The worst U.S. sales slump in recent Ford Motor Co. history may finally be screeching to a halt.

In November, Ford’s sales–including its European luxury brands–totaled 182,096, 0.6 percent higher than last November’s sales of 180,947 vehicles. The November tally is Ford’s first sales increase since October 2006.

But don’t pop those champagne corks just yet. For the rest of the industry, November was a mixed bag. GM reported an 11 percent decline and Chrysler posted a 2 percent decline. Toyota, VW, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai all posted gains.

All told, the industry reported total sales of 1,180,269 vehicles, down 1.6 percent from November 2006. For the first 11 months of the year, the industry has sold 14,763,831 vehicles, a decline of 2.4 percent from the same period last year.

continue reading "Ford posts first sales rise in a year: GM, Chrysler and overall industry numbers down"

More than 30,000 Americans have put down deposits for Smart cars in advance of the brand’s formal U.S. launch next month, Daimler AG executives said today.

The first-year demand will exceed the number of cars that will be built for the United States, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said at a breakfast meeting with reporters. He and other executives declined to forecast sales.

Zetsche said the Smart fortwo–a tiny two-seater with a 1.0-liter engine that gets as much as 45 mpg–will be more than a fad. More consumers will want a fun, safe car that is economical to drive, has low greenhouse gas emissions and is easy to park, he said.

continue reading "Zetsche: U.S. demand for Smart exceeds supply:"

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Posted: 10:50am, 5 December 2007

Oh my… pass the sick bagTry - if you can - and look beyond the garish paintwork for a moment and you’ll see Citroen’s new Nemo Concetto, a van-derived people carrier concept that’s based on the recently launched Nemo commercial van. The idea behind the Nemo – a three-way development with Fiat and Peugeot – is to tap into the massive European market for van-based family cars, where as well as being sold as a commercial vehicle, it would sit below the Berlingo Multispace in Citroen’s passenger car line-up.

continue reading "Citroen Nemo Concetto concept"

The PR guy was either having a heart attack or was about to kill us. Maybe both. In either case, someone was going to die. He walked up, leaned into the window of the fabulous Pontiac G8 sedan we had just driven and paused, searching for words–and for air.

“These are [huff, huff], these are [wheeze] engineering prototypes,” he said, in much the same way the guy in the grapefruit commercial says, “Grapefruit must be eaten in halves!”

Then he inhaled again and reiterated, “Engineering prototypes!”

And darn good ones, too, sir. He was apparently concerned that an engineering prototype was something under development and therefore not as completely and reliably bolted together as a regular production car. He needn’t have worried about that. This was easily the best-handling Pontiac sedan ever made, engineering prototype or production powerhouse.

continue reading "PONTIAC G8: A car so fast the PR guy sweats:"

Chrysler LLC has joined the California Fuel Cell Partnership, a group of 34 organizations promoting the commercialization of vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

Chrysler is the ninth automaker to join the partnership of energy companies, automakers, fuel cell technology companies and government agencies.

“Of the fuel sources on the table for long-term future use in transportation, hydrogen holds the greatest promise,” Mark Chernoby, Chrysler vice president of advanced vehicle engineering, said in a statement. “Collaborations such as the California Fuel Cell Partnership will help engineers develop solutions for this technology at an accelerated rate.”

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Mexico City, Mexico (November 10, 2007) - Conquest Racing is excited to announce the receipt of the Sherwin Williams ‘It’s All in the Finish” Color and Design Award. The brilliant pearl blue, white and metallic silver Juniper Soul / Opes Prime car sparkled in the Mexican sun and along with Nelson Philippe, pilot of the #34 car, wowed the local Planet Color judges. The judges evaluated the paint scheme on the field of Champ Car DP01s to find which car had the best color, design, gloss and overall appearance. Along with the Color and Design Award recognition, Conquest Racing earns a $20,000 cash prize.

The 40th Annual Tokyo Motor Show was not just about cars but motorcycles and commercial vehicles, too. I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at dump trucks and buses, but I did spend some time with the motorcycles and am glad I did.

The general feeling from my colleagues who attended the show is that this was a bit of a down year. Sure, Nissan officially launched the GT-R, but we’ve been seeing that car for several years now. Likewise with Mitsubishi and the Lancer Evo X. Honda’s CR-Z was very cool, and concepts from Mitsubishi (Concept LT) and Suzuki (Kizashi 2) were well done.

Plus, there were a few wacky concepts and podlike contraptions, something Tokyo has become known for. But there was not a lot of meat in what was shown or in the information uncovered.

continue reading "TOKYO BLOG: The Other Motor Show: It’s not just cars getting the spotlight in Tokyo"

The joy of coming to Tokyo is the chance to take in the truly wacky stuff these car makers produce. We’re not talking consumer goods or even coming-to-a-showroom near you thinly veiled show cars. No, this is the weird detritus of a country gone mad, and I love it.

The creation of off-beat show cars has a long and storied history. It wasn’t that long ago that Toyota, I believe, showed an enormous purple toaster thingie called Fuyo-jo. And it has been a company that forever promoted the “Idea Olympics” for its engineers and designers. This was a daylong festival where Toyota employees created such things as brief cases that folded out into internal combustion-engined cars. And even before that we saw things that could only be described as flights of fancy among the twisted minds of our Asian car-making friends.

continue reading "TOKYO BLOG: Dutch Mandel: It’s a weird, weird, weird world"

A familiar brand is back in the Champ Car World Series as Pacific Coast Motorsports has the Tecate logo on the #28 entry driven by Mario Dominguez. Tecate had been a long-time sponsor in Champ Car supporting both teams and events in the series.

After Friday’s qualifying, Dominguez said, “First of all, I am incredibly proud to carry the Tecate name on my race car and I am so happy to be driving for Pacific Coast Motorsports.”

Team Director Tyler Tadevic said the team is thrilled to debut the Tecate car in Australia and Tecate will also be on the car in Mexico City. The team is looking to make an official announcement regarding Tecate and their commercial program in the coming weeks in Mexico City.

Former ARCA and NASCAR driver Andy Hillenburg paid $4 million for the North Carolina Speedway at Rockingham. He’ll relocate his driving school from Charlotte and hopes to host minor-league races and use the track for testing, movies and TV commercials. The track hosted 78 Cup races between 1965 and ‘04, when Bruton Smith bought it and moved its lone date to his track in Fort Worth, Texas.

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