Question Of The Day: What If You Created Your Very Own… Car Commercial?

Back in my college days, it seemed like every single Chrysler commercial featured a car that would morph from the old model into the new model.

Minivan morph. Neon morph. Intrepid morph. The technological transitions were quite well done, and I always enjoyed a commercial that reminded me of the movie “Terminator 2.”

But then I had a few ideas of my own…

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Monday Mileage Champion: The Year In Review

It’s time to make a confession to the good folks at TTAC.

The mileage game is rigged.

How so? Well, approximately two-thirds of the vehicles that reach the 300k+ mark at an auction I attend will usually belong in one of four categories.

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Question Of The Day: What Would Be The Best Car For A College Student?

Every time you see them, a big smile shines across your face.

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Nissan Pathfinder: Body On Frame Is Like, So Last Month

Nissan unveiled is 2013 Pathfinder in suburban Detroit and in downtown Manhattan’s Meatpacking District (just two blocks away from the PATH train, get it?) The fashionably rugged, but far from off-roadish locales were carefully chosen:

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QOTD: Farewell To The Body-On-Frame SUV?

Pictures of the “production” version of the 2013 Nissan Pathfinder, which looks about the same as the “concept” version unveiled at Detroit in January. And along with the reveal, another body-on-frame SUV bites the dust.

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TTAC Book Club – Car: A Drama of the American Workplace

Last week, I polled TTAC readers on essential reading related to the car industry. Since most of the books are old, and don’t merit a formal review, I figured that opening the floor to discussion would better serve the readers, and myself, with regards to thinking about the book and the lessons contained within.

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Interest For EVs Fading

It’s “another broadside for the EV industry,” says Automotive News [sub]. The alleged artillery barrage was sent by the Center for Automotive Research. It cancelled its 2012 Business of Plugging In conference. The reason? Lack of interest.

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Center For Automotive Research: Plant Closures Not So Bad After All

After intensive study, the automaker and union-funded think tank, the Center For Automotive Research (CAR), came to the conclusion that closing down automotive manufacturing sites is not as catastrophic as originally thought. Nearly half of the 267 U.S. automotive manufacturing plants that had been shuttered since 1979 have come back to life.

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Center For Automotive Research: Detroit Beating The Wage Gap

Speaking at the same Detroit conference on the auto bailout that Steve Rattner and Ron Bloom attended, the Center for Automotive Research’s Sean McAlinden proclaimed the end of Detroit’s era of unsustainable high wages. In 2007, said McAlinden, building a car in North America cost GM about $1,400 more per car than it did Toyota, thanks largely to a $950 health care charge. Since then, GM’s bailout and renegotiated wage and benefit contracts with the union have actually brought GM’s hourly compensation to just under what the CAR says the transplants pay. The AP reports that McAlinden’s estimate of GM’s average hourly worker salary is $69,368 while the transplant average is $70,185. Better still is McAlinden’s prediction that

between 2013 and 2015, Toyota could even be paying $10 more per hour than GM unless the Japanese company reacts and lowers wages.

And all it took was giving the UAW a $17.5 stake in the new GM!

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Hammer Time: Cheap, Cheap and Cheap

Why that car? My cousin was slightly amused at the sight of my 2004 Ford Taurus SES. A rental car seemingly loaded with penny-pinching mediocrity and cut corners. An unusual choice for the holidays. It had made the long journey from Northwest Georgia to Jewish Florida in a day’s time. The leather was cheap, but functional. The buttons were cheap, but functional. The price bought it for was very cheap…

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Bailout Watch 567: Feds Mandate Chrysler Green Car
From the just-released GAO report ( PDF) on the auto bailout:Chrysler’s shareholders, including Treasury, have agreed that Fiat’s equity stake in…
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Bailout Watch 372: The Man Who Would Be Czar
Bailout Watch 372: The Man Who Would Be Czar
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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... 😉