Was it luck? Was it hard work? A mixture of both? After escaping a near collision with fate in Iwaki, and not even getting its feet wet in Thailand, Nissan emerges as the most successful after the trials brought on by the unholy triad of tsunami, flood and yen. We said this a while ago when we compared 2011 production numbers of Japan’s majors.

Today, we go to Yokohama to check the balance sheets.

In the most unceremonious way, Japan’s second largest automaker Nissan today stands out as the country’s most profitable. On the 8^th floor of Nissan’s glitzy building by the Yokohama waterfront, there is no arm-waving Carlos Ghosn today who fills the room with French-accented quotables. In his stead, Nissan fields a nondescript Nissan’s Corporate Vice President, Joji Tagawa, to present thgwe quarterly results.

The bespectacled  VP with chin fuzz and spiky hair rattles off words and numbers as if his life would depend on the speed of their delivery. It does not matter: The numbers could have been delivered by a silent nun, they still would have conveyed their punch:

Both in the October-December quarter, and also in its guidance for the results of the fiscal year which ends on March 31^st, Nissan trounced Honda and Toyota. October-December, Nissan’s  operating profit was 118.1 billion yen ($1.54 billion). Net profit amounted to 82.67 billion yen ($1.07 billion.)  Even better, Nissan sticks with its profit forecast for the fiscal that calls for a net profit of 290 billion yen ($3.8 billion).

Post water torture, Nissan appears to be in the best shape of all.

While Toyota and Honda had to scrounge for cars and parts, and still are supply constrained to some extent, Nissan rebounded quickly and gained market share around the world. Toyota lost 240,000 cars to the Thai flood, Honda’s plant in Thailand was submerged for months and is a near total write-off. And Nissan? Only 33,000 units went down the drain.

Now, let’s see whether they can keep it up.

Toyota  U.S.A., Inc. today announced  pricing for the 2012 Prius c subcompact hybrid. They were not kidding when they had promised that the car would start at below $19,000.

The base version can be had for $18,950. For those who want something more dignified, the Prius c will be available in four grades, all the way up to  $23,230  MSRP.

The miserly 53mpg (city) hatchback is promised to arrive at Toyota dealerships in March 2012.  For more information …

Kia brought all the glitz and glam of an 80′s hair band concert (including an actual 80′s cover band) to the stage to unveil 2 new products today. With 9 new vehicles introduced in the last 3 years, the major releases have already occured. First up was the Optima “SX Limited” that goes on sale in March. Changes include 18″ chrome wheels, red brake calipers, 274 hp engine that achieves leading mileage (22/34) for under $35,000 (destination and fees included).
The big unveil came when they brought out the “Trackster” edition of the Soul.

Designed to be used as a track day car it has a 250 hp all-wheel drive turbo charged engine. Starting with the standard Soul, they lowered it, took off 2 of the doors (leaving 3 for those not near a calculator), added some muscular looking rear arches, 19″ billet wheels, vented Brembo brakes, racing seats, and specifically designed track day storage bins. Unfortunately… this heavy metal version of the soul is not going to be built at this point.
In addition to the 2 vehicles, Kia had a few other small announcements:

-A new phone app, “UVO”, which ties in to the Kia UVO in-car entertainment system. It helps you find your car, sets up geo fencing (I’ll be getting that for my kids someday), and has the ability to schedule service.

-After winning a driver’s and manufacturer’s championship in the Grand Am series last year, they will add 2 Optimas to compete in the Pirelli World Challenge in 2012.

-Mentioned, but not unveiled is Kinetic B-Spec edition of the 5-door Rio coming out, to tie in with the racecar.

Seems like a lot of fuss to go through for a vehicle that is barely different than what they already sell and one that will never be sold. Though, I am instead in the getting a ‘mix-tape’ from the band that performing the Motley Crue…

We’ve already heard that the 2013 GT500 droptop will be limited to a relatively poky 155MPH. That’s probably for the best, really. It’s much safer to roll a convertible over at 155 than it would be at, say, a buck-ninety.

During the press conference, however, we heard an interesting factoid, one that got us interested enough to sucker-punch SVT’s Jamal Hameedi for a brief Q-and-A:

Hau Thai-Tang told the press that the 2013 convertible with the SVT Performance Pack, which includes driver-adjustable Bilstein shocks to help the pony posse get over their ZL1 Magnaride envy, is “three seconds faster than the outgoing coupe.” What does that mean?

