The Truth About Cars

TTAC At Reuters: “Toyota’s Exceptionalism Came Back To Bite”

The gentlemen at Reuters asked me to pen an op-ed on the Toyota situation (as of last weekend) for them, so I did. My conclusion, in a sentence: If there’s a lesson to Toyota’s tumble, it’s that easy assumptions aren’t enough to keep you safe on the road, or in the showroom. Read the whole thing here.

And The Hits Keep Coming: 7,314 Camrys Recalled

Reuters reports that Toyota has informed the NHTSA that it will voluntarily recall over 7,000 2010 Camry four-cylinder models. According to a Toyota document sent to dealers: 2010 Camrys equipped with a 4-cylinder engine might have a shorter-than-required power steering pressure hose in the engine compartment. That could deplete the brake fluid, increasing the brake pedal [...]

Curbside Classic: 1970 Lincoln Continental Coupe

Ever since I found this relatively rare 1970 Continental Coupe, I’ve been trying to find something good to say about it. Don’t get me wrong; I love it, in its intrinsic hugeness and badness. But then I had a crush on Blaze Starr in seventh grade too. And I was as just about as thrilled [...]

January Sales Snapshot: Compact-ish CUVs

Given the growth this segment has enjoyed over the last year, it’s more than a little odd to see the Escape taking top honors. After all, it’s received a single refresh since it went on the market in 2000. On the other hand, fleets dug Ford last month. [Please note that the outgoing body-on-frame Kia [...]

GM and Delphi Ditching UAW For New “Green” Production Jobs

As GM tools up for production of its Volt extended-range electric car, Automotive News [sub] has noticed something interesting: workers at GM’s new battery pack assembly plant are not represented by the United Auto Workers. Located in the heart of UAW territory (Brownstown Township, MI), the Volt battery plant represents the very jobs that local [...]

China in January: Up 115 Percent. Or 126 Percent

China’s passenger car sales in January skyrocketed an unbelievable 115.5 percent from a year earlier, China’s official scorekeeper, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said today. A total of 1.32m passenger cars were sold last month in China, compared with 610,600 units a year earlier. In December 2009, 1.1m units changed hands, Reuters reports. The [...]

Toyota’s Jim Lentz Digg Dialogues

Perhaps the biggest surprise of Jim Lentz’s appearance on Digg Dialogue was the number of questions that were unrelated to Toyota’s ongoing recalls and quality issues. But even if crowdsourcing had yielded a number of truly tough questions, Lentz had access to them ahead of the interview, giving him time to craft slippery answers. Still, [...]

Curbside Classic Outtake: 1968 Lincoln Continental

While I prepare the next full chapter of Lincoln’s (mostly downhill) roller-coaster ride, here’s a couple of shots of a 1968 Continental sedan. To my eye, the degradation of the original’s purity is now under way, although these ‘66-’69 models still carry manage to convey a sense of dignity and exclusivity. That would change, all [...]

As Hearings Loom, Toyota And Congress Gear Up For Battle

Toyota heads up to Capital Hill tomorrow to face the ire of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a hearing that’s been subtly named “Toyota Gas Pedals: Is the Public at Risk?” A memo by committee staff [via the WSJ] sets a paranoid tone for the hearing, as the NHTSA investigation [...]

State Farm Warned Regulators About Toyota Unintended Acceleration As Early As 2007

State Farm, the US’ largest automotive insurance company, began warning federal regulators in 2007 about unintended acceleration in Toyotas, the Washington Post reports. Yet the National Highway Traffic Safety did not begin to act for more than a year after State Farm’s initial alerts. This revelation follows by more than a decade the insurer’s warnings about Ford [...]

Project Better Place Birthwatch: Visiting Hours

Optimism and food were the two abundant commodities at Better Place’s press conference yesterday morning, announcing the company’s first Visitor Center, established – how ironically – inside what used to be an oil tank in Pi Glilot, a former gas depot. It seems that the entire event and the resounding optimism around it were eclipsed [...]

Japanese Government Worried About Toyota Backlash

The Japanese government is getting increasingly worried that the Toyota debacle might turn into a worldwide backlash against Japanese cars, or even all Japanese products. As the world’s 4th largest export nation, Japan has a lot to worry about. Today, large parts of the Japanese cabinet came down hard on Toyota, says the Nikkei [sub]. Prime Minister [...]

