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Like the 2012 M5 sedan, the cars have had their V-10s swapped out for a twin-turbocharged V-8.

A 1948 Dodge D24 club coupe was recently sold to a man who had traced the car's travels since he was 8 years old.

Nexteer Automotive to open customer service center in Troy Midland Daily News Saignaw-based Nexteer Automotive plans to hire 50 engineers to support a new 30000-square-foot customer service center in Troy that will be open by April. "Following two record-breaking years for new customer contracts, this latest customer service ... Nexteer Automotive: New Customer Service Center in TroyMyFox Detroit Nexteer plans customer centre in Troy, Michiganjust-auto.com (subscription) all 4 news articles »

ABC News

GREEN: Tesla Unveils Electric SUV SPEEDtv.com Bob Golfen, Automotive Editor for SPEED.com, is a veteran auto writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, with a passion for collector cars, car culture and the automotive lifestyle. SPEED.com fans can email Bob Golfen at. Tesla announces Model X SUV for 2014, starts taking depositsLos Angeles Times Tesla Model X Unveiling And Ordering Details: VideoMotor Authority Tesla Unveils Model X at Its Southern California Design StudiosNew York Times (blog) Daily Gossip -Investor's Business Daily -MotorTrend Magazine (blog) all 287 news articles »

al.com

Automotive production company brings more jobs to Tuscaloosa Alabama's13.com Bentley was on hand as ZF, an automotive production company, announced they would be bringing more jobs to Tuscaloosa. The company has added the axle system of the Merc (more) Governor Robert Bentley was on hand as ZF, an automotive production company ... ZF Industries announces $14.6M expansion for Mercedes axle production in ...al.com (blog) ZF announces $14.6M expansion for Tuscaloosa plantTuscaloosa News (subscription) Tuscaloosa plant to expand production for the Mercedes C-ClassWLTZ 38 NBC all 7 news articles »

Hella plans $100 million automotive lighting plant in Mexico Plastics News 10, 12 pm ET) -- Hella KGaA Hueck & Co. is investing $100 million in a new 215000 square foot plant in central Mexico to produce automotive headlamps and rear lighting. Between 25-35 percent of the investment will be “relative to plastic injection ... Hella plans automotive lighting parts plant in MexicoAutomotive Business Review all 3 news articles »

Chicago Tribune

2012 Chicago Auto Show: Winners and Losers Chicago Tribune Who doesn't want to hear more opinions from automotive journalists? 2013 Acura ILX David Thomas: Winner I was expecting to be impressed with a spacious interior in a compact car, like I was with the new Honda Civic. I wasn't expecting the ILX to be the ... Continental AG : Continental Automotive Showcasing Advanced Technologies at ...4-traders (press release) King of miles per gallonnwitimes.com Chicago Auto ShowThe Detroit News Kilometer Magazine all 134 news articles »

Sheyla Hershey, whose 38KKK breasts hold the Guinness world record for implants, crashed her Mustang while allegedly driving drunk to her Houston home on Super Bowl Sunday. She was not wearing a seatbelt, and claims those giant breasts saved her life. More »

If you own a Bugatti Veyron you must drive it over 225 mph. At least once. Just don't do it on public roads. No word on whether this fetching Veyron shot by Ronnie Renaldi has eclipsed that mark, but it looks like it's doing at least 150 mph standing still. More »

It's Friday. Glorious, blissful, yes-I-can-relax-a-bit Friday. Thank you, passage of time. Thank you, Emperor Constantine who invented weekends past the Sabbath day. Time to just let it all drop for a while. More »

Have you ever wondered what happens to all those old cars which turn into neither steel scrap nor gleaming restorations? Cars which simply fall out of the life cycle of cars and fade away. Alícia Rius has. She’s a photographer from Spain who describes her work as a “search for hidden treasures”. Her latest project, From the backseat of my car, shows the view out of cars which have passed the point of no return between car life and car death, not quite cars anymore but not quite landscape yet, a place where wildflowers and dashboard buttons mingle. More »

James Garner, like a several other notable actors, has a longstanding love of racing. After starring in Grand Prix in 1966, he started a long semi-career in racing, owning a racing team, preparing Ramblers for the Baja 500 race as part of a deal with AMC, and driving Indy 500 pace cars three times. The guy loved racing. More »

