A distraction from your crappy holiday commute

This post almost turned into a rant about crappy drivers, traffic, and how awesome Top Gear is. But I held it back.

The roads are going to suck this week. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Thanksgiving week is when the family packs into the minivan, and proceeds to Grandmas house, always in the left lane and way under the reasonable speed limit. This is when the travelers come out to do battle with the commuters.

How can you tell if you are stuck behind one of these people? A surefire way to know is if they slam on their brakes in the EZ pass lane, or you see someone blindly following their GPS into oncoming traffic. Do your best not to get behind ay minivan with stenciled stickers of the whole family plus the dog.

But I thought I was smart. This week, I did everything I could to avoid the roads. I had meetings scheduled in NYC on Monday and out on the Island on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then my Tuesday got moved, and now I’m stuck driving to Jersey today. It took me 2 hours to get in, but that’s probably nothing compared to what thwe ride home is going to be.  But at least its better then Wednesday.  I guess that’s karma teaching me not to meddle with my business schedule just to avoid driving.

But the post today is actually to distract me from all of this with some auto-erotica. I don’t understand the Nissan Juke, although I have been dying to drive one. A sporty, well handling compact car seems like a no brainer for commuting, assuming the MPG is up to snuff. But then the boys over at Nissan UK decided to stuff a 3.8 liter V6 from a GT-R into it. The result is pure beauty. Autoblog has been covering the build from day 1, and they have now posted some videos from Nissan on it. We can expect this will never be more than a project car, but its good to know that they care. Check out the video below of the complete build firing up, anturn up your volume around the 1:00 minute mark to hear some Christmas music come early.

Via Nissan via Autoblog.

Video courtesy Nissan

 

The death of Panther from the people that use it

I’m a talker, or so I have been told. Maybe it’s my up-stater-ness, but like engaging people in conversation, and this holds true when I’m stuck in a car for someone for about an hour. Because of my job, I often find myself utilizing car service when driving or public transportation is not practical. Last week, I took a late night ride home from Manhattan with a Pakistani driver who had a lot of opinions and shared some knowledge with me.

Some guys just know more about the roads than us commuters can ever imagine. Among airline pilots and cops, my favorite people to talk to our livery drivers. Unlike NY cabbies, these guys have to have a good grasp on English, and an extensive knowledge of the tri-state area, not just the five boroughs. So of course, we had a great long conversation on the death of the Crown Vic/ Town car / Panther platform which is on top of the minds of many.

This is a very interesting topic which has some very passionate to fleet drivers and managers, yet we know nothing in the mainstream, and it affects us all. Here’s the scoop: after this year, Ford will discontinue the Panther platform, which is responsible for the Crown Victoria (cops cars, taxi cabs), the Lincoln Town Car (livery and fleet drivers, gypsy cabs) and the Grand Marquis (old people, already dead with Mercury).  Perhaps it is time to embrace a platform with better fuel efficiency and modern features. So let’s explore these groups, and how they are affected:

Cabs and Livery: For the cabs, this means a replacement in the next few years, which the city has decided to go with a Nissan minivan that’s drawing a lot of criticism, but hey, fuel efficiency. Other cities like Las Vegas are trying out the Ford Transit connect, which lost the NYC war due to fuel efficiency.  The livery folks are on their own; they tried the Camry hybrid, but found it to falter mainly on comfort and space. I was told you can only fit 2 large suitcases, whereas the venerable Town Car can fit 4-5 bags, and still have room left for a dead prostitute. It looks like the best runner up right now will be the Lincoln MKZ and MKX, basically a Ford Taurus and a Ford Explorer. Some of the guys drive hybrids, especially for the large Escalades and Tahoes, but with $5 fuel in our near future, efficiency becomes even more important, and we will be seeing less of this platform, especially as car companies are adopting a driver-owned fleet.

Cops:
No one feels the hurt from the death of Panther worse than cops who are losing their trusted Crown Vic Interceptor package for whatever the local community decides what’s next.

So why not the Ford Taurus interceptor Ford showed as the replacement? Simple answer is that it’s FWD. I talked to a couple of cops, and they hate the lack of control and torque FWD cars offer. While an AWD option is available, its doubtful many departments ill pony up the extra cash, and the hit to fuel efficiency makes it less attractive.  They cited the failure of the Impala as an intercept vehicle. I think this is a bad move on Fords part, as a good chunk of their community fleet sales are going to go to the Dodge Charger Pursuit package that’s already the scourge of NYC roadways. Another factor is intimidation. The Charger has it, but I think the Taurus pictured here will give the Charger a run for its money.

