Car News Articles

Read our Fiat 500 Abarth road test? Now you can watch Fiat’s hot hatch in action in our video. It’s official footage supplied by Fiat and you can see a brace of 500 Abarths out on the track. To read our full first drive review of the Abarth, click here.

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TVR yesterday slid the covers off the new Sagaris in a private viewing, CAR Online can reveal. Our photographs were smuggled out of a special event held for owners and dealers – and they’re the first proof of the reborn TVR brand that last year collapsed into administration amid a cloud of uncertainty.

However, yesterday’s event, held at a hotel near Fleetwood in Lancashire not far from TVR’s original Blackpool home, is proof positive that the most outrageous sports car maker of all is back in business.

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Cory McClenathan (Top Fuel), above, and Tony Pedregon (Funny Car) grabbed the provisional pole positions in their classes in the first NHRA event where drivers in Top Fuel and Funny Car raced 1,000 feet instead of a quarter-mile. Allen Johnson (Pro Stock) and Steve Johnson (Pro Stock Motorcycle) notched provisional No. 1 spots at the standard length at the Mopar Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in Denver. Need more? Go here to geek out on drag racing.

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Just days after MotherProof.com posted our list of hot cars for moms, the National Insurance Crime Bureau released its own list of hot wheels – its annual report on the most stolen cars for 2007. I always expect it to be full of exotic and expensive cars, but Lamborghini owners can rest easy. But Honda owners might want to invest in a car alarm. The national results are:

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“[Cutting-back on U.S. light truck production] shows that Toyota is just as fallible as anybody else,” said Joseph Phillippi, a principal of AutoTrends Consulting. “They’re human after all.” Well gee, who’d a thunk it? I guess former Detroit News cheerleader (now ace New York Times scribe) Bill Vlasic couldn’t resist putting the boot in, as the Brits would say. To be fair, the article is extremely fair in its assessment of the relative impact of the SUV/pickup truck extinction on the Big 2.8 vs. Toyota. And we get another glimpse of what makes Toyota the Automaker in Front. “By using this downturn as an opportunity to develop team members and improve our operations, we hope to emerge even stronger,” claimed Jim Wiseman, ToMoCo NA’s external affairs Veep (sounds sexier than it is). Happy talk? “They have piles of cash and are as flexible as any company in the industry,” said analyst Maryanne “Where’s GM’s Sense of Urgency?” Keller. “This is probably a good thing for Toyota because, in their history, they have shown that adversity is what makes them stronger.” Not to mention the fact that doing less badly than your competition is the same as doing better. 

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The debate over Toyota’s Tundra over-eagerness (and subsequent production juggling) got me thinking of the above quote from management guru Peter Drucker. And that reminded me… Whenever someone ridicules TTAC’s GM Death Watch for cresting a particular episodic number, I ask them to imagine the count if I’d started writing when GM began its decline. For proper mind boggling, cast your mind back to 1946. After spending two years inside GM, management Drucker published “Concept of the Corporation.” Although Drucker’s tome praised GM’s infrastructure, the author suggested that the automaker should decentralize power to autonomous business units. GM Chairman Alfred P. Sloan’s inability to grasp the implications of Drucker’s recommendations marked the beginning of the end for what was once the world’s most profitable business. It took more than half a century for GM’s fundamental cultural weaknesses to drag it into today’s ignominy. And the slouch towards Bethlehem was not inevitable. Or was it? “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” This GM’s CEOs have not done for many, many years. And that’s the truth.

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If not for pencil-necked Oklahoma, Kansas would share a border with Texas. But the two states shared a laugh today, as the Kansas City Star told its readers about a couple of flat-footed Dallas cops who’ve been driving around with a gigantic stash of coke. At least technically, the Class A drug wasn’t theirs. “An officer cleaning the car at a patrol station Wednesday discovered the nearly 50 pounds of cocaine hidden in hydraulically controlled compartments. ‘These compartments have recently been more and more popular with drug operations,’ said Deputy Chief Julian Bernal, commander of the Narcotics Division. Dallas police put the two-door, 2004 black Infiniti into police service May 7 after seizing it at a drug house, where they also found a 1999 Honda.” And the Honda’s important because…? “The Honda was sold at auction. Bernal said police planned to contact the person who bought the Honda to find out whether drugs are hidden in that car, too. They are also trying to find out who owned the cocaine they have been driving around.” Sounds like a plan to me.

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I once worked for a colonel who’d address all obstacles by saying “you can solve any problem if you throw enough money at it.” While our budget officer would have to breathe into a paper bag for a half hour afterwards, the colonel always managed to squeeze whatever was needed to resolve the crisis du jour from the budget– and solve the problem. Automakers native to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) must have bugged his office; they’ve adopted the exact same philosophy.  

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Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union president Basil a.k.a. Buzz Hargrove is stepping down early. Although Buzz was expected to retire when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 65 next year, he’s now leaving “soon after” the union selects his successor this summer. His hand-picked heir-apparent is the equally-outspoken not-to-say borderline-militant Ken Lewenza, current president of Windsor, Ontario Local 444. Buzz is leaving amid the controversy we’ve all come know and love; rumors say the national executive board is pressuring their staff to support Lewenza’s bid. The Victoria Times Colonist quotes columnist Gord Henderson, who describes Buzz’ golden boy as having a “Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde persona” whose “flights of rhetoric are a wonder to behold, akin to watching Mount Vesuvius blow its stack.” So we shouldn’t run out of Lutz Award-worthy quotes from north of the border. With Canada’s dubious distinction as  the highest-priced labor force in the North American and auto industry manufacturers shutting down Canadian plants, Lewenza will have plenty opportunity to display his brand of “old-time table-thumping unionism.” So don’t go away; we’ll be back with more!

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In an excellent E85 editorial we published two years ago, Michael Karesh pointed out that U.S. corn growers would need a landmass nearly the size of Texas to make a significant dent in American gas consumption. And now a lot of the existing corn-growing land is under water. Ethanol opponents reckon the recent flooding will mean that even more of the current corn crop will be devoted to E85 production– driving-up food prices even further, faster. They want the feds to suspend its ethanol “mandate” (i.e. .51 per gallon subsidy, tariffs on imported ethanol, price supports, CAFE credits, etc.). That little piece of business currently stands at a directive for 15 billion gallons of biofuels by 2015, and 21 billion gallons by 2022. The ethanol industry says HELL NO. Instead, they want the feds to release protected land for their profit patriotic efforts. According to The Detroit News, “Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa… and other farm state members of Congress argue that the Agriculture Department should allow more planting in 35 million acres of conservation land as a way to help ease the price increases.” It just gets worse. 

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