Car News Articles

Alan Mulally was a hero last month, when Ford Motor Company announced it actually had made money –$100 million, chump change for automakers these days — for the first quarter of the year. It certainly was better than General Motors’ $3.3-billion loss. The tiny profit apparently prompted Tracinda’s Kirk Kerkorian to buy some 100 million shares of FoMoCo and announce he’d buy 20 million more. For a minute, it looked like Kerkorian actually believed 48-year-old rumors that the Ford family was growing tired of its Class B stock. Then, Ford’s announcement Thursday that it would not make a profit in 2009, The Way Forward’s target year, drove the company’s stock downward. What will Captain Kirk do now?

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The American Axle strike and separate walkouts this month at two General Motor Corp. plants will take $2.8 billion off the automaker’s bottom line, and cost the U.S. economy $8.2 billion — shaving nearly a percentage point off the gross domestic product, an economist said Friday.

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As a boy, Lorenzo Sistino had to decide which of his parents’ paths to follow. His father worked at contract manufacturer Carrozzeria Bertone. His mother was from a family of musicians.

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Volkswagen is reconsidering its soft-top strategy – and will reinstate the Golf cabriolet with this autumn’s sixth-generation car and turn the next Eos into a Passat cabrio, CAR Online has learned.

Buyers loved it, but VW never spent a lot of money or effort on the Golf cabriolet. The first version remained in production for 14 years without major changes, and the second-generation topless Golf (actually based on the Golf Mk3) was discontinued in 2002 and never replaced.

New VW Golf convertible: due in 2010

It was not until Martin Winterkorn took the helm in Wolfsburg that the Golf cabrio returned to the agenda. The new chairman understands the significance of this model, and he also knows that a fair bit of groundwork needs to be done to prepare the market for the launch which is planned for mid-2010.

The open-air Golf will be derived from the three-door hatch, so it’ll get a stubby rear end, relatively small boot and packaging very close to the current A3 cabrio’s.

And what about a folding tin-top? They’re all the rage!

Yes, but the backlash against CC bodystyles has already begun. Like the Audi, the VW will almost certainly with a well insulated soft top which folds without a cover. New features will include push-button operation, a self-erecting wind deflector and a pair of Merc Airscarf-style neck warmers.

Click ‘Next’ to read the mechanical spec on the new VW Golf

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Mere days after losing his second crew chief in a month, Juan Pablo Montoya was still angry and a poor performance in practice and qualifying for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 didn’t help matters. However, owner Chip Ganassi said Friday he still stands by his team’s decision to let Montoya’s former crew chief Jimmy Elledge go. Read more here.

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If you hadn’t heard by now, you’re probably living under a rock somewhere (which begs the question: How are you reading this?). The verdict is in, and the new “American Idol” is David “The Rocker” Cook. Congratulations, Cookie, from all of us here at MotherProof.com!

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Go to Butler, Missouri and you’ll find Max Motors, an independent car dealer that specializes in (i.e. only sells) American cars. Yup, under one roof you can buy a Buick, Cadillac, Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, Jeep or Pontiac. Your guess is as good as mine if they sell Korean-made Aveos, Mexican made Fusions or Canadian made all sorts of stuff. Oh wait, I checked, they do. But that’s not why we’re telling you about Max Motors. No, we’re telling you because through May 31st if you buy a new car from Max Motors you get your choice of free gas card or handgun. That’s right, Max Motors is aware of both “the gasoline and crime problem [sic] in America.” And while to some throwing gas at a gas problem and guns at a crime problem is like throwing fire at a fire problem or fat at a fat problem, Max Motors sees it different. Explains sales manager Walter Moore, around Butler people believe in “God, guts and guns,” though they aren’t handing out free Bibles or chitlin’s. As you would (probably) expect, 80 percent of the customers are opting for the gun. And hey, why not? I just traded my Colt Python .357 Magnum for $250 worth of scotch and bourbon. The only drawback we see is that you don’t get the gun immediately (you have to pass a background check). Max Motors might be inadvertently setting up the world’s most ironic carjacking.

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Today’s editorial on the Nissan GT-R’s Nürburgring record (second fastest-ever lap by a production car) raises some interesting questions about the veracity of that claim. On one hand, who cares? My first experience in a proper car on a proper track– riding shotgun in a tail-happy 911 with Jody Scheckter at Porsche’s Weissach test track– taught me I could never do what professional drivers do to get a car around a track in as short a time as humanly possible. Nor, for that matter, did I want to. (Scary is just a word for nothing left to think.) Even if the GT-R can lap the ‘Ring faster than a Porsche Carrera GT, I can’t. Paint me respectfully unenthralled. On the other hand, what about the truth? Nissan knew full well that setting a ‘Ring record would guarantee positive PR. If they cut corners or fudged the protocol to do the deed, they should be held accountable. In fact, Nissan should make a public statement on the issue, so that we may expose their weasel words, or murmur appreciatively over their mea culpa or issue an apology for besmirching their good name. The ball’s in your court, Carlos. 

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The New York Times reports that the failure of the Interstate 35W bridge in downtown Minneapolis had many fathers. A study by Gray Plant Mooty, a Minneapolis law firm hired by the state legislature, indicates that the collapse was caused by bad design, bad maintenance, bad inspections and bad enforcement. “In their 84-page report, the investigators laid out a pattern of missed opportunities and policy violations: inspection reports that failed to quantify the severity of corrosion, officials who later said they had not known that their duties included reviewing such inspections and a lack of special provisions for where heavy equipment should be placed for the construction work.” Needless to say, the post-tragedy investigation has turned into partisan politics and finger-pointing. “It appears that some of what was happening was due to a lack of funding and communication problems,” said State Representative Bernie Lieder, a Democrat who is co-chairman of the committee that assigned the investigation. “You have to say that the governor bears some responsibility.” Seems to me there’s plenty of blame to go around. The “accident” on August 1, 2007 killed thirteen people and injured 145 others.

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