By Chris Haak

01.26.2009

People a little older than me – or even perhaps close to my age (I’m 33) might remember a simpler time, when pickup trucks were available with only sepvinyl seats, hand crank windows, and maybe an AM radio and heater if you were living large.  In fact, I was two years old in 1977 when GM first introduced power windows in its full-size trucks.  Cloth seats were the the upscale interior choice (leather was only found in Cadillac and Lincoln sedans for the most part) and there was quite a bit of exposed painted metal in the interior of trucks and SUVs.

Over the years, however, as Detroit realized that there was a lot of money to be made in selling large trucks – and even more money to be made in the sale of expensive options in those large trucks such as leather seats, Bose stereos, navigation systems, aluminum wheels, and more.  The combination of low gasoline prices and the macho image of pickup  trucks combined to make pickups extremely popular personal-use vehicles, and led to the creation of luxury pickups.

Now, I don’t necessarily consider the GMC Sierra Denali to be a true luxury vehicle (it’s missing a luxury brand name, and a luxury brand dealer experience, for example), but GMC’s Denali line has seen more success than some of its competitors both within GM (i.e., Cadillac Escalade EXT) and outside GM (i.e., Lincoln Blackwood, Lincoln Mark LT).  I recently spent an entire 1,200 mile road trip from eastern Pennsylvania to Detroit – and back – in a 2008 Sierra Denali, and was impressed by how far trucks have come over the past few years.  Moreover, the fact that the full-size pickup segment is so competitive means that while the Denali might have been the best half ton pickup on the road just 12 months ago, the all-new 2009 Ram and 2009 F-150 are going to give it a run for its money. Continue Reading

By Chris Haak

01.23.2009

In an effort to keep up with the Joneses – in this case, the new Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart – Subaru upgraded its WRX for the 2009 model year with a horsepower boost from 224 to 265 and made the car available with only manual transmission. However, much of what the 2008 WRX had, including the 224 horsepower/226 lb-ft of torque 2.5 liter turbocharged boxer four, was transferred directly in the the newest Impreza model, the Impreza 2.5GT.

The castoffs from the old WRX still consist of some pretty solid hardware. As with all Subarus sold in North America, the 2.5GT comes with standard symmetrical all wheel drive. As noted earlier, an automatic transmission is also standard (albeit a four-speed automatic), as are 17 inch aluminum wheels, a 10-speaker stereo with a 6-disc CD changer, power moonroof, leather wrapped steering wheel, automatic (single-zone) climate control, power windows and locks, and remote keyless entry. So, pretty much all of the modern conveniences to be expected in nearly any car in this price range are included.

I won’t beat up the Impreza for it’s looks; while its style is something only its mother could love (or in this case, its designer), nearly every other review of the Impreza has lambasted the car for its styling. Suffice it to say that if you’re someone who values outward appearances in your automobile, you’d be best served by looking elsewhere. The various creases and angles are similar to those in the also-overwrought Acura lineup, yet the tall greenhouse is even worse. Most cars look best in profile; the Impreza looks best from head-on. The top-dog (and far more expensive) STi variant gets different fenders front and rear with aggressive flares, and that works far better than the somewhat stylistically-challenged, nearly bulge-less fenders in the “regular” Impreza.

Continue Reading

By David Surace

01.22.2009

Bloomberg is reporting that Toyota’s in-bound President Akio Toyoda, grandson of the company’s original founder Kiichiro Toyoda, plans to replace most of Toyota’s current management structure when he comes into office in June to take the place of outbound president Katsuake Watanabe, according to “people [...] who asked not to be identified because the changes haven’t yet been announced”. According to those same sources, Watanabe would then stay on board to become vice chairman.

The axe-swinging is most likely related to the recent operating losses and drop in sales (some 15% last year), and would involve not only the company’s other four executive VP’s, but also almost all of the nineteen senior managing directors on staff. Whether they would end up at other posts within the company or sacked altogether isn’t clear.

Continue Reading

By Chris Haak

01.22.2009

Ford has announced that it will introduce a six-speed dual-clutch gearbox for its Fiesta subcompact in 2010 in North America.  The new gearbox, called PowerShift and supplied by Getrag, will be a key component of Ford’s strategy to increase the fuel economy of its products; the other part of that strategy, of course, is the twin-turbo, direct injection EcoBoost engines that will proliferate the lineup in coming years.

