Ask the Best And Brightest: Should Evolution Be Fat or Skinny?

While reading the responses to a recent BMWBLOG posting by Josh Lewis, I noted that one of the posters had put together a very interesting comparison of the BMW M3 and the Porsche 911. To put it mildly, somebody’s gone Kirstie Alley while somebody else has stayed Goldie Hawn:

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Crash Tax?
The NY Times reports on a growing phenomenon: the crash tax. Though ambulance fees have long been born by those who use their services, Police, Fire Departm…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: What Car Is Worth Buying On Impulse?
Your faithful editor just dodged a bullet. And no, not from our owners, who might have wondered why I just took off for the better part of a weekday. Truth i…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Would You Pay More For Ethanol-Free Fuel?
Gasoline with up to ten percent ethanol have been approved for public sale in the US, and the ethanol industry has been pushing to increase the maximum allow…
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Weekend Head-Scratcher: Going Car Shopping Around The World. Virtually

When I’m bored and have 20 minutes to burn, I always go to car manufacturers’ websites and “spec out” cars I may buy in the future. Volvos, Toyota, Hondas, Lexuses etc. Ones which would look nice on my driveway. But truth be told, nothing on the market really captures my imagination. When I look on the road, nothing really stands out. Then I made a comment to myself. “If you want to stand out on the roads you’d be better off driving a Cadillac CTS!” I chuckled at first, but then I saw some sense to it. Although I don’t like Cadillac’s styling, the CTS isn’t that bad (it grew on me), it’s not that bad a car and there’s not many on UK roads. Then I thought, why don’t I take it one step further…?

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Ask The Best And Brightest: What Does The Nissan Brand Mean To You?

Nissan was the fifth best-selling brand in the first half of 2010, but with nine new model rollouts planned for the next two years it’s looking for something its marketing team calls “breaking the mold” improvement. To do that, Nissan is leading its product blitz with distinctive products like the Leaf EV and t he Juke “sportcross,” but it’s also working to bring more attention to its brand as well as its vehicles. Marketing boss Jon Brancheau explains the problem to AdAge

If you look back over the course of the last 18 months at our creative, a lot of it has been focused on individual models and there hasn’t been an overarching idea that held everything together, laddering to Nissan. That’s what’s different about this work. It’s focused on the vehicle lines supporting the Nissan brand rather than just focusing on individual launch activity. The Leaf is the most recent example to believe that Nissan is an innovative company and that’s how we want to transmit our message to consumers, we want to turn it around a little bit — Nissan is the brand, and here’s the reason you should believe in it.

Unfortunately, the vehicle for Nissan’s latest bid at brand awareness is based on the tagline “Innovation For All,” a bon mot that is unfortunately reminiscent of the ill-fated Chevrolet tagline “Excellence For Everyone.” For a brand that is respected by many but loved by few, that’s a dangerously vague approach to a marketing push, and it hardly seems like the message to propel Nissan out of its perennial also-ran status. On the other hand, it’s tough to put a finger on what exactly Nissan should stand for because it’s brand has almost always been poorly differentiated in this market. So we’re curious: what does the Nissan brand mean to you, and what are the strengths it should build on as it seeks to improve brand awareness? Or are they on the right track already?

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Who Will Be GM's "Cornerstone Investors"?

GM’s IPO filing still has yet to appear on the SEC’s EDGAR database, but while we wait for the S-1 form to clear, Reuters has some details on what to expect from the sale. The big news:

GM is mulling a plan under which sovereign wealth funds or pension funds would serve as “cornerstone investors,” a technique often used for large initial public offerings to show that key investors are supporting the deal, four people said…

Each cornerstone investor would likely be asked to commit to buying 2 percent to 10 percent of the IPO and cornerstone investors would likely account for 10 percent to 30 percent of the total IPO, one of the sources said.

