No Brainer Alert: Acura decides sports wagons may catch on

 When Cadillac beats you to the punch, you know your product developers are asleep at the wheel.

That’s the only reason I can think of why the braintrust at Honda’s North American premium brand, Acura, has finally woken up and smelled the sports wagon roses and decided to sell here the Euro-only Accord Touring (above and below right) next Fall.

Yikes!! What's next for Acura? Something wild and crazy, like diesels?

Anyhoo, as the North American TSX is a rebadged Euro Accord, so will the wagon.

After years of BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Saab and now Cadillac, selling sports wagons, I think this is a No Brainer.

But are sports wagons on the up- or downswing?

Do you think peeps are finally fed up with cute-utes, like Acura’s RDX?

[Source” Acura]

Bailout Blues: Fiat’s Five Year Plan for Chrysler sees less Chryslers

One week before Don Marchionne’s planned six-hour dog and pony show on what we can expect from the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep/Ram/Fiat/Alfa Romeo North American product portfolio over the next five years, the Wall Street Journal has leaked some alleged details.

First off, it looks like Alfa Romeo is going to replace Chrysler.

To no one's surprise, the PT Cruiser and Sebring sedan are toast. Leaving the Town & Country minivan, redesigned 2011 300 sedan, and a Chrysler-badged Fiat 500 super mini.

Dodge has already lost its trucks (the Ram brand was spun recently spun off.) It will also lose the Caliber, Nitro, and Grand Caravan. The redesigned 2011 Charger, Challenger and Journey soldier on.

Jeep seems to be going back to its roots. The Commander, Compass and Patriot will be deep-sixed. Only the Wrangler and the new 2011 Grand Cherokee survive.

Potentially leaving the best for last, it looks like Alfa Romeo will be Fiat’s big shot in North America.

Incoming are the Fiat 500-based Mito supermini, Milano compact, a new midsize sedan and the over-$200,000 8C Competizione. Seriously.

So, what do you think of The Don’s plans?

Can Alfa make a successful return to North America as a full-fledged brand?

Would you buy a Chrysler Cinquecento?

[Source: Wall Street Journal]

Bailout Blues: Can Saab be salvaged by going upmarket?

Compared to its luxury-sport rivals like BMW, Mercedes-Benz or Audi, Saabs have always felt a bit overpriced, right?

But according to a Swedish newspaper, that hasn’t been the problem at all. In fact, its new owners want to double the average selling price of a Saab by 2016.

As part of the super car maker Koenigsegg Group’s business plans to grab a 600 million Euro loan to takeover Saab from Government Motors, the goal is to establish Saab at the upper end of the market. Way up.

The plan calls for a break even financial situation by 2011 with global sales of 115,000. Then, by 2016, sales of only 65,000, but at twice the average price of what you pay for a Saab today.

How, pray tell?

Part of the plan is to have an all-electric 9-3 by 2012, as well as hybrid versions of the 9-3 and 9-5.

All for the low, low investment of 600 million Euros, I guess.

So, over to you….

Do you think the Saab brand can go up market?

Would you buy a 9-5 Koenigsegg Edition for close to twice the current car’s price, say, about $100,000?

[Source: Dagens Industri via TTAC]

Honda's reincarnated CR-X two-seater confirmed for Canada

As expected, Honda debuted the second concept of its CR-Z two-seat hybrid coupe, left, yesterday at the Tokyo auto show.

Better yet, Honda Canada confirmed the CR-Z will be coming to Canada next year.

The production model will make its global debut at the 2010 Detroit show in January.

No horsepower figures yet. But the CR-Z will use a larger (1.5 versus 1.3-litre) version of the Insight's gas-electric powerplant.  And—hallellujah!—the coupe will ditch the Insight's CVT and be the first hybrid ever to use a stick, a six-speeder, to be exact.

Regardless, I'm hoping Honda gets smart and offers a gas-only version, eventually, as well.

Just a warning Honda: As a former 1990 CR-X Si owner, the new CR-Z has some very high standards to live up to. Know what I mean...

[Source: Honda Canada]

Lexus's LF-A supercar finally breaks cover

Toyota is very serious about it's new Lexus LF-A exotic V10 super duper car. It officially debuted at this year's Tokyo auto show today. And tomorrow morning, courtesy of Lexus Canada, I'll be just southwest of Miami to briefly drive production prototypes around the Homestead-Miami race course.

You'll get my driving impressions afterwards. But for now, here's some initial specs (560 hp, 354 lb-ft,  4.8-litre, V10; six-speed sequential gearbox; 0-100 km/h = 3.7 seconds; top speed = 325 km/h; 500 copies) still shots of the car, as well as videos of various LF-As lapping various tracks around the world.

[Source: YouTube, NAGTROC, FT-86.com]

Toyota's FT-86 and the Nürburging make nice

We already got a peek at what Toyota's return to the affordable performance coupe market looks like in the virtual world. But the PR machine is getting cranked up ahead of the FT-86's official debut at this month's Tokyo show with de rigueur Nürburgring nudge-nudge, wink-wink "spy videos." If the production model can live up to this cinematic snippet, Hyundai better start working on some upgrades for its Genesis Coupe. [Source: FT86 Club]

Bailout Blues: Magna’s Opel Interruptus

I optimistically thought that by the time I got back from being out of the country for a week, the whole Magna/Opel/Government Motors soap opera would be signed, sealed and delivered

But nooo…

Just to recap: Under a deal that had been expected to be signed last week GM plans to sell a 55 per cent stake in its struggling European Opel operations to Canadian-owned Magna and Russian state-owned lender Sberbank.

