Fast Cars

At this year’s Barrett-Jackson collector car auction Ford & Shelby are teaming up to auction the already rare Shelby GT500KR #0001 off for charity. To make the one-of-one Ebony black GT500KR even more rare it will feature the same full glass roof that is being offered as an option on the 2009 Mustang V6 & GT models.

We got a very good deal, if that is possible in the car sales arena. The car is not a performance vehicle but will get me from a to b, not very fast but fast enough. Lol

Get ready for a chance to win a Ford Mustang, Edge or F-150 in a new contest put on by Kellogg’s, HotWheels, Target and Ford. It’s easy to play, all you have to do is buy Kellogg’s cereals at participating Target stores around the country and collect the collector cards inside each box.

So does maintaining a presence in Second Life result in increasing brand exposure and car sales? I went undercover again to see whether I could find what the magic ingredient for Scion’s expanding presence in Second Life was:

Just as the big truck and SUV were the marque markets in the 90’s and early in this decade it is the small car, fuel efficient market that will be garnering greater attention as this decade comes to a close. The Big 3 may not revel in the same price mark-up they enjoyed from the SUV sales as they will with the small car sales, but they better find a way to market them to the American buyer. If the other spokes of the Big 3 cannot find a way to sell like the Focus is and if Ford fails to maintain those sales with the new design they may be looking for a new moniker by which to refer to themselves.

The people who follow car sales statistics are reporting that in 2006, for the first time, most Canadians who bought new vehicles, bought small, fuel-efficient models.

That’s when I started looking at dealerships in Phoenix. From there, I looked all over Arizona and then expanded my search to New Mexico, Utah and Nevada. And that’s when I found Bart Barker’s Car Sales.

The first Model Ts came rolling off the busy floor of the Ford Motor Company in 1908. Early advertising and marketing soon made those cars totems of identity. “FREEDOM for the woman who owns a Ford,” promised a full-page 1924 ad, showing a solo woman in driving togs enjoying a maple tree at the peak of its fall colors. Images of the open road became the obligatory background to any automobile ad. Car marketing became the promise of expanded personal freedom, in an age where corporate media had come to govern all expressions of personal freedom. The car is the ultimate soloist shell, and the perfect embodiment of Goebbels’ maxim that captures the ethos of the corporate voice perfectly: “We speak not to express ourselves but to elicit a desired response.”

My parents are considered somewhat “lucky” since they only lose the ground floor though it is painful. My auntie and uncle who owns a beauty saloon and a mobilephone shopped lost hundreds of thousand from the destruction and the looting. Another auntie, who just openned a car sales outlet lost all her cars from the flood. My aunt and uncle who lived in a single story house, lost almost everything. The bed, cabinet, tv, hifi, tables, sofa, clothes, everything. I am not surprised if thousands of others lost everything too.

You can save a lot of time and fuel by making a list of questions to ask when buying a used car, and phoning around before you drive. In part three of my used car buying tips article series, I covered the topics of organized note taking during phone interviews, rust awareness, and problems the owner may have knowledge of concerning their own car. In this part I’ll go over some specific mechanical aspects which are typical problem areas with used cars.

Hate to bring the competition up, but look at Toyota. The Camry, according to reviewers and yours truly, is still bland, bland, bland despite of the nose job. But it’s numero uno in car sales in the U.S. because, somehow, the company figured that Americans wanted quality product for low prices. And–surprise–we discovered we do and we’re willing to pay for it.

It seems the President’s thin call to sustainble living has given sites the green light to produce articles hell bent on educating America on the real facts behind hybrids, solar panels, etc. Business Week has a very cool article on ‘The Top Ten Hybrid Myths’ circulating. They bust past the myth that hybrids must be plugged in, but also shed light on the longevity of batteries (The Energy Dept. stopped testing after 160,000 miles–a cabby in NYC has already logged over 200,000 miles in 25 months with no problems). Other interesting highlights: In 1905 an American engineer named H. Piper filed the first patent for a gas-electric hybrid vehicle. The 200,000 hybrid car sales in 2005 represent 1.2% of the 17 million new cars sold last year. If car numbers keep increasing at the present rate, there will be more than a billion cars and trucks on the road across the world in 20 years. Damn.

However, there is a downside to this boom in car sales. And that is all these cars have to go some where and right now they are clogging up practically every road and highway in Venezuela. On the intercity highways traffic is oftent backed up for miles behind toll booths. The Francisco Farjardo highway, the main east-west expressway in Caracas which is 5 lanes wide at points often seems more like a parking lot than an expressway. And city streets of Barquisimeto and Caracas are so choked with cars and busses it often takes a half hour just to go a dozen blocks. Just to give you an idea here are some pictures of what I am talking about:

GM officials did not specify which articles the company found offensive. Ryndee Carney, a GM spokeswoman told The New York Times: "It involves news reporting, it involves opinion."

Messages left after business hours Thursday with representatives for GM and the Times were not immediately returned.

On Wednesday, the newspaper published a column by auto critic Dan Neil, who called for the "impeachment" of two executives, and charged the company "utterly missed the boat on hybrid gas-electric technology" while speeding up production of sport utility vehicles.

At the moment the news broke, I had written two words of a review of the Pontiac G6: "Dump Lutz."

