Remember the Last "Quick Fix for Gas Addicts"?
Ah, how quickly some of us forget.
It was almost two years ago to the day that General Motors announced a fuel price protection program, much like the one Chrysler launches on Wednesday. GM offered buyers of certain vehicle models, mostly large SUVs, in Florida and California a guarantee of gasoline capped at $1.99 a gallon for a year.
The promotion didn’t move the needle on sales, and it opened the floodgate of criticism of GM, especially in a now-famous column by The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman.
We're betting GM won’t be following Chrysler’s lead -- and we're wondering if Friedman is dusting off his old column to blast Chrysler.
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GM Slashes Truck, SUV Production Due to Slow Sales
Continued slow sales prompted General Motors to announce Monday that it will cut
production of large pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles this year.
In total, GM said it is slashing production by about 10 percent, or about 138,000 vehicles at four plants in the U.S. and Canada. About 3,550 workers will be out of jobs as a result.
The question being asked is will sales of those high-profit vehicles, in light of skyrocketing gasoline prices, ever bounce back?
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Ford’s Early Agreement with Canadian Union a Positive Sign
By Michelle Krebs
The news that Ford reached an early agreement with its Canadian union is being overshadowed by Las Vegas billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's purchase of the automaker’s stock, but the Canadian deal is every bit as significant -- maybe even more so.
Talks between Detroit’s three automakers and the Canadian Auto Workers union regarding a new contract to replace the current ones that expire in September appeared as if they could be extremely rancorous. A strike appeared to be a distinct possibility.
But Ford’s announcement Monday that it had reached an agreement with the Canadian union -- especially in an unheard of four months plus ahead of schedule decreases -- lessens the odds.
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Toyota-Subaru Coziness Could Yield Retro-Corolla, Celica
By Bill Visnic and Peter Nunn
Normally stolid Toyota Motor Corp. hasn’t been shy in doubling of its stake in Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. and openly admitting the two will jointly develop new vehicles – including an all-new rear-wheel drive sport coupe on a dedicated platform.
Whew. Quite un-Toyotalike. This is the company that rarely “buys” anything or anybody, preferring joint ventures, particularly when it comes to vehicle development and vital components. When it decided to build cars with General Motors, Toyota bought nothing; it established New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) in California, which jointly makes vehicles for Toyota and GM.
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Cerberus’ Feinberg: “A Recluse Lifts the Veil a Little”
A rare interview with Stephen A. Feinberg, the founder of Cerberus Capital Management, which now owns most of Chrysler and much of General Motors Acceptance Corp., provides the ever-so-slightest glimpse of Feinberg the man, but provides not a morsel of what he’s got in mind for the much anticipated end game of Chrysler.
New York Times’ “Dealbook” columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin spent two hours interviewing the reclusive Feinberg -– “the money man some hope will save Detroit” as he describes him -- at his Manhattan office. It was Feinberg’s first interview in a couple of decades –- and he still refused a photograph. His yearbook picture is the one media outlets are forced to use.
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Former UAW President Douglas Fraser Remembered
Hundreds of union members, political figures and corporate executives gathered with 
family members Saturday for a memorial service honoring former United Auto Workers President Douglas Fraser, who died Feb 23 at age 91.
Fraser led the union through its zenith in the 1970s and through the bleak times of the 1980s. He played a key role in saving Chrysler from bankruptcy. In exchange for workers agreeing to concessions to save Chrysler, Fraser gained a seat on Chrysler’s board, making him the first major union chief on the board of a large corporation.
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The Jaguar/Land Rover Sale: It’s Best Not To Add Up How Much Ford Wasted
By Richard Feast
So, Ford has finally stitched together the long-trailed sale of Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata. It is the inglorious end of the vainglorious Premier Automotive Group that was supposed to challenge the mighty Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
We can now see the venture was doomed nanoseconds after it was created.
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Alfa Romeo: A Legend Returns, But Do We Care?
By Richard Feast
Alfa Romeo’s decision to sell cars in the United States once more is wonderful news for the marque’s handful of aging enthusiasts in the country. If Europe’s experience is any guide, though, the overwhelming majority of American car buyers won’t even notice its return.