Hammer Time: Quality Work

Yesterday I sold a 1992 Lexus LS400. It was a well kept model with all the bells and whistles for it’s time. Hands-free cell phone. 250 horsepower V8. Sunroof, ABS, plenty of wood interior accents. For 195,000 miles it was a really great car. At the time it drove off I was speaking to a [...]

What’s Wrong With This Picture: Lost In Translation Edition

Scion shows off the tC “Release Series Six” edition, which boasts a 70s muscle car-inspired graphics package, complete with a not-in-any-way-indicative-of-engine-displacement “6.0″ on the flank. Think of the look as Yee-haw meets Ichiban, but because it’s a Scion tC it’s neither cool nor particularly fast. Poor Scion…

Toyota Class-Action Lawsuits “A Little Cottage Industry Of Its Own”

The legal angle to the Toyota recall story has been a source of constant amusement, from an early attempt to prevent Toyota from enacting its gas pedal fix, to news today [via Reuters] that at least 30 class-action suits have been filed since the recall began. “This is going to a little cottage industry all [...]

Opel Has A Plan. Looks Pretty Rotten

Opel’s Nick Reilly today revealed details of Opel’s long-awaited business plan. Here are the highlights (and low points) as reported by Automobilwoche [sub]. 8300 jobs in Europe will be lost. 7000 of them blue collar, 1300 white collar. 50 percent of them in Germany. Belgium will lose 2,377 jobs, Spain 900 jobs, more than 500 are [...]

Anticlimactic Post Of The Day: Toyota Recalls, Freezes Sales Of Prius, Sai, Lexus Hybrids

It’s the software, stupid. At a press conference at 3:30 pm Japanese time, Toyota came clean and announced that it will recall 223,068 hybrid vehicles in Japan, including its latest Prius model and three other models–the Sai, the Lexus HS250h and the Prius Plug-In Hybrid, says the Nikkei [sub]. They will get a re-flash of [...]

Curbside Classic: 1965 Lincoln Continental

Most car design is evolutionary and derivative. Rarely does a manufacturer make a complete clean break with the past, and risk everything on a fresh stylistic new beginning. Except of course, when you’re at the end of your rope, and staring death in the face. Suddenly, anything, even something boldly original, is very possible and [...]

January Sales Snapshot: Compact Sedans And Wagons

GM sold a lot of compact cars in January. Gm also had a high percentage of fleet sales in January. Coincidence? We think not. [Please note: VW Rabbit sales do not include GTI]

Dodge’s Last Stand

Furious Fuschia counterpoint after the jump. If this is man’s last stand, color me confused.

January Sales Snapshot: Selected Small Hatchbacks

As we’ve noted before, there are lots of ways to skin a segment. Here’s one of them. Notice that four of the top five sellers here are also available as sedans, the Honda Fit being the only exception. Interestingly, compact hatches tend to carry a premium over their sedan variants.

Toyota Canceled Top-Level Quality Meetings Last Year

As the search for clues to what went wrong with Toyota’s much-vaunted quality rolls on, Automotive News [sub] has discovered that Toyota discontinued top-level quality-focused meetings shortly after Akio Toyoda took over early last year. The “Customer First” quality meetings were instituted under Toyoda’s predecessor Katsuake Watanabe as a response to Toyota’s 2005 recalls. A [...]

Curbside Classic’s Lincoln Week: Part 1 – A Brief History Up To 1961

In honor of our greatest president’s birthday this Friday, it’s going to be Lincoln Week at Curbside Classic. We’ll start with a brief history of the brand to set us up for the sixties, when our featured cars begin. Cadillac and Lincoln shared an almost identical early biography. Both were founded by “Master of Precision” [...]

EU Approves Sweden’s Saab-Spyker EIB Loan Guarantee

One more obstacle to the Spyker-Saab deal has been eliminated, as BusinessWeek reports that the EU has approved the Swedish government’s guarantee of a €400m ($547m) loan to the company from the European Investment Bank. EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes approved the loan today, saying it would not cause “any undue distortions of competition,” and [...]

Review: 2010 Nissan Altima Coupe

Until recently, if you wanted a semi-practical sport coupe for less than $30,000, and pony cars weren’t your thing, you had to get one based on a front-drive sedan. Chevrolet offered the Monte Carlo, Honda offered the Accord Coupe, Toyota offered the Solara, and two years ago Nissan introduced an Altima Coupe. The Nissan was [...]