey I’m Gonna Just Hit The Gas And Teleport This Nagging Idiot Into A Concrete Wall Along With My Horribly Successful Self

I always ask new students what they do for a living, so I know what to expect on-track. Reassuring answers include: engineer, programmer, university professor. Mr. Panamera Turbo was a professor, so I knew he’d understand the learning process and have some concept of the idea that it takes time and effort to master a skill. Answers which slightly concern me: salesman, executive, small businessman, attorney. Those guys aren’t always used to taking direction, and they are habituated to learning things without external interference. The most terrifying answer, of course, and the one that causes instructors to vacate the premises under false pretenses ranging from stomach distress to deaths in the family, is “doctor”.

Physicians have been killing instructors of all kinds since long before Beechcraft invented the Bonanza in what many presumed was an attempt to even the score. We’re talking about a profession where simply admitting doubt often gets you hauled into court on a malpractice suit. It’s the only profession that becomes part of your name. Not even pimps get that kind of juice. The most terrifying kind of doctor, of course is any doctor who also gets to call himself a “surgeon”. Being a “surgeon”, I’m given to understand, is like being the doctor of doctors.

My Corvette-driving student is a surgeon, but he’s the exception that proves the rule. He is virtually egoless behind the wheel, quietly analytical, and very focused on going fast. He’s also pretty brave, as he proved at Summit Point this time last year when I had an engine failure on the “ski jump”. We worked on two issues: developing a single, smooth threshold braking motion on corner entry, and that old bugbear, unwinding the wheel.

If you don’t know why we have to concentrate on unwinding the wheel on corner exit, you can find the answer in a long-winded and self-indulgent column here. Short version: the car can’t accelerate properly when the steering wheel is cranked. Once we enter a corner, we need to immediately start looking to the straightest possible exit, and take that exit with a straight, or “open”, wheel. I referred to this as a “quality exit” during one session in the Corvette, and my perfectionist student immediately took this as a mantra. The quality exit. Let’s play Pirsig and capitalize the “q”. Quality Exit.

Quality Exit has a mortal enemy: Hasty Entry. If you go into the corner too fast, you can’t get out of it quickly. This was my ‘Vette student’s problem: he is brave, so he naturally takes a lot of speed into every turn. We then spend a lot of time burning and scrubbing that speed in the midcorner with excessive steering angle. After what seems like an eternity of dicking around while the tires squeal and the nose of the car points nowhere productive, we manage to rotate the Vette around in the correct direction. Once that happens, we are supposed to unwind the steering wheel and accelerate in one smooth motion. Then we can hustle. Until that happens, hitting the gas just sends us off the track faster.

In a Panamera, this is particularly true, so my novice student and I discussed the idea of the “steering wheel string”. Imagine a string tied on the steering wheel’s center spoke on one end and the driver’s right foot on the other. As the steering wheel is turned at the entry to a corner, that string pulls on the right foot and lifts it off the brake pedal. While we are cornering, we use light throttle. At corner exit, we press the accelerator down, which pulls on the steering wheel and unwinds it properly. Get it?

The TrackDAZE folks won’t let me actually tie strings to the students — something about insurance and fatalities — so we just use this as a concept to guide steering behavior. Mr. Panamera and I spent three sessions imagining a string. It started to click. I will say this for the big Porker five-door: that thing can exit a turn. Time and time again we were crowded in midcorner by an Evo, STi, or M3, only to have them just disappear in the mirrors as my student unwound his wheel and called all five hundred horsepower into action. Bye-bye. On Saturday, we were the slowest car in the session; on Sunday, my student executed a flawless, hundred-mile-per-hour pass on a Corvette Z06. His four-year-old son stood on the bridge across the back straight and watched Dad thunder past with an absolutely serious face. Later on, the boy told me “Daddy is going fast.” It occurred to me that these are the kinds of things sons remember.

Meanwhile, my Corvette student was methodically pursuing the Quality Exit. He was close, but I sensed that he wasn’t completely convinced of the superiority of losing midcorner speed in order to gain it down the next straight. “Let’s take a ride,” I told him, and we hopped into a 2013 Mustang GT on P Zero Nero all-season tires. I had two goals in mind. The first was allowing my student to coach me through the turns and thus gain some better understanding of what he he needed to do on corner exit. The second was less admirable. A fellow journalist had brought a new 991 Carrera S to the track, and I had passengered with him earlier in the day and recorded a pretty decent lap time on my hand-held stopwatch. I tossed that same stopwatch to my student and told him to click it every time we passed the white line. Maybe we’d take a Stuttgart scalp in this American pony. It was all in fun, of course: any time set with a passenger on an open trackday is slow and cautious by default. Still, it would give us an idea of how the two cars stacked up.