Old people: Don’t worry, Buick is coming back with a vengeance, no one is going to notice the Grand Marquis.

So why would Ford kill off such a successful platform with such a long history? While I am sure that they have their reasons, the common word on the street seems to be the influx of third party parts. See, the manufacturer makes a boatload on parts for cars. Rotors, radiators, drive belts, all of these wear out due to wear and tear, and are incremental revenue to Ford.  Now, there are so many third party companies undercutting the OEM parts, that the only way to get this revenue back is to completely overhaul the platform. If this is done, its going to be years before third party vendors can re-tool CNC machinery to reverse engineer OEM-like parts. Do I know this for a fact? No not at all. This could be totally way off, but this seems to be what the common thought is.

Toyota's Huge PR Fail

I have a few loves, and I have things I am not crazy about. I love PR and I love cars. I'm not crazy about the type of mommyblogger who has zero ethics, and really bad publicity ideas.

So this is a really good story, and this is from Jalopnik. (Link below)

Apparently, Toyota allegedly worked with a mommyblogger network to solicit positive stories about the brand with a $10 Amazon gift card.  Toyota says it was an ambitious mommyblogger network president, but something still stinks about it -why would she personally pay her network of bloggers to write positive stories about Toyota?  Apparently that FTC ruling on mommybloggers is having a lot of people questioning their ethics.

And what’s worse? That only one mommyblogger (dearcrissy.com) blew the whistle? I get no less than three emails a day from these sites with the 143 readers trying to get thousands of dollars of gear from me for a “giveaway" on their website.  I am floored that ten bucks would sway them.

But anyway, here’s the bottom line - Toyota, if its not obvious to you by now, you need some PR help, pretty badly. Call me.

http://jalopnik.com/#!5762479

 

Mercury's Dropping

The latest rumors on the auto industry front is from Jalopnik, and it says there are rumors that Ford is considering terminating the Mercury brand. This would make sense, as the brand is targeted toward women, a gap which Fords new prego-and-estrogen heavy advertising and media blitz fills nicely. With no market segment, no distinct styling and no excitement, the graveyard would seem like an appropriate place for the brand that fills space in dealers that could be room for more profitable Lincolns.

But on the flip side, this could be wrong, who knows, maybe the Grand Marquis is a sleeping giant for sales that solidifies the brand for consumers while on the underpinnings of the super profitable Crown Vic platform.  it would be like making money without even trying.

What will you miss? Will it be the Sable? the Tracer? the Villager, which was touted to hanlde not like a minivan? I think most people will agree that the two things we will miss the most from Mercury will be the 2003 Marauder, and Jill Wagner.



photo courtesy of Edmunds.com

via Jalopnik

http://jalopnik.com/5549458/report-ford-to-kill-mercury

Rumors of new Infiniti 2.5

Heres the thing about the cars we will talk about here - they need to have some sort of practicality. No one is going to drive a corvette or a GT-R to work everyday, and we need to focus on whats actually going to be used by commuters.

So I want to talk about a new rumor (via Autoblog) concerning a new infinity platform. But first, heres a little disclaimer. I am a total Nissan nut. I love their products, and the VQ motor is absolutely bulletproof. I came very close to buying a G35x because it was a phenomenal ride, but didn't pull the trigger because of gas mileage.

The reports say that the 2011 G series will be available with a turbo 2.5 V6, which is the same motor found in the Japanese Skyline coupe (not GT-R). I am predicting something different.

Anyone remember the Infiniti G20t? It sold well and was very cost effective for Nissan to build an Infiniti on the Altima platform / motor. I think we will be seeing a G25 and G25s variant very soon, but without the turbo. I think it will use the same motor as the current Altima to achieve maximum efficiency, (2.5 four-banger) and ride on a slightly tweaked Altima body. This was the exact same strategy for the G20t.

This is a safe play on Infiniti's part. With Audi and BMW bringing smaller, more fuel efficient luxury cars to the states, Nissan's luxury division will need something to compete, and the answer is a platform variant that costs a minimum to produce, but could possibly be a best seller in the entry luxury category.

[caption id="attachment_102" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="96 Inifiniti G20T (Image from Consumer Guide Auto)"][/caption]

Broken down today: '01 VW Beetle and a 92 Honda Civic coupe