Houston Cars

When an automaker introduces a brand new vehicle, they always hype it as much as possible, and say how it will increase sales. For example, Brand X sells 200,000 vehicles per year. They introduce the brand new Ultra Mega Crossover, with a sales goal of 40,000 units per year. With this in [...]

Agent009 at Autospies wrote an article yesterday called “What if Toyota Bought Chrysler?”  You can read it here. 
The gist is pretty simple, and Agent009 points out Chrysler’s excess production capacity as a benefit for Toyota, and the fact that Chrysler’s brands are more recognized as “American” brands, which could help Toyota cultivate their American [...]

The Freestlye is getting an update for 2008, and supposedly better than ever.  My question is why?  Why on earth does the Free style exist?  It’s not that it’s a bad vehicle.  Boring, yes.  Bad, no.  It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be any room in the Ford lineup for such a vehicle.  The Edge has [...]

The Truth About Cars came up with a list of the worst car names - and it’s a must-read.  My favorite is from Volkswagen
Volkswagen Touareg
Impossible to pronounce or spell correctly without lessons, this name takes the cake for being the most gratuitously recondite car name of the past 30 years - not to mention [...]

Wisebread posted their 10 steps to buying a car from a dealership.  There is some good advice in here, but there is also some terrible advice.  Here’s his tips, and my take on each.

Research, research, research. - This one’s a bit of a no-brainer, but spot on nonetheless.  Do your homework before you go shopping.  Find [...]

When does platform sharing cross the line and become badge engineering? We can all agree that platform sharing is a good thing - it allows manufacturer’s to keep costs down while offering a variety of vehicles. That means more choices at a better price.
We can also all agree that badge engineering is a [...]

Currently, the US government offers a tax credit on many hybrid models. As a general rule, the more fuel efficient the model is, the bigger the tax break. So you see tax credits as low as $650 for vehicles like the full-size GM pickup mild hybrids, all the way up to $2100 for [...]

2006 has been an interesting year for the automotive industry. I have a feeling that we’ll see some truly remarkable things in 2007, and I want it on record that I called it. So here’s my list of predictions for 2007.
Toyota will overtake Ford, then GM to become the largest automaker in the [...]

Wendelin Wiedeking, that’s King Porsche in case you didn’t know, whose company owns a little more than 27% of Volkswagen, is a bit delusional. He recently made a statement saying that he sees Volkswagen taking on Toyota - yes, he actually said that statement. Since Mr. Wiedeking didn’t elaborate much, let’s dig a [...]

For quite some time, the focus of Detroit’s troubled present and future has been on Ford and GM - and rightfully so. They’re the 2 largest domestic automakers, and besides - Chrysler was taken over by merged with Daimler-Benz, so they have a German sugar daddy to take care of them. All along, [...]

A 14 year boy was shot and killed by an as-yet unidentified SUV driver.  The boy was standing on the side of the road with a few friends, throwing eggs at passing cars.  After an SUV was hit, the driver stopped and fired at the boy, fatally wounding him.  He then fled the scene in [...]

More and more often, we keep seeing midsize and event ‘compact’ SUV’s cram in a third row. When Ford added a third row to the Explorer, I asked why? They had the Expedition for large families. But ok, no big deal. Then Nissan added a standard third row to the Pathfinder. [...]

A post over at Cars! Cars! Cars! caught my attention - it’s about the new 2007 Toyota Tundra. Toyota is hoping to move 200k of these hulking beasts this year - an optimistic number, considering they managed to move just 126k Tundras in 05, and 100k so far this year.
The author over there doesn’t [...]

All we’ve been hearing for years is Toyota this, Toyota that. Toyota will beat out GM as the world’s #1 automaker, then they’ll probably take over the world. Quite frankly, I’m sick of hearing about Toyota. Toyota has had numerous quality problems as of late, and if they continue, they could permanently [...]