Mr. Hameedi was happy to help: the 2013 Performance Package convertible is about three seconds a lap ahead of the 2011 Performance Package coupe around Sebring. “Which,” he chuckled, “should give you an idea of where we will be with the coupe.”

No doubt that the current SVT GT500 is one of the fastest American cars to ever hit a showroom floor, but sitting next to the new hotness, Ford had helpfully displayed a ’93 Fox-body Cobra. It did the quarter-mile in 14.5 seconds with 230 horsepower. Not enough to hang with a Camry in 2012. Know what? We’d still like to have one.

Subtract two doors and a back seat from the Kia Soul and add a 250 horsepower and all-wheel drive and you have the Kia Track’ster concept. The initial sketches of the Track’ster were pretty underwhelming, but this car looks much better in photographs. A one inch longer wheelbase and a Brembo brake system with 14 inch rotors up front, 13.6 inches in the back and a combination of 6 and 4 piston brake calipers (front and rear) add to the Track’ster’s spec sheet. Instead of the rear seats, there’s a compartment for spare tires and safety gear like helmets.

Ah, the unbearable lightness of being Hyundai! The Elantra GT has arrived, looking quite sleek, quite desirable, and clocking in at 2,784 pounds. That’s 151 pounds lighter than the next-best player in the segment — Mazda’s similarly Tyson-faced Mazda3 — and
well ahead of the Focus and Golf. The point was driven home by a little show-and-tell, as seen above, to which the Chicago media reacted with thunderous applause. Hear me now, believe me later, and remember it when you are shopping for your next car: The Elantra GT is the lightest car in its class.

The Elantra Coupe? Well…

Buried in the middle of the press materials is the slightly annoying truth: the Elantra Coupe, at 2,687 pounds, is non-trivially heavier than the new Civic Coupe, which weighs 2,594. Against that disadvantage, the Elantra offers fourteen cubic feet of additional interior space, eight more horsepower, six-speed transmissions to play the Civic’s five-speeders, a better EPA fuel economy (which is currently estimated at the magic and controversial 40mpg highway) and standard electronic nannies.

Still, if you need the lightest coupe in the segment, the Elantra ain’t it. One wonders how much a Civic five-door would weigh.

In his opening speech, Hyundai’s CEO, John Krafcik, hinted at something that we were able to confirm: both the GT and Coupe will be assembled exclusively in Korea.

Photography courtesy of Julie Hyde

Even at Germany’s IG Metall metal workers union the daily BILD Zeitung was put aside today to make room for the fancy Wall Street Journal. The paper claims to have talked to “a GM official,” who thinks that all hell is about to break loose at Opel in Germany.

In a nutshell:

• GM is looking at “horrendous” fourth quarter losses from Opel
• Patience at RenCen is running out
• The plants in Bochum, Germany, and Ellesmere Port, England, could get closed.

Said the nameless official:

“There is increasing frustration with Opel and a feeling that the cuts two years ago did not go nearly deep enough. If Opel is going to get fixed, it is going to get fixed now and cuts are going to be deep.”

GM spokesman Selim Bingol told the WSJ that “the official’s comments don’t represent the company’s official stance with the union.”

Germany’s Handelsblatt immediately was on the story and produced the scoop of the day: UAW’s Bob King becomes a member of the Opel Supervisory Board. Neither Handelsblatt in Germany nor the Detroit News in Detroit could get an official confirmation, but received no denial either. The DetN found “ source familiar with the situation” that said it’s true.

Now that’s a new and clever threat: Say ja to the firings, or we’ll sic the UAW on you.

Meanwhile a new enemy is targeting Opel: Hyundai. The Koreans want to gain market share in Germany mainly from Opel and from Ford, writes the Handelsblatt.

2011 was the best sales year yet for the Acadia. No explanations were offered for this surprising statistic, but GMC was happy to talk about the “class-leading fuel economy”, center airbag, and LED headlamps…

The 288-hp direct-injection V6 which debuted in the Traverse continues here in the Acadia, matched to a revised transmission. The “ColorTouch” audio system is standard. The Denali, which reportedly accounts for about one in three Acadias sold, adds a full raft of luxury items to go with its eye-wateringly noveau appearance package

Photography courtesy Matt Fink

Hang on to your hairplugs. The 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 has the same 650 horsepower supercharged 5.8L V8 making 600 lb-ft of torque. But unlike the 200 mph coupe, the ‘vert will only top out at 155 mph. The vert does get 6-piston Brembo brakes, a carbon fiber driveshaft, an upgraded clutch, electronically adjustable Bilstein shocks and a Motley Crue Greatest Hits CD in the Shaker audio system.