On the other hand, another source says GM is targeting 15 percent of its equity towards cornerstone investors, with 20-25% is aimed at the retail investment market. Either way, Reuters points out that another recent large IPO of a government-owned business, the Agricultural Bank of China, relied heavily on cornerstone investors… but that the politics of such a strategy could be risky.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Free Parking?
Who pays for free parking? Everyone but the motorist.That’s the thesis of UCLA professor of urban planning, Daniel Shoup’s new book The High Cost…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Is Crossover A Dirty Word?

I recently attended a fancy-pants dinner held by Chrysler PR for some Houston-area bloggers. We were wined, dined and introduced to the 2011 Grand Cherokee. While free food and journalistic integrity are a tough combo to swallow, I found something entertaining and inherently blog worthy: the castrated 2011 Ford Explorer is in the new Grand Cherokee’s gunsight. Why? One of the SUV’s most famous nameplates is now a crossover, while another is still an SUV. But neither of them like being called names.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Does The Outgoing Explorer Earn Its "Exploder" Nickname?
This week’s “Haggler” column in the Sunday New York Times was ripped from the pages of TTAC’s beloved Piston Slap series, with a Wend…
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TTAC's Little House Of Horrors: Top Ugly Car Picks Pics

Yesterday, Cammy asked what could be the ugliest car. She said “currently on market,” but that limitation that was soon forgotten. Being a customer centric blog, we opened it up to the ugliest of all times. And who knows, ugly as they are, they still might be “on market,” looking for a buyer with a vision problem. Or a warped sense of humor. And with this, we present to you: TTAC’s Top Ugly Car Picks Pics. The Best and the Brightest pick the worst of the worst.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: How Much Do European Cars Need To Be Changed For The US Market?
There seems to be an appetite debate about this issue, not just here at TTAC but in the industry as a whole. Just look the philosophical divide between the &…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Will Dealer Markups Kill The Volt?

Well, the debate over the viability of the Chevy Volt has been well and truly joined, as political and auto writers around the web spent the last week weighing in on the issue. Needless to say, a scan of these opinions shows that my NY Times Op-Ed has drawn a wide variety of reactions, ranging from complete agreement to utter contempt. But, in a phenomenon that seems all-too common on the internet these days, very few commentaries on my opinion (positive and negative alike) bring more detail or nuance to the issue. Which is too bad, because I’d be the last person to argue that I’m capable of doing complete justice to an issue as complex as the Volt in only 900 words. The variables and unforeseeable consequences floating around the Volt’s future are so vast and varied, no writer could possibly hope to cover them all. And one such problem didn’t even emerge until the day after I wrote the Times Op-Ed: dealer markups on the Volt.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Can Fiat Sell 50k-100k Cars In The US Next Year?

The Fiat brand returns to the US later this year, spearheaded by the Mexican-built 500 minicar and followed next year by Abarth and convertible versions of the A-segment hatchback. With some 200 Chrysler dealers in major urban centers preparing to add the Fiat brand to their portfolios, Automotive News [sub] reports that the brand hopes to reach at least 50k units and as many as 100k units by next year. For comparison, the MINI brand sold 45,293 units in the last 12 months (ending in June) and 48,562 in the previous 12 months.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Can You Buy A Chrysler With Zero Regrets?

More to the point, is it better to acknowledge that regrets might be common among Chrysler buyers and address the problem with an ad like this one… or does this campaign feed the perception that it’s trying to address?

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Ask The Best And Brightest: WWDDD?

The upcoming season of Mad Men is on its way, and with it a whole new set of questions and expectations. One question that boggles my mind is: What car would Don Draper drive?

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Could Kia Disappear?

24/7 Wall Street seems to believe that Hyundai’s junior brand could go away in the next year and a half, as it named Kia to its “Ten Brands That Will Disappear in 2011” list. This despite the fact that Kia’s first-half sales were up 15 percent over the first half of 2009, and Kia’s rolling 12-month sales are over 22 percent higher than its performance in the previous 12 months. So, why does 24/7 Wall Street see Kia disappearing?