After a Saturday of showboating and drifting, the Mustang’s P Zeros were smoked and the brakes were soggy. I figured we’d get maybe two laps to set a time, with a cooldown lap in-between, before the car simply became too sloppy to make it happen.

My first corner of the first lap was miserable. The car plowed and plowed on its
decomposed all-seasons. “Patience,” I said to my student, and I worked the throttle to bring the tail around. The Mustang is strong enough to do this kind of ad-hoc rotation but doing so just makes the back tires useless for the rest of the lap. Now we had front and rear tires that were too hot. It was time to be truly disciplined. I entered the next four or five corners at what I felt to be about one mile per hour too slowly and used that slack to focus on my exits. The five-liter did its melodious work and the front tires came back to me slowly.

Over the Shenandoah “ski jump” the Mustang briefly went four-wheels-up into the air before landing at a minor angle. We corkscrewed down to the entry for the mini-Carousel, the back tires and brakes too hot for the ABS to properly control. Into the concrete and out with a thump, but I was focused on “Big Bend” ahead of us. I didn’t think we’d be able to take it flat. Many students and instructors early-apex the Bend when faced with that situation, but I took a bit of a risk and left-foot-braked the Mustang just slightly sideways at the entry. Back on the throttle. The white line approached. Beyond that, there was traffic. This would be our only chance to do this.

“Line!” I yelled, and I couldn’t see the stopwatch. “What did we get?” My lap felt a lot slower than the 991′s had earlier in the day. In the second or so before my student called out the time, I regretted each and every corner jointly and severally, as they say.

We were four-tenths of a second slower than the 991.

Boo hiss.

I took two cooldown laps and tried again, but that lap was two-tenths slower still. Time to call a halt to the fun and come in. I still had a six hour drive home to do. From her perch in the passenger seat, my infamous companion Vodka McBigbra said, “I can see why you do these trips. The weather’s nice and everybody is very nice, too.” Of course, she’s wrong. None of us, from the cautious professor in the $150,000 sedan to the meticulous surgeon unwinding his steering with million-dollar hands, is here for the weather. What did Eliot say?

My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms

Yeah.

Few people would restore one of these dependable Mopar compacts from the 70s unless there was a good reason.

Lorne and Pat Dawes own one of the nicest 1974 Valiants we have ever seen and they have a family legacy with this little Plymouth. It took a few hours to track down the Dawes at a summer car show, but it was worth the effort.

The car was Lorne’s father’s last car and it served him well in his golden years. The easiest way to illustrate the family connection was to include Lorne’s own words in this story, so the following explains why this car means so much to his entire family.

Valiant Memories August 15,2011

Jan. 22, 1979 – The Valiant was purchased used by my Dad (Davey C. Dawes) from a business acquaintance of mine living in Athabasca. The mileage reading on the car at the time was 29,754.

When Dad purchased the Valiant, Dad, my brother George, (who was a licensed mechanic working for an Edmonton Chrysler dealer) and I drove to Athabasca to view, inspect and decide on the Valiant. After we checked it out and road tested it, we retreated to the local hotel for a cool one to let Dad consider his decision. Dad was very reluctant to replace his 1963 Plymouth Belvedere that served him so very well, but by the same token this would be the newest and most prestigious vehicle he had ever owned. It was also a matter of (I believe ?) about $2,900 plus his Belvedere, which was a lot of money and the loss of the Belvedere. He did like the Valiant, and with a little reassurance from George and I, he made the trade-up deal. Dad lived in Edmonton all his life and retired from the Canadian National Railway after 44 years of service in January 1971.

Dad was very proud of the Valiant and gave it special care and attention. George was always available to attend to any mechanical attention it required. Occasionally, the three of us would meet at George’s home (garage) to enjoy an afternoon of pulling wrenches and more importantly, camaraderie. Very pleasant memories and get-togethers. Dad was always good at keeping records of any work performed on the car, and I have tried to maintain that practice.