The 2013 GMC Acadia gets a pretty mild update, with cosmetic changes playing the biggest role here. A new “center airbag”, which inflates via the right side of the driver’s seat (to protect passengers from an opposite-side impact) is also featured. The two changes are not quite the major redesign that was expected. We’ll have live shots later in the day.

Have a quick look at this screenshot. Scan it as quickly as you scan other news from China. Now picture scanning it under as much time pressure an average news editor is under. That’s what this is for, it is GM China’s site for journalists. Wouldn’t you think that GM China’s January sales were absolutely marvelous?

Well, it’s not true. GM China has seen better months than this horrible January which in all likelihood will bring double-digit declines to China’s car industry. Is GM China simply saying: Ouch, better luck in February? No, it has the urge to spin:

“Shanghai – General Motors sales in China in the first month of 2012 were up 25.3 percent from December 2011, giving GM its second-best January ever in China.”

Well, it just so happened that GM’s best January ever had been January 2011, and second best means in this case that year-on-year, GM China sales are down 8 percent. Which was buried in the body of the release, likely banking on rampant attention deficit.

Will they ever stop playing people for fools? Apparently not.

What’s wrong with telling it as it is? Does every month have to be a record?

Here is the TTAC-recommended format:

P.S.: If the columns don’t add up sometimes, don’t blame me.

P.P.S.: GM, when you say “Wuling sales of 106,573 units in China  …” without giving a percentage of growth or a prior year number, the trained journalist will know you are fibbing …

New car sales in China imploded in January. This will be the message when the official data by the CAAM are announced. Which should happen any minute.

The signs are ominous: Yesterday, GM China, TTAC’s in-house leading indicator, announced (in a way) that sales in January had been down by 8 percent. Then, China’s largest carmaker SAIC said that its January was down 8.5 percent. Today, the China Passenger Car Association told China Daily that the car market in China had nosedived16.5 percent from a year earlier to 1.17 million units in January. Late in the afternoon in Yokohama at Nissan’s quarterly earnings conference, Nissan’s Corporate Vice President, Joji Tagawa proudly pronounced that Nissan sales “declined only 16 percent” in China, while the Chinese car market as a whole registered “a negative 28 percent,” and isn’t that wonderful?

Whoa!!!! What’s going on?

Is the sky over China finally falling? It sure looks like it. Unless you are one of the 1.3+ billion chosen few who own a Chinese calendar. Then you would know that for the better part of January, China was closed.

It happens every year. A phenomenon called Chinese New Year causes hundreds of millions to travel, to set off fireworks, and to paralyze commerce for weeks on end. Officially, Chinese New Year started on January 2012 and lasted a week. Unofficially, it can last a month. Picture Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Hanukkah and Ramadan all rolled into one, and you’d be covering only a tiny part of what is Chinese New Year.

Now comes the really interesting part: Last year, Chinese New Year fell into February. With the result that February 2011 was a dud, car-wise, after January had been stellar.  This time around, we compare an emaciated January with a prior year January on steroids. Next month, it will be different, when sales will be compared to the dud month in the prior year. Which causes Rao Da, secretary-general of the passenger car association to glibly remark that he expects an increase of around 30 percent in February.

All I can recommend: Ignore any numbers coming from China in January or February, especially percentages.

Click here to view the embedded video.

TTAC commentator educatordan writes:

I know this is an exercise in mental masturbation but I find myself thinking about it and perhaps the B&B with their extensive experience could shed some light on the subject.

OK here goes; Will lowering a vehicle improve the vehicle’s fuel economy?  Several manufacturers of lowering systems claim that it will, but would it be measureable?  In my mind even 1 mpg would be significant on certain vehicles.  This question sprung to mind as I was looking at low resale values on fairly clean early to mid 2000s American SUVs.  Those TrailBlazers, Envoys, Raineers, Explorers, Mountaineers, and Aviators are likely as close as were gonna get to a modern version of the all American family wagon and you can buy lowering kits for even the 4wd/AWD versions.  I know lowering a vehicle improves handling a rollover resistance but what about fuel economy?