Kia Motors Corporation is one of the two car brands of Hyundai of South Korea. It has always been a marginal brand. Its stable mate, Hyundai USA, has a reputation for high quality cars like the Sonata and Genesis. Kia sells “low rent” cars and SUV nameplates like the Sorento and Rio. As GM and Ford have already discovered, it is expensive to maintain multiple brands and storied car names, including Pontiac, Saturn, and Mercury, are disappearing. Most Kia cars sell for $14,000 to $25,000. Hyundai has several cars in the same price range. Hyundai’s Sonata has quickly become one of the best-selling cars in America, and its Genesis flagship model competes with mid-sized BMWs and Mercedes. The parent company will take a page from several other global car companies and dump its weakest brand.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: What Have Hippies Done For Cars?

What did the hippie say to the horse? Woooaahh. What the figurative hippie said to the car is an entirely more ambiguous matter…

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Is This Why Ridiculously Fast Cars Exist?
In this day and age, it’s nothing short of a minor miracle that giant multinationals still build cars that are as ridiculously potent and expensive as…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Can Mazda Sell 30k Mazda5s Every Year?

Just yesterday, I noted in my write-up on Mazda’s June sales performance that

with a Nagare-saddled Mazda5 replacement waiting in the wings, Mazda isn’t even well positioned to defend the segment it helped define in the US market, just as GM finally starts taking it seriously

Well, today Mazda announced to Automotive News [sub] that it would be targeting 30k annual sales of the Mazda5’s “Nagare-saddled” replacement. Last year’s 18,488 units was the second-best sales year on record for the 5, as sales fell from 2008’s all-time high of 22,021. In short, Mazda’s compact CUV has always been at least 8k units away from its new Mazda5 sales goal. On the other hand, Mazda never properly marketed the 5, and both GM and Ford are moving into the segment with the GMC Granite and Ford C-Max. Will Detroit’s move into this otherwise-ignored segment (currently contested by only the 5 and the Kia Rondo) bring buyers in, or force already-marginalized players like Mazda out? The fate of the 5 seems to hang on the answer to that one question.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Does GM Need A Manhattan Flagship Salon?
According to BusinessWeek‘s David Welch, GM’s New York market share has slipped below ten percent for the first time, prompting The General to co…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Will Low Gas Prices Blow The Volt Launch?
Pity the automotive industry. With a minimum three-year lead time for new product development, timing vehicle launches to coincide with appropriate fuel pric…
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Ask The Best and Brightest: Shouldn't We Shut Up About Styling?

It may not be apparent from the cheerful, distracted way in which I load my TTAC contributions with ridiculous jargon, shocking sexual audacity, and repulsive images of the ghetto, but writing an online auto review is actually a rather tightly woven proposition. One has about a thousand words, give or take a few, in which to convey the essence of a vehicle which has cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. There is usually so much data in the press materials that a simple Cliffs Notes version of that data would run to double the permitted review length.

That’s not all. Everybody has access to those materials, so one must be careful to save some room with which to convey accurate, personalized driving impressions. Speaking frankly, there are only three differences between the average denim journOrca (just made that up) and your humble author: I can drive a vehicle beyond four-tenths, I fit in most bucket seats, and I rarely sleep alone at press events. Therefore, in a thousand-word review, I have to set aside a few hundred words to be honest about how the car drives.

You get the point. There’s not a lot of room in the “trunk” of a review. This doesn’t stop most of us in the business from putting junk in that trunk. The “junk” in question consists of vague, uneducated ranting on automotive styling. Click the jump to hear some examples and discuss what should be done.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: What Car Would You Build For 25 Years?
Cars are rarely built for very long. This is, after all, the industry that invented the concept of planned obsolescence, and ever since GM surpassed Ford in…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Driving At Age 16?
Fewer 16-year-olds are registering for driver’s licenses in Illinois, according to Chicago Breaking News… but why? Illinois lawmakers doubled t…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: How Do You Make Racing Work As Marketing?
From Formula One to Nascar, racing series the world over are coming under pressure from automakers to make their action more relevant to the vehicles availab…
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Ask the Best And Brightest: B-Body or Panther?