It is probably best to stop reading now if you are one of those unreformed Alfisti. It is time for a touch of automotive heresy.
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Mazda2 Wins 2008 World Car of the Year; Still Not Coming to America
By Peter Nunn
TOKYO — Mazda grabbed the headlines at the New York Auto Show last week when its new Mazda2 compact drove off with the prestigious 2008 World Car of the Year award.
Call it a surprise result, in more ways than one.
For those just tuning in, the Mazda2 is this smart, new-age compact launched in 2007 that’s doing great business for Mazda in Japan, Europe and many other places around the globe.
Everywhere, that is, but North America.
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AAA Launches New Web site Dedicated to Older Drivers
By Kate McLeod
NEW YORK — During last week's press days at the New York auto show, AAA
held a conference covering the challenges facing senior drivers and their families. It also marked the launch of AAA's Web site devoted to the topic and includes a checklist of vehicle features that are useful for senior drivers, the fastest-growing segment of the driving public.
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New York Auto Show: The Good, Bad and Ugly
By Jane Nakagawa
NEW YORK — The New York International Auto Show opens to the public Friday, and what a difference a year makes.
Toyota is the nation’s second-largest brand not Ford. Jim Press is the vice chairman and president of Chrysler, not Toyota. Cerberus Capital Management, not Daimler, owns Chrysler. The national average price for a gallon of premium gas is $3.60, not $2.80.
And the most interesting cars at the New York auto show are diminutive and original, not colossal and extravagant.
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AO Readers Sound Off on Volkswagen Foibles
By Bill Visnic
A recent commentary suggesting the Volkswagen Group of America Inc.’s tactics to improve dismal U.S. sales should focus on reconnecting with the brand’s loyalists prompted a spate of thoughtful and vociferous replies — analysis that VW management might do well to heed.
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Volkswagen: Time To Get a U.S. Life
By Bill Visnic
The Volkswagen Group sold a lot of vehicles in 2007, a record number at just less than 6.2 million.
That’s good for fourth in the world. Yet in the U.S., typically viewed as the world’s most important — if not prestigious — market, Volkswagen Group of America Inc. stumbled through another miserable year to ring up 230,572 sales.
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Commentary: Detroit Back to Its Old-School Tactics
By Bill Visnic
Despite stock prices and market shares nosediving toward near-historic lows, Detroit scions General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. once again are doling out bonus cash to blue- and white-collar workers alike — but the implied justification that “turnaround” goals are being met is, in the grandest tradition of car-town back-slapping, a bit self-serving.
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Geneva Motor Show: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
By Jane Nakagawa
There are three big reasons to love the Geneva International Motor Show, which held its press days this week and now is open to the public.
First, Geneva is the only international auto show besides Detroit that takes place every year, and consistency builds precedence.
Second, Geneva is a great place to see world-class luxury trends as the city serves as the neutral yet high-stakes epicenter for the British, Germans and Italians.
Finally, it’s the best place to see what the famous Italian design studios such as Bertone, Giugiaro and Pininfarina are up to since the Turin auto show has been declining in prestige and attendance over the years.
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Geneva Auto Show: If These are Eco-Friendly, Sign Us Up
By Bill Visnic
The Geneva auto show turned out as expected: It was a singular stage featuring fuel-efficiency and carbon-dioxide-reducing abilities as essentially the only act. Most automakers showed up in Geneva with actors capable of assuming roles in this new-age play. Those without the talent promoted the understudies’ virtue, that primarily being performance.
But what we liked most about the eco-positive hardware fronted in Geneva is how visually and intellectually appealing some of it turned out to be. In no particular order, our green favorites:
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The More They Learn, the More Automakers Eye Internet
By Dale Buss
Automakers will always do brand building via traditional advertising media such as TV, radio, outdoor and print. But in an ever-toughening marketplace, they’re more and more intent on obtaining solid sales leads and on buttressing relationships with existing customers — so they’re putting their marketing resources into the channels that best deliver on those goals.
That’s the main reason the Internet will be vacuuming up a much bigger share of vehicle-advertising dollars in the U.S. market in 2008.
