New Madison resident Kevin York has a motorsports blog.
Category: Cars
Land Yachts: Classic 1970’s Cadillac Eldorado Convertible
I walked past this classic, 1970’s Eldorado on my way to the Farmer’s Market this morning:
More on the Eldorado.
Honda Plans Turbodiesel for US
John Watts, manager of Honda’s U.S. product planning, said Honda plans to introduce a clean-burning, 2.2-liter turbodiesel in the United States within three years.
“That 2.2 could probably crank out about 200 horsepower and about 220 (pounds-feet of) torque at little rpm,” he said at a press event here. “Vehicles like the Pilot (SUV) and Odyssey (minivan) are too big for a four-cylinder.”
DeLorenzo and Wallace on Nissan / Renault / GM
Make no mistake – this isn’t about creating a new global automotive powerhouse well-equipped to do battle deep into this century, one that will keep Toyota from taking over the world. And this certainly isn’t about doing what’s best for General Motors and the people who have so much invested in the fortunes of the company. And this in no way, shape or form has anything to do with solidifying America’s manufacturing base or shoring up the economy.
No, this is about flat-out greed, pure and simple.
This possibility is not a case of what would be best for General Motors; it’s driven by egotism and greed. Setting the stage for it were the peculiarities of the financial markets; GM, the world’s largest car company, recently had a market capitalization barely above $10 billion, while its closest competitor’s market cap was $169 billion. Analysts now forecast that Toyota, the world’s second largest car company, should be worth $236 billion within the year, but faltering GM will be worth no more than $15 billion.
It is that situation that allowed a notorious corporate raider, Kirk Kerkorian, to buy 9.9% of GM’s outstanding shares for little or nothing. And with that purchase he gained the leverage to push his personal consultant — whose pay is based not on GM’s improved financial performance but on Kerkorian’s take from his investment in the motor company — onto GM’s board of directors.
Buy American & Build in Mexico – Ford’s Mark Fields
So a Mexican-built car is Ford’s hedge in the American market against Japanese-branded cars built on US soil. This is getting more and more confusing. But wait – there’s more.
Fields bragged that Ford’s new hybrids are “posting record sales of late” and their “innovations led to more than 130 patents,” with more pending. The Ford exec conveniently omitted the fact that Ford’s hybrid technology depends on technology licensed from Toyota. Nor did he mention the Japanese-made transaxles and battery packs and German-built regenerative braking systems which make Ford’s hybrids possible.
The “Truth About J.D. Power’s IQS”
If you compare the rankings based on production quality alone, the brands’ relative positions change dramatically. BMW bounds 24 places to third; Buick jumps 14 to eighth; MINI ascends 13 to 16th; Mercedes-Benz climbs nine also to 16th; Subaru also gains nine to 19th. At the same time, Dodge drops eight to 27th; GMC plummets 13 rungs to 22nd; Nissan plunges ten, also to 22nd. Eight others change position by at least five slots. These include Chrysler, which shares many models with Dodge yet moves up five places, to fifth. Out of 37 brands, 16 rankings are heavily affected by the inclusion of design quality.
UAW Chief Says Union Must Brace For Change as Big Three Struggle
AP:
The challenges we face aren’t the kind that can be ridden out. They’re structural challenges, and they require new and farsighted solutions,” he said.
Among those challenges is that nonunion U.S.-based auto assembly plants made 1.1 million more vehicles in 2005 than they did in 2001, while production at unionized plants fell by 1.1 million, he said. Mr. Gettelfinger said U.S. labor laws heavily favor management and allow employers, such as Japanese auto makers that have opened plants in this country, to intimidate workers seeking to unionize.
Ron Gettelfinger’s report is available here [25MB PDF]
Best 2006 Car Deals
Chop isn’t the only one hacking prices down to size. Car buyers remember 2005 as a goldmine for car deals, because major American manufacturers, including General Motors (nyse: GM – news – people ) and Ford Motor (nyse: F – news – people ), made employee-pricing plans available to the public for a period of time. In comparison, 2006 has been something of a letdown so far, at least from the consumer standpoint. But the year is still young, discount deals are out there and the domestics might have these kinds of fire sales again.
The First Action Hero
I once read that a person with experience caring for horses knows more about what it meant to be a human in the last thousand years than anyone without. Similarly, anyone who’s driven a Model T knows more about what it felt like to be an American in the first half of the 20th Century than anyone who hasn’t. History records the Model T as a two-fold blessing: it created the American working class and it put them behind the wheel. Again, the map is not the territory. To fully appreciate the Model T’s impact on American psychology, you have to get behind the wheel.
Least Fuel Efficient Luxury Cars – 2006
From a million-dollar Bugatti to a tiny Mercedes roadster, the market’s most wasteful high-end buys.