The comments on yesterday’s review of the Caprice Classic Estate reminded me how fundamentally deep the Ford-vs-Chevy rivalry is among American auto enthusiasts. Even in the modern era, when both iconic brands are on the run from Toyota, Hyundai, and (soon) the Chinese, there’s still time to catch one’s breath and take a swing at the other guy.

So. The “Panther” platform is scheduled for termination within the next year or so. The General Motors B-body departed nearly a decade and a half ago. There will likely never be another American car of the size and proportions of those two. Which was your favorite? My thoughts, and a link to a credible source, after the jump.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Was GM's Corvette Giveaway Worth It?

To be perfectly honest, I wrote about half a post on GM’s decision to give Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a new Corvette after he was robbed of a perfect game by a bad call, before deciding not to run it. Why? Well, the story is classic Detroit: Galarraga’s victimhood is exactly the image GM would like to associate itself with (remember, everything was going fine before the credit markets collapsed), and The General owed the Tigers anyway because of owner Mike Ilitch’s decision to not charge GM for ad space on the stadium’s fountain when it was in bankruptcy (Ilitch added free Ford and Chrysler ads in the interest of fairness). In short, there was plenty of room for some trademark TTAC cynicism… and yet I couldn’t quite bring myself to twist the knife.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: What Car Do You Remember Best?
At this risk of stating the supremely obvious, we’re not enjoying a lighter-than-usual workload today in order to remember cars. The sacrifices of Amer…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Mandatory Manual Training?

With the autoblogosphere abuzz over Peter Cheney’s “unintended acceleration event,” Jill McIntosh has made a fascinating connection between one auto-journo’s son’s voyage of manual transmission discovery, and a former Ontario Attorney General’s killing of a cyclist back in September. Linking to a Toronto Star report on the trial of Michael Bryant, who killed cyclist Darcy Allan Shephard, McIntosh notes a strange similarity between that fatal incident and Cheney Junior’s garage door tango:

According to a statement read in court, reprinted in the Toronto Star today: Bryant hits the brakes. His vehicle stalls. Bryant tries to start his car, but it stalls again, lurching forward … Bryant tries to start the car again. He’s concentrating on the Saab’s sensitive clutch with his head down. He succeeds at restarting the engine and the Saab accelerates into Sheppard, who lands on the hood.

Obviously, two incidents do not a crisis make, but this is hardly the only evidence suggesting that manual gear-swapping is fast becoming a lost art. But do we really want to further stigmatize manual transmissions by mandating special licenses for manual-equipped cars, as McIntosh suggests?

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Ask The Best And Brightest: When Was The Last Time You Saw A Dodge Ad That Was Better Than This One?

So, the voiceover is wrong. Chrysler Group and its brands are too badly in need of credibility to be narrating an ad this good with a voice that sounds so similar to this guy’s. Otherwise, this spot is nearly flawless. Especially in comparison to other recent Wieden + Kennedy Dodge efforts like this one. But you all have longer memories than I… so when was the last time you saw a Dodge ad that hit the nail so directly on the head?

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Ask The Best And Brightest: How Safe Is Safe Enough?
Yesterday’s Senate Committee On Commerce, Science and Transportation hearing on the proposed Motor Vehicle Safety Act was a surprisingly low-key affa…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Are Brazilian Women Wearing The Pants?

Is good old machismo dying in Brazil? On the eve of Women’s International Day (May 8), women are now held responsible for buying up to 40 percent of brand new cars in Brazil, and are said to influence over 80 percent of purchases. According to well-known Brazilian news site Globo, those are the numbers. But what motivates a woman to buy a car in Brazil?

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Are You Intrigued By The New Top Gear USA?

