Will they ever get the hint? Over the last 20 years the Detroit based automakers have repeatedly tried to build “sport trucks”. Anyone who really cares about cars and likes something with decent performance that is fun to drive, would never seriously consider a truck. Don’t get me wrong trucks have there place. There have been many times over the years when I have made good use of trucks for hauling loads of materials for a project, or top soil or mulch for the garden or some other large dirty object. But these occasions are not frequent enough to justify actually own a truck. The same goes for the majority of people. This of course has not stopped most of those people from buying trucks and SUVs. However, even if they do own a truck people generally at least want the option of being able to tow or haul stuff. They also like to sit up high so they at least have some possibility to see around all the other trucks. So basically people want trucks for two reasons, hauling stuff and a commanding presence on the road. They don’t buy them for their good looks or performance or handling. This is good because trucks generally posses none of these qualities in any appreciable amount.

Nonetheless Ford, GM and Chrysler have persisted in creating these sport trucks. They take a pickup truck or less frequently an SUV (which of course of derived from the pickups, but I digress as usual) platform, and then put the biggest most powerful engine that fits into it. Of course in order to try and “complete” the illusion of sport they have to make other changes. Since an unloaded pickup truck tends to have very little of its weight distributed over the rear axle (which is also the drive axle in these vehicles) Getting all the excess power to road requires really wide sticky high performance tires. To be able to get some semblance of handling (and prevent persistent rollovers) in a vehicle with as high a center of gravity as a truck and sticky tires, they have to shorten and stiffen the springs. This has the benefit of making the truck look a little sportier but has the cost of virtually eliminating the load hauling and towing capabilities of these trucks. It also means that they have a really stiff ride that is very uncomfortable. So let me summarize. You now have a large, heavy, unattractive vehicle that has had all of its utility stripped out of it. It gets lousy fuel economy, a rough ride and a high price. It tends to accelerate really fast in a straight line and resist changing direction or stopping (Newton’s first law of motion having not yet been repealed by the republicans in congress).

Needless to say the vast majority of car buyers have had no problem at all resisting the urge to buy one of these things. Every one of these models from the 1991 GMC Syclone through two generations of Ford F150 Lightnings, various other GM trucks, to the current Dodge Ram SRT-10 has had similar characteristics, and similar levels of sales success (or lack of it). The Ram SRT-10 is probably the fasted of all (featuring the 500hp engine from the Viper). However, for all the cost of development and certification they have only managed to sell about 2000 copies a year. So now Chrysler is going to discontinue the Ram SRT-10. With all the problems the Detroit based car makers have they need to forget about these trucks now and focus on building cars people actually want that can earn a profit. If they want to build something sporty, then they should build real sports cars like the Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky, the Mustang and other smaller sports machines. Rumor has it that Ford is working on another edition of the Lightning. I say that Ford, GM and Chrysler need to take a hint, forget sport trucks. They don’t work, and no one wants them.

Back the late 1970’s the US Army began looking for a replacement for Jeep utility vehicles that they had been using since world war 2. Out of this was born the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (aka HMMWV or Humvee). In the late 80’s Humvee builder AM General developed a civilian version dubbed the Hummer for those with more money than brains. As it turned out, not that many people actually needed or wanted a really large, heavy, fuel hungry vehicle with only 4 seats, and a four foot wide tunnel between the seats. In the 90’s General Motors decided they wanted an off-road brand to compete with Jeep (owned by Chrysler). AM General was apparently more than happy to sell them the rights to market the Hummer brand. The original Hummer became known as the H1 and GM proceeded to develop somewhat smaller, cheaper Hummer. They took a Chevy Tahoe chassis and put a on new body with H1 styling cues (if you can call it styling). Thus was born the H2. They sold like hot-cakes. For about 6 months anyway until all the poseurs had one. at which point the sales of H2s went into a steady decline that continues to this day.

So GM went back to the parts bin and took the Chevy Colorado compact pickup truck platform and added a Hummer-like body. The result is the Hummer H3, perfect for the wannabe poseur (you know the guys who don’t quite come up to the level of poseur). Rumor has it that an even smaller H4 is currently in development. Back to the H3, this vehicle is a little bigger on the outside and smaller on the inside than a Ford Escape or Jeep Liberty. If you know these vehicles, you will understand that the H3 is not a particularly large vehicle.