On Monday morning, the news came that General Motors North America Chairman Robert Lutz and Group Vice President Gary Cowger were "relinquishing" their duties with GM North America to assume unspecified roles in GM's global product development and manufacturing efforts — compared with the high-profile role Lutz has occupied, this is like "extraordinary rendition" to Pakistan.

Although GM's chairman and chief executive is Rick Wagoner, Bob Lutz — also known as "Maximum Bob" — has been the point man for GM policy and future product design, the Great White-Haired Father, the Man with the Golden Gut, the auto industry's most quotable and charismatic executive in a town where charisma is scarcer than banana trees.

I think we can say that the Oprah Winfrey Pontiac G6 Giveaway worked for Oprah but not Pontiac. There is alot of hubbub over a Detroit Free Press article today that says G6 sales are 30% below expectations and they are using a lot of incentives to move them now. It must have made the wire services because I heard the story on the radio this morning. The giveaway was PR that GM hoped with turn into word of mouth marketing. It got people talking about how Oprah gave away cars (Jim Carrey joked about it when he was on the show). It really didn't get anyone talking about the car. As a matter of fact, an audience member tried selling theirs on craigslist.

By purchasing a used car you can save a lot of money. You could buy a model that you may not be able to afford brand new. However, buying a used car is still a bit of a gamble as there is no guarantee that the car has not been in an accident, has real mileage, and was properly maintained. There may be some hidden problems like a worn out automatic transmission, or engine problems that may not have been obvious when you test-drove the car. Here are some essential facts you should consider before buying a second-hand car so you won't regret your decision after your purchase.

Beth from Mutated Monkeys is looking for a car. She commented here that, "If I've learned nothing else today, it's that all of the cars I'm considering have some kind of downside."

She's exactly right. All cars do. Everything is a trade-off: reliability, economy, size, performance, equipment levels, price. So there's always a downside.

If it's big enough, it probably gets bad fuel economy. If it's fast, it probably isn't big. If it's cheap, it likely isn't well-made. And so on. It's a complicated matrix. No auto maker has managed to cover all the points. That would be the perfect car.

Of course, money is the one thing that can be traded-off for gains in all the other areas. Almost always. Some very expensive cars are spacious, fast, reliable, stylish and good in bad weather. Think Lexus LS430, for example. Not my first choice in that segment, but one I've never heard a bad word about.

Chris (Witmore) put me onto this item in Yahoo! News - Mustang Ads Feature Late Steve McQueen. Ford is to resurrect Steve McQueen in its promotional campaign for the new 2005 Mustang.

They did this in the UK a few years back - clever cuts of footage from Bullitt - the very stylish 1968 movie set in San Francisco, and in which McQueen drove a Mustang.

"Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, and Volvo had more than their fair share of problems. Only Audi came out better than average," the magazine said.

"The most reliable brand overall is now Subaru, which averages eight problems per 100," Consumer Reports said. It noted that Honda Motor Co. Ltd., long a reliability leader, now averaged nine problems per 100.

The single most reliable vehicle in the 2004 model year was Hyundai Motor Co, Ltd's low-cost Sonata sedan, with a problem rate of just two per 100.

A day of fast cars, burning tires, and nitro! It's the Consumer Reports 2005 April Auto Issue Media Day. Take a thrill ride around the most exclusive auto test track in the world. Experience a day behind-the-scenes the Consumer Reports Auto Test Center, where engineers will personally demonstrate how CR tests cars, trucks, SUVs, and minivans for acceleration, braking, handling, accommodations, and much more. Watch bumpers endure the "bumper basher." Ride up "Rock Hill"-a 120-foot climb up 300-tons of boulders, specifically designed to test 4WD systems in SUVs and pickup trucks. Discuss CR's consumer-focused testing and reliability surveys during lunch with Senior Director David Champion and his engineers.

Rick Bruner noticed a high powered blog:

Ka-boom! This is a biggie in the world of business blogs. Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman of General Motors, is the blogger. Whoa.

BMW is known for making cars for drivers. Fun, fast cars. Are they blowing that brand?

To appear to a wider audience than just the social-climbers (and attract such groups as the upper liberals, post-moderns and upper conservatives), BMW underwent a dramatic and radical redesign of its 3, 5 and 7 series cars, the company’s core products. The reactions to the new designs have not been favorable. Major glitches in the 7 series and iDrive electronics have severely dented BMW’s reputation for quality. Consumer Reports did not judge a single BMW as reliable enough to include on its 2005 recommended list.

Despite these problems, the new models and redesigns keep on coming including the Z4 roadsters, X5 SUV, X3 SUV, 6-series and 1-series. And there is even talk of introducing a minivan! No minivan on earth could ever be called the ultimate driving machine; what an oxymoron!

But that’s just the point. The more models BMW makes, the more consumers they target and the more markets they enter, the less valuable the brand becomes. Only a small range of cars can be classified as ultimate driving machines. And that is the standard by which BMW should drive its business. Otherwise they run the risk of driving the brand right off the autobahn and into a ditch.

GM announced their new Cadillac DTS and Buick Lucerne luxury wheels via podcast! How cool is that. Not sure how fast these cars are, but they sure look like fast cars. And luxurious.

Check out our first ever podcast! Gary Cowger, GM North America President, introduces the Cadillac DTS and Buick Lucerne luxury sedans at the Chicago Auto Show. Let us know what you think and if you'd like to hear more GM podcasts in the future.