Group 1 Automotive Beats Up on Analysts Yet Again DailyFinance By Seth Jayson, The Motley Fool Posted 10:28AM 02/10/12 Investing Group 1 Automotive (NYS: GPI) reported earnings on Feb. 9. Here are the numbers you need to know. For the quarter ended Dec. 31 (Q4), Group 1 Automotive beat expectations on revenues and ... and more »

Uptrend Call Working As O'Reilly Automotive Stock Rises 20.2% (ORLY) Investor's Business Daily Feb 10, 2012 (SmarTrend(R) Spotlight via COMTEX) -- SmarTrend identified an Uptrend for O'Reilly Automotive (ORLY) on October 17th, 2011 at $70.00. In approximately 4 months, O'Reilly Automotive has returned 20.22% as of today's recent price of $84.15. O'Reilly Automotive Shares Given a "Neutral" Rating by Zacks Investment ...Web Inquirer UPDATE: Deutsche Bank Downgrades O'Reilly Automotive to HoldBenzinga Nomura Securities Maintains a 'Neutral' on O'Reilly Automotive (ORLY); Q4 ReviewStreetInsider.com (subscription) all 11 news articles »

In a recent list of the world's Ten Greatest Sporting Events, National Geographic ranked the 24 Hours Of Le Mans at number one. That's above the Super Bowl, the Olympics and the World Cup. More »

If you hadn't noticed, some 2012 Formula One cars have strange, "stepped noses." It's as if some engineer accidentally put Owen Wilson into a wind tunnel, looked at the data and shouted, "Eureka!" Indeed, 2012 will be a strange-looking season for F1's return to the US. More »

We received an email earlier from CNN's Peter Valdes-Dapena letting us know the Tesla Model X crossover may actually have a higher top price than the $80,000 we initially reported. More »

You can prepare for a lot of things, but how does a driver prepare for his steering wheel popping off in the middle of a race? But, that's exactly what happened at Saturday's Porsche GT3 Cup sprint race at Sebring. More »

Autochannel (press release)

Green Automotive Signs Merger Agreement With Matter of Time I Inc. MarketWatch (press release) NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Feb 10, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Green Automotive Company /quotes/zigman/585330 GACR -2.08% announced today that it has entered into a Merger Agreement and Plan of Reorganization with its wholly owned subsidiary, Matter of Time I ... Green Automotive Signs Merger Agreement With Matter of Time IAutochannel (press release) all 7 news articles »

The perils of New York City parking are legendary. Often times the space between a legal and illegal parking spot is often times no more than one sheet of paper. Here's Kathryn A Higgins' story from Thought Catalog that could probably be just as easily titled "How NOT To Park Your Car In Manhattan." — Ed. More »

We've seen the BMW's extraterrestrial i8 winter testing before, but that was nothing but a concept car frolicking in the snow. This time it looks like the real deal, gullwing doors and all. More »

On the cold Norwegian circuit of Vålerbanen, a featherweight Caterham R500 hunts a big boy Ferrari. It's epic. More »

Kevin Kewley and his friends like adventure. So, to follow up their off-road parasailing experience why not compete in the grueling Baja 1000 race? Unfortunately, that race is a little pricey, so instead they tried to cross the same distance for $1,000. Here's their story. —Ed. More »

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has been in service for no more than a few months and already some Boeing test pilot has tagged the American Northwest like an Etch-a-Sketch with a 787 logo. Damn hooligans. More »

In case you've been busy or in are complete denial, we'd like to remind you that Valentine's Day is this coming Tuesday. This means you still have some time to properly prepare. What car would you drive to meet up with that very special someone? More »

Jumping to conclusions about cars and owners is a longstanding tradition both in gearhead circles and in society at large. Yesterday's quick assumption is today's mistaken misbelief or outright falsehood. Here are Jalopnik readers' picks for the ten automotive stereotypes that need to go away now. More »

A Jalopnik reader found this crashed Gallardo sitting in a parking lot for a couple of days. It turns out the car was crashed on video in Super Speeders 6, but we still don't know the back story behind what looks like a monster crash. More »

We already know some of the leaked specs of the upcoming Audi RS4 Avant, but now we know what its bumper looks like. Basically, now we possibly know what the next RS4 looks like. More »

No fewer than three new or updated Morgan models are set to be unveiled at the Geneva motor show.

