And you thought the dealer wanted a lot for a key fob

Today, to celebrate their new 918 supercar, Porsche announced a new special edition of the venerable 911, the new Porsche 911 Turbo S Edition 918 Spyder. Boy, isn’t that a mouthful? Actually, since it’s available as a drop top, it could even be the Porsche 911 Turbo S Edition 918 Spyder Cabriolet. I admit that the nomenclature is a little confusing, now that Porsche is making a coupe with the word Spyder in its name, and putting two model numbers on one car, so just that you know what we’re talking about it’s not Porsche’s new hybrid supercar, the 918 Spyder. No, this car is indeed based on the more pedestrian (yeah, I know, it’s a car, but work with me) 911. To be sure, it’s a special 911, what with its Turbo and S suffixes, and it’s got some unique-for-a-911 carbon fiber trim and “acid-green” stitching on the leather, to effect some of the look of the 918. I just checked on TrueDelta and a regular 2011 911 Turbo S is $160,700. So how much do you think it will cost you to get behind the wheel of a 911 Turbo S Edition 918 Spyder?

How about a million dollars?

And Porsche will sell every single one that they build.

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As Detroit was skipping a decade or two of car R&D by concentrating on packing increasing numbers of 128-ouncer-ready cup holders and faux-wood trim into big trucks, it became necessary to make it clear to the targeted buyer demographics that these trucks really weren’t, you know, trucks. In fact, they were more about protection from street crime and potholes than anything else, which is where slapping Mercury badges on the Explorer and Oldsmobile badges on the Blazer came in. (Read More…)

Sales of the Gremlin-based AMC Spirit in the United States were pretty dismal, but perhaps that was just the result of the suits in Kenosha choosing the wrong ad agency. Let’s head south of the border to see how VAM, which built certain AMC models under license for the Mexican market, pitched the ’81 Rally AMX. (Read More…)

Buster Keaton reached the height of his fame in about 1927, but Ford’s 1966 marketers must have figured that nostalgia for the allegedly wholesome silent-film era would be big, what with all the not-so-wholesome madness heating up in the United States at that time. How about we put Buster Keaton in the Econoline? (Read More…)

American car ads of the early 1980s came up short in several departments: Burning rubber, jet-engine-grade turbocharger sound, and blatantly sped-up film that made the cars appear to be going 300 MPH. Oh, and they also lacked James Bond! (Read More…)

Sure, Internet video is mostly about dental-fetish porn (particularly the very stimulating “spit sink” subgenre), but when the novocaine wears off and the last vinyl-clad hygienist has put aside her last stainless-steel scraper, you’re ready to explore the other great thing about Internet video… old television ads for the Citroën AX. (Read More…)

Back when I was semi-serious about photography— as in Pliocene Epoch photography with lots of chemicals and red lights— I scored a bunch of two-piece glass 35mm slide mounts at a camera store in Los Angeles. Most of them were empty, but a handful came with Chrysler dealership promotional slides from 1974. (Read More…)

At least in the insular world of the automotive media, 2010 may well go down as “The Year Honda Lost Its Mojo.” The Motor Company’s first 2010 model-year launch, the Accord Crosstour failed to get off the ground last year, and the much-hyped CR-Z hybrid coupe launched to thoroughly mixed reviews. In fact, the new 2011 Odyssey seems to be Honda’s first big new launch in the US since the latest Accord debuted in 2008, although it’s not clear how many of the Oddy’s 10,147 December sales were leftover 2010 models. And after Acura’s 2009 model-year beak-ification, Honda’s luxury division launched only one new model, the ZDX, which sold a paltry 3,259 units last year. In short, Honda seems to have pulled off only one legitimate hit in its last five launches (including 2009′s Insight flop)… but unlike some other automakers, the big H isn’t dependent on novelty to move metal. Underneath Honda’s string of missteps are some fairly sound fundamentals… as well as signs that change needs to happen soon.
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Only three automakers lost retail market share last year, as the market for new cars struggled back from the depths of “Carpocalypse.” Battered as it was by a recall scandal that engulfed most of the auto media coverage for the first half of the year, Toyota’s 1.2% dip came as little surprise. But with all the positive spin surrounding GM and Chrysler, the bailed-out automakers loss of 1.8% and .6% retail market share was a pretty huge disappointment. Ford, on the other hand, drew a huge distinction from its cross-town rivals, recording the second-largest growth in retail market share of all automakers in the US market, snagging an additional 1.2% of the market. Projecting 2010′s trends forward a year (a speculative exercise, no doubt) Ford would actually surpass GM in terms of retail market share, putting it second only to Toyota (and within spitting distance (.3%) of first place). As the bailed-out automakers lose ground in the battle for consumers (rather than volume), Ford makes a strong case for exempting itself from the “Detroit” pejorative: at least as far as consumer perceptions go, Ford has little in common with GM or Chrysler. Not that there aren’t still trouble spots…

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On the surface, GM had a fairly passable 2010, as the newly-public automaker posted a 21.3% volume increase for its four core brands. In contrast to Toyota’s humbly grateful tone, GM’s VP of US Sales Don Johnson sounded a distinctly triumphal note, arguing

Our sales this year reflect the impact of GM’s new business model. The consistency of results that we achieved demonstrates the focus on our brands, dealers and customers, and how we compete aggressively for every sale, every day.

And on a superficial level, the argument certainly seems to ring true, as Buick (+51.9%), Cadillac (+34.7%), and GMC (+31.7%) were the three most-improved brands in the business last year in terms of volume. GM also delivered more vehicles than any other automaker last year, with 2,215,227 vehicles sold. Great success, end of story… right?

Wrong.

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