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GM and Ford Should Have Learned Lessons from Lada and Russia's Central Planning
By Richard Feast
LONDON — Ford’s sale of Jaguar and Land Rover, to be finalized within days, and General Motors’ continued stumbling in search of a role for its Saab subsidiary, which shows off new concepts at next week's Geneva Motor Show, remind me of something I saw during a tour of the shabby, sprawling AvtoVAZ factory in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s.
The events are unrelated except for the way in which they highlight the laughable results of central planning. For the Kremlin then, read Dearborn and Detroit today.
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Formula 1 Opus: Conspicuous Consumption of the Literary Kind
By Bill Visnic
At last, an automotive book truly equal to the tastes — and pocketbooks — of moneyed “car guys” — a heftily proportioned, 850-page tribute detailing the history of Formula 1 racing titled Formula 1 Opus.
The book, more than a foot-and-a-half square and weighing 82 pounds, is priced at £3,000 — about $5,800 at current exchange rates.
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Tata Shareholders Not Thrilled with Proposed Jaguar, Land Rover Purchase
A lot of people — investors, specifically — are not thrilled with India’s Tata
buying Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford. They insist the company should focus on the $2,500 Tata Nano microcars, not $100,000 Jaguars.
Bloomberg News reported a number of investors, including A.S. Thiyaga Rajan, who manages a $250 million fund, are dumping their Tata stock.
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Delphi’s Steve Miller Publishes Memoir, Turnaround Lesson Book
The turnaround of Delphi Corp. is far from complete. The latest chapter in that saga came last week when the banks were unable to find funding that would allow the nation’s largest auto-parts supplier to emerge from bankruptcy.
Nevertheless, Delphi executive chairman Robert S. “Steve” Miller, a former Chrysler executive and a veteran of a dozen turnarounds, has written a book, The Turnaround Kid: What I Learned Rescuing America's Most Troubled Companies (Collins, $25.95, 272 pages). It is due out in April.
Fortune magazine’s Editor-at-Large Allan Sloan reviewed the book in an article picked up Tuesday by the Washington Post, entitled “Self-Portrait of a Turnaround Artist.”
Sloan said he got hooked immediately on the book, not only because the autobiography talks about Miller’s 30 years of corporate troubleshooting but more because it shows him to be a human being, “a business man in full” and “not a calculator with legs.”
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Cerberus Dragged Reluctantly into Spotlight by Chrysler, GMAC Stakes
If Stephen Feinberg, the ultra-secretive founder of Cerberus Capital 
Management, which owns 80 percent of Chrysler and 51 percent of GMAC, hates the public spotlight now, he’s seen nothing like what he will if the automaker goes under, according to a column in Tuesday’s New York Times.
“If Chrysler, which has $18 billion in pension and health care liabilities for at least the next two years, winds up sinking into bankruptcy, it would be a watershed event,” wrote Andrew Ross Sorkin in the paper’s Dealbook column. “Such a failure might take down the entire private-equity industry — everyone in the business, bystander or not, would be tarred. It would be on the 6 o’clock news. Mr. Feinberg would be hauled in front of Congress. It would be considered a national crime. Remember the outcry when Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought RJR Nabisco for $25 billion back in the 1980s? That was just a dress rehearsal.”
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What Else Will $2,500 Buy?
India's Tata Motors grabbed headlines when last month it unveiled the Tata Nano with its $2,500 price tag. Tata Motors' founder, Ratan Tata, sees the cheap Nano as way to get drivers in India off their motor scooters and into cars.
That got AutoObserver wondering: What would $2,500 buy in the U.S. aside from the car?
Jane Nakagawa, AutoObserver's design editor, set to work researching the Top 10 things she'd rather buy for $2,500 than a Tata Nano.
Here's what we came up with:
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Chrysler Won't Survive; Sell It, Advises Ex-Chrysler Exec
Chrysler LLC won't survive on its own and its private-equity owners should sell the company to a foreign automaker, Dow Jones reports a former finance chief of the automaker.
"Step A is that Cerberus Capital Management should do everything they can to fix it, and step B is that they should sell it to a foreign automaker that has strong market share in emerging markets," said Jerry York, who was Chrysler's chief financial officer between 1990 and 1993. He now serves as a representative of billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian.