I've just been adding to our Geneva show preview list and it's quite something to see this tiny firm having such an ambitious new vehicle push. The family-run company is planning a facelift for the Roadster, as well as two additional models - the aluminium chassis Aero Coupe and the Plus 8, the latter two powered by BMW's thundering 4.8-litre V8.

A long time ago in a far away land, I first found out what a Morgan was via this TV commercial. The ad hasn't stood the test of time too well but the car's still timeless, IMHO.

Whatever skepticism we may have about the Tesla Model X, no one here believes the goals of environmental improvement and driving fun are necessarily contradictory. This ad for Mazda's new SKYACTIV-G technology basically sums that up better than anything I've seen. More »

Cracker Jack is a tasty treat that comes with a toy surprise inside the box. Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe BMW E34 looks pretty tasty, and the surprise 6-speed inside makes it ready to play. Will its price however, make you think the seller is just toying with you? More »

Tesla Motors just unveiled a new crossover the electric-only automaker plans to put into production by 2014. More »

Forbes

Mulally shakes up Ford exec ranks, has 'no plans' to retire The Detroit News Dave Cole, chairman emeritus for the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research, said Booth's and Kuzak's retirements do not come as a surprise. He said they made significant contributions at Ford and said it was their time to retire. Ford CFO Lewis Booth and Global Product Chief Derrick Kuzak to Retire; Veteran ...MarketWatch (press release) Cars.com News Briefs: Feb. 10, 2012Chicago Tribune Ford Personnel Shifts: Kuzak and Booth to Retire, Huntsman Joins BoardAutomobile Magazine (blog) all 441 news articles »

The cars of the Chicago Auto Show had some bright new faces and some damn fine rears, but no cars were quite as fetching as those of the booth professionals. Click through to see more of these beautiful ladies. More »

Ever wanted to be in a play? Great, we all have at some point. Ever wanted to have the lame loser role in a play? Different story. All roles are important; not all roles are enjoyable or fun. Still, the story's the important thing. More »

You finally find a spot in a packed parking lot and somebody's parked over the line so you can't fit. Or you've been waiting for someone to leave the lot and somebody pulls in to steal your claimed space. There are plenty of ways to be an asshole parker in this world, but few good ways to deal with them. Here's the best way to handle the situation. More »

Or, as you read the title: Blah Blah Blah Breasts Blah Blah Blah 1,300-HP Corvette. Yes, some schmuck has made another addition to the classy boobs-go-for-a-ride formula, only this time things aren't quite as enhanced as they were before. UPDATE! They took down the video and it was edited to remove the nipples. Apparently, YouTube is ok with the rest of the videos but a little nipping was too far. The Full NSFW version is here. More »

Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood is mostly filled with bored models and stupid-expensive boutiques. But on one grimy, absolutely ignorable corner is the entrance to a cavern stuffed with guns, rockets, cocaine, and riot shields. This is where Hollywood locks and loads. More »

This is what it feels like to be a top driver in the grueling Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. Watch the whole race weekend unfold as reigning GT Champion Leh Keen fights for the lead in his Brumos Porsche GT3 Cup. More »

BMW's new enlarged 6-series/coupified 5-series, the BMW Gran Coupe will officially cost $76,895 including destination charge. That's $16K more than a base Audi A7 and $4,500 more than a Mercedes CLS. This pretty face doesn't come cheap. More »

Like most car-obsessed folks, I have many more toy cars around than a reasonable person with a mortgage should. It's a limited way of satisfying car-ownership urges without turning your yard into an oil-soaked scrapyard. Well, turning it into more of one, I mean. More »

Last Sunday, two Hondas outside of Tampa, Florida sat side-by-side on the highway, about to start a street race when a drunk driver in a Nissan SUV smashed into one of the racers at speed. Unbelievably, no one was seriously injured. More »

Racing-game mavens who hanker for a bit of upscale American style now have one fewer reason to leave the basement: Cadillac's big-assed badass CTS-V Coupe race car will soon be available for the immersive iRacing MMO racing simulator. More »

We've already established that the single most important driving accessory in Chechnya is the AK-47. Watch this band of hoodlums fire guns in the air while doing donuts in the middle of an afternoon in Grozny from the window of their BWM M5. Chechens are insane. More »

