List of things you don’t want to happen:
- Have spinach stuck in your teeth for the duration of a first date.
- Buy a new car and have it break down on the way home.
- Have the car you built and sold to Consumer Reports break down even before it’s checked in.
A positive Consumer Reports review can make or break a new car. Even established cars can suffer when the great CR Oracle turns its head away, as the Honda Civic is well aware.
So what happens when a start-up automaker sells a $100,000 car to the almighty CR, only to have it on a flatbed truck moments later? It’s not going to be good.
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Car Industry News, Car Magazines, Car Minded, Car Safety, Electric Vehicles, Exotic Cars, General Chat
Consumer reports, consumer reports fisker, fisker, karma
Will we finally meet a Lamborghini SUV? A Raging Bull family sedan? An Aventador roadster?
All are possibilities, and, from what we hear, the Geneva Motor Show in March will finally confirm (or deny) the presence of at least two new Lambo models.
That’s big news, and would double the lineup of the two-car exotic automaker. It shouldn’t be too surprising, though, coming from a brand owned by ultra-ambitious Volkswagen.
How exciting will these two new models be? Let’s explore the options.
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Geneva Motor Show, Lamborghini, Lamborghini Aventador roadster, Lamborghini Gallardo, Lamborghini Sesto Elemento, lamborghini suv
The De Tomaso Mangusta was the predecessor to the automaker’s more famous Pantera. Only 401 of these Italian Lambo-esque exotics were built between 1967 and 1971, and only about 170 are known to remain in existence.
Rumor has it that De Tomaso chose the name Mangusta, Italian for “Mongoose,” because the namesake animal is capable of killing cobras. That was a little bit of trash talk directed at Carroll Shelby, whom the company had been in talks with to replace the Shelby Cobra with a De Tomaso.
Shelby, of course, went on to build a storied relationship with Ford while De Tomaso slipped into automotive oblivion after the Pantera’s respectable run.
Now, a design student has taken a stab at designing a modern Mangusta, and it’s just what the year 2012 could use.
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Car Industry News, Car Magazines, Car Minded, Classic & Vintage Cars, Domestic Cars, Exotic Cars, Foreign Cars, General Chat
concept, de tomaso, de tomaso mangusta, de tomaso mangusta legacy, mangusta
For the fourth time since 1997, the Ford F-150 has been named the Motor Trend Truck of the Year.
While this year’s model makes a strong argument as the best pickup available on the market, previous Ford winners are still great, and cheaper, options for the truck-buying crowd on a budget.
The impressive list of standard and optional features available on the 2012 F-150 allows buyers to spec their new workhorse in one of 650,000 different ways. Along with the truck’s engineering superiority, general fit and finish, and one unanimous best-engine choice, the judges at Motor Trend were won over by Dearborn’s finest.
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Car Industry News, Car Magazines, Car Minded, Car Shopping, Domestic Cars, General Chat, Trucks & SUVs
2012 Ford F-150, 2012 Truck of the Year, DealFinder, Motor Trend Truck of the Year
Is the Car of the Year a turkey?
Over 45 million turkeys are being savored on American dinner plates today.
Americans love turkey. We love dousing it in gravy, we love it with mashed potatoes, we love it with stuffing and cranberry sauce. Someone has even invented tofu that “tastes” like turkey to satisfy the three people in America who crave the flavor but don’t want the guilt.
Turkey makes us happy. Turkeys make us sleep well. So why did the term “turkey” come to describe something that fails to meet expectations? Who knows. But when a car is labeled as the “Biggest Turkey of the Year,” you can bet it isn’t going to be good.
Keep reading for a look at the vehicle winning this year’s dubious honor.
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Car Magazines, Car Minded, Domestic Cars, Foreign Cars, General Chat, Trucks & SUVs
2012 Biggest automotive turkey of the year, 2012 Volkswagen Passat, 2013 Lexus GS350, 2021 honda civic, automotive turkeys, ecoboost, Ford Explorer
Don't skip the test drive!
