Car News Articles

VAN BUREN TOWNSHIP — Visteon Corp. will cut pay by 20 percent for about 2,000 salaried employees as the employees transition into a four-day work week beginning Monday.

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Why it’s special: If you didn’t watch the original TV series for the unnecessary explosions, you watched it for B.A. Baracus (aka Mr. T) driving his GMC van.

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A replacement for the big and not terribly popular Touareg, an all-new mini off-roader based on the Polo and a seven-seat version of the Tiguan – Volkswagen has still found time to expand and enhance its range of off-roaders.

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It’s January and in Robby Gordon’s world that means another Dakar Rally is set to begin. The well-traveled NASCAR star and off-road veteran is taking two Hummers to the rally, which is being staged in Argentina and Chile this year after terrorist threats canceled the traditional Lisbon-Dakar Rally last year. Gordon, above, will pair with Andy Grider in the Monster Energy drink sponsored Hummer built out of Gordon’s off-road shop in southern California. Frenchmen Eric Vigouroux and Alexandre Winocq will pilot Gordon’s second Hummer entry in the car class. The 2009 Dakar Rally begins in Buenos Aires on Jan. 3 and ends there on Jan. 18. During the course of the rally, competitors will have to travel through plains, rocks and sand, dessert dunes and high mountain roads. While the route begins on the Atlantic Ocean, competitors in the motorcycle, quad, car and truck classes will have a rest day on Jan. 10 in Valparaiso, Chile, on the Pacific Ocean. On Jan. 12, the drivers will be challenged by Chile’s Atacama Desert, known as the world’s driest. In all, the event will cover almost 6,000 miles (9,574 kilometers).

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With two children in diapers, I have a lot of landfill guilt. I’m too busy and grossed out — or perhaps just not feeling guilty enough — to use cloth diapers. Please don’t look down your nose at me for this. I know they’ve improved since the olden days, etc., etc., I just don’t use them, OK?

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We’ve long held that in order to return to a sound financial footing, GM needs to cut a huge number of dealerships from its bloated portfolio. The General is still working on the “huge number” part, but having already cut 226 dealerships this year, things seem to be headed in the right direction compared with smaller reductions of 260 and 87 stores in the last two years respectively. With 6,550 outlets still in operation, GM’s Mark LaNeve tells Automotive News (sub) that he wants the cuts to reach 400 by the end of the year.”We see (sales) recovering, but not immediately,” says LaNeve. “In that kind of a market, you’re going to have less dealer throughput, a lot of pressure on profitability.” Luckily for LaNeve, dealerships are not waiting for nasty letters from Detroit to motivate them to exit the market.  “It’s no secret the business climate out here is very difficult, and there’s pressure from all sides, particularly the credit side,” says the manager of a Georgia dealer group. “GM has to get involved with this at some level to ensure the right dealers stay. It’s very difficult, and they just can’t save everybody out here.” And why would they?

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And here’s the kicker: the French Interior Ministry described the night as ”rather calm and without major incident.” Dow Jones [via NASDAQ] gives us the exact stats: “The interior ministry had earlier said 445 vehicles were set on fire overnight, but later revised that figure to 1,147. The number of arrests and cars torched topped last year’s tally of 259 people detained and 372 vehicles burned.” So, uh how could that possibly be construed as a calm? It all depends whose car is set alight. “‘There were very few targetings of fire trucks and clashes with security forces, in particular in the suburbs,’ noted the interior ministry in a statement. When clashes occurred, they were ‘brief and sporadic,’ it added. There was no damage to buildings.” Oh, that’s alright then. And how did the Parisians authorities accomplish this little feat? “France mobilized 35,000 police and 50,000 firefighters to maintain order during the New Year fete.”

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On April 1st, 2008 significant modifications to road safety regulations in the Canadian provinces of Québec and Nova Scotia went into effect. CTV.ca reports that handheld cellular phones are now verboten while at the wheel, though hands free devices are still tolerated. Nova Scotia will begin ticketing the offense immediately, while Québec has allowed for a three-month grace periods in which offenders will only receive stern warnings and moralizing sermons. The first offense in Nova Scotia will cost $165, while costing $80-$110 and three demerit points in Québec. Still not satisfied, road safety advocate Jean-Marie de Koeninck argues that “[h]ands-free is just as dangerous. (But) by forbidding the hand-held it does send a signal that there is a problem with the cellphone, there’s a problem with concentration”. Meanwhile, the same traffic safety bill in Québec also doubled all speeding fines , with new suspension of license provisions for those caught traveling at 40 km/h over the limit in under-60 zones, 50 km/h in 60-90 over zones, and 60 km/h over in 100+ zones. All in the name of safety, presumably.

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I expect the practice of sending out Christmas cards and diaries to fellow professionals will be down this year, an easy low-hanging saving to be made from marketing or PR budgets. And I guess the e-cards that you receive via email will be more numerous than ever.

There’s one thing I think every year and the thought has just hit me again after opening a particularly bland festive card (from people I don’t actually know at a major international company) in the email: do it properly or don’t bother.

If you do it, please put a modicum of thought into it so that it makes an instant impact with some style or humour. Maybe inject some simple personality into it (get the digital camera out and let’s see the team eating mince pies, santa hats on - how difficult is it?). Or use the opportunity to get some sort of halfway useful message across.

Or just forget it (and there is really nothing wrong with not bothering).

But the half-arsed festive image put together in 10 seconds with a name or names at the bottom and distributed to half the world’s population doesn’t do the sender a lot of favours. I hope I don’t sound like Mr Grumpy, but the tacky going-through-the-motions stuff gets on my wick at this time of the year. Put some effort in, or just leave it. Please.

By the way, Happy Christmas (that’s me done).

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