Most drivers wouldn't dream of heading out onto a snow-covered track. Andy Gülden, chief instructor of the Nürburgring Driving Academy, saw the frosted Nürburgring Grand Prix Circuit as an opportunity for ridiculous quantities of oversteer. More »

We're assuming this video was shot in Russia, because who else would be crazy and cunning enough to snag live sheep from a moving truck and drop them in an also moving sidecar? Just watch the video. More »

Formula One racing is a sport associated with a certain kind of wealthy international traveler — someone who charters a yacht to enjoy the Monaco Grand Prix. Boy aren't they going to be surprised later this year when they travel to the newest F1 race — in a town on the outskirts of Austin so culturally remote their slogan is "Where the hell is Elroy, Texas?" More »

Stereotyping is an unfortunate quirk of human nature that runs through car enthusiasm like a bad social disease. Some automotive preconceptions have completely lost legitimacy (if there was ever any in the first place) but refuse to fade away. What stereotypes about cars or drivers need to die? More »

The United States hosts a Formula One race again this year, and two are scheduled for next year. While the US has a long history with F1, there are serious concerns about whether the modern series can find a sustained popularity in the American media market. More »

Our incessant clamoring for concept cars to become street legal and purchasable occasionally pays off. All the heavy panting for the Aston Marton V12 Zagato Concept has resulted in a production Aston Martin V12 Zagato. One question: did we piss it off somehow? More »

A conflict between two drivers cutting each other off on the highway ended with one man striking the other in the shoulder with a small sledgehammer. In other news, people are terrible. More »

eGMCarTech

Report: Fisker Automotive lays off some workers after DOE loan rework eGMCarTech As a result, production for the brand's new Project Nina lineup at the Fisker Automotive plant in Wilmington, DE and 26 workers were laid off. This comes after a rework of Fisker Automotive's $529 million loan, which was prompted after agreements with ... Timeline uncertain for Fisker's Delaware car plantPhiladelphia Inquirer Fisker Automotive's NASCAR fantasy failureAmerican Thinker (blog) Fisker, out of government money, begins layoffsUSA TODAY INAUTONEWS -Autocar -Wall Street Journal (blog) all 36 news articles »

Volkswagen has thrown its weight behind a project to cover a New Beetle in waste. Spark plugs, motherboards, bottle tops, you name it, it's there. If by chance you're reading this in Mumbai or Germany, there's a chance to see the car for yourself.

Superb archive photo, apparently from the 1951 Chicago motor show, of the public launch of the Kaiser Silver Dragon.

Milestone info from Hemmings.com - looks like quite a lot of money was spent even for the time; just count the people on stage and the orchestra.

With the European car market facing a decline in 2012, the focus is set to swing to that hoary old chestnut, excess production capacity. In a rising market, capacity utilisation may be going up and that can swing things so that vulnerable plants are kept in production. The 'rising tide' makes them look better than they really are and companies may feel that they can do without the distraction of shutting a plant and all the fuss it generates. But when the market is going down and capacity utilisation is deteriorating, it's less easy to put the issue to one side and carry on as normal.

Sergio Marchionne has been pretty vocal in lambasting the industry in Europe for not addressing overcapacity. And he is not at all happy about the pricing situation in Europe, either. Others are at fault, naturally.

GOLDING’S TAKE: Marchionne tells rival car makers to behave

But there was this news today regarding the NedCar plant in the Netherlands. That was one that was always likely to go, but I wonder how much more capacity reduction we'll see in (Western) Europe this year. It's an issue – supply and demand and where that leaves the market – that won't go away.

JAPAN: Mitsubishi closing Netherlands assembly plant in 2013

I'm expecting to see LMC's Western Europe January numbers round-up later today, but indications are that January has been a tough month in the market. And the extreme winter weather now gripping much of the continent won't be helping the February sales figures either.

FRANCE/ITALY: January car sales sharply down in France and Italy

And you can hear more about the European market later this week (on Thursday)

 

The sealant and compressed air can be injected through the tyre valve but the result achieved will depend on the cause of the puncture and how far and fast the flat tyre has been driven on.

In other words, tyre inflator kits only work on small punctures over short distances.  A major blow-out cannot be repaired using an inflator kit.  If you find yourself in a remote rural spot out of reach of a cell phone signal, you could be facing a long walk to get help.