According to Ford, the PowerShift gearbox in the Fiesta weighs some 30 pounds less than the conventional four-speed automatic found in the US-market Focus, yet gets nine percent better fuel economy than does the Focus’ transaxle.  The gearbox will be Ford’s first offered in the US, although the European Focus offers a different wet clutch dual-clutch gearbox with its 2.0 liter diesel powerplant that is capable of handling the diesel’s greater torque loads.

Dual-clutch gearboxes are not yet widespread in their application, but are generally well-regarded as a high-tech solution to the compromise between the best parts of a manual transmission (no torque converter losses) and an automatic transmission (smooth operation and power delivery, convenience in traffic).  Many enthusiasts who swore off “automatic” transmissions over the past few decades have sampled dual-clutch gearboxes and have come away impressed; what’s not to like about better fuel economy, smoother and faster shifting, and better performance, after all?  Nissan thought so highly of dual-clutch gearboxes that the only choice in the GT-R sports car is one of them; Porsche has been making a lot of noise about its new PDK twin-clutch gearbox in its performance cars, and BMW has added one to the M3′s option list, among others.

Among non-premium, non-performance cars, however, Ford is setting itself up as a powertrain technology leader.  Having both the EcoBoost and PowerShift technology available on different vehicles throughout its lineup will absolutely differentiate Ford from its more pedestrian competition.  Right now, only Volkswagen offers anything similar in the price range – and nearly everyone who has sampled a VW DSG has come away impressed.  Chrysler could have been in a similar good spot had its joint venture to produce dual-clutch gearboxes not fallen through in 2008; the company now intends to move forward with conventional torque converter automatics instead.  GM has not announced any dual-clutch gearbox initiatives; imagine a ZR1 with its 638-horsepower supercharged V8 and a dual-clutch gearbox snapping off gear changes like a rifle bolt.  That thought – however unlikely at this point – nearly makes me salivate.

Ford’s press release follows after the jump. Continue Reading

Everybody button down and hold what you’ve got!

By David Surace

01.21.2009

In the midst of Toyota’s rather subdued rah-rah over becoming the new, undisputed global leader in automotive sales, executives at the Best Gosh Darned Car Company In The Known Universe are scrambling to reduce inventories and keep them commensurate with the current sub-freezing economy. Toyota is getting ready to offer substantial cash incentives in an effort to move their ’09 vehicles off the lots as quickly as one can do in these temperatures. On top of that, Bloomberg has reported a particularly interesting announcement from Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong: the rollout of the newly-refreshed 2010 Camry, just unveiled at the Detroit Show, will be pushed back to April.

Continue Reading

By Roger Boylan

01.21.2009

Smug pundits were trumpeting the SUV’s demise as recently as last summer. During the recent $4-a-gallon gas crisis, the nation’s newspaper of record hardly let a day go by without exulting over the woes of some wretched small-town SUV dealer stuck with a backlog, subtext: “We told you so, sucker.” And yet! When I look around there seem to be as many SUVs on the road today as there were back in their bad old heyday. (In a spirit of full disclosure, let me boldly say right from the start that I’ve always liked SUVs; I’ve owned two and rented or borrowed dozens, which is not to say that I’m in favor of gas guzzling, or eternal dependence on the Saudis.) Admittedly, I live in Texas, where the love of bigness is a matter of regional identity; but even on a national level, the big family hauler is still with us. Here comes Chevrolet, for example, with its latest offering, the 2009 Traverse, a seven- or eight-passenger behemoth that may be (and is) called a “crossover” or “family vehicle” but that seems like an SUV to me, and I’ve just finished test-driving one for a week. The Traverse is Chevy’s newborn sibling in the Acadia-Outlook-Enclave family, known as the “Lambda” platform siblings. There are three trim levels, 1LT, 2LT, and LTZ. Mine was the 2LT, with front-wheel-drive (AWD is available), 18-inch alloy wheels, an 8-way power driver seat, leather-wrapped steering wheel, rear parking sensors, remote vehicle start, Bluetooth, 3-zone automatic climate control, a 10-speaker Bose system, rear audio system controls, 7-passenger seating with second-row captain’s chairs, a power lift gate, and a rearview camera integrated into the rearview mirror (I loved the last item). All this you can have for a seriously negotiable sticker price of $39K, but the base Chevy Traverse 1LT’s starting price of $28K is by far the lowest of the four Lambda siblings. It’s also, in my humble opinion, the best-looking of the litter. Its bulk is rendered almost sleek by swoopy styling that owes much to the new Malibu; it’s more of a dolphin than a whale, at least seen from the side. Continue Reading

By Brendan Moore

01.21.2009

It finally happened.