Sajeev answers:

I hope this isn’t an exercise in mental masturbation, as I sometimes consider this quandary while exiting the freeway in my 1995 Lincoln Mark VIII LSC. That’s because the Mark’s air compressor refills the air springs to raise the ride height 20mm when the car goes below 45 MPH. And, compared to the low-speed ride height, they drive better (variable-assist steering too) and looked pretty cool lowered on the highway…back when they were a common sight on the highway. You may not see a new “Quadra-Lift” Jeep Grand Cherokee perform the same trick, but they do.

Alrighty then! According to this thread, there can be a fuel economy benefit to a lowered vehicle. In theory. Always in theory.

I like the theory of lowering a car to reduce the “frontal footprint” of your tires.  Whether or not lowering the vehicle will mess up downforce to the point of fuel economy detriment is anyone’s guess, unless you have a fluid dynamics lab in your garage. For the purposes of a street car that can be lowered enough to not ruin wheel alignment/suspension travel/load carrying abilities, I suspect lowering a vehicle will improve fuel economy.

Enough to matter? Maybe not with the massive frontal area of a modern passenger car with zero overhang and nerdy ride heights, but maybe with the long, bullet nose of a Lincoln Mark VIII hugging the ground. Your guess is as good as mine.

Send your queries to sajeev@thetruthaboutcars.com . Spare no details and ask for a speedy resolution if you’re in a hurry.

The last time we got an Elantra GT was in the early 2000s, when Hyundai brought over a quirky five-door that resembled the Mazda6 hatchback more than the re-badged Hyundai i30 you see here. Now dubbed the Elantra GT (rather than the Elantra Touring of the previous i30), the Mazda3 and Subaru Impreza just got a new challenger in the 5-door compact segment.

The 148 horsepower 1.8L 4-cylinder makes 148 horsepower and returns 28/39 mpg for a 32 mpg combined average. This beats the Impreza and matches the Mazda3 SkyActiv (though a forthcoming review will show that while Jack Baruth managed to match the Elantra’s EPA figures, my Mazda3 didn’t hit its mark). Of the two sedans, the Mazda3 is the better driving car, but the i30′s European roots will hopefully translate into solid driving dynamics.

The Hyundai takes the cake for styling, and will probably have a nicer interior. In addition to the usual Elantra content, there’s a refrigerated glovebox, a feature also seen on the Dodge Caliber.

With 39 mpg highway and 33 mpg combined, the 2013 Hyundai Elantra coupe may not get the same gas mileage as its sedan brother, but it injects a new entrant into a very slim field of compact, affordable two-door cars.

Classified as a mid-size car (as opposed to the compact Honda Civic and Kia Forte two-doors), the familiar 148 horsepower 4-cylinder engine and 6-speed transmissions are available, along with Bluetooth and an iPod dock. Two trim levels, the GS and SE are available, but only leather and 17 inch wheels can be had on the SE. A technology package adds a 7 inch screen, a back-up camera, push-to-start and a better stereo. The SE also gets an upgraded suspension which should hopefully liven up the Elantra’s mundane driving dynamics.

As the man said: “Finally, we can exercise our capabilities in earnest.”

In a forthcoming review of Steve Lynch’s book “Arrogance and Accords“, you’ll see that Acura was doomed from the start by inept management and internal politics that relegated the worst of American Honda’s corrupt to a division that needed its best players. On the other hand, they had the Integra, a wildly popular sedan that sold well – at the expensive of its prestige and Acura’s brand equity. Hoping to re-capture some of that magic is the ILX.

You already know that the ILX, like the Integra, uses a Civic platform, with the 2.4L 200-horsepower Civic Si motor and a 6-speed gearbox, a 150 horsepower 2.0L 4-cylinder with a 5-speed automatic and the Civic Hybrid’s 1.5L IMA powertrain. The hybrid will return 35/38 mpg, the 2.0L will get 24/32 mpg and the 2.4L will get 20/29 mpg. The ILX’s press photos don’t show the most dramatic angle – the extremely truncated rear deck that looks a bit like the Chevy Sonic sedan. It is, dare we say, ZDX-like when viewed from the side, although the C-Pillar is not as steeply angled. The new NSX cannot come soon enough.

Acura showed off their 2013 RDX, featuring a 3.5L V6 with 33 more horsepower than the outgoing model and substantially improved fuel economy.