Yet with automakers under pressure to produce more fuel-efficient cars, it is hardly surprising to see them eliminating the spare wheel, thereby shedding up to 30 pounds in one stroke. While some motorists may be surprised to discover their spare wheel is missing from the boot (trunk), automakers say it is not unsafe to go without.

Here in the UK, there is no specific legal requirement for automakers to include a spare wheel with a vehicle.  The only law regarding spare wheels is that, if a vehicle carries one and the driver resorts to using it, it must pass all the laws relating to a car's other tyres, such as tread depth, condition and use.

Motorists can still opt for a spare wheel.  For instance, the Ford Fiesta list price shows a spare wheel and tyre as an optional extra of £50 for all models.

Just how do the average CO2 rules and targets in the EU apply to car manufacturers?

The people at cleangreencars.co.uk have a helpful guide.

In 2012, only the lowest polluting 65% of each manufacturer’s range have to meet the official target of 130g/km. Full compliance is not due until 2015. The EU is fond of quoting “130g/km of CO2 by 2012”, but this is simply not the case, they point out. Many will miss the target this year, but the range of loopholes means that fines are unlikely.

Car manufacturers who make heavy cars have a higher target. Take the example of Mercedes: with an average weight of 1661 KG, its current target is 143g/km of CO2, not 130g/km of CO2.

Manufacturers who sell less than 300,000 cars in the EU do not have to meet the target anyway. So, a company that sells fewer than that can continue producing an average of, say 160g/km of CO2, without fear. The only restriction for these companies is that their CO2 has to be 25% lower than it was in 2007 – but that is largely academic. Market forces mean that any mainstream manufacturer that was producing cars with over 200g/km of CO2 in 2007 has had to cut by more than 25% anyway (the average measure is sales weighted).

There is some useful info on the cleangreencars website, including sales weighted CO2 by make and model. The handout PDF on this page is worth a look in terms of how the fines work out in practice.

cleangreencars website - industry section

Just when you think you've heard it all, comes this from California... Solar windows 1, Prius mirror housings 0.

I caught the Steven Spielberg directed epic 'War Horse' last night at the flicks.

General Motors' UK PR people kindly invited me (thank you Denis Chick and Uta Deutsch, enjoyed the pre-movie tapas!), along with a few others, on the grounds that Vauxhall had provided some vintage cars for the movie. 

The 1911 Vauxhall C-Type “Prince Henry” ( named after Prince Henry of Prussia who sponsored early reliability trials) and 1918 Vauxhall D Type Army Staff Car both feature. The film trailer features the Prince Henry racing against the War Horse across Dartmoor. Watch the trailer here.

Denis Chick, Vauxhall Motors’ Director of Communications said: “Steven Spielberg loved the C-Type Prince Henry but due to its non-conventional controls, an expert was on hand to drive on set to master the centre-mounted throttle and outside gear changes.  Mechanics were also around 24/7 to ensure the car was always operational so that valuable filming time was not lost.  It’s great that these two cars from Vauxhall’s own museum, representing the company’s rich automotive heritage, are starring alongside such notable actors.”

The 1918 Vauxhall D-Type Army Staff Car is a development of the Prince Henry and Vauxhall built nearly 2,000 for the War Office costing GBP500 each. The D-Type was manufactured in Luton.

The movie itself? Well worth seeing. Captivating tale and it's clearly a big-budget job that is slickly executed. Great cast, great attention to period detail, wonderfully directed – as you would expect from Spielberg. The war scenes are suitably horrific (but without being very graphic). The stuff shot on Dartmoor makes that part of England look pretty beautiful and is also very well done. Is the film a little bit, well, sentimental, very obviously pressing the standard emotional buttons that Spielberg is known for adeptly doing (ET springs to mind)? Yes, but that treatment works with a story like War Horse. It isn't meant to be a docu-drama about the Great War. It's a fictional tale and ultimately a nice story (albeit with some pretty dark meanderings along the way), set in the most terrible of circumstances. It's basically right up Spielberg's creative street.

Oh, and the vintage cars played their parts very well. And so, I might add, did the horses.