I drive past a place that rents limos on my way to work every day. Typically stretch limousines are built up from larger vehicles as the base such as big Lincolns, Cadillacs or Suburbans. Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks ago when I saw the latest addition to their fleet. A stretched Hummer H3! Here are a couple of pics I found on-line. The H3 is not particularly wide so it doesn’t really seem like it would be very suitable as a limo. Check out the interior shot to see how narrow the seat cushions are. Sign me up for one of these!

During the Detroit Auto Show that just concluded, a Chinese made car was displayed for the first time in North America. Geely “showed off” their 7151 CK. Now there is a name that just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? Autoblog has an item about it and also some more pictures. Now I haven’t personally seen the Geely, but from the photos I’ve seen, it looks to be about on a par with the products from another Chinese manufacturer that I have seen. When my friends and I saw the vehicles in question we were not terribly impressed, which is putting it charitably. After taking a look around these vehicles I came up with a potential business model for selling Chinese cars in the US. They could just use the modern consumer electronics model.

First a little background information. One of the factors leading to the increase in steel prices in the last few years has been the Chinese buying up all the scrap metal they can get to melt down to make steel. Many of the huge cargo ships bringing cheap stuff to America go back to China carrying scrap metal.

As you may know upwards of 80% of the products sold by Wal-Mart know are sourced from China. Wal-mart specializes in selling cheap crap made in China to people who think they are getting a good deal. Who would provide a better sales outlet for Chinese cars than the home of the $29 dvd player? Now for these kinds of cheap products you generally don’t get much if anything in the way of service. When you buy a cheap piece of consumer electronics and it fails during the warranty period, you take it back to the store where you bought it. Now when you take something back to wal-mart (or target or best-buy or anywhere else) they don’t have a service department like a car dealer where they fix stuff. If the product is defective and still under warranty they take back the bad one and give you another one. You go home with a new device and the bad one gets shipped off to a refurbishment facility. They check it and if it can be easily fixed they do it, and then repackage and sell it as a refurbished unit. If they can’t fix it, they strip out any useful parts and ship it back to the factory for re-cycling and re-use.

So if wal-mart sells Chinese cars, they don’t have build up a service facility like a traditional car dealer. If you have a problem with the car, you take it back, they give you another one and load the broken one on a trailer out back. When the trailer is full it is hauled off to a refurb center. If they can fix it easily, they do, if not they strip it down crush it and ship back to China to make into another car. Wal-mart would make a hefty profit, people would get cheap, marginally reliable cars and the last high paying manufacturing jobs in this country would be gone forever. Of course the flaw in this plan is that once the good paying manufacturing jobs are gone no one hear will be able to afford even these cheap cars.

Besides the issue of contributing to the continued decline of the US manufacturing base, there is also the issue of the “quality” of Chinese made cars. My exposure to Chinese cars has shown them so far to be very poorly made and not very durable. From what I have seen, many of these cars would have a very hard time making it through one winter on Michigan roads. The potholes on our roads would eat these cars alive. However, I wouldn’t expect that situation to last for long. There was a time when Korean made cars were similarly shoddy and Hyundai now regularly tops the quality surveys. So we had better be wary about what we buy and from whom. We need a government that is serious about ensuring that we have fair trade, not just free trade. As a population we also need to pay attention to the real price that we pay for all the cheap stuff that we always seem to want to accumulate. Pay now or pay a lot more later. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Watching TV ads in the US is generally tedious at best if not downright annoying. Half of the time you can’t even figure out what the hell they are trying to sell. On the other hand ads from other parts of the world are often brilliant. A couple of years ago Honda UK did an amazing ad for the European version of the Accord. I’ve got it archived somewhere and I will put it up when I find it. In the meantime check out this ad for the new Civic.

I’m not going to the Detroit auto show this year, because it’s just to bloody expensive. But I have seen what is on display there. Chrysler which has over the last 15 years consistently come up with some of the most amazing concepts ever shown here has come up with a real stinker this year. The new Chrysler Imperial
is one of the biggest automotive turds I have seen in a long time. The proportions of this thing suck. The design is derivative, looking too much like the current Rolls-Royce Phantom, but much shorter and taller. What where they thinking?