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Toyota’s 7-Year Loans Offer Reward, Risk
Toyota has begun offering customers 84-month loans on new cars to help dealers sell cars during the current economic downturn, an initiative that has some upside potential but also some risk for Toyota, said Joe Spina, Edmunds.com’s senior manager of remarketing.
“If Toyota Financial Services indeed offers these loans to customers with high credit scores and doesn’t do many 84-month loans as a percentage of its loan portfolio, then the risk of credit loss is low,” said Spina.
But, he added, “The risk with an 84-month loan is that customers may be purchasing a vehicle they really cannot afford. That could put them upside-down in the loan for longer. Then the loans become a tool that perpetuates negative equity financing.”
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Chicago Auto Show: Best and Worst of Show
By Jane Nakagawa
It’s hard to outshine the glitz and glamour of Detroit’s North American International Auto Show. But the Chicago auto show has always drawn crowds, and this year is cause for a true celebration because the nation’s biggest and oldest auto show marks its 100th anniversary.
This impressive milestone is well chronicled on the show’s official Web site, where the history of America’s automobile culture can be viewed through myriad photographs gathered from manufacturers’ and private collectors’ archives. Simply click on the decade of your choice and you can practically hear the music.
The Chicago show was closed during World War II and reopened with well-deserved fanfare in 1950. Through the next two decades you can see America’s soaring confidence, initially through fins and chrome, and then through muscle cars. But signs of a breakdown began to show in the late 1960s. First came Ralph Nader and the safety crusade, and then the oil shock of 1973.
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Super Bowl Car Ads: Making the Grade, Failing Marks and No Shows
By Dale Buss 
The New York Giants certainly achieved their Super Bowl objectives Sunday. Did car companies?
It’s too early to tell. But automakers led the way in a field of Super Bowl ads that largely disappointed on their creative merits and failed to generate the kind of instant excitement that could help them meet their marketplace goals. In some cases, it didn’t seem as if their advertising approach was actually consistent with the strategic challenges faced by the company.
And when you’re paying $2.7 million for 30 seconds of rapt attention by the biggest TV audience of the year, you really should take advantage of the opportunity.
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BMW Chief Hits the Roadshow Circuit
Norbert Reithofer will this week become the first chief executive of BMW to go on an investor roadshow as the German automaker seeks to deflect worries about its profitability and shed its reputation as an industry laggard, the Financial Times reported over the weekend.
Reithofer will visit London on Wednesday as well as New York and Boston on Thursday and Friday to update investors on his efforts to cut costs.
The paper noted these visits mark a cultural break for the German carmaker, which until now only made its chief financial officer or other lower-ranking executives available to its shareholders.
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Is the Prototype Honda Pilot a Disturbing Sight?
By Dale Buss 
If the next-generation Pilot that Honda actually produces looks pretty much like the prototype the company displayed at the recent Detroit auto show, the new version may not do much to address the model’s sinking popularity.
The reason: In a styling-conscious market where sleek crossovers rank as some of the hottest vehicles, the blocky 2009 Pilot might fit like a square peg into a round hole.
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New Delhi Auto Expo Recap: A Look Back at India’s Automotive Future
By Nick Kurczewski
NEW DELHI, India -- “It’s a great time to be in India,” said Dr. Wilfried Aulbur, managing director and CEO of Daimler India, immediately following Mercedes-Benz’s press conference at the New Delhi Auto Expo.
Dr. Aulbur’s optimism is well founded. Thanks to continued double-digit growth in India’s automobile sales - not to mention huge investments being poured into the country’s manufacturing capability - India could soon surpass China as being the biggest and brightest automotive star on the horizon.
But this economic boom has its perils, and at times the New Delhi Auto Expo seemed a microcosm of India itself.
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New Delhi Auto Expo: Hydrogen’s Three-Wheeled Future in India
By Nick Kurczewski
NEW DELHI, India -- Squeezing into the non-existent passenger space of a vehicle built for one turned out to be the easy part. The driver, seated in the center, and directly behind what looked to be a set of motorcycle handlebars, attempted to fire up the engine once again. A sputter, a grumble from the exhaust, one or two feet of forward motion, and then nothing.