At 273 horsepower and MPG ratings of 20/28 mpg for the front-driver and 19/27 mpg AWD version, quantitative performance is up for Acura’s small crossover. Pandora Radio, an ELS sound system, a power liftgate and a longer wheelbase/wider track are the big news for 2013. We’ll have more information tomorrow when our team starts live coverage of the Chicago Auto Show.

Fisker Automotive has laid off a total of 66 people, including 20 at a former GM plant in Delaware, and another 40 contractors in California. The layoffs come as Fisker attempts to re-negotiate loans from the Department of Energy that were contingent on Fisker meeting sales targets for its Karma sedan, which Fisker failed to do.

While the DOE loaned Fisker $509 million, Fisker has only $193 million so far. The money was earmarked to help engineer a new vehicle, dubbed the Nina. Fisker had hoped to employ 2,000 people at the Delaware plant. The Karma has been hampered by a series of delays and false starts, leading to speculation that the project was little more than vaporware. Fisker is also pursuing private equity financing in lieu of government loans.

Today, I heard at Toyota’s October-December results conference that TMC lost 240,000 unmade (and some made) cars to the Thai flood. After the conference, I asked Toyota spokesman Dion Corbett how many cars Toyota had lost to the tsunami.

I expected a bit less than a million. To my surprise, Corbett said: “150,000.”

I could not believe it. And I spent the rest of the day twisting arms until I knew how that happened.

Units lost to tsunami

Units lost to Thai flood

These tables, in their boring Excel self, are a document of resilience, they prove that world events often defy logic, and can destroy the best laid plans.

In June 2011, three months after the March 11 tsunami, Toyota was scrambling for parts. The company projected that it would lose 800,000 units by the end of June, and maybe produce 350,000 more than planned in the months before March 2012, to end the fiscal with a shortfall of 450,000 units.

In the line below, you see what really happened. By the end of June, the shortfall stood at only 760,000. The company could restart production faster than thought, could make 120,000 more cars than planned before October 2011, and then was able to accelerate production to produce 490,000 units over plan before the end of the fiscal year. Result: Only 150,000 units below plan.

Then, the Thai flood ruined the best laid plans.

In December, it looked like 260,000 cars would be lost to the Thai flood, and 30,000 could be made more before the end of the fiscal.

No miracle this time.

By the end of the fiscal, Toyota will have made a total of 390,000 cars below plan, and will be hit worse by a flood that many perceived as a side-show. Of course, this has everything to do with the fact that the flood fell into the later part of the year. But such is life when the year ends and one has to look at the bottom line.

Speaking of the bottom line, my contacts tell me that the financial losses caused by the tsunami were greater

Today, Toyota announced its October-December 2011 results to reporters packed into its basement meeting room in Koraku-en, Tokyo. Like most Japanese companies, Toyota is on a fiscal year that spans from April to March the following year. The reporting quarter was the third of the 2012 fiscal. It was surprisingly good. From October to December, TMC had an operating profit of 149.7 billion yen ($1.95 billion,) up 51 percent to from a year earlier. It gets better …

First, the room has to endure a speech that must have been written in Excel, rattled off by Toyota’s Senior Managing Officer Takahiko Ijichi (right.)

His Managing Officer Shigeru Hayakawa must have read the speech before. He uses the time to nod off concentrate intently. High suspense: We hear complaints that the government had taken a bigger bite of that profit due to “tax reform,” slashing the net profit to 80.9 billion yen.

Hayakawa-san continues to listen intently. We hear that when the fiscal ends on March 31, TMC will likely have an operating profit of 270 billion yen ($3.5 billion), and a net profit of 200 billion yen ($2.6 billion.) “The other guys are doing much worse,” whispers a reporter next to me. Indeed, today the Nikkei dips on announcements that other Japanese companies will report rotten numbers three months from now.  Less than a year ago, large parts of the country were smashed to bits, what do you expect? I definitely expected losses.

What really puts a fire under the room`s imagination is when Ijichi talks about how resolutely Toyota has been and is digging itself out if the triple whammy caused by the Tohoku tsunami, the Thai flood, and the towering yen.

Suddenly, what had sounded like an ambitious plan, namely that Toyota wants to raise its 2012 global sales by a whopping 21 percent to 9.6 million, begins to sound believable.

For 2012, Ijichi cites projections of the Japanese Auto Manufacturers Association JAMA that put the total Japanese market at 5 million this year. He thinks that it is not unreasonable when “we expect our market to be 1.63 million units including minivehicles.” For the Toyota/Lexus brand alone.