The only complaint I recall hearing from Dad about the Valiant was the gas consumption. I suppose going from a slant six to a 318 might give you that opinion. He did however enjoy the pep. Dad enjoyed the Valiant for just short of eight years while logging 30,757 miles on her. His furthest trip in the Valiant was to Victoria B.C. Dad drove the Valiant until he passed away on November 15, 1986.

In keeping with Dad’s wishes, I accepted the Valiant in December of 1986 with a mileage reading of 60,511. (Gas was 30 cents per litre.) For the next five years, my wife Pat and daughter Cheryl used the Valiant logging on an additional 20,000 miles, bringing the odometer up to 79,611. Cheryl obtained her driver’s license using this car and drove it while attending high school on occasion

November of 1991, I decided to park the Valiant until I was in a better position to restore it back to its original condition. My sister Joan had room in her garage and consented to allow me to store the Valiant there for the interim.

In April of 2004, I finally brought her home again to get a start on her. (Gas was 73 cents per litre.) It was a slow start and a long process. With George’s help, we kept plugging away. We started with the mechanical concerns, meanwhile I accumulated any body trim parts I could such as new fender trim, re-chromed bumpers and numerous trips to various auto wreckers seeking marker lights and/or any other enhanced parts. It was important to me to keep it as original as possible. By the spring of 2008, it was ready to go to the body shop where it spent most of the spring and summer. Got her back just in time to put her back together, get a new vinyl roof on her and park it for yet another winter.

Finally, the spring of 2009 comes along and I can start enjoying the fruits of my (our) efforts and expenses. As usual there are always things to address and George was always there to help or at least provide the guidance and reassurance to complete certain mechanical concerns. George was a great brother, friend and resource of information. Sadly he passed in March of 2011, but at least we got in a few cruises and laughs together in / or working on the Valiant. Good times!

You could say the restoration was a tribute to Dad and now includes George.

Now it’s mainly time for cruises and shining, with the odd mechanical or maintenance requirement and fond memories. My wife Pat and I enjoy taking her for a cruise on warm summer days and attending occasional Show & Shines. The Grandkids like to have a ride in it and I enjoy taking them. They are even starting to show some interest in the car and I do hope the pride extends.

Some say; “The Devil is in the Details”. I would suggest that “The Glory is in the Details”.

Lorne Dawes – August 16, 2011

It was easy to understand why this beautiful little four door Valiant has such deep roots in Lorne’s family

We wish the entire family happy motoring for many years to come in their family heirloom.

For more of J Sutherland’s work go to mystarcollectorcar.com

In the first chapter, we watched how BMW’s in-house motorsports department morphed into a separate company, that soon made its own cars. 16 years later ….

In 1988, the BMW M5 saw its second generation. The straight-six was pumped up to 3.8 liters, its power rose to 340 hp.

To confuse people, the engines dropped the “M” in their internal production code. The M was replaced by an S. To more than make up for the lost letter, the valve covers now sported a big M.

The next 3 Series was set to make its appearance in 1990.
Motorsport GmbH had advance notice, and was already working on the new BMW M3 which was launched in 1992. The new M3 lost its big spoilers and bulging wheel arches. Reflecting the more understated signs of the times, the new M3 looked more discreet. But you could hear it right away. The sound created by the three-liter six was unmistakable. The four-valve plant produced up to 286 hp. It was also BMW’s first engine with VANOS variable valve timing, an infinitely adjustable system varying the intake camshaft.

Customers and the media loved this M3 right from the start. Immediately, the order books were bulging more than the old wheel arches. Awards, from multiple “Car of the Year” to one “Car of the Century,” rained on the M3.

Instead of chopping off the roof as an afterthought – the usual genesis of a ragtop – a convertible was included in the planning process right from the early start.

Fort the racetrack, the M3 GT was produced in a small, special series. It moved up the performance benchmark to 295 hp. From 1992 to 1996, Motorsport GmbH built more than 85 four-door racing 3 Series based on this M3. Amongst the many wins, it brought home the IMSA title in 1996.

If you wanted an M3 – or for that matter any BMW – that nobody else had, then you could order it from BMW Individual, a business unit started by Motorsport GmbH in 1992. Whatever the customer wanted, BMW Individual made it happen – for a price. With BMW Individual, Motorsport GmbH was a pioneer in the market. Soon, other mass market makers copied the idea, and even the name.

