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January 31, 2005
Top Value Holders for 2005 According to Kelley Blue Book
Here are the top ten 2005 vehicles likely retain value the best:*
2005 vehicles that will hold value the best by category:*
* Over the first five years.
January 28, 2005
Spy Shots: Subaru B9 Tribeca
A last shot before it comes out swinging.
Subaru recently confirmed what we’ve been showing you since last year — that a new seven-passenger crossover vehicle was in development. Now, our spies have nabbed the real thing, just a week before its official Detroit show introduction.
Officially named the B9 Tribeca, the vehicle was caught during a video shoot in Long Beach, California. As can be seen, this crossover is larger than the Outback and it wears Subaru’s new signature grille.
Developed under the codenames SG/X and 00X, the premium crossover wagon has already hit the consumer clinics in southern California , and has received positive feedback. Subaru insiders have commented about the vehicle’s very versatile and highly flexible interior, and it’s believed that the second and third rows of seats will fold flat to accommodate cargo, as well as flexible seating configurations. More accurately, insiders have been referring to this as a 5+2 passenger configuration.
The 2006 Tribeca will be built in Lafayette, Indiana, and should start running off the assembly line in just a year from now. Sources tell us it will measure in at about 195 inches overall, with a 108-inch wheelbase. Power is expected to come from Subaru’s 3.0-liter H6 boxer engine, and, of course, it will be all-wheel drive. Pricing likely will start from the low-to-mid $30,000 range with an estimated production of up to 40,000 units annually. The Subaru vehicle will be followed by Saab’s version built on the same platform, and also built in Lafayette.
06:37 AM in Spy Shots, Subaru | Permalink
Lotus gets horsepower crazy with Exige FA
Lotus has created this special 400 hp racecar version of the Exige. With an extremely lightweight design coming in at only 1874 lbs, this allows an incredible power-to-weight ratio of under 4.7 lbs per hp.
American car companies aren’t the only ones going horsepower crazy these days. Lotus Sport has created the Lotus Sport Exige, a motorsport version of the cool coupe we don’t get here in the U.S. This little sucker has 400 horsepower and 295 ft. lb of torque under that rear hood. Don’t get too excited this is a racer, the interior is sparse with nothing but right hand steering wheel, one Sparco seat and some switches. But man it looks badass.
January 27, 2005
Spy Shots: ’07 Explorer Sport Trac
From concept to reality—really, really quickly.
As Ford introduced the Sport Trac Concept at the recent Detroit auto show, TCC’s spies caught the real thing just a few miles away.
Five inches longer and two inches wider than the current Sport Trac, Ford’s 2007 model will likely be powered with a 210-horsepower 4.0-liter V-6, or by an optional 4.6-liter V-8 as displayed in the concept. The production version will also offer Ford’s roll stability control and likely some surprises in regard to cargo options.
But there is no denying as to what this is. The production version has the same headlamps and taillamps as the concept, as well as identical wheels and glass (although the concept is shown with a fixed rear window). Door handles and a tailgate latch are added to the production version, as well as horizontal bars on the grille, production bumpers, roof-top rack, tie-downs, a bed liner, and a production-styled third brake light.
The Sport Trac will make its production debut in the 2006 calendar year, arriving at dealerships after the reworked Explorer and Mountaineer SUVs arrive in showrooms at the beginning of next year.
06:34 AM in Ford, Spy Shots | Permalink
2006 Infiniti M45
An unseasonable chill has descended upon the wineries and redwoods ofNorthern California. The winding, wooded roadways turn treacherous under a relentless, biting rain. It is, in other words, a perfect opportunity to test out Infiniti’s newest offering, the M45.
It’s been 15 years since the Japanese automaker made its auspicious entry into the American luxury market, a debut that conveniently coincided with Toyota ’s launch of the Lexus luxury brand. Convenient for automotive observers, at least, for over the ensuing years, the two brands have been routinely compared and contrasted.
The results are stark and striking: Lexus today dominates the market, while Infiniti could be politely described as an automotive also-ran. Could the M45 change that equation? Infiniti certainly hopes so.
Read
06:01 AM in Infiniti | Permalink
January 26, 2005
2005 Pontiac G6 GT
General Motors has had a number of perfectly decent but far from outstanding compact and mid-size cars in its stable over the past few years. They know who they are, models like the Chevy Lumina and Cavalier and the long-serving Pontiac Grand Am. These cars were okay — the automotive equivalent of a meal at McDonald’s, serviceable good-value stuff — but not really first-class road chow like Wendy’s. (Real potatoes? Meat you can identify? What’s not to love?)