The Dodge Challenger concept looks ok when seen in isolation, but when you put the thing next to a Mustang you realize that it is huge. It is over a foot longer than the Mustang. and is totally wrong for the type of car it is supposed to be. This type of sporty car is supposed to be compact and fun to drive.

Now having mentioned the mustang I must admit that I have a 2005 Mustang. I have been a Mustang fan ever since I was a kid and family friend of ours had a 1969 Mach 1. I have never been a big fan of Camaros but GM really nailed it with their new Camaro concept.
The proportions are just right. There is just enough of the first generation Camaro that you can see the natural evolution from 1969 to now, but it stool looks modern and muscular. It is everything a modern pony car should be. That being said, I love my Mustang. It is a blast to drive and I love the way it looks.

Yesterday, the media previews began for the 2006 North American International Auto Show (aka the Detroit Auto Show). All the car makers are doing a series of splashy intros for their new production models and concepts. Traditionally Chrysler has always had some biggest shows for the media, such as in 1993 when Bob Lutz drove the then new Jeep Grand Cherokee through the glass front doors of Cobo Hall, and a couple years ago when Wolfgang Bernhardt roared onto the stage on a motorcycle powered by an 8L Dodge Viper V-10. This show used to be just a local dealer show until the carmakers got involved and renamed it the North American International Auto Show in an attempt to get it onto the world stage along with the likes of the Geneva, Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo shows. The only problem is that Cobo Hall was and is a dump. For a show of this size it is small, dark and hard to move around in. But it is all we have for now, and every January the world’s car media come to Detroit for the big show. Unfortunately, this year for the first time in several years I won’t be going to the industry preview days, due to personal budget constraints. $75 is just too much to spend. My company used to buy a bunch of passes every year, but the last couple of years they have stopped. I like going to the preview to avoid the crowds. You can actually get into most of the cars and get a close look at what is new. During the public days it is just too crowded and no fun. So this year I will just do the virtual visit through sites like autoblog and the car connection

Here are links to 10 great recent autoblog posts. I read autoblog everyday because I am in the auto industry and this site has by far the most complete and up to date car news. These guys have more news any other automotive site I have found and the news keeps coming seemingly real time as it happens.

1. From the 2005 Frankfurt auto show some pics of the new car bodies from former Aston Martin chief designer Henrik Fisker . These designs are classy and have some elements of previous Fisker designs.

2. An interesting article on aerodynamics in Formula 1. This gives you an idea of where some of the insane sums of money spent on F1 go.

3. Volvo is a company long renowned for the safety of their cars. Are they covering up some serious safety problems right now?

4. As more and more technology is being added to our vehicles the ability to monitor what you do and where you go and how fast you get there is increasing. Is this what you really want?

5. Pretty much all of our clothes, toys and consumer electronics are made in china now. Are you ready for cars? The auto industry is one of the few remaining sources of high paying manufacturing jobs left in North America, but not for long.

6. From Opel comes the next generation of the Saturn Vue, easily one of the more uninspired designs on the road today.

7. Hyundai wants to cut their product development time down to 18 months. I have seen many of these initiatives over the years. What they generally amount to is rederining the time when you start counting. Designing a car is a very time consuming process because of the need to coordinate all the different suppliers, and systems and the car makers insistence on tweaking all kinds of things just the way they want instead of following standards, especially for communications.

8. An excellent post on a Pew poll on american consumers attitudes and I agree completely that most americans are hypocrites!

9. A post about Wilbur Ross’s plan to buy Delphi and Collins and Aikmen. I am highly dubious of his chances for success on this one.

10. As a longtime lotus fan I am glad to see that lotus is finally have some comercial success with the Elise. The elise is a wonderful little sports car and I just wish I could afford one. I did have a chance to spend a significant ammount of the time with the Esprit and early nineties Elan when I worked on the ABS for those vehicles on a previous job. I had one particularly memorable high speed drive in an Esprit from Milford to Sault Ste Marie that I will always cherish.