In the U.S., Toyota conservatively projects the total market to be 13.6 million, and, says Ijichi, considering that “we are going to introduce 19 models this year, we are planning to sell 1.9 million units in the North American market.”

Intentional slip of the tongue to hedge his bets? Toyota sold 1.64 million cars in the U.S. alone in 2011, after 1.76 million the year before. Together with Canada and Mexico, Toyota was pretty close to 1.9 million units last year in North America.

Europe is difficult to forecast, says Ijichi. But he aims to lift China from 880,000 units last year “to at least one million units … or more than that.”

Edmunds noted yesterday that “Toyota is still faced with supply issues; it averaged 33 days to turn in the last quarter, which is about half of the industry ideal of 60 days to turn.” Contacts at Toyota confirm this and say it will last through this quarter. After March, all dealers are expected to be fully stocked.

Hayakawa-san is wide awake when the usually dry and buttoned-up Ijichi takes a deep breath and declares in closing:

“In the past several years, our marketing people and our production people had encountered many hardships. They could not produce as they wanted and they could not sell as they wanted. Next year, finally we can exercise our capabilities in earnest.”

Mind, you, in Toyota’s calendar, “next year” begins this April.

We just got our first look at the 2013 Nissan 370Z, set to be unveiled at the Chicago Auto Show on Wednesday. The changes are brief but good god, what did they do to those wheels?

Nissan lists the 2013 changes as

• Refreshed front fascia with vertical LED daytime running lights
• Revised 19-inch aluminum-alloy wheels (Sport Package equipped models)
• New 18-inch wheels for 370Z Coupe
• Red-finished brake calipers (Sport Package equipped models)
• Dark-finish fuel gauge trim
• Euro-tuned shock absorbers (Sport Package equipped models)
• And two new exterior colours – Magma Red and Midnight Blue 

Apparently, some communists freedom haters blue-state-residents people partial to Ford trucks are pissing and moaning over a pretty tame Chevrolet Truck spot that aired during the Super Bowl. I thought it was a dumb ad by GM, both in terms of content and because nothing can ever top the “Like A Rock” ads that aired during TNN’s Saturday Morning Powerblock Television lineup of Car and Driver TV and the other shows about decimating wild turkeys with shotguns.

Turns out Ford made an ad back in the 1980′s that’s pretty vulgar and offensive to Chevrolet trucks. The ad was dug up by our own resident Panther-lover, Sajeev Mehta. You can check it out below – it’s pretty funny, but still lacks the rah-rah post-Reagan jingoism of the 1990s “Like A Rock” campaign. And just to pre-empt any pinko Canuck remarks in the comments, the F-Series is the best selling vehicle up here too, even with higher gas prices.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Volkswagen Phaeton is supposed to be the definition of understated refinement, a Patek Calatrava in a world gone mad for Hublot Big Bangs. Someone in Toronto, Canada didn’t get the memo.

Sporting some truly awful accouterments, like a black-accented hood, Canadian Tire-spec 20″ alloys and a home-brew red brake caliper paintjob, the Phaeton would be nothing more than a tacky oddity if it weren’t for the fact that it’s, well…a Phaeton. Poorly modified luxury cars are nothing new, but a Phaeton is absolutely bizarre given its discretion and bloated-Passat looks. In a world all about image, this would be the last choice for the kind of underclass yob that modifies 4-door sedans in this style.

What possesses someone to buy a Phaeton with the intention of making it look like a Yardie drug dealer’s 1994 Acura Vigor? With 77,000 miles and an asking price of $19,000, this Phaeton would be a good deal if it were a clean, one-owner car not being sold at a sketchy “Buy Here, Pay Here” lot in one of Toronto’s crappier neighborhoods.

Just like the Lacrosse, the Buick Regal will no longer be available with a base 2.4L 4-cylinder engine. Instead, the same 2.4L with Buick’s eAssist mild hybrid will become the standard powerplant.

The Regal eAssist will get as much as 36 highway MPG, though pricing and city fuel economy wasn’t announced. The base 2.0L turbocharged engine will still be around, as well as the Regal GS, which gets an automatic gearbox option for 2013. Some outlets have suggested that the turbocharged engine may be offered as a no-cost option, similar to how the Lacrosse offers a V6 as a no-cost alternative to the eAssist. Current pricing shows a nearly $3,000 gap between a base 2.4L and a base model turbo, so that idea seems like a flight of fancy, unless the lineup is re-arranged.