There's been a lot of mention of the new Dodge Dart on j-a recently following the Alfa Romeo Giulietta platform-based car's debut - replacing the Caliber hatchback but a true successor to the Neon sedan - at Detroit earlier this month.

The name's not new, though, and was once appended to a model line rather larger and way more powerful. Here's a trip down memory lane for those of us of a certain age.

These US Chryslers didn't just stay in North America, either. Chrysler Australia built its own Valiant tagged versions of the Dart two-door coupe body shell and similar models, some also using the Dart nameplate, were also built and sold in South Africa, South America and Europe (Holland).

The DVLA - UK equivalent of the US DMV - has just mailed me, and presumably every other (30m?) vehicle owner in the UK, a new 'red' V5C form, aka logbook, a record of the legal registered 'keeper' as we are referred to over here. I must, a leaflet enclosed in the envelope says, "immediately" destroy my old 'blue' V5C.

Turns out a batch of the old blue forms - presumably blank - has been nicked and the DVLA says it is doing this to prevent fraud.

Questions arise: who forgot to lock a door and allowed the old ones to be pinched in the first place; are they still working for the DVLA on my taxpayer dime, and how much is all this costing the poor old taxpayer anyway? We really should be told.

It's looking increasingly like GM is going to reinvent GMC division as an upscale truck brand.

Regular readers might recall that I wondered aloud about the likelihood of GM culling the brand. For the record, I still wonder about the need for Cadillac when the company has done such an amazing job with Buick in China, plus reinventing it in the US - why not push the latter further upscale?

Back to GMC. Mark Reuss, General Motors' president of North American operations, is being reported as saying that GMC has to "pay its way". To that end, the replacement for the GMC Sierra will apparently become pricier than its twin, the Chevrolet Silverado. Let's see if GMC can make this strategy work. Ford couldn't, not at first. Now it has sort of succeeded by having a rethink: the Lincoln Mark LT failed in the US market, but is still made in tiny numbers for Mexico. What Ford does is stick a Lincoln badge on the plusher versions of the F-150 to create that vehicle. Would you pay what Ford asks for a monthly lease on a $40,000+ F-150 King Ranch? Quite a few people do.

GM's rival big earners in the 1500 GVW pick-up class are due to be replaced for the 2013 model year so we should see them soon enough - I would expect at either next month's Chicago show, or the New York in April. And a facelift for the GMC Acadia should also turn up at Chicago.

Perhaps GM is planning to show us its new thoughts for GMC division at Chicago, just as Ford used Detroit to preview its relaunch of Lincoln. Keep an eye on our daily news headlines for the forthcoming Chicago show preview list too. There might be an Elantra Coupe, the new Pathfinder and Altima from Nissan and perhaps the next Kia Sedona too. But that's all speculation at this stage, I should add.

As for GMC's future line-up, I wouldn't guarantee the Savana van will be replaced and I am now hearing that the Granite concept won't reach production after all - I couldn't really see Americans taking to a GMC-branded Opel Meriva. Don't look for the Canyon pick-up to have a successor either. So a slimmed down but better focussed range. The successors for the Yukon and XL should also be big earners, while the two models which share the Terrain badge should be merged into one when replacement time comes around 2014.

One of my factors for how seriously I take a company's claims is its media-facing website. So it's worth noting that Chery Auto has suddenly lifted its game, as well as its sales.

Were I being kind, I would say that the state-run firm hasn't always had the clearest information on the releases it makes available to the likes of me. I'm all for balance and anyone learning from mistakes so feel compelled to report that Chery has lately been communicating far better. The latest news shows that.

So here's what's impressed me: in calendar 2011, the company claims it sold 'around 643,000' vehicles, of which a record 160,200 were in 'overseas markets'. It wasn't always that well worded, believe me. And here's the impressive bit, which also shows just how the company's SKD and CKD plants are doing the world over - YoY overseas markets' sales are said to be up by a combined 73 percent.

There's still some work to go. The headline of Chery's press release is as follows:

'Chery achieves export record in 2011'.

The UK's Financial Times reports the Nymex February gas contract falling to US$2.402 per million British thermal units earlier on Thursday. That's got me thinking about CNG-fuelled cars.

