The Truth About Cars
The Truth About Cars is dedicated to providing candid, unbiased automobile reviews and the latest in auto industry news.
11.7 entries/week | Last update: about 6 hours ago
found about 47 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
In 1989, Toyota launched a new luxury brand that would go on to largely replace Cadillac as a vernacular term for excellence in luxury. Known as Lexus, this brand has spent the last 20 years making headway in the US market without ever publicly...
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found about 45 hours ago by Martin Schwoerer
Who doesn’t like a proper wacky duel? Like the one where James May raced a Ferrari against a camel, or when the guys from TopGear did a “train vs Aston Martin” from London to Cannes? As in the case of the proverbial hare and tortoise, when you...
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found about 46 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
The first videos of the Honda CR-Z lapping Suzuka have surfaced, and they’re about as exciting C-Span after a handful of Valium. And this is apparently a tuned version. Between this and the recent pre-launch equivocation by the CR-Z’s chief...
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found about 44 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
As an American citizen, it is tough on my part to pay tax dollars to an entity that can turn around and use those tax dollars to get my fellow American citizens to not do business with me. The government owns 60% of General Motors, and these...
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found about 44 hours ago by Paul Niedermeyer
Here’s Nissan’s solution to keep the underutilized Titan lines moving, an it’s a bit different. A van body has been grafted to the Titan front end, which brings certain obvious benefits and disadvantages. Nissan claims that US van owners are...
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found about 43 hours ago by Paul Niedermeyer
All right, I have a thing about short cars. I haven’t spoken to a therapist about it yet. Perhaps its just a reaction against the obesity crisis in modern cars and trucks. But where did they all go? There were once so many of them. Well, I’m...
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found about 33 hours ago by Bertel Schmitt
On September 19, 2008, William Hippsley, 74, was behind the wheel in the parking lot of a shopping center in Brigg, South Humberside, UK. Outside, his wife Brenda, 69, helped him park his car. Suddenly, Hippsley’s car shot forward, dragged his...
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found about 41 hours ago by Paul Niedermeyer
Good work! majo8 won quadruple points in yesterday’s Clue. No bonus points today, though; just the glory of being the first to id this car. Ready, set,...
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found about 37 hours ago by Paul Niedermeyer
Do I love the internet. I thought I’d seen every old VW oddity, but doing a google image search for “VW pickup” brings up this gem. I knew that in the early days the VW factory built a number of specialized vehicles to transport bodies and...
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found about 37 hours ago by Paul Niedermeyer
Here’s the starting point for all Curbside Classics. Initially, over a hundred full length articles are listed by make (after the jump). There are many more shorter-length CCs and Outtakes that will be added shortly. In the meantime, they can be...
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found about 31 hours ago by Cammy Corrigan
BMW and Daimler don’t really like each other. As Herr Baron Schmitt put it, “Daimler engineers view their colleagues as boorish Bavarian upstarts. BMW engineers think Daimler is a congregation of has-beens”. Bluntly speaking, there’s no love...
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found about 31 hours ago by Cammy Corrigan
When the automotive historians look back at GM they will point to many factors as to why they fell. Some might point to the Unions, some may point to their lack of reliable products, others may even point to their shoddy dealer service. But one...
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found about 30 hours ago by Bertel Schmitt
Remember when Akio Toyoda, coming back from the U.S.A. went to Beijing in a hurry? China is an important growth market for Toyota. Toyota had been doing well in China, last year they sold 709,000 units, about the same as GM China if you don’t...
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found about 27 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
The House Oversight Committee has obtained a 2006 memo from the “All Toyota Labor Union” (ATU) which alleges quality declines due to “a fall in the number of experienced staff in favor of contract workers, longer working hours and an...
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found about 27 hours ago by Sajeev Mehta
TTAC Contributor Ingvar writes: The family household beater has a limp. It’s a 1993 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer, four door, with the 4.3. It’s original country of purchase was Germany, at least it says so on the dealer engraved license frame....
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found about 27 hours ago by Paul Niedermeyer
The passenger car-based mini pickup niche is as old as as the Crosley Roadside, if not older yet. It’s also a highly ephemeral one, that seems to repeatedly draw car makers to it like moths to the flame. And the results are about the same: here...
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found about 27 hours ago by Paul Niedermeyer
Do I love the internet. I thought I’d seen every old VW oddity, but doing a google image search for “VW pickup” brings up this gem. I knew that in the early days the VW factory built a number of specialized vehicles to transport bodies and...
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found about 24 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
In a recent Fastlane livechat, GM’s North American boss Mark Reuss revealed that: Chevrolet re vamp in ads is well under way with Susan Docherty–you will like it a lot–shows the car, and uses “excellence for everyone”….you will really...
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found about 24 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
As our Brazilian friend Stingray pointed out in today’s Curbside Classic thread, the FWD trucklet isn’t dead… it’s on vacation in South America. And new models are arriving all the time. This May, the popular Brazilian-market models Stingray...
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found about 22 hours ago by Paul Niedermeyer
In typical Carlos Ghosn style, the father of the Nissan EV throws down the gauntlet. gm-volt.com quotes him from a talk with reporters: “Frankly, I mean so far there is no competition. Let’s be serious. It’s not because someone is coming with...
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found about 24 hours ago by Ronnie Schreiber
Sales recently began in India for Ford’s “all new” Figo. The launch of the Figo, a five-door sedan/hatchback, was a supposed to be a big deal. It is Ford’s first car designed specifically for the Indian market, and it was introduced by...
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found about 23 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
In a study for the Danish Petroleum Industry Association, consulting firm Ea Energy Analyses concludes that electric vehicles (EVs) will not significantly improve the EU’s carbon footprint over the next 15 years. According to Globe-net.com’s...
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found about 22 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
In a conversation with The WSJ [sub]’s Paul Ingrassia, former Car Czar Steve “Chooch” Rattner did some “back-of-the-envelope calculation” to show why he believes the US taxpayers will see their $50m “investment” in GM recouped when The...
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found about 21 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
Anyone who follows the auto industry with any regularity will know that comparing Toyota and Chrysler by any measure is laughable. For mainstream media types, who flit from frenzy to frenzy, all the negative press about Toyota might have left some...
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found about 20 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
When Ford announced that it would be building an “all-new” Police Interceptor model, speculation was rampant. At the time, we noted: GM went to Australia for their police-duty RWD platform, might Ford do the same with a Falcon-based interceptor?...
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found about 18 hours ago by Edward Niedermeyer
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found about 17 hours ago by Paul Niedermeyer
The paint scheme is a big but obvious clue, but today’s cop car theme makes this irrepressible. Today’s Rampage guessing turned into a rampage of correct right guesses, within minutes of posting it. Steve Campen jumped in first. I’m guessing...
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found about 11 hours ago by Cammy Corrigan
While Toyota has recall troubles in one of their largest markets, elsewhere in the world, another carmaker has serious recall troubles in one of their biggest markets. We usually don’t comment on each and every recall everywhere, but this one...
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found about 9 hours ago by Bertel Schmitt
Japan’s Automobile Manufacturers Association said “hai, wakatta” (yes, we understand) to their government, and promised to “actively support the creation of an international mutual-recognition framework for passenger cars,” reports The...
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found about 8 hours ago by Bertel Schmitt
Volkswagen and its freshly hitched 20 percent bride Suzuki will have a sit-down next week to “flesh out their joint projects by welding together a number of ideas,” reports The Nikkei [sub] from an earnings briefing in Wolfsburg. The Nikkei...
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