GM would retain a 35 per cent stake in Opel under the deal, and autoworkers would hold the remaining 10 per cent.

But now, it looks like European Union politicos are waking up and smelling the stinky roses of this deal.

The European Commission announced late Friday that it had doubts about Germany's offer to provide 4.5 billion euros ($6.95 billion Cdn.) in aid for Opel as part of the deal with Magna.

It’s concerned that “significant indications" that Germany had made the aid to Opel contingent on Magna being chosen as the winning bidder, a strategy that is contrary to EU competition rules.

Since this sad soap opera has been going on since last spring—which also saw Italy’s Fiat and China's Beijing Automotive Industry Corp. come and go as potential Opel suitors— why this issue is only being addressed now is beyond me.

Is it because, in the end, GM has no intention of letting go of Opel, and all of the associated technologies and engineering resources?

The Wall Street Journal thinks so

It cited “people familiar with the matter” that GM is “ready to keep control” of Opel if the EU blocks the sale to Magna, a strategy that, actually, makes a lot of sense for GM.

The big question is: Can GM find the money to go it alone?

Its former sugar daddy, Belgian investor RHJ International has moved on.

Do I smell even more government money than the $4.5B Euros heading GM’s way?

[Sources: Automotive News, Wall Street Journal]

Toyota's Corolla SR5 AE86 reincarnation gets virtual debut

Of course, it’s not all bad news this week at The World’s Largest Automaker.

Here’s a virtual Gran Turismo 5 clip of the forthcoming Toyota FT-86 sports coupe (with a not-so-surprising guest car cameo at the end) that will make its real-life debut at this month’s Tokyo auto show.

[Source: CarNifty TV]

Troubles at Toyota

You know the media. It gets its teeth into the même of the moment and won’t let go for all the snow in Iqaluit. So what are we to make of the recent tsunami of bad news emanating from our newly crowned World’s Largest Automaker, Toyota?

Not in any particular order, here’s a list of the (known) rash of fires the Japanese automaker’s spin meisters are trying to contain:

• Toyota is recalling 3.8 million North American Toyota and Lexus models to secure floor mats. The recall is prompted by an accident in August during which four people were killed in a Lexus. A floor mat catching on the accelerator may have caused the crash;

• The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is conducting a preliminary investigation into frame corrosion on 2000 and 2001 model year Toyota Tundra pickups. An estimated 218,000 units are involved;

• A U.S. trade panel is going to investigate allegations that Toyota infringed patented technology owned by Florida-based Paice LLC to make hybrid cars. The International Trade Commission said that Paice had asked it to Toyota to stop making its signature hybrids (like the Prius and just-launched Lexus HS 250h) and to bar imports using the gasoline/electric technology;

• In a case being heard in a Los Angeles courtroom this week, Toyota is accused of lying and committing fraud by not promptly recalling pickups and SUVs that may have been equipped with defective steering rods. Actions that the plaintiffs say caused four deaths and numerous injuries in separate incidents;

• In July, Toyota was slammed with a lawsuit by a former Toyota attorney who claims the company unlawfully withheld and concealed evidence in suits involving rollover accidents.

Oy-vey…

So, let me ask you: Are Toyota’s recent stumblings because of its focus on volume?

Is it burdened with the same “We’re Number One” hubris that pinned down Government Motors for decades?

Or is this just the media picking on Number One?

[Source: Automotive News]

The Koreans are coming!! The Koreans are coming!! Pssst—they’re already here…

Hey, wasn’t it only a couple of Detroit shows back that The Next Big Thing was going to be cheap-as-dirt Chinese cars?

At the 2008 Motor City shindig, I distinctly remember talking to a guy from the China America Co-operative Automobile Inc. He boasted that his company was ready to start importing Chinese cars into the U.S. that year and into Canada by the end of this year. The plan was to sell 13,500 vehicles in North America in 2009, at an average price of U.S. $13,500.

Of course, we all know how that’s going...

Anyway, whether or not the Chinese automakers ever get their act together (i.e. make cars that don’t fold up like rusty cans of tuna fish) and start selling cars on our shores, we’ll have to wait and see.

But for now, the Chinese threat seems to have been replaced by a fear in the established North American automakers’ court by another foreign threat—the Koreans.

Although buyers have cottoned on to the idea that Hyundais and Kias are now very competitive, some automakers are only now getting around to recognizing where their lunch is being eaten.

Last week, Honda’s CEO Ito Takanobu said that he sees Hyundai as a huge threat to the future of Japanese automakers.

“Hyundai is awesome,” Takanobu said. “They are undoubtedly a threat because their products are cheap, and the quality is improving.”

Even Nissan’s head pen, Shiro Nakamura, is complementing Hyundai. “Hyundai is the biggest threat for the Japanese automakers,” he said. “They have the technology, but they seem to have cheaper labor.”

Funnily enough we haven’t heard boo from the world’s largest automaker, Toyota, about what it thinks of its upstart Korean rivals.

Maybe that’s because it’s busy dealing with its 3.8 million vehicles being recalled to fix an "acceleration problem"; four wrongful-death U.S. lawsuits filed alleging faulty steering rods in trucks; a former Toyota attorney charges the company with covering up rollover accidents; and a California woman suing Toyota’s Saatchi & Saatchi ad agency, for a PR campaign which, she alleges, she was terrorized by a fictional English football hooligan who insisted — via email — that he was going to show up at her house with his pitbull and crash on her sofa while he avoided the police.

So, over to you: Do you think Hyundai (and its sister brand Kia) can some day overtake the Japanese Big Three?

Or have they already?

[Source: AutoCar]