I can’t think of anyone who has watched an episode of the BBC’s seminal car show Top Gear and not enjoyed it. In fact, even my most auto-ambivalent friends are quick to reference the exploits of Jezza, Captain Slow and The Hamster as their sole source of automotive news and entertainment. Thanks to its status as one of the world’s most-pirated TV show, Top Gear has made remarkable inroads in the US with a little “help” from fansites like Final Gear. But will an American version be able to capture the appeal of the original? It’s been tried before, and now it’s being tried again.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Is Toyota The New Buick?

On point as always, TTAC commenter ajla called it in today’s Camry review. In the comments after that tale of suburban anonymity and “the Marriot of cars,” he asked:

Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?

I figure Toyota thinks that, in their heart of hearts, many Americans do still want a Buick. Not an actual Buick, mind you, but a big, comfortable sedan that’s somewhat luxurious but not at all flashy. Over a year ago, I made the friendly recommendation that Buick ditch its explicitly youthful marketing message for “something along the lines of Canadian Club’s “damn right your dad drank it,” campaign.” This spot for the new Avalon probably comes closer to what I had in mind for Buick than anything I’ve seen since. The question then, isn’t so much “is Toyota the new Buick?” as where is Buick going to find its own niche? The wreckage of Acura?

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Ask the Best And The Brightest: Does South Korea's Prez Have A Thing For Hyundai?

Free market economics are a simple process. Or so they say. Dive in, and whoever survives, survives. Let the market decide. According to the pure tenets of free market economics, it’s important that the government shows no favoritism. Yeah, right.

The Korea Times reports that President Lee Myung-Bak is showing more than just interest in Hyundai-Kia.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: How Did The Pony Car Wars Become All About The V6?

Back in the muscle car heyday, enthusiasts could likely have imagined that the 2011 Mustang and Camaro would make at least 300 horsepower. They might even have imagined that the pony cars would be equipped with optional flight modes, nuclear reactors, and autopilots. What they likely never imagined is that Ford and GM would revive the time-honored tradition of pony car one-upmanship for V6 models.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Is The Renault-Nissan-Daimler Deal Smarter Than The Smart Brand?

As analyst comments on the freshly-announced Renault-Nissan-Daimler deal come in [via Automotive News [sub]], a consensus seems to be building around the notion that the tie-up offers few real advantages to the three firms outside the real of small-car development. The financial impact and opportunities for luxury-segment component sharing are constrained by the deal’s structure, meaning the stock-swap and attendant hoopla are little more than window-dressing for the real project: developing compact and subcompact cars for tomorrow’s C02 standards. As Bertel noted, rumors of a Daimler-Renault tie-up have always centered around the Smart brand, and today Daimler’s Dieter Zetsche told Automotive News [sub] that

We could not have found a feasible basis alone for the next-generation Smart family… Of course, we could do a next-generation Smart alone, but we would lose a lot of money

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A Simple Question for the B&B

Whilst grazing on the internet I come across some weird and wonderful things. From discovering Bill Maher’s New Rules on YouTube to learning about the different strains of marijuana available in the coffeeshops of Amsterdam (for research purposes, ahem). But the following article is one of the funniest and I found it on the Ford’s own website. Ford got into this Web 2.0 social networking thing with a vengeance at thefordstory.com

The article starts off OK. Ford crowing about their quality beating everyone else. O.k., we’ll discuss that another time. It’s the comments that raise my interest. The second comment starts off a “Toyota vs Ford” debate by saying “Toyota is so much better.” I call flame-bait, that comment was written March 13, at the height of the Toyota-troubles. Then the conversation turns into an “All MBA’s aren’t bad” string (conveniently forgetting that Alan Mulally is an engineer, first and foremost). The comment is finished with a flourish: “WE MUST PROMOTE AN ‘INNOVATIVE AMERICA-‘ENVISIONEERING’ ITS FUTURE”.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Have A Favourite Car Ad?

