classic car

BYD, a company famous for its blatant Mercedes-Benz copy, the S8, has been trying to get into the US market for some time. They've made considerable progress towards that goal at the Detroit Auto Show so far, releasing the E6 Electric crossover that's supposedly bound for the US, but one other US debut has been eclipsed by this car, even though it debuted last year. Enter the BYD F3DM. Based off of their last-gen Toyota Corolla-copy sedan, the F3, the F3DM is an all-electric small sedan that starts at about $22,000 in its home market, with technology that should be considered groundbreaking for a Chinese car. In fact, this technology is almost a better system than that in the Chevrolet Volt in that it uses the combined power of the electric motor and a small gas engine to power the car, where the Volt uses the gas engine only in braking. This means the car seems more powerful, if louder. The F3DM debuted as a concept at Detroit last year, but production didn't start until recently. The F3DM is supposedly bound for the United States in 2011. You can see the F3DM and E6 electrics along the Electric Avenue at the Detroit Auto Show this year.

Tata, the company famous for creating the cheapest car on Earth, has been trying to break into the world scene for some time with both more microcars for their home market, India, and larger cars bound for the rest of the world. One of these larger new car concepts is the Tata Pr1ma, an attractive compact sedan with dimensions almost exactly like the Volkswagen Jetta. The company contracted the famed design house of Pininfarina to design the car, and the results were great. The concept was first shown at the 2009 Geneva Auto Salon, and it showed most of the world that Tata was a more formidable up-and-coming force to be dealt with, at least stylistically. If the Pr1ma was to come to the US as a production model, it would be a major force in the compact market. Though it doesn't quite fit in with the sporty econoboxes that make up most of the current US compact market, that is definitely not a bad thing. This smallish sedan gives the impression of a much higher-class vehicle, showing that Pininfarina design makes a big difference.

  Ah, Iola Old Car Show and Swap Meet. The meeting point of every car-obsessed person in the Northern section of the Midwest. For a weekend, the tiny town of Iola, WI is lit up with gleaming chrome and trailers full of rusting vintage Cragars, wheels, bumpers, and any other automotive item you could need. A full-fledged car show, a giant swap meet, a car corral, and an auction all packed into one three-day-long event that attracts thousands of men carrying their reluctant wives and the occasional genuinely interested woman. There are Dodge Chargers, Kaisers, BMWs and Duesenburgs, and all of them are interesting to anyone who loves cars. Its almost impossible to resist coming each year. Of all these cars, you'd think that the most interesting would be some classic Ferrari of Duesenburg, but this July it wasn't so. This year, the car that stole the show wasn't a car featured in multiple magazines, not a historic Bonneville racer, but a 1998 Chevy Cavalier.

  Yep, you heard that right. Walking among the many drivers for sale in the Car Corral section, near the end of my day in Iola this July, I was pretty bored and feeling kind of down. We had just been by the auction section, where the economy had lead to only one out of 10 cars we saw go up on the block sold. All of the cars I was around were drivers, with the top price being around $50,000 for a '57 Corvette, and I was going to leave in about half an hour. I was heading back to the swap meet section when a crowd obscuring a car caught my eye. The crowd was larger than the one around the featured driver Auburn/Cord/Duesenburg collection, larger than the one around the custom '54 Kaiser Manhattan featured in Hot Rod Magazine, and larger than the one around the highest-mileage car in the world, a Volvo P1800 coupe. I rushed over to see what all the fuss was about. Was it a used Bugatti for sale? A Fiat 500 with an Enzo motor? As I got closer I saw the truth. It was a Cavalier, decked out in custom gear making it a rolling tribute to Chevrolet coupes. It had '54 Corvette headlights and grille, '57 Bel Air-style rear fenders, '63 Corvette split-window rear glass, Impala hints and more. It's powered by an unknown motor, hopefully a V-8, with a nice blower on it, and it was being offered for an amazing deal of $4,000! Thats 5 different cars with a total value of $301,692 for just $4,000. No, just kidding. I wouldn't buy it either, but it does make for a good conversation.