With all these activities, “Motorsport GmbH” became a bit cumbersome and limited. On 1 August 1993, the former Motorsport GmbH was re-christened BMW M GmbH.

In 1995, the M3 received even a little more power, 321 hp from 3.2 liters. Double VANOS variable timing was used for the first time.

The BMW M GmbH became the first car maker in the world to introduce the Sequential M Gearbox (SMG), which debuted in the M3. To shift gears, you pulled or pushed the gear lever up and down one level. There was no clutch pedal: The SMG activated the clutch electrohydraulically when changing gears. In the beginning, drivers furrowed their foreheads about this new-fangled technology, but soon, almost every other BMW M3 was fitted with the SMG.

Also in 1995, a big six-liter 12-cylinder based on the 750i engine powered the closed-top McLaren sports car to victory in the 24 Hour Race at Le Mans. Four-valve technology, a titanium crankshaft and an aluminum clutch helped to give the V12 maximum output of more than 600 hp.

In 1995,BMW Motorsport Ltd was established in the United Kingdom, taking over all of BMW’s motor-sport activities. M GmbH concentrated on M Cars, BMW Individual and Driver Training.

1997 brought the M roadster, an eye-watering combination of the Z3 roadster with the 321 hp power unit of the M3.

The M coupé followed shortly thereafter.

What will also follow is the third and last chapter.

Yesterday, we introduced you to a matte-black LFA and a baby-blue sticker that led us to the car’s owner.  There was another sticker on that car. A round red one. If the global automotive industry should copy anything from Japan immediately and now, then it’s that round sticker.

Eons before social networks came upon us, the automotive industry became obsessed with maintaining customer relationships, creating traffic and maintaining customer loyalty in showrooms and service departments. Bazillions have been spent for that effort. Millions of them went into my pocket, which, years after leaving the lucrative business, still enables me to work for TTAC and not go hungry. The ingenious Japanese solved it all with that sticker.

The officious-looking sticker is known in Japan as the “tenken-seibi stecker,” or the annual service sticker. Don’t confuse it with that vague “Next service by” sticker your shop leaves in your door, only to be ignored. The tenken-seibi  sticker reminds car owners in Japan of their legal obligation to have that check done. It’s the law. Toyoda-san is not above the Japanese law, and the reddish round stecker reminds him that his check is due by December this year.

According to Japanese law, each car must be checked periodically. This has nothing to do with the mandatory, government-administered Shaken mentioned yesterday. Every twelve months, a pretty involved check must be performed.

Legally, you can do that yourself. You won’t. DIY is frowned-upon in Japan. I recently joked that “in Japan, people call an electrician to change a light bulb.” That earned me a quizzical look and a “what’s wrong with that?”

For the tenken-seibi, one drives to the friendly place of regular service, says “tenken-seibi kudasai” and some $130 later, the check is performed and that sticker is placed in the  windshield. Or not. This is when it gets really lucrative for the shop. Customer relationships are kept, loyalties have been maintained and refreshed, and all with a slick little sticker.

While the check is mandatory by law, carrying the sticker is not. But this is Japan, and everybody has one.  The sticker is issued by members of the Japanese Motor Service Industry Association, which obtained special governmental permission to stick that on your windshield. This is Japan, you can’t just put anything on your window, who do you think you are?

Again, while the check is the law, the sticker is not actually required, nobody stops, or arrests you for not having one. It is not even clear what happens if you did not do the check. But the whole scheme performs miracles for the business, keeps service bays occupied, and dealers afloat during times that suck.

But you have not seen it all.

While studying the law, you will notice that you must perform a daily, yes, daily 12 point check of the essential items of your Japanese motor vehicle, from brake and engine all the way to the windshield wiper. Don’t dare to start your car without checking, for instance, the “waipagomu,” that’s wiper gummis to us gaijin.

There is no sticker for that 12 point pre-flight, but there are involved websites that explain how it is done.

It was 1972, 40 years ago, when BMW did something that many would later imitate: Much to the chagrin of its own engineers, who were convinced they already had the hottest cars imaginable, and that to touch them meant to desecrate their creations, BMW decided to put the tuners out of business, and created the M series.

Allegedly, the M stood for “Motorsport.”

