SoCalCTS

Bob Lutz looks pretty stoked to be receiving that award.

Bobit Publications Associate Publisher Bob Brown (second from left) presents the 2006 Fleet Car of the Year Award for the new Chevrolet Impala to Chevrolet General Manager Ed Peper (left to right), General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, GM Fleet and Commercial Operations Marketing Director John Gaydash and GM Fleet and Commercial Operations Director, Portfolio Planning and Specialty Vehicles Dave Spence Thursday, November 17, 2005 at the GM Heritage Center in Sterling Heights, Michigan. The award is sponsored by Automotive Fleet and Business Fleet magazines. (General Motors/John F. Martin)

That would make a great Fleet convertible. Just slap a GM badge on it and sell it as GM Classic convertible. That would beat the heck out of Sebring rental cars.

I don't recall saying such a thing. The Ford and GM plant closures do not necessarily reflect any direct link to Toyota. I am simply pointing out that Toyota creating X amount of jobs is just a deceptive number that doesn't reflect a true benefit to America. If an American "startup" automobile company had come along and built cars instead of Toyota more jobs would have been created in America. Why? Because a local company would have found local suppliers and would imploy the majority of its workers in the USA. Toyota still imports much of its componentry from overseas, it does its R&D overseas and its administrative offices are overseas. Don't you think that there is a ripple effect in tires, glass, plastics, electronics, banking, marketing, autoparts and other related industries?

Well, for one thing NHTSA lets car makers use optional equipment such as side airbags in their tests. They test once without and if the manufacturers don't like the score then they supply a new car with the optional equipment. The truth is that very few people will spring for the extra expense of side impact air bags. Not many collisions are dead on into a wall like the IHS test either. So frontal collision safety doesn't tell the whole story either. I think the Forbes article reasonably makes its case from the data at hand.

Toyota, Just how many American jobs were lost as a result of Toyota?!?!? Even with 386,300 jobs created they probably knocked out 750,000 American jobs because cars made by US manufacturers carry far more domestic content than Japanese cars assembled in the USA.

How did you get to the article? I couldn't figure it out. Thanks.

I was searching google for Cadillac pictures and I clicked on a thumbnail of an IMAJ concept car but I guess it was cross linked to this picture. What kind of car is this?

Star Tribune Story Editorial: When General Motors sneezes ... Detroit's health-care costs are symptoms of a bigger problem. Last update: November 28, 2005 at 5:54 PM Like many Americans, Barack Obama was stunned last week when General Motors announced plans to lay off a quarter of its manufacturing workforce -- some 30,000 people -- and shutter a dozen North American factories by 2008. But Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, was in a position to do something about the latest sign of U.S. industrial meltdown. He has introduced legislation that would relieve American automakers of part of their retiree health-care costs if, in exchange, they promise to invest a portion of their savings in production of fuel-efficient vehicles. We have misgivings about the details of Obama's plan. But if it sparks a conversation about the cost of health care and American competitiveness in a global economy, that's progress. The swap that Obama proposes is attractive, but it could send some bad signals. It seems to cushion Detroit from a series of management mistakes over the last decade -- specifically, its sustained bet on gas-guzzling SUVs. In effect, it punishes rivals such as Toyota for having the foresight and initiative to develop hybrids and other fuel-saving cars. Finally, it raises dangerous issues of precedent: Should the government bail out other old-line companies, such as IBM or AT&T, that have hefty retiree costs? That said, Obama is onto something important about health care costs in the United States and the way they are crippling the competitiveness of American industry. Hefty insurance premiums certainly aren't the only reason why Detroit's Big Three have struggled. But they can't be ignored. By one estimate, employee health insurance costs General Motors $1,400 per car, more than steel or engineering. The figure at Toyota, by contrast, is something like $200 per car. Because the United States, alone among advanced nations, has chosen to link health insurance to the workplace, it has also imposed a business cost that is no longer sustainable in a global economy. It's not just that taxpayers pick up part or all of the bill in Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Australia, Taiwan and other developed nations, lifting part of the expense off business. It's that these nations, by streamlining administrative costs and creating universal coverage pools, have also achieved vastly lower costs. Americans spent $5,274 per person on health care in 2002, according to the World Health Organization. The comparable figure in Canada was $2,931. In Germany it was $2,817. In Australia, $2,699 and in Japan, $2,133. All these countries, by the way, had better overall health indicators than the United States. Thirty years ago the expense of health care was an afterthought in world economic competition, a field where American companies enjoyed the advantages of light regulation, a low cost of capital, a flexible workforce and constant innovation. As the industrial giants stumble and the ranks of the uninsured climb, however, it is an afterthought no more.

It was a girl with blingy teeth.

Here are my suggestions: Emboss the Mitsubishi 3 diamond logo onto the center chrome bar and eliminate the logo on the grill. Make the chrome bar match the chrome on the wheels. Make the side mirrors body color and chrome. Use 300C style headlamps. Do these things and this truckcould appeal to wanna-be rappers. :P

I never watch that show but I stopped because I saw the Solstice. I'm not sure that someone with a mouth full of gold an diamonds would be buying a solstice with stock wheels. The car looked great. I hope a lot of people head to the dealerships to find one.

Number 2 is good but I'm built more like #1 so I pick #1. Anyways, BV... This all I could come up with.

I can just hear the commercials now, "The Nissan Gigantor with more standard horsepower than F-650". Motor Trend's 2007 Pollutionwagon of the Year.

I can't believe they picked the craptacular Xterra as their SUV of the year. I guess quality doesn't figure into the "class leading" voting criteria? MT is a joke. It should be renamed "Import Trend"

There is just SO much wrong with Buick that it provokes intense discussion amongst the members of this site.

Happy Birthday-Thanksgiving! Jeez, are any bars even open today????

I agree. I meant to say the 1966. My mother drove one of these in highschool.

enclave: a distinct territorial, cultural, or social unit enclosed within or as if within foreign territory (from Vulgar Latin inclavare to lock up, from Latin in- + clavis key ) This name sucks. At best, I picture a well groomed gated community. Mostly, I picture Israelis in the occuppied territories.

Without a doubt the 2006 is the best since it's rebirth. Otherwise, I pickthe 1967 model.

I still haven't seen one in my neck of the woods (California). Where are you? In Ohio (Honda-land) or something?

Leave it to Motor Trend to set the bar so low. I guess looks don't count for much. The interior of the new civic is such a mess. The vents are all different sizes and it looks like it was thrown together from the Honda parts bin. oh well, Civic enjoy it while you can. I predict your sales will continue to fall just like the previous Civic's did.

Shoot me now. Please, please, please do NOT make a Cadillac Maxx! That sketch brings horror to my heart.

I would have pointed her to the Mercedes E-class which was ranked the most unreliable car ever tested by CR. I would have told her to buy and never pointed out that it is a POS. Then I would sit back and laugh my ass off.

The 2006 Dodge Challenger concept resurrects another authentic American muscle car for the Dodge brand and continues to build on the success and heritage of the Hemi engine. "This concept possesses the heritage and classic forms of the original Dodge Challenger," said Trevor Creed, Senior Vice President - Chrysler Group Design. "However, the ability to use the Dodge Magnum, Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300 series architecture as the concept's foundation allowed us to bring a new level of quality and fit-and-finish to a muscle car icon."