  When we Americans think of Mercedes-Benz, a picture of an E-Class or an SLR Mclaren comes to mind almost invariably. Here in the gas-guzzling U.S. of A, Mercedes-Benz is a maker mid-size and large premium sedans, coupes, roadsters, and SUVs, but the picture is very different in Europe. Mercedes-Benz makes a total of four models that we don't have here in the US, and all of them are very different from the Benzes we know and love.

  Across the pond in the land where Diesel compacts rule the roads, Mercedes-Benz offers two sub-C Class compact cars, a compact coupe (an evolution of the demised C230 coupes that were offered in the US for a few years), and a minivan. There there is also the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and other commercial vans. Does the name sound familiar? If you consider the fact the MB was partnered with Chrysler, the truth comes all too clear if you didn't know already. Yep, our "American" Dodge and Freightliner Sprinters are really a re-badged Germans that avoided pesky taxes by being shipped in parts to the US and assembled here with the manufacturer of choice's badge slapped on the front. Ah, badge engineering.

  But enough about that, lets move on to the models that are sold as passenger cars, as the Sprinter is only a civilian car in a customized camper form. There are two compacts in the MB lineup that aren't here in the US, the A-class and B-class. The A-Class, a small premium hatch that comes in 3 and 5-door forms starting at a bad space-to-dollar rate of $21,453, is the epitome of a crowded-city luxury car. It has sold in huge numbers, almost 2 million since its launch in 1999, and if it was brought to the US it may become a toy for the obsessively rich to have when they're trying to look environmentally conscious. The problem, though, is that they packed the car so full of technical features for a car its small size that they met their price point way before they could focus on a full-luxury interior. The result is an interior that resembles the configuration of the Volkswagen Jetta with the leatherette package, with hard, but not low-quality plastics in some places and leather in others. The exterior, like some other Euro MB products, has not switched over to the new, more mean-looking grille yet, so it looks relatively out-or date from the front, even though a recent facelift made it more modern from the side. With power ranging from 140 to 193 HP, the A-Class is not something for speedy runs or people like Jay Leno and the Sultan of Brunei (though I wouldn't be surprised if he had one), but its more of a car for relatively well-off city-dwellers that can't stand cloth seats.

  The B-Class, introduced in 2005 and updated in 2008, is based on the A-Class architecture. It was originally intended to go on sale as the Base Benz in the US, but plans were scrapped for that and it is now sold virtually everywhere but the US, including Canada. The B-Class starts at $27,648, and like the A-Class it virtually dwarfs the price of everything else in its category. It's like a minivan shaped compact with regular doors, which MB calls a Multi-Activity vehicle, mimicking BMW's weird names such as Sport Activity Coupe for the X6. Interestingly, the higher-priced and larger B-Class has less power than its smaller brother, with rates ranging from 94 (!) to 190 Horsepower, which is at best 3 less than the A-Class' ratings. There's not much more to say about the B-Class because its essentially a more expensive A-Class with more space, more modern looks, and less power. The interior is slightly higher-rent with more leather and less plastic, and it has room for some cargo even with kids inside, which says a lot in Europe.

  Next up is a car you may know from a few years back, with the C230 coupe, a try by Mercedes-Benz at launching one of their cheaper models in the US. It started at around $25,000 in 2003, and they sold well for what they were, a cheap Mercedes-Benz. After that one venture, MB pulled the coupe out of the US and its now only sold overseas, where it is known as the CLC-Class. It now starts at $28,211 in current exchange rates, making it the cheapest and smallest MB coupe in Europe, as opposed to the $48,050 E-Class Coupe here in the States. There have only been minor changes since the C230 was taken out of the US with a minor refreshing including the new-style grille and wheel options, and the rear shape remains in its quirky half-hatchback form. The refreshing was to hide that its still based on the last-gen C-Class sedan, so the mechanical aspects of it aren't exactly thrilling and up-to-date. In fact, there is a new CLC-Class scheduled to be coming soon to replace the current coupe. The interior has leather as an option, but the overall quality is good. The horsepower ratings go from 120-268, a margin of 70 horsepower over the compacts.