“A company is like a human being. As long as it goes in for sports, it is fit, well-trained, full of enthusiasm and performance.” With these words, a barely 40 year young whippersnapper by the name of Robert A. Lutz,  then responsible for sales at BMW, christened the subsidiary called BMW Motorsport GmbH. Today, it is as old as Bob Lutz was then.

Of course, it was a trick. It wasn’t BMW’s racing team. The M stood for more, for macho, for mammoth motors, for money.

Bob Lutz was one of the new young board members Eberhard von Kuenheim had anointed to help him propel the formerly staid Bavarian maker of motorcycles and Isettas into a future as bright as the high beams with which BMW owners signaled: Make way for the king of the road.

1972 was also same year the new head office was (more or less) finished, the BMW Four-Cylinder building. Today, it would have eight towers. Or maybe six.

1972 seemed like a good year to start a motorsport venture: The Olympics came to Munich, housed not far from the Four Cylinder building. It became an event that many want to forget. Many can’t.

BMW’s former in-house sports department launched the widely successful BMW 1800 TI and 2000 TI. BMW itself was able to meet only a fragment of the overall demand for hot Bimmers, a void tuners were more than happy to fill.

Since the mid-1960s, BMW had been involved in Formula 2. BMW’s racing engines powered many racers to the top of the podium.

The telephone list of the young BMW Motorsport GmbH reads like a hall of fame of car racing. The company was headed by Jochen Neerpasch, the former Porsche works driver who moved to Munich after a stint as Ford’s Racing Manager in Cologne.

His team had names like Chris Amon, Toine Hezemans, Hans-Joachim Stuck and Dieter Quester. Björn Waldegaard and Achim Warmbold were hired as rally drivers.

A year later, a 950-kilo 2002 rolled out of the BMW Motorsport GmbH building at in Preussenstrasse. It had a two-liter four-valve four-cylinder, that made (for the time) exhilarating 240 hp.

Then there was the 3.0 CSL coupé. It hinted at the space-age-material era of the future. The doors and lids were made from aluminum, the five-speed gearbox featured a magnesium housing. Overall weight was 1,092 kg or 2,408 lb. Under the hood lurked a 3,340 cc straight-six with 12 valves, fuel injection and a compression ratio of 11:1. Maximum output: 360 hp. It also was the last two-valve engine that BMW built for racing.

With the 3.0 CSL coupé  came a new logo. A complete racing team from car hauler vehicle down to the key tag sported the three blue, violet and red stripes that to this very day tell you that you have been passed by an M-series – if you are quick enough to catch it.

The CSL coupés seemed to be unbeatable. Hans-Joachim Stuck and Chris Amon brought home the Touring Car Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in their very first attempt. BMW was the overall winner of the Touring Car Category in the 24 Hour Race at Le Mans.

The 3.0 CSL became the most successful touring car of its time, dominating the international touring car scene for almost a decade.

The BMW 3.0 CSL pioneered many innovations: It was powered by BMW’s first-ever four-valve six-cylinder. It had a prototype anti-lock braking system, long before it became standard in the BMW 7 Series. At the end of its career, the 3.0 CSL developed maximum output of up to 800 hp.

In 1975, Americans still argued whether BMW stands for “Bavarian Motor Works” or rather “British Motor Works.” BMW Motorsport GmbH wanted to set that straight by focusing on the US IMSA Series. BMW won the Manufacturer’s Category in the IMSA Championship and BMW was a checkered flag on the map.

Well into the second half of the 1970s, BMW Motorsport GmbH focused almost exclusively on the construction of racing cars. This changed when the first “hot” 5 Series came into being from 1974: the 530, 533i, 535i. Initially, they were built and sold in small numbers only, but soon they became popular. 

To counteract this trend, the Motorsport GmbH set out to build their first competition car not based on a regular production model: the BMW M1. Lamborghini was supposed to supply the body and the chassis, with BMW supplying the rest. Financial problems at Lamborghini threw the project in disarray. Finally, it looked like there were more companies involved in building the car than cars were initially built.

The spaceframe was manufactured at Marchesi, the glass-fibre reinforced plastic bodyshell was produced at T.I.R., both in Modena. Giorgio Giugiaro’s company ItalDesign assembled them and provided the interiors fittings. The cars were then transported to Stuttgart where Baur installed all the mechanical assemblies.