The bright blue three-wheeler came to an abrupt stop.
India’s hydrogen-powered future faces similar false starts and the occasional stumble. But the fact that the world’s third largest economy (in purchasing power) has a roadmap for hydrogen in the first place – not to mention a Ministry of New and Renewable Energy – might come as something of a surprise to those who expect the country’s emissions regulations to be woefully outdated.
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Detroit Auto Show: The Best, The Worst of Show
By Jane Nakagawa
The 2008 Detroit Auto Show makes me think of Japan, in that it is the tale of two cultures.
It’s common to hear stories of how easy it is for young foreigners in Japan to fill their apartments with TVs, rice cookers, and a myriad of other consumer electronics that middle-class Japanese have thrown away. This is because the Japanese are eager to own the latest and greatest thing, and even if something doesn’t need replacing, they have no problem getting rid of it.
Conversely, Americans are more practical. There is something buried deep into the psyche of every red-blooded American that makes us believe, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The pickup truck has been the number-one selling vehicle for over 10 years, but signs of a breakdown in its appeal are starting to show, and there was evidence of it on the floor of the Detroit auto show.
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Detroit Auto Show Hangover: Impressions from Press Days
By AutoObserver Staff
DETROIT – The Detroit auto show party’s over – at least for the media; it only just begins on Saturday for the public. The confetti, which came in the form of cattle droppings this year, is cleaned up. The cars and trucks are locked so the public won’t steal radio knobs.
So what did we come away with? Automaker execs always ask: what did you think of the show? What did you like? What didn't you like? What did you think of this or that?
After another spin around the floor, here are some unvarnished impressions of the show from AutoObserver’s writers:
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Unabashedly American Design
By Jane Nakagawa
Now that Toyota has become the second-largest selling carmaker in the U.S., it appears that the Japanese brand is on the way to becoming the world’s largest automobile manufacturer, surpassing General Motors. In every competition, there are winners and losers, and in this case, slow and steady looks set to win the race.
Toyota’s decades-long pursuit of QDR (quality, durability, and reliability), plus consistent brand building has made the company the darling of business schools as well as consumers. Yet the good news for Detroit is that there is another round to this race, and even the best of companies has an Achilles heel.
And with the 2008 Detroit auto show on the horizon this week, it’s a good time to talk about it. Because it all has to do with design.
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Cerberus-Chrysler: “Reality Bites” Says The Economist
Five months after Cerberus Capital Management was handed the company (for 
nothing, in effect) by Chrysler's former parent, Daimler, there are growing fears that the acquisitive private-equity group may have bitten off more than it can chew, The Economist magazine writes in this week’s edition.
The British publication notes three main problems facing Chrysler’s new management team with little or not time to solve them:
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Maruti Suzuki A-Star Shines at New Delhi Show
By Nick Kurczewski
NEW DELHI, India -- Flashing lights, an elaborate stage, thumping dance music, 
and not one but three show cars on display; Maruti Suzuki’s press conference at the New Delhi Auto Expo was a none-too-subtle reminder that this Indo-Japanese company controls over 50% of the Indian passenger car market.
Maruti Suzuki was the first company in India to mass produce passenger cars and is known for having revolutionized the Indian auto market. Models like the 800 and recently discontinued Zen brought cheap motoring to millions of first-time car buyers.
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Manufacturers Still Thinking Big in New Delhi
By Nick Kurczewski
NEW DELHI , India -- With all the attention focused on tomorrow’s launch of Tata’s much-anticipated “1-Lakh” ($2,500) city car, it’s all too easy to forget all the other industry news and car launches taking place here at the New Delhi Auto Expo.
Several companies choose to think large, and used the first press day to unveil a variety of sport-utility vehicles and crossover vehicles. Chief among them were General Motors with its Chevrolet Captiva and Tata with its Sumo Grande.
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Jaguar, Land Rover Good Fit for Tata? Moody’s Says Possibly Not
Moody’s Investors Service confirms what many observers have thought: India’s Tata, the maker of inexpensive cars, may not a good fit with luxury marques Land Rover and Jaguar being sold by Ford and wanted by Tata.