  The last car that Europe gets we may not want at all. You see, this is basically a giant, boxy, Japanese-style minivan. Called the Viano, this van scraps the (insert letter here)-Class naming system, and for good reason. This is a completely different Mercedes-Benz than we know. I mean, how do the words "Mercedes-Benz" and "minivan" go in the same sentence? Yet again, it worked in Wisconsin for Buick, why shouldn't it work in Europe for Mercedes-Benz? Any Minivan that starts at $36,514 has to be luxurious and up to date, right? Well, according to Whatcar.com, it's very flexible for different types of families, with two wheelbase and three body length options, but "It's an expensive option, whose van roots show through in some areas. The engines are noisy and it's not easy to use the car’s full versatility, as the seats are heavy if you want to remove them." The horsepower ratings, though you'd hardly look at that in a minivan, range from 116 to 258, and of course the material quality is superb, but it's not anywhere near the most versatile and smart option in a minivan.

  Diesel has always had a bad rap. Though everyone knows it got you better MPG, diesels were loud and belched dirty, black smoke forth into the atmosphere. Diesel engines were reserved for large trucks for the most part, and it was seen as antisocial during the oil crisis to have giant, smoke-belching truck. Not to mention that diesels generally made your car much slower, limiting performance by large amounts and were hard to start. It wasn't until the late Seventies that diesels were used in everyday cars such as the VW Golf in America, though even these were slow-selling. Diesel is in for a turn-around ,though, because in the past few years diesel technology has made rapid strides from dirty and slow to fast, clean, and overall, green.

  As Volkswagen Group's recent ad campaign for Audi proclaims, diesel is no longer a "dirty" word. The fuel that we usually associate with Sulfur and Nitrogen smoke have gotten much better. New technology has completely transformed the diesel tech in the last few years, creating cars that are fast, clean, reliable, and fuel-sipping. For example, the Volkswagen Jetta TDI gets almost 50 MPG, has all the comforts of a regular Jetta, is quiet and composed, and is just as fast accelerating. There seems to be almost no downside to a diesel besides its reputation from the past, which is why they have transformed Europe and started in the US.

  So what is "Clean Diesel"? This fuel is actually achieved by producing Ultra-Low-Sulfur Diesel, or ULSD, which cuts the amount of sulfur in the diesel by 98 to 99% compared to the Diesels that all of these used-to-be facts are related to. This also benefits performance, as sulfur clogs the emissions and engine systems, limiting performance and frugality. This means that, with today's ULSD technology, diesel is actually more frugal than hybrid tech, with better performance. So you can have a car with Prius-like MPG and GTI-like responses.

  Ever heard of the Ventura? Liar. You're probably thinking of the Puma, the more common (and admittedly better-looking) Brazilian VW-Based kit car from the malaise era. In this country, where almost every Brazilian kit car is referred to as a Puma, it's almost impossible to find somebody who can identify a Ventura, and even less the extremely rare convertible version, not one of which is known to have made it to the US.

  So what exactly is the Ventura? It was a very similar design to the well-known Puma kit car in that it was a chassis based on VW 4-cylinder power cloaked in a sporty 2-door fastback body that was sold in coupe and convertible forms. Some key differences between the Ventura and Puma are styling, which can be explained by the eras in which each of these cars was launched. The Puma was launched in 1964, with styling reminiscent of Alfa Romeo convertibles that would come a few years later, as well as the Ferrari Dino and other cars. But the Ventura was launched in 1978, fourteen years later, and the auto industry was much different by then. The Venturas were influenced by the Porsche 924 and a "looking towards the eighties" interpretation of the Ferrari 308, and were much more hard-edged and bland. Underneath the differences are slight. Both cars were powered by 4-cylinder VW motors, but the Ventura had the pancake-type engine out of the Type III, unlike the Puma, which used different VW power as well as some early DKW and later Chevy-powered kits.