The minimum production requirement for homologation in FIA Group 4 was 400 units. That made the mid-engined M1 available as a road-going model. It was the first car that sported the soon famous letter “M.”

The price of the 277 hp M1 in 1978 was exactly DM 100,000. This did not dampen the demand. After one year, 130 cars had been completed, and 300 orders were on the books. Right from the start the M1 was the fastest road-going sports car built in Germany. In a test conducted in 1979, the M1 reached a top speed of 264.7 km/h or 164.1 mph. The racing version made 470 hp and reached a top speed well over 300 km/h or 190 mph.

In 1980, a second M-model was built. Starting with a regular 5 Series, the M535i was created, powered by the two-valve six-cylinder from the 635CSi. With an engine output of 218 hp, the car owned the left lane.

In 1984 the fast-revving four-valve straight-six originally featured in the M1 made its appearance in the M635CSi Coupé and in the M5.

The M5 was a genuine “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” In the rear-view mirror, the M5 looked like any other 5-series. When it passed with a top speed of 245 km/h or 152 mph on the Autobahn, it caused dropped jaws. In America, it soon was called “Executive Express.”

1986 the BMW M3 was born. A production run of 5,000 units within one year was needed for homologation in Group A. From the start, it was built as both a race car and a road going car.

In the five years to follow, the M3 was the uncontested leader in the international touring car scene, and it was equally successful as a road-going car, reaching sales volumes nobody would have expected.

Sales of the first BMW M3 amounted to more than 17,970 units, including 600 2.5-litre M3 Sportevolution models as well as 765 M3 convertibles built by hand.

To be continued in Chapter 2.

Even as GM abandons Facebook advertising because of a poor ROI, Ford is going full steam ahead with Facebook spending and including more “sponsored stories” – i.e. cheesy advertorial content – as part of their “accelerated” spending. The problem is that it doesn’t work.

Ford’s social media head Scott Monty told Automotive News

“We’ve found that Facebook ads are very effective, and they’re most effective when we strategically combine them with great content and innovative forms of storytelling rather than a straight media buy,”

As we’ve seen with Ford before, lots of clicks, likes and other vague metrics under the vague “impressions” umbrella end up doing dick all to actually sell your product. The only Fiesta Movement occurring is a downward trend in sales, while the Focus lags behind Corolla, Cruze and Civic in its own segment.

In 2009, Jalopnik nailed it when it asked if all of Ford’s resources spent on social media and their SM guru Scott Monty really helped sell any cars.

I’d wager that based on the piss-poor numbers for Facebook ad click rates, the ability for internet-savvy users to block out advertising and the overall cynicism of consumers for even the most elaborate, narrative-driven advertising, that Ford is mis-allocating their ad dollars on Facebook, and with canned-advertorial reality shows like what were they thinking Escape Routes, a new reality show designed to promote the 2013 Escape.  Who in their right mind is going to spend half an hour watching this show? Take that money and find a way to go to every supermarket in areas where a small crossover is in demand (hint, they have Obama-Biden stickers on their CR-Vs) and let them know what you can open the tailgate by sweeping your foot under the bumper. More likely, it seems that these initiatives, undertaken by a number of OEMs beyond Ford, are what Ray Wert described as

“…another example of the dark side of “social media” — the masturbatory echo chamber re-twitting the same tweets …of the same piece of garbage over and over again to the same social media “gurus.”

Let’s go back to the Fiesta. Sales are in the toilet. Yet Ford seems enthralled with their apparently cutting edge marketing scheme that got 3.4 million Twitter “impressions” and 6.5 million collective Youtube views between the 700 videos produced by their team of 100 agents. To put that in perspective, a friend of mine directed a video for a B-List rapper who was a one-hit viral video wonder and it currently has 34 million views with basically zero promotional budget. By comparison, the number of views for the Fiesta Movement videos is laughable.

Any success that comes from Ford’s latest products will be in spite of whatever social media campaigns they end up running. Nothing short of shrewd product placement or simply having your vehicle out on the street will be truly effective in promoting the new Escape, or Fusion or any car really. A 110 x 00 pixel ad featuring a thumbnail image of a car and 90 characters of text isn’t going to snare anyone in, no matter how gripping the “story” about the car may be. Leaving a 2013 Fusion parked in a prime spot somewhere downtown and letting pedestrians do a double take to stop and look at “that four-door Aston…no, wait, it’s a Ford” costs $15 in parking fees and is sure to get them talking. Even if they don’t like cars, they know someone who does, and they will ask about “that new car I saw on the street”. I can tell you anecdotally that it happens all the time. It’s not worth much, but it’s worth more than a few million “impressions”.