I was having a look on YouTube for car adverts and came across this belter from Toyota. Which got me wondering: what are your favourite adverts or advertising campaigns from the auto world? Chevrolet’s “An American Revolution”? VW’s “Unpimp your Ride”? Or maybe it’s a foreign spot you’ve seen on the internet, like Volvo UK’s famous SIPS advert. My favorite’s the one above, which features what I think is one of the best taglines ever. What’s yours?

Please put a link to a picture or video in to the comments, and have your name immortalized in this weekend’s TTAC’s History Of Whackiest Car Ads.

PS: If your suggestions don’t come up immediately, that’s because they have to be approved due to links or whatever. Don’t despair, BS will approve them the minute he’s back from his Chinese pub crawl …

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Help A Chinese In Need: Audi Q7 3.6, Mercedes ML300, BMW X5-3.0, Or VW Tourareg V8?
A Chinese friend just called me up. Claimed I would know a lot about cars. Asked whether he should invest his hard-earned Renminbi into an Audi Q7 3.6, or a…
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TTAC Contest: Find The Lost Buff-Book Headline, Win A Prize! [UPDATE: Contest Closed]
The good folks from the Public Radio show This American Life are hunting down a headline. Writer Emily Condon writes:There was an article, likely between 198…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: How About Those Repaired Toyota Pedals?
Nearly a month ago, Toyota’s Jim Lentz was asked by National Public Radio about the then-new “shim fix” for sticky accelerator pedals.NPR…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Mandatory Brake Overrides?
In testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Energy and Transportation, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he was “looking at the possib…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Is SUA An American Pandemic?

Let’s make something very clear: This is not a post about Toyota. We are not advocating or accusing any brand. This is a post about a phenomenon called sudden unintended acceleration. An American phenomenon, as it seems at first glance. To get to the bottom of it, we need your help.

MarkKyle64 asked an interesting question during the discussion of TTAC’s NHTSA Data Dive: 95 Cars Ranked In Rate Of Unintended Acceleration Complaints:

”Can TTAC find out, for example, if German drivers report lower levels of UA than American drivers?”

I tried to. In an admittedly unscientific way. I had no other choice.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Could The Toyota Recall Prove That There's No Such Thing As Bad Publicity?

The social media blog Mashable has an interesting theory: Toyota’s recall woes might actually be good (gasp) good for the brand. To back up this astonishing claim, they offer two premises, based on online social media data:

The first is that the increased number of conversations about Toyota are building greater awareness for the brand even though many of the mentions may be negative. While this may seem unusual, the fact that people are talking about the brand a lot more and sometimes in a neutral light (not just negatively) is increasing its exposure. More people are talking about Toyota than any other brand these days. And they’re talking about the recalls, but also the fixes being provided by the dealerships too. And some of the consumers are probably coming to the defense of the brand too. Maybe there is some truth to the adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity after all.

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This Car Is A Death Trap!

For those of you who’ve read my work, you’ll know I’m no stranger to controversy. So, this next piece, will be a little, well, dark, shall we say? In the above picture, what do you see? It’s a classic VW Beetle. Nothing bad there. But this particular Beetle has caused a huge amount of grief stateside, followed by controversy. It was hidden under a black cloth and when it came off what people saw at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment was a 1968 VW Beetle, exactly like what you’re seeing. But it wasn’t so much what it was as WHO it was.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Can You Identify This Extended-Wheelbase Ford Fusion Hybrid Mule?
This spy shot was sent in to us by an anonymous tipster, who caught what appears to be an extended-wheelbase Ford Fusion Hybrid. But it’s not just stre…
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Ask The Brightest: How Many More Recalls Before Toyota's Quality Rep Is Dead And Buried?

Toyota got hammered by another big recall today, with 2.3m vehicles called back for sticking accelerator pedals. According to Toyota’s release, this recall is

separate from the on-going recall of approximately 4.2 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles to reduce the risk of pedal entrapment by incorrect or out of place accessory floor mats. Approximately 1.7 million Toyota Division vehicles are subject to both separate recall actions.