  The original Ventura design was produced until 1984, when a minor facelift was in order that gave it the aforementioned styling cues and a bland convertible model reminiscent of a more angled Dodge 400 was added to the range. The coupe you see in the photo is a 1984 model. There were now four versions of the car, with two engine and body configuration options. You could either get an 84-horse 1.8 motor or a 1.6, which was eliminated after 1986. Ventura decided due to slowing sales that the car was in for another chenge in 1988, though this one was much more radical. More than just a styling change, the new Ventura II was powered by a 2-liter motor and had major adjustments. Although it was supposed to be an altogether better car, the company stopped making it that same year due to floundering sales, only continuing with low-volume small-truck production, another category it had its hands in. Be wary, though and don't be too quick to tell me production of the Ventura continued after I said. Since many of the VW components used in the cars dated from the sixties and the cars were often titled a few years after they were built due to the owners taking their time with their own personal modifications to the car, the model year was hard to determine by any DMV office. Usually when you find Ventura cars, the model year will have been determined by whatever year they were titled. I've found Venturas that have been titled as 1992 model years or even later.

  I'm excited because I get the satisfaction of reporting this before Autoblog or Jalopnik, which I both sent tips to. I was getting stuff ata local gas station when a guy who obviously has a sense of humor pulls up in a 2001 Buick Century Custom. The catch? It had hybrid badges all over it! Each front fender had a GM Hybrid badge on it, which reminded me of a Rolls-Royce with hybrid badges I saw on Autoblog a few weeks ago. The car even went a step farther, with little 2-mode badges on it on a logo on the back of the car. I immediately snapped some photos and sent in some tips to a few major automotive blogs. But I still get the satisfaction of being the first to report on this, this thing.

The world's cheapest car, the Tato Nano, is vouching on launching in the US after some redesign to meet standards, and I was surfing their website today when I ran into a fun configutator which includes decals and Y-spoke wheels reminiscent of ones used on Shelby Cobras. Another thing worthy of mentioning is that there are regular colors and then "luxury colors", which change the trim level automatically by selecting them. So if you like the yellow that we've seen the Nano in most but don't like the giant black-plastic piece on front and want it to be body-color, you can't do that because you can't have the luxury level with a base color. anyways, the configurator is at http://tatanano.inservices.tatamotors.com/tatamotors/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=182&Itemid=203, but if you don't want to copy and paste that mouthful you can just click on this post's title and it'll bring you to the configurator. It'll distract you sufficiently from work.

With Obama pushing 35 MPG by 2016 for cars, many enthusiasts are worried about their next-gen supercars being limited to only 100 MPH to meet the standards. Of course, there is merit in that thought, as we all know from the late seventies. But I know that there are ways to meet and beat these standards while keeping our cars muscular and quick, ways that weren't even a forming idea in an engineer's head during the malaise era. Here are some ideas to get us through the CAFE standards fast: I mean seriously fast, not to mention in style.

Though it is not completely certain yet, it seems that the Swedish supercar manufacturer Koenigsegg will buy out the company and aid a return to its Swedish roots. This could spell many things for Saab; a production version of the 2006 Aero X concept shown on top is being widely called for. There are many ways Koenigsegg, as a well-funded and notable company, can do with Saab, but I have a hunch that not much about the market segment or targeted buyers will change. The quality will probably improve and styling will change, but other than that it'll be the same old Saab we've known since its birth.