Moody’s has placed Tata Motors’ current rating on review for a possible downgrade, according to AFX International Focus, a European financial news service. It sees Tata's swallowing up of Jaguar and Land Rover as creating digestive problems.
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Toyota vs. Chevy for Brand Leadership: Chevy Wins
Toyota and General Motors are in a you-know-what match about who owns brand leadership for 2007: Toyota or Chevrolet.
We’ll settle the argument: Chevrolet.
Toyota’s argument to count Scion in Toyota Division sales doesn’t wash.
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Nardelli, Cerberus Defendeth Too Much?
By Bill Visnic
After issuing a statement just before the holidays saying recent media characterizations of the financial situation at Chrysler LLC “painted an inaccurate picture” of the company’s fiscal health, media and analyst tongues are wagging with suspicion that the company’s hedge-fund owner, Cerberus Capital Management L.P., is scrambling to salvage its car-company investment.
Cerberus, which owns 80.1 percent of Chrysler and typically is closed-mouthed in its dealings with the media, hastened to back up Chairman and CEO Bob Nardelli when The Wall Street Journal reported Nardelli recently told some Chrysler employees the company was “operationally” bankrupt.
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Buick Design Will Grow Bolder,GM’s Top Design Exec Says
By Dale Buss
Expect future Buick vehicles to rip a big page from the success of the aggressively styled Enclave crossover and move quickly away from design-legacy retreads such as the company's Lucerne and LaCrosse midsize sedans.
Ed Welburn, GM’s vice president of global design, told AutoObserver that Buick is shifting decisively toward “bold” and “dramatic” design statements such as Enclave while still trying to retain some “elegant” and “romantic” elements from its design theme over the previous generation. He said to expect more iterations of the sort of overstated approach used with Enclave, which is distinguished by cues such as big curves in the sheet metal, lots of chrome exterior trim and huge, elongated headlights.
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Fiat Revival Celebrations Are Premature
By Richard Feast
It’s being hailed as the turnaround story of the year, but put the champagne back in the cellar. Celebrations about a Fiat revival are premature.
I was a judge on one of those auto industry Man of the Year award panels last 
year. Sergio Marchionne, the 55-year-old Italian-Canadian who has done so much to stop the rot at the Fiat group, emerged as the clear-cut winner.
My nomination for someone else stood little chance in the face of overwhelming voting for the “saviour” of Fiat. Still, I have reservations about whether Marchionne deserved the award – because we’ve been here before.
Anyone who’s studied Fiat long enough knows it’s a boom-or-bust group. It is Europe’s equivalent of Chrysler, one year a glamorous master of the automotive universe, another a down-and-out bum.
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GM’s Dream of Mid-Engine Corvette Not Off the Table
By Bill Visnic 
With General Motors Corp. unveiling the ultra-high performance ZR-1 and its six-figure price, the possibility of the next-generation Chevrolet Corvette moving to a more exotic mid-engine configuration still is being discussed at the highest levels of GM engineering, planning and marketing, sources close to the situation tell AutoObserver.
The iconic Corvette has used a classic front-engine/rear-drive layout since its inception in 1953. But some factions within the company believe the car should migrate to a mid-engine design for a variety of reasons, not all of them engineering-related.
It is a virtual assurance, however, that a mid-engine design would dictate a price point well in excess of $100,000 – a matter many at GM believe jettisons the Corvette’s heritage for quasi-affordability.
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Edmunds.com Readers Compare Chevy Malibu, Honda Accord and Toyota Camry in Professional Road Tests
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Edmunds.com recently selected six applicants from the “Editor for a Day” 
submissions to experience and write about a professional comparison test of three midsize family sedans: 2008 Chevrolet Malibu, 2008 Honda Accord and 2007 Toyota Camry.
The winners were flown to Los Angeles, given appropriate accommodations and training, then encouraged to put the comparison test vehicles through a series of driving exercises at Willow Springs International Raceway on November 29. The winners carefully evaluated the vehicles and their commentary was published on Edmunds.com.
