Car News Articles

NASCAR has fired two officials who had been suspended during an internal investigation into claims made in a $225 million racial discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit against stock car racing’s sanctioning body. Tim Knox and Bud Moore were fired last week, NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Potson said. He declined to discuss the reasons for their dismissal before Sunday’s race at Dover International Speedway. Knox and Moore are accused in Mauricia Grant’s lawsuit of exposing themselves to her, and making graphic and lewd jokes. She worked as a technical inspector for NASCAR’s second-tier Nationwide Series from January 2005 through her October 2007 firing.

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Installing a child-safety seat can be tricky, but MotherProof.com’s Chief Mama Kristin Varela and car seat safety expert Bill Flinchbaugh, aka the Car Seat Guy, are here to help. In this video, Kristin and Bill walk you through the top three installation mistakes and their fixes.

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Well, finally. The Blue Oval Boyz promised to unveil a new product plan for their Mercury brand on the same day their financials were revealed. Nope. I guess FoMoCo didn’t want to steal the “thunder” of the press release re: the 2010-or-bust-and-maybe-even-then Mexican-built (but Euro-style) Ford Fiesta and Focus. Anyway, enough scene setting (it was a dark and stormy car market). Here’s Mercury’s new theme song, as sung by Derrick Kuzak, Ford’s global product chief, [via The Detroit News]: “Ford Motor Co. will reposition Mercury as an entry-level premium brand that will support Lincoln [which] will no longer get any smaller vehicles, as had been planned, while Mercury will only get smaller cars and crossovers.” In practice, the Sable dies, the Mercury Mariner and Milan live (with hybrid versions) and the brand gets a new, new-Focus-based sedan as and when. MA Lincoln Mercury dealer Chris Lemley responded to the revelations from the bowels of the Faint Praise Department. “Not only is some product news better than no product news, but some Mercury strategy is better than not having one.” How great is that?

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A while back I said that I was going to start putting more personal/non-car stuff on this blog. Well finally I had a little time to go through some photos that I took at the Tsukuba Natsu Matsuri late last month so decided to post them up here.

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Although TTAC remains highly cognizant of the difference between carefully-prepared press vehicles and the cars people buy off dealer lots, we are not against press cars or manufacturer’s junkets per se. (Nor have we ever been.) Our policy is simple: we declare any and all manufacturers’ contributions to our coverage so you can read our copy with your bullshit detector switched-on to maximum sensitivity. Jonny Lieberman’s junket-fed X6 review (from Spartanburg) marks an important turning point– at least from the automakers’ point-of-view. Longtime readers will recall that the German automaker banned us from their press fleet for dissing the Subaru Tribeca B9 (go figure). So now we’re back in their good books; provided they don’t take offense to today’s review or read that link and have a “they shouldn’t have had a V8!” moment. Anyway, the Texas Toyota rep who offered us whips has stopped answering our calls. And TTAC’s still on Subaru, Honda and GM’s shit list (amongst others). How reassuring is that?

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UK privacy campaigners have been sounding the alarm ever since Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras were first introduced into The Land of Hope and Glory. Recent revelations by The Guardian prove the truth of the old adage “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean everyone’s not out to get you.” “A national network of roadside cameras will be able to ‘read’ 50m licence plates a day,” the paper reports. “Enabling officers to reconstruct the journeys of motorists. Police have been encouraged to ‘fully and strategically exploit’ the database, which is already recording the whereabouts of 10 million drivers a day, during investigations ranging from counter-terrorism to low-level crime.” And the hits keep happening. “Senior officers” had promised the data would only be stored for two years. The Home Office has now admitted that it will keep the info on file for five. Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said the database would give police “extraordinary powers of surveillance.”  In fact, “This would never be allowed in any other democratic country.” From his lips to your ears.

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Reid Bigland may sound like the name of a Harold Robbins character, but he’s the CEO of Chrysler Canada. And good for him! But apparently this little factoid is not important enough for The Montreal Gazette. The paper published an article penned by Mr. Bigland entitled “Chrysler: It’s all about great products,” with the sole identifier “Freelance.” That said, if you had any doubts about the author’s paid Pollyanna perspective, a quick read– noting the use of the royal “we”– will disabuse you of those notions. “Nearly half of all Canadians are buying four-cylinder vehicles, and over the past year we have launched three outstanding products to appeal to these consumers. The Dodge Caliber, Jeep Patriot and Jeep Compass all offer our four-cylinder World Engine - Chrysler Canada’s most fuel-efficient powertrain. Equipped with this engine, these vehicles achieve better than 7.1L/100 km (40 mpg). Our trio has proved extremely popular, with sales up 30 per cent calendar-year-to-date through August.” Meanwhile, in August, Chrysler’s Canadian sales slid 24.2 percent to 15,548 units. Car sales fell 39.3 percent to 2,517, while truck sales were down 20.3 percent at 13,031. Anyway, who said the Volt was the only Americna revolution [not] in town? “The all-new 2009 Ram is a game-changer that really raises the bar for the competition.”

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Daniel Yergin is the Pulitzer-winning oil historian/author of The Prize, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) and a steadfast energy optimist. Peakist wags at The Oil Drum have defined a “yergin” as CERA’s predicted long-term oil index price of $38/bbl. Oil prices currently hover around 2.7 yergins, but Yergin and CERA still carry a lot of weight in the energy consulting biz. US News & World Report’s “Beyond the Barrel” blogs that Yergin now sees renewable energy as a serious player in energy markets. Speaking at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference, Yergin told attendees, “We are going through a period of what I call the ‘great bubbling,’ a high degree of innovation all across the energy spectrum… This is boosting the competitiveness of renewables and efficiency, and is also evident in terms of conventional energy.” CERA forecasts that so-called clean power could supply between seven and 16 percent of the world’s electric needs by 2030. That’s a significantly greater percentage than U.S. government forecasts of 4.2 percent (which blithely include ethanol as clean energy). Meanwhile, gas prices continue to escalate. The AP reports they’ve ascended by near-as-dammit a dime in the last two weeks.

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Ford and the sport of cricket aren’t two things you’d normally put together. But there’s a nice picture today of young English cricketer Ravi Bopara with a car that Ford has provided. Ford of Britain is based at Brentwood in the county of Essex - just outside London - and Ford acts as sponsor to the Essex cricket team.

Well, as a sports sponsor, you have to take what success you can and milk it for all it’s worth.

If Ford of Britain is looking for further, possibly more glamorous, sporting sponsorship opportunities, a couple of prominent football teams might be looking for new sponsors - Manchester United (current sponsor AIG - rescued perhaps, but will surely axe such discretionary spending) and West Ham United (airline/holiday firm XL.com went belly-up last week). I guess in the present climate, Ford would be wise to stick to the cricket and providing the occasional car. Don’t let that Focus go to your head Ravi!

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