Alfa Romeo 2600 Spider: $4,886
Austin-Healey 3000: $3,565
BMW 2000CS: $4,985
Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Coupe: $5,249*
Jaguar XK-E Coupe: $5,580
Lotus Elite Coupe: $4,995
Mercedes-Benz 230SL Coupe: $6,343
Shelby Cobra 289: $5,995**
Sunbeam Tiger: $3,425

Or you could go crazy and buy two Datsun Fairlady Sports 1600s ($2,546 each), or two Chevy Corvair Corsas ($2,519 each). You could go really crazy and get two new MGB-GTs at $3,095 apiece. Or you could buy a stripper ’66 Chevelle for $2,271 and spend $4,219 on engine, brake, and suspension modifications; it would be less sporty-looking than the 911, but who cares? So, what’s it going to be?

*The base ’66 Corvette would probably get eaten up by the 911 at any non-dragstrip venue, so this price includes the 425-horsepower L72 engine, close-ratio 4-speed transmission, limited-slip differential, heavy-duty brakes and suspension, and “off-road” exhaust, with enough money left over for an eyeball-melting paint job.

**Based on this reference.

Happy 28th birthday, Mark Zuckerberg. Your baby is about to go public, but GM still had to rain on your parade by pulling their advertising from Facebook because GM ad men didn’t think it was effective.

The Wall Street Journal explains the move

“GM, started to re-evaluate its Facebook strategy earlier this year after its marketing team began to question the effectiveness of the ads. GM marketing executives, including Mr. Ewanick, met with Facebook managers to address concerns about the site’s effectiveness and left unconvinced advertising on the website made sense, according to people familiar with GM’s thinking.“

GM is said to spend (or, have spent) about $40 million per year on maintaining a Facebook presence, but only a quarter of that went to advertising. The remainder goes to creating content like fan pages and other social media initiatives, which will still continue. GM’s digital marketing guru Joel Ewanick told the WSJ that he still sees value in these programs, and a statement from GM obtained by Reuters re-affirmed their commitment to this side of the marketing equation.

As much as GM gets singled out in this column, GM may be doing something right in terms of both budgeting and strategy. One report claims that 57 percent of respondents have never clicked on a Facebook ad. For young people who have grown up next to online content and advertising, this number is undoubtedly much higher. This demographic sees these kinds of ads more as background noise than anything of value – or, as marketers would say, “a way to forge an authentic connection with the brand and enter into a conversation with the consumer.”

The bigger leap of faith for GM, and a number of OEMs, is to refine how they interact with consumers via social media. What do Facebook “likes” or Twitter followers really mean in concrete terms? The field of social media has impacted many of us in positive ways, but it’s also create a disproportionate number of charlatan “social gurus” who pitch their dubious knowledge to companies that are afraid of getting left in the dust if the let their Twitter or Facebook pages lie dormant. Ford likes to cite how many millions of “impressions” the Fiesta Movement program got, but sales of the Fiesta have given Ford little reason to throw a party. In fact, GM’s apparently ineffective Facebook campaigns have helped the Cruze outsell the Focus in 2011 (though the Focus is ahead through April, 2012), while the Sonic (which only went on sale last fall) is outselling the Fiesta through April, 2012.

Tout them all you want, but “likes”, “retweets” and “impressions” (perhaps the most ill-defined of them all) are empty metrics that sound great when trying to justify one’s absurd consulting fees, but don’t translate into good products or good profits, the two things that make the automotive world go ’round. Then again, cognitive dissonance is a powerful force.

This story really has bigger implications for Facebook than GM. GM is the third biggest spender on ad dollars in the USA. Their exit may not harm Facebook in the short term, but if big institutional clients keep dropping out, then Zuckerberg’s baby may see some compromised revenue streams. I’m going to take this as a sign of positive changes for GM. Maybe they’re starting to take a closer look at the social media mania that’ stricken other OEMs and realize that it has to be done right, or you will lose them forever. And by them, I mean the people you are trying to bring in, and targeting with marketing initiatives that really need to be axed right this second.