Leave it to the former, non-Italian Chrysler to try tell us they'll have a fully-functioning electric car company many years ago, and come out with a glorified golf cart that has huge insurance costs per lack of any safety features that supposedly cost billions to develop, called GEM. Top speed? 25 MPH. Range? 40 miles. By then, nobody wants them because of their final design, and Chrysler loses money. This is one reason why the brilliant management of Chrysler failed to work. I've seen one of these vehicles after many years on the market, and I've seen over ten Smart cars since March.

The Mercedes-Benz G-Class has not been thouroughly updated at all since the introduction of the 100-grand SUV in 2002 with the exception of adding trim levels and technology updates. Nothing about the car makes sense. It has 382 horsepower coming out of a 5.5-liter, 32-valve V-8. It is packaged in a square, jeep-like body that absolutely ruins the power that it has. Even a hummer H2, costing nearly half the price, has more power. 0-60 in 6 seconds isn't good for any car that costs over $100,000, even if it is an SUV. And in this economy, it's even antisocial.

Chrysler is supposedly being taken over by FIAT, and therefore becomes and Italian company. GM is in the dumps, filing for bankruptcy is in their future, and the Government may take them over. These are some of the Big Three, though there are other American cars that are usually electrics and/or supercars. This leaves only Ford, who hasn't asked for the huge bailouts the other companies have and also is bringing in better cars such as the new Fusion and some European compacts supposedly coming to the US.
Ford was the first of the big three, but not in the way you think, with the Model T and Model A. Henry the first actually started two or three other companies before the revolutionary Ford. One of these, The Henry Ford Motor Company, was turned into Cadillac when Henry left, and joined GM a little later. Therefore, GM originated the earliest, Cadillacs were known for their smoothness, luxury, and earning the badge "The Standard of the World".
Today's Cadillac isn't at all the superior quality that used to be. Common parts from the cheapo Chevy range sneak their way in, and the leather doesn't hold up without wrinkling for a month, new. Ford, on the other hand, actually probably has better quality the Cadillac with this new 2010 range, and they're constantly improving with their own money, not the government's. The new Fusion Hybrid is America's most fuel-efficient (and maybe best-looking) mid-size sedan, and the Escape Hybrid, which has stood through vigorous use through many years now, gets 34 MPG. If the other Big Two would start acting like Ford, we could avoid all of this because people are looking for cars that last, and so go to Hondas and Toyotas. Ford gets a good share of these sales, also and their future is looking bright. Photo of the new 2010 Ford Taurus is from Photobucket.

Okay, so Fiat has a deal with Chrysler for the bankrupt company to badge engineer the established Italian manufacturer's little microcar, the iconic 500. This tells us a few things.
One: Chrysler is so desperate that they've stepped down to the level of the failed Isuzu brand and many other tiny brands and gone to pure badge engineering. This tells us the company is so intent on pleasing the government that they don't care that the cars they're doing it with are little econobox Fiats. I'm not saying that Fiat doesn't make good cars and I wouldn't look forward to seeing 500s around town, this is just an observation on how low Chrysler has gone.
Two: I'm also glad Chrysler is taking these steps because some of the funding may go towards making homegrown Chryslers better. They could do a redesign of the Jeep Grand Cherokee that doesn't look exactly like the old one; they could improve the Viper and use high-quality materials in the 300 and other cars. So, in two ways, America would benefit.
And Three: If Chrysler gets enough money, they could start developing a whole new platform and technology, and do a K-car type thing and save their own bacon. Chrysler would be revitalized, and Fiat could launch itself as a full-model brand in the U.S. again once we see what Italy can cook up in economy cars. It's a win-win unless people like the Fiat cars better.
Photo of an imagined "Chrysler 500" is from www.rpmgo.com

As you've probably heard, Pontiac's future has been revised from previous "niche" brand plans and the entire brand is going to be killed off because of mismanagement and the economy. Instead of telling you all of Pontiac's triumphs, I present to you these photos, which show why Pontiac was so influential and great.