Well, Honda is in pole position in the US market with such vehicles. The old Civic sedan was available in CNG-fuelled form but the sales numbers were never anything to get excited about. Then, American Honda got clever when it came to replacing it, making the new model available in all 50 states for the first time. That was back in October. Slowly, sales have been building. If I were Honda's ad agency I would be hassling the client with suggested campaigns right now, linking the Civic to news reports of plunging traded-gas prices.

'Forget the Civic Hybrid, hey we sold fewer than 5,000 in 2011 anyway, embrace the Civic Natural Gas'. Yes, perhaps my tagline needs work. There again, maybe the car itself could do with a snazzier model name.

If Honda misses this opportunity, I wonder which other brands could grab it? Here in Europe, Fiat does fairly well in the Italian market with its methane-fuelled Natural Power models. They might even be the boost that that brand needs at home right now too.

 

There is something oddly fascinating about Citroen's 'cinemagraphs', still images but with one moving element inside them.

We reported on this before when Citroen issued some of these images to help promote the DS5.

Some more of these subtly animated images have been released that include actions by football players (from Arsenal). Wasn't there an episode of Star Trek in which time apparently stood still, but some people were on a different scale, whizzing around at normal pace...as I say, curiously fascinating. 

Last week Dave and self were manning a very busy news desk whilst Graeme and Simon were over in Detroit. Which is my excuse for having taken a week longer than I normally do to glance at the major markets' monthly registrations numbers. So it is that I am only just noticing something big having happened in Korea.

After many, many years, the Hyundai Sonata has been knocked out of the number one slot. The Sonata, which is also a major seller in the USA, is proving to be less popular with the home market crowd. To be fair, car buyers' tastes in South Korea have been shifting in recent years and the car itself is getting close to the mid-point of its lifecycle.

More competition, a gradual opening of the market to foreign competitors but especially the ongoing wave of much-improved new cars are also to blame for the Sonata's fall. Its tumble isn't a big problem for Hyundai, mind. Even though sales plunged by 31 percent to 104,248 units, the larger and higher-margin Grandeur sedan (the US and Canada's Azera) turned in a stellar performance with 107,652 sales. Korea's top seller, however, was the Hyundai Avante (Elantra in some countries) with 131,016 sales.

What I started this blog to point out is this: the car that has really put the cat amongst the pigeons is the little Kia Morning (Picanto). As the country's second best selling vehicle in 2011, its 114,687 sales show just how popular little hatchbacks can be in a market that's evolving. And that number is also twice the volume done by its rival the Chevrolet Spark. Kia's Sportage also outsold its twin the Hyundai (52,018 versus 43,198) Tucson, while there were 87,452 units of the Kia K5 (Optima) delivered to Korean customers last year. The tiny Kia Ray also bounced into the top ten in December, its first month on sale, with an impressive 4,107 sales.

And the size of the Korean market in 2011? Passenger vehicle sales were up by half a percent to 1.3 million. Hyundai fell just short of the half-million mark (499,043), while second placed Kia delivered 412,873 sales. Best imports-only brand was BMW, with 23,292 sales, which just shows how much things have changed - Mercedes-Benz was only a few thousand behind in a country where foreign name cars were almost unheard of only a few years ago.

By the way, the shining example of carbon neutrality you see beaming back at you above is just-auto's very own He Who Must Be Obeyed and editorial director, the aforementioned Mister Leggett. We attended the same Kia Optima media launch event at a hotel which turned out to be near his home, thus his mode of arrival and exit. An engaging afternoon with Dave, onboard in the new-to-Europe Optima, it turned out to be. If you have a few minutes to spare and fancy reading about the car, you'll find my rambling thoughts here.

It certainly is interesting to hear Sergio Marchionne again speaking about the primacy of industrial scale economies, of big automotive alliances and of his preference for Fiat-Chrysler to add a third partner.

PSA is being talked about as a possible suitor yet again. But the big difficulty there is that the gains would require capacity rationalisation in Europe that looks politically troublesome, especially when economies are in a weak phase. Both Fiat and PSA are relatively reliant on the weak European market, share plenty of model/segments overlap. Could be tricky to get the consolidation benefits that look good on paper. 

Perhaps adding a strategic partner with a strong position in another world region would make sense? Suzuki on the rebound from VW?

Come to think of it, wasn't the diesel engine deal in which Fiat supplied Suzuki's Indian operation one of the things that put strain on VW-Suzuki's ill-fated alliance?