“This is the first time we invited real consumers from around the country to work with us on an actual road test,” said Kevin Smith, editorial director for Edmunds.com.
In the end, three of the demographically and geographically diverse group were split: three (including the two women in the group) chose the Malibu as their favorite; three chose the Accord.
Here is a summary of the “Editor for a Day” winner profiles and their comparison test experiences:
(Read more...)
Posted by at 11:37 AM under Commentary , GM , Toyota | Comments (5) | digg this | del.icio.us
Nissan GT-R Goes Underground
By Peter Nunn
TOKYO -- Deep underground, the guests and media throng were waiting. Then, suddenly with lights ablaze and engines roaring, two Nissan GT-Rs sped past in the semi-darkness, sending a flurry of excitement through the crowd lined up against the wall.
A film? Some kind of fantasy? Nope, this was the “Tokyo Underground Night Nissan GT-R X Shutoko Yamate Tunnel,” a full-on media whiz-bang staged on the eve of the new Nissan GT-R super coupe that went on sale in Japan this month.
It’s not every day a new car gets to be launched at night in deep mid-winter in a yet-to-be-opened roadway tunnel in Tokyo, but then the new GT-R is no ordinary car.
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Posted by at 7:35 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured , Technology | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Forget BMW. Forget Honda. Europe Car of the Year Says Fiat Makes the Finest Cars
By Richard Feast
LONDON -- Orders for the Fiat 500, the cute little city car that was recently named 2008 Car of the Year in Europe, suggest it will be popular with buyers.
That would make a change. All too frequently in the past, the model COTY judges pronounced ‘the best’ in a given year proved anything but when a more important group of judges had their say: the people who buy new cars each year.
There is clearly a significant divide between what critics acclaim and what consumers will part with their money for. It is evident in many spheres. Theatre critics applaud challenging new dramas, but what the public wants are frothy, tried-and-trusted musicals. Their literary peers recommend Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon but buyers in their millions prefer Dan Brown and Robert Ludlum.
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Posted by at 7:14 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (4) | digg this | del.icio.us
Porsche Boss Collects Giant Paycheck
By Bill Visnic
It will be a merry Christmas this year –- and for many Christmases future –- for Porsche AG CEO Wendelin Wiedeking, as the Financial Times cites sources within Porsche AG as estimating Wiedeking last year made between €60 million to €70 million -'– a thundering $88.5 million to $103.4 million based on current exchange rates.
The figure is gaudy by almost any measure short of Wall Street compensation, but particularly in the perspective of typical European (and German) executive pay. The FT indicates the most extravagant 2006 pay for a German executive was €13 million (slightly more than $19 million at today’s exchange rates) by the head of Deutsche Bank.
Wiedeking’s bulging pay packet reminds that 2007 is unlikely to be as remunerative for most automaker executives in Detroit, a region with a long-earned reputation for outsized pay. But times are hard in Detroit, and many executives now have either taken symbolic cuts or have large portions of their compensation tied to company performance.
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Posted by at 6:28 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Ford Explorer Settlement: Not a Bad Deal
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Ford’s settlement of class-action lawsuits filed in California related to Explorer rollovers doesn’t sound like a bad deal for the automaker at all.
For starters, it marks the last of the outstanding lawsuits against Ford stemming from the Explorer rollovers.
And the settlement – excluding what must be astronomical legal fees – doesn’t sound that costly. It allows vehicle owners to apply for $500 vouchers to buy new Explorers or $300 vouchers to buy other Ford or Lincoln Mercury products. That’s less than some incentives Ford has offered.
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Posted by at 7:11 AM under Commentary , Ford , News | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
General Motors’ “Cowboy” Rides Off into the Sunset
Few true characters have filled the automotive industry’s top ranks, but John Rock, the former General Motors executive who put GMC on a growth path and later tried to resuscitate Oldsmobile, was one of those.
Rock, 71, died Friday after a brief illness at his ranch in South Dakota, where he’d grown up, the son of a Chevrolet dealer.
A hulk of a man, Rock strode into a room like a cowboy, commanding everyone’s attention by his very presence. His talk was as straight as a cowboy’s shot -- and every bit as salty.