GM lost their first-place position in sales to Toyota in 2008. Toyota and GM had been running neck and neck in global sales the previous couple of years to 2008, and since Toyota worldwide sales dropped 4% in 2008, and GM worldwide sales dropped approximately 11%, that difference was enough to put Toyota on top.

GM was the sales leader for 77 consecutive years.

But, GM says it’s not that big a deal in contrast to their other problems. In fact, in an unusually blunt statement, Fritz Henderson, the COO of GM, said yesterday, “They passed us in market cap, profitability and cash flow a long time ago”.

GM actually did fairly well in most of the world last year, but the staggering 22.7% drop in sales in North America to 3.6 million vehicles sealed GM’s drop to second-place.

GM put 8.36 million vehicles across the curb last year, putting GM about 616,000 units behind the 8.97 million reported by Toyota yesterday.

The cynical reader might scoff at the notion that GM isn’t heartbroken over losing their sales crown, but I think that notion is probably pretty accurate. In a series of interviews I conducted with half a dozen senior GM executives during the recent Detroit Auto Show, it was obvious that GM was a lot more concerned about surviving first and thriving later.

I would characterize the prevailing mode of thought at GM as a crisis situation where everyone is doing whatever they can to ensure the company lives another day so they can fight the good fight many days in the future. Note that I wrote “crisis”, not “chaos”. What emerged during those interviews was that everyone at GM is pulling awfully hard in the same direction, and it is an extremely disciplined effort. Continue Reading

01.20.2008

By Brendan Moore

Checker Motors, the maker of the famous Checker Marathon taxi, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Although Checker ceased production of the Marathon in 1982, the 87 year-old firm has soldiered on since that time as a manufacturer of welded assemblies and metal stampings that it supplies to the domestic auto industry.

Checker has 246 employees affected by the bankruptcy.

Checker’s bankruptcy filing cited the falling market share of its automaker customers, uncompetitive wage structures compared to other bankrupt suppliers that are their competition and rising raw material costs. The company stated it the filing that it intends to reorganize and continue doing business during the reorganization.

There are a lot of suppliers to the automotive industry that have gone down in the last 12 months, but Checker stands out among those other suppliers because they used to make an actual car.

And not just any car, but the Checker Marathon, an urban icon to millions of people in the United States. Continue Reading

By J.S. Smith

01.19.2009

Based on reports from Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, FIAT and Chrysler are in talks to form an alliance. In fact, the WSJ used the words “likely alliance” to describe the talks.

Thus far, reports have not used the term merger—and certainly not “merger of equals.” These days, FIAT, once enfeebled and towered over by the colossal American pentastar, is clearly more equal than others, to steal a phrase from Eric Blair. Reuters used the term “strategic partnership.” According to the Canadian Press, FIAT is interested in “creating a partnership that would allow the Italian auto company to build and sell its small cars in the United States.”

Although early, this certainly seems like a good partnership. FIAT makes some of the best small cars in the world and has a global presence—except in the USA. It also makes great sporty executive cars—Alfa Romeo and Lancia are in its stable. It lacks full size cars, trucks and SUVs. And it lacks dealers in North America. Continue Reading

By Kevin Miller

01.16.2009

As you’ve likely read before, blue is the new green. The BlueZERO concept is the latest proof of that saying from Mercedes-Benz.

Following September’s introduction of the S400 BlueHYBRID, The BlueZERO concept is actually a set of three concept vehicles built on a single vehicle architecture. The vehicle is designed to accommodate various modes of propulsion, each of which is incorporated in one of the three concept cars. The BlueZERO vehicles are constructed with the same unique sandwich-floor architecture first seen on the Mercedes A-Class and continued with the B-Class. All three BlueZERO concepts use the same key technical components and share dimensions. The basic vehicle is 166 inches long, with seating for five adults and a 17.6 cubic-foot luggage compartment with a total vehicle payload capacity of about 1000 lbs.

Each BlueZERO concept car is fitted with a unique electrical propulsion systems. Each of the three powertrains features front-wheel drive, liquid-cooled lithium-ion batteries with storage capacity up to 35 kWh and electric motor with maximum output of 100 kW (134 HP). All three variants accelerate to 62 mph in less than 11 seconds, with an electronically-limited top speed of 93 mph meant to allow rapid travel while preserving travel range and efficiency. Continue Reading