US: Marchionne eyes 'third partner'

A long wheelbase version of the new BMW 3 Series is said to be set for a global debut at AutoChina 2012 in April.

BMW might possibly not thank for me informing you that pics of the LWB 3er are all over the web but it's so clearly a well proportioned car that I couldn't not share the news.

Might we see the 3 Series iL exported? I don't see why not. After all, BMW began to ship Shenyang-built long wheelbase 5 Series sedans abroad last month.

As is the case with other major shows throughout this year, we'll publish and republish a constantly updating list of world premieres before and during Bejing's biennial event. I'm currently sniffing around my own sources as well as nagging the official press departments for confirmations of debutantes. The list as ever will only contain models and concepts that have been announced by manufacturers. See our recent ones from New Delhi and Detroit if you missed them, each of which now serves as a handy historic record. And the current one for Geneva is here.

How great has it been to see so many positive news stories emerge from the Detroit motor show? Might there be something deeper going on?

I possibly over-expose myself to media. But as a writer the only real danger with that is if you stop reading and listening to what others are saying. Do that and you slowly start believing mostly in your own bias, and then, far worse, that most unattractive and dangerous of companions, an outsized ego. Oh the irony of having just written that sentence in a blog.

Back to the point. US media, media in other nations, just about anyone that these journalists pushed a microphone at - all seemed to ooze positivity. Remember that word? It seemed to vanish almost without trace around the third quarter of 2008 for the industry that surrounds the sales of new light vehicles in the US market. Now, life is returning. Possibly, and I will whisper it, strongly.

I've been inspired to bash out some thoughts on all this. See what you think. Considered, opposing views especially welcome.

I finally met James Cain from GM's financial news section yesterday in the RenCen - once I'd finished the obligatory several circuits of the place getting lost.

James was the spokesman for GM during Saab's recent and prolonged demise and was always on the end of a phone to front up to some fairly hostile Swedish reaction to GM's tough stance on licensing issues.

He also had some fascinating insight into how the iconic RenCen - this year thankfully with less motown music everywhere - was built.

Staying with the RenCen theme, last night's Automotive News World Congress dinner in the building, featured an emotional appearance by British racing driver Dan Wheldon's wife. Wheldon - winner of the Indianapolis 500 Borg-Warner Trophy in 2011 - died at the end of last year in a racing accident and the supplier paid tribute to his short life.

I've been in a few media scrums in my time, but last night's bunfight after Fiat/Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne spoke at the dinner took some beating.

Surrounded by dozens of the world's media - and four huge security guards replete with ear-pieces - the diminutive Fiat boss in trademark black jumper struggled to make himself heard above a barrage of questions.

Nonetheless, he gamely answered a bewildering array of shouted topics with the sheer mass of media present testament to his global influence. And the Detroit audience during his presentation certainly appreciated what he'd done by turning Chrysler around.

The weather's just started to get, well a bit more Detroit-like after a few glorious sunny days. Cold and raining, the forecast is predicting quite a bit of snow tonight and tomorrow, so fingers crossed the big white bird makes it out of Detroit Metro airport.

It was Detroit with a difference this year. Different largely because of the weather.

I’ve been covering this show for 20 years or so and the city has almost always been covered in snow and certainly freezing cold – minus 17C on one occasion.

Standing outside the Cobo Hall on the morning of the second press day, the sun was shining and it was unseasonably warm, +7C – almost unheard of. Exactly a year ago, my connecting flight through New York on the way home was cancelled because of snow storms.

The warmth this year spread through to the inside of the Cobo Hall. This was Detroit Show with a buzz about it even though there is small chance of the market returning the 16m plus of the mid-2000s. Now, the industry has shaken out and finds it can still make money in a market hovering around 13m.

No outrageous giant SUVs and pick-ups this year, the Ford Fusion and the Dodge Dart represented a softer, more environmentally-friendly approach to new modelsm though there were still cars to drool over. The new Porsche Carrera Cabriolet was one, while it was arguably outdone by the stunning Acura NSX.

Like most shows these days, most companies were talking green but there is still a heavy reliance on the internal combustion engine in the US. Petrol remains considerably cheaper than in Europe but reduced mpg and CO2 is very much at the forefront for all the carmakers with 40mpg seemingly the holy grail.