I don’t like to buy socks without first trying them on. I know that’s a bit extreme, but usually I can’t take new socks for a “test wear” anyway, because they are wrapped in plastic, which I find terribly inconvenient.
When it comes to buying a car, something that cannot be returned and must be lived with for a number of years, I can’t imagine not test-driving it first. Twice.
Yet in certain situations, people are buying vehicles, especially used ones, online without as much as opening the doors to peer inside. That’s just a bad idea, on so many levels!
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Car Magazines, Car Minded, Car Shopping, General Chat
assume car lease, buy without test drive, skip test drive, test drive
The lack of media applause was deafening as the 2012 Volkswagen Passat took the still-prestigious Motor Trend Car of the Year Award. In fact, some people, like Jalopnik’s Mike Spinelli, got downright nasty about it. Other venues simply put down the award as disingenuous and irrelevant.
In a way, it’s fun to read these guys, who try to establish themselves (maybe we all do) as truth-tellers in a world of false values, corporatism and special pleading for unspecial cars. The enthusiasts vs. the whorish media.
These are rhetorical games—not to sell cars but to attract readers.
So, if you read Motor Trend’s story about why and how it picked the Passat, there is a sense throughout that its selection team saw the car as a series of fair compromises—which of course all constructors of mass-market cars must make.
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2012 Volkswagen Passat, Car of the Year Award, Motor Trend
Land Rover has had a troubled history as a company. The original 1948 firm got sold to British Leyland in the ‘60s (maybe the worst British car group ever), then British Aerospace, then BMW, then Ford, now Tata Motors.
None of these corporate shifts appear to have done it any good. Tata merged Land Rover with Jaguar (JLR), and the company has dropped 30 percent in market value over the last six months.
The Economic Times (of India) says the company needs to develop synergies between its two brands or, perhaps, split them apart. JLR says it plans to double its sales in India this year. Who are you going to believe here?
What JLR really needs is to determine, finally, its identity in today’s marketplace. Is it going to make fashion-statement cars, like the Evoque or the DC100 Concept Sport (above, shown in Frankfurt)? Or will it return to its roots as the world’s best off-road vehicle?
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Jaguar Land Rover, Land Rover DC100 Concepts, Land Rover Defender, Range Rover, Tata Motors
Ever think you’d see that headline? That’s one I’d place right up there with, “U.S. Nearly Defaults” and “Obama Wins Re-Election.”
But these are crazy times we live in, and you just never know what’s going to dominate the headlines.
The Honda Civic has been one of Consumer Reports’ darlings since, oh, I don’t know, the Jefferson administration. It’s a car that has gotten progressively better since its inception in 1972.
Until now.
For its latest test, CR drove the $19,405 2012 Honda Civic LX. For comparison, the 2011 version of the car scored a 78 on the magazine’s scale, which meant a rating of “Very Good.” The 2012 version dropped a shocking 17 points to a mediocre 61. That’s lower than the Kia Forte and Ford Focus. In fact, it’s lower than everything except the redesigned Volkswagen Jetta.
So what happened?
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2012 Honda Civic, Consumer reports, Ford Focus, Kia Forte, Volkswagen Jetta
We may be in the middle of an epidemic of bad supercar names.
Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4.
Pagani Huayra.
And now, the Shelby Super Cars Tuatara. (Twit-ara or too-a-tara, discuss amongst yourselves.)
While the name might be bad, the rest of the latest offering from SSC is absolutely brilliant. And it has but one purpose in life: to take away the Bugatti Veyron’s title for fastest production car in the world.
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Car Industry News, Car Magazines, Car Minded, Cars Coming Soon, Domestic Cars, Exotic Cars, Foreign Cars, General Chat
Ferrari 458 Spider, new Dodge Magnum, Shelby Super Cars, SSC Tuatara
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