How much more of this can Toyota take? One thing is for certain: ToMo has got to pull its current ad campaign which emphasizes the alleged quality of Toyota products. Cognitive dissonance might work in the short term but once consumers wise up they’ll never trust you again. Just ask GM.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: How/Why Did Pontiac Sponsor "24"
I don’t watch “24” but apparently GM’s dead brand Pontiac Pontiac “received $256,200 in exposure by 8 total sequences, includin…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Mandatory Driver Education?
Starting this week, the fine citizens of Quebec will be required to take 24 hours of theory and 15 hours of practical driving instruction before getting thei…
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Ask The B & B: Has Honda Lost Its Way? How Would You Fix It?
Honda is clearly in a slump, and we’ve certainly done our fair share to point it out: the lackluster Insight; ugly styling highlighted by uglier front…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: What Price Tata Nano?
The AP ( Yahoo) reports:Tata Motors already has made a European version of the four-seat car that will cost about $8,000 when it debuts in 2011, and a Tata T…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Luxury Brand Luxury Trim Brands?
Once upon a time, luxury brands built unique cars and added special editions for extra profit. Now luxury brands tend to build more cars based on volume bran…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: Whither The Six Cylinder?

Detroit’s auto critics are a funny bunch. For decades they’ve been mocking the idea that Americans could ever love Europe’s small, underpowered, overpriced cars, as Detroit gorged itself on SUV profits. Now that Ford and GM have announced they’re bringing small cars like the Fiesta and Spark to the US, you’re starting to see the pendulum swing twice as hard in the opposite direction. “Yes, there will be a couple of mega-powerful V-8 asphalt eaters at the Detroit show, including the 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Coupe and the 2011 Ford Mustang GT 5.0,” writes Scott Burgess in a Detroit News piece entitled “ V-6 engines begin long fade into history.” “But, it turns out, destiny has determined that the meek four-banger will inherit the earth.” Burgess’s theory follows Ford’s Ecoboost playbook fairly closely: thanks to direct injection and turbocharging, smaller engines can produce more power. And when you consider that electric hybrids can restore some of the lost poke of a large-displacement engine, the prediction seems all the more likely. Eventually. But just because the new Sonata and Regal aren’t being offered with a V6, doesn’t mean the six-banger is ready for automotive Valhalla just yet. Even Burgess admits that “it may take 10 years or even more.” When do you, TTAC’s Best and Brightest, reckon the six-cylinder option on cars like the Camry, Altima or Impala will fall by the wayside? When will we see the death of the six-cylinder popular sportscar alá the Nissan Z?

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Questions For Project Better Place?
While we at TTAC continue to cover the serious, the silly and the sublime from the world of cars in this holiday season, there’s a lot going on behind…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: How Do You Deal With Jaywalkers?

In Cambridge Massachusetts and its affluent outlying suburbs, these days cars are second class citizens. Peds think nothing of jay walking, and motorists almost always give them right of way when they do. Sometimes, peds get aggressive about it, charging across the street en mass just as the light turns green, with looks of entitlement upon their faces. Across from Harvard Yard, peds parade in front of cars turning onto or off of Massachusetts Avenue, oblivious to how many cars they are forcing to wait for minutes on end. Amazingly, I haven’t seen road rage arise from this behavior. The motorists seem to turn the other cheek, or tire, as the case may be.

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Ask The Best And Brightest: Can Minivans Make A Comeback?
If human beings were truly rational animals, trends would be easy to predict. Given that we’re fickle, self-aware and subject to the influence of less…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: 2009 Future Classics?
The Friends of the National Automotive History Collection have voted the Ford Flex as their “Collectible Car of the Future” of 2009. According to…
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Ask The Best And Brightest: How's This For A New Ford Tagline?
This terse encapsulation Ford’s alleged brand values comes courtesy of The Blue Oval’s perennially amusing crowdsourced marketing site, The Ford…
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  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
  • ToolGuy Ford is good at drifting all right... 😉