Anyone who knew Rock, in fact, immediately recounts the famous John Rock angry cowboy story.
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Posted by at 6:08 PM under Commentary , GM , News , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Mazda2: More Accolades but Still No U.S. Plans
The Mazda Demio, aka, Mazda2, won yet another major accolade: It was the winner of Japan’s Car of the Year.
Despite the accolades and shifting tastes of Americans for fuel sippers, with the sizzling sales of the Mazda3 as evidence, the Mazda2 still isn’t headed for the U.S. anytime soon, the automaker said.
We said it before and we’ll say it again: a missed opportunity.
Posted by at 7:02 AM under Commentary , Companies | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
VW: Backpedaling on U.S. Plant Comment. Déjà Vu.
Volkswagen of America posted a short press release on its media Web site, backpedaling on what a company official reportedly told a reporter at the Los Angeles Auto Show about its plans for the construction of a U.S. assembly plant.
Déjà vu.
The German automaker did similar backpedaling when one of its executives revealed plans to move its headquarters out of Detroit. And guess what? VW is moving out of Detroit.
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Posted by at 8:02 AM under GM , Technology | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
China’s Chery and Chrysler: “Conceptualizing” Small Car Options
China’s Chery and Chrysler are in the “conceptualization” phase, considering options for a small car to 
be built by the Chinese automaker and sold by Chrysler in North America and Europe.
But no timetable is set for the debut of the car, which was originally to go on sale in the first quarter of 2008.
Zhang Lin, general manager of Chery International, said at a China automotive conference sponsored by J.D. Power and Associates in Detroit the “conceptualization” phase could take a couple of years as the companies consider various options.
Zhang, who got his doctorate in engineering from the University of Michigan and worked for Chrysler in manufacturing engineering from 1995 to 2003 before joining Chery, said the two companies would use a current Chery platform for a small car and apply a “top hat” –- or “top hats” for specific markets.
But more than the timetable seems out of kilter.
(Read more...)
Posted by at 12:05 PM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
VW To Build U.S. Plant; Location Selected in 2008
As anticipated, Volkswagen plans to build an assembly plant in the United States.
Stefan Jacoby, CEO of Volkswagen of America, tells reporters at the Los Angeles auto show that the German automaker will announce where it will build the plant in the first half of 2008. A U.S. assembly plant is part of VW's plant to increase sales and image in the U.S. as well as offset currency fluctuations.
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Posted by at 4:13 AM under Commentary , Companies , News | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Detroit: Don’t Worry About Cheap Chinese Cars
China’s ambassador to the U.S. visited Detroit Tuesday to speak to the Detroit Economic Club –- and to calm Detroit automakers’ fears that China is about to flood the market with cheap cars.
In fact, Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong told the media before his speech that there’s little risk of Chinese automakers flooding the U.S. automarket anytime soon because the demand for vehicles in China is expected to continue to grow. Pointing out that less than 1 percent of China’s population owns a vehicle now, Zhou said Chinese automakers won’t have the capacity for “a long time to come” to sell a large volume of cars in the U.S.
Posted by at 11:52 AM under Commentary | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Iacocca: Chrysler on "Right Path"
Former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, credited with turning around the near-bankrupt automaker in the 1980s, says the New Chrysler is "on the right path for sure'' with owner Cerberus Capital Management LP and CEO Robert Nardelli in charge.
"They've got real problems yet. It's not solved, but it's looking up,'' Iacocca, 83, told Bloomberg News in an interview Tuesday at his Los Angeles home. Iacocca retired from Chrysler in 1993.
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Posted by at 5:01 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
The Lighter Side of the Auto Beat
It’s been a grueling week for serious automotive business: more financial losses for General Motors and Ford fueling fears of more job cuts; a lousy economic outlook with oil skyrocketing near $100 a barrel and the U.S. dollar at the bottom of the barrel; and a jittery stock market.
So now for something completely different to end the week on a lighter note.
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Posted by at 10:02 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Ford , In the Media | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Hot Topics: Chrysler Future Products
AutoObserver’s analysis of Chrysler’s product and plant strategies -–