GM desperately needs cars that rise to my personal “Wendy’s Standard” in order to survive in an increasingly finicky and demanding marketplace where $12,000 Hyundais have become a serious threat to $18,000 Hondas and Toyotas.
Enter the new G6, which replaces the Grand Am in Pontiac’s lineup and is the leading edge of a divisional restructuring that will include a replacement for the aging, Chevy Cavalier-based Sunfire that will be called the G4 and a new top-of-the-line Pontiac luxury-sport sedan called the G8 that will retire the current Bonneville sometime in late 2005/early 2006.
06:29 AM in Pontiac | Permalink
200 MPH Club: 2005 Ford GT, Lamborghini Murcielago, Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, and Porsche Carrera GT
We bring the Ford GT, the Lamborghini Murciélago, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, and the Porsche Carrera GT together in one place. You're about to learn exactly what it's like to live with the four fastest cars on sale in America.
You've devoured every word the automotive press has written about them. You've memorized their almost unbelievable technical specifications, marveled over their futuristic constructions, pored over cutaways and power curves, and tried to get your pointy little heads around performance numbers that seem nearly incomprehensible for roadgoing production cars.
Some of you actually have plunked down the suitcase full of stacked and banded C-notes for your place on the short list for your favorite, and we suspect that more than one of you have ordered all four.
06:25 AM in Ford, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche | Permalink
January 25, 2005
No girlie cars please -- we're Dodge!
DaimlerChrysler has no qualms about ignoring female tastes -- at least when it comes to selling Dodge cars.
The new Dodge Magnum sport wagon and a soon-to-be-released Dodge Charger, a modern update of the classic muscle car from the 1960s, are very much targeted at a male audience, said Trevor Creed, design chief at the company's U.S.-based Chrysler unit.
"It does scream male, there's no doubt about that. We found that in our market research and focus groups," he said at an automotive conference in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn.
Creed was responding to a comment from the audience that suggested that the brassy styling of the vehicles -- broad-shouldered and with massive hoods to pack in big V-8 Hemi engines -- had a testosterone feel about them that might not appeal to most women.
"But I don't think there's anything wrong with that. There can be an awful lot wrong with doing the opposite," Creed said.
In an earlier speech, Creed jokingly referred to how Chrysler's 300 sedans -- a big hit in the U.S. car market since last year, have become "the poster child for the 'Pimp My Ride' movement and Dub magazine."
He was referring to how the 300 -- which features a low-slung roof and massive egg-crate grille -- has become a success among hip-hop artists as well as normally staid businessmen.
"Pimp My Ride" is a popular television show in which the host, a native Detroiter now based in Los Angeles, uses his car shop to transform vehicles seemingly overdue for the jump heap into hot new street rockets.
2006 Dodge Viper SRT-10 Coupe
Return of the tintop serpent.
Sun-in-face and wind-in-hair have been celebrated as essential sports-car joys ever since we discarded the horse, but these joys do have limits. When wind-in-hair is occurring at velocities north of 100 mph, it gets to be more like hair-in-wind, as the strands attempt to separate themselves from the follicles. Our experiences with this phenomenon include a 1990 session in a Viper prototype with none other than Robert Lutz at the helm, hurtling down Arizona back roads at a buck-fifty while his passenger's hair stood resolutely vertical.
Chrysler was still an independent business entity at the time, Lutz was its president, and the Viper was his baby. In the afterglow of this ride, while Lutz was discussing the joys of barely sublight speeds with a member of the Arizona protect-and-serve, we reflected on the distinction between closed and open cars and concluded, again, that having a solid roof and side windows (the original Viper possessed neither) is a Good Thing, in the sense of hair retention (assuming you have hair), general comfort, and going fast. Okay, make that going faster. No one would characterize a Viper roadster as slow, but thanks to cleaner aero, coupes are almost invariably faster than roadsters of equal power, even when the roadster is operating with its top up.
January 24, 2005
Best sports car: Chevrolet Corvette
Already great, the latest Corvette is even better in every regard.
November 15, 2004: 1:38 PM EST By Lawrence Ulrich, Money Magazine
NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) - An American sports car that goes fender-to-fender with Ferrari and Porsche for 45 grand? Have we been sniffing Armor All? Hardly.
For more than a half-century, the 'Vette has been a uniquely American object of desire. That patriotic lure gets cranked up a notch with this sixth-generation model, thanks to a neat trick: It performs better than the last version, yet raises its already lofty standards of everyday driveability.
Scaled-down proportions and a tailored body continue the car's welcome evolution from veiny bodybuilder to streamlined athlete. Even the pop-up headlamps, a fixture since the '63 Sting Ray, have been jettisoned to boost aerodynamics and top speed while reducing wind noise.