Here’s something to file under the “you don’t see that every day” category. A car company actively promoting the achievement of an entirely average crash test rating.

That is exactly what Nissan are doing with their spin doctors working overtime to highlight the fact that their Nissan Navara has been retested and has scored a 3 star safety rating. In the age of the 5 star car, a 3 star result is underwhelming at best. But why would the folks at Nissan be actively promoting there newly acquired 3 stars?

Simple. In the original crash test the Navara scored a struck-through 1 star result in the EuroNCAP crash testing program.

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Charles A. Tilt did not believe trucks had to be homely. Tilt borrowed liberally from styling concepts of the most eye-catching automobiles of the 1920s and 1930s, enabling his Diamond T Truck Co. to thrive even during the Great Depression. Diamond T’s 201 pickup was so pleasing to the eye and so smooth to drive that automotive historians have debated good-naturedly about whether it was better compared to a Cadillac or a Rolls-Royce.

In 1905, Tilt, the son of a shoemaker, began building cars, but he was making only trucks by 1911. His name eventually became synonymous with one of the engineered functions of his cabs: They were tilted forward to allow for engine maintenance.

continue reading "ESCAPE ROADS: 1949 Diamond T 201: Truck for the boss"

With the deal done for the sale of Jaguar and Land Rover to India’s Tata Motors, Ford Motor Co. is reorganizing its global product development and purchasing operations.

Ford said today that its new structure designates global product development centers in specific regions for vehicle segments. The goal is to reduce the amount of time it takes to bring a new vehicle to market, cut development costs and reduce duplication in engineering and purchasing.

For instance, small cars — such as the upcoming Fiesta — would be designed, developed and engineered in Europe. Big pickups, such as the F-150, would be created in North America, while compact trucks would be developed in Asia and Africa.

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March U.S. auto sales plummeted by 12.0 percent to 1.36 million vehicles. And the first quarter results weren’t much better. Sales declined 8.0 percent for the quarter to 3.58 million vehicles.

Few automakers were spared from the bloodshed, even Toyota. Credit crunches, mortgage messes and rising fuel prices all combined to bring down sales and lower consumer confidence. The only hints of optimism during the month arose from smaller fuel-efficient vehicles.

In March, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. suffered its fourth straight month of lower sales, something that hasn’t happened in recent memory.

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Former Formula One racer and Red Bull Racing Team development driver Scott Speed will drive a fourth Bill Davis Racing Toyota in select NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races this season.

Red Bull, Speed’s sponsor, wants to give the American more track time in an effort to advance his stock-car career.

Speed, who returned to the United States and entered stock-car racing after he lost his Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 ride toward the end of last year, will make his Bill Davis Racing debut at Kansas Speedway on April 26, followed by entries at Lowe’s Motor Speedway (May 16), Dover (May 30), Michigan (June 14), Bristol (Aug. 20), Talladega Oct. 4), Martinsville (Oct. 18), Atlanta (Oct. 25), Texas (Oct. 31), Phoenix (Nov. 7) and Homestead-Miami (Nov. 14).

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SENIOR EDITOR BOB GRITZINGER: I can see where people love these big, bold, brand-name utes, built with what seems like every amenity and all the utility on the planet. But when you start shaking it down, some of the shortcomings show through as well.

On the upside, this vehicle glides down the highway and is barely rattled by anything the back roads can dish out. The truck stays on center so steadily that you actually can take your hands off the wheel and not stray from a straight-line course–very impressive for a 5600-pounder with these kinds of off-road underpinnings. The vehicle also can carry just about anything short of a Chevy Suburban-load.

continue reading "DRIVERS LOG: 2008 Range Rover HSE:"

Indy Racing League boss Tony George hoped that the first unified IndyCar Series race in more than 12 years would be “memorable and historic” and, of course, safe. In the end, the season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway was all of those things and maybe more.

The Gainsco Auto Insurance Indy 300 wasn’t exactly symphonic as the disjointed field strung out like a multiclass sports-car race, but most longtime series followers would agree that it was better than either pivotal race the IRL or the Champ Car World Series staged back in 1996 when they became rivals.

That year, the IRL went to Orlando, Florida, in January with a ragtag bunch of misfits and castoffs. Every car seemed to be red, white or black, and almost none carried significant sponsor decals. Team owner John Menard took a gamble on a USAC champion named Tony Stewart, who nearly got knocked out by the safety truck. (Imagine where Stewart might be had contact occurred.)

continue reading "Scott Dixon wins the new-look IndyCar Series opener:"

Marco Andretti was driving hard and well at Sebring, making up time on the cars ahead, when he got a call from the pits: Bring it in. The Acura was overheating. In the old days, a driver might, or might not, have noticed the needle on the temp gauge climbing. Even if he did, he might have kept going, perhaps adjusting his driving to try to moderate the temperature, before giving the mechanics a heads-up at the next scheduled stop. The car may, or may not, have blown up before the mission was accomplished.

But this is the era of telematics in race cars, and the engineers in the Andretti pit knew of the rising temps before a gauge would have climbed high enough to alarm the driver. So they called timeout. This is good for the hardware and its durability, the point of an endurance race. But it may not be so good for the fans, especially when similar systems are used in shorter races where “win or blow ‘er up trying” is often a credible strategy.

continue reading "Kevin A. Wilson: Tattletale Cars"

The UAW strike at American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. that has halted light-truck production at General Motors will push the automaker to close its first car assembly plant and possibly another.

GM confirmed on Friday, March 28, that it will shut its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, which builds the Cadillac DTS and Buick Lucerne sedans.

“GM informed employees at Detroit-Hamtramck that production will be idled following Friday’s production,” GM spokesman Dan Flores wrote in an e-mail message to Automotive News. “So effective Monday, March 31, (the plant) will be down.”

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NEW DELHI, India – Safe, affordable personal transportation for India’s masses has always been a personal quest for Ratan Tata.

The 70-year-old chairman of Tata group, India’s largest conglomerate, is by some accounts the country’s richest man. But he wants to give middle-class families a safer option on mobility.

At the same time, Tata thinks his company’s automotive unit can turn a profit making one-lakh passenger cars – an attention-grabbing round number in India: 100,000 rupees, or $2,536 at current exchange rates.

“I was struck by seeing families on two-wheel scooters,” Tata told
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