Rally fans who were troubled by the rumors yesterday that Subaru was preparing to do the unthinkable and scrap its WRC team will be disappointed to learn that the speculation has proven to be true, as parent company Fuji Heavy Industries has announced it is pulling its participation effective immediately.
Not unlike its fellow Japanese automaker Honda, which has canceled its Formula One program, Fuji Heavy points to cost-cutting measures amidst the current global economic crisis as its reason for canceling its motorsport program. Still, it's a shocking move for the automaker that earned its reputation on the rally circuit, even if they haven't won a single stage since 2005. The move also means that Prodrive, the racing consultancy firm that has operated the Subaru WRC team for over 20 years, will need to find a new partner for next season and beyond as the WRC moves ahead with new regulations. But Prodrive may find the rally circuit a lonely place after Suzuki also canceled its participation, leaving Ford and Citroen as the only manufacturers fielding factory teams in the top level of rallying.
The 13th annual International Car and Truck of the Year awards are set to take place this January at the Detroit Auto Show, and the jury's official trio of nominees has just been announced. According to Courtney Caldwell, ICOTY's creator and executive producer, "[The awards are] about how cars reflect our lifestyles and self image, an attitude most consumers can identify with."
So, what cars can you identify with? How about the Dodge Challenger, Ford Flex and Nissan GT-R? Those are the three cars that will be vying for the coveted trophy, and we can't think of any reason that these triplets wouldn't be worthy of a vote or two. The Challenger marks Chrysler's return to the pony car market and offers buyers a relatively inexpensive entry into quick quarter mile times and rumbling V8 power. The controversially styled Ford Flex is a fully modern take on the classic box-shaped people mover and we feel little need to explain why the mighty GT-R is worthy of your affection.
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Back in September of 2007, Steven Tyler, best known as the lead singer for Aerosmith, launched a custom motorcycle company along with his cousin, Stephen Talarico, and cycle designer Mark Dirico. The trio called the company Red Wing Motorcycles. That high-flying moniker may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it turns out that the name was already taken. In fact, it's been taken a few times. This being the case, Tyler used the New England International Auto Show, which is running this weekend, to announce that the company has been renamed Dirico Custom Motorcycles.
Yeah, so it may not be as catchy as Red Wing, but at least it's available. As far as the bikes go, these "factory custom" machines seem like quality pieces and use mostly stock V-Twin powerplants from The Motor Company. While this means they should be pretty reliable, there's not much here to separate Red Wing Dirico Custom Motorcycles from those of the the hundreds of other "custom" manufacturers. So, what's the hook? Each bike comes pre-signed by none other than... Steven Tyler, of course.
At the Thailand Motor Expo this week, Ford's rolling out a show truck based on the locally-produced Ford Ranger. Dubbed the Ranger Max, it's a styling exercise designed to infuse the compact pickup with some visual muscle and toughness. According to Ford, power tools were among the inspirations for the project, hence the blend of matte accents and this OSHA-friendly orange paint job. Anyway, it's pretty cool, what with the embossed "RANGER" logos on the grille and tailgate; vented, domed hood; chunky wheel/tire package; flared fenders and integrated step rails. If Ford were to (finally) replace the U.S.-market Ranger with something incorporating the main cues from this (especially the overall grille/front-end treatment), you wouldn't hear a peep of complaint from us -- we'd be too busy listening to "One Night in Bangkok" on the stereo while we cruised down that street from the Ford Flex ads.
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The future is looking bleak for the North American International Auto Show, with automakers dropping out like hippies. Nissan and Infiniti were just two among the hoards of car manufacturers – including Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Rolls-Royce, Land Rover and Ferrari as well as Porsche – that have recently announced their withdrawal from the Detroit show. But that's not stopping the show coordinators from continuing their campaign to have Motown's convention center updated as they see the show making a comeback within a few years.
According to show chairman Joe Serra, the downturn in participation for this year's show is just a reflection of the current economic climate. "It would be foolish for us to think this is how the future is going to look." Foolish or not, we can't imagine the Detroit 3 using much of their Congressional bailout cash on convention center renovations while they're trying to stay on their feet and in the black.
Ford Performance Vehicles, otherwise known as FPV, is celebrating its fifth birthday as being the sharp end of Ford Australia's performance stick. FPV presented itself with a gift at this week's Australian International Motor Show in the form of a special edition FPV 5th Anniversary model. Only 200 units will be produced of the rear-wheel-drive Falcon-based birthday present, ensuring instant collector car status for the discerning Aussie buyer. The car features Alpine Silver 19-inch multi-spoke wheels, 6-piston Brembo brakes, sports seats upholstered in Nudo leather and special "5th Anniversary" decals on the trunk, ahead of the rear wheels, embossed on the front headrests and on the floormats. The FPV 5th Anniversary model will be available in Lightning Strike or Silhouette, both with striping, and starts at $71,890 in Australian dollars, which FPV says equates to $9,600 worth of extra goodies for only $5,300 more than the FPV GT sedan. So happy birthday to FPV, and we hope that Ford invites us to your rear-wheel-drive performance sedan party some time soon.
Another one bites the dust, and this time its International, that's decided to drop its line of non-commercial big rigs. Considering the tough times that automakers have been having moving traditional pickups off dealer lots and into driveways, you can imagine the problems that International must be having with its CXT, MXT and RXT consumer-grade semis. Current fuel prices alone may have been enough to bring the Internationals to a grinding halt, but the faltering economy, which has made luxury toy purchases much harder to justify, may have been the final nail in the XT's coffin. In any case, this isn't a death-blow to International, as the company didn't sell too many of these leviathans anyway, and their demise will allow the company to focus its attention back on the heavy-duty hauler segment that is its bread-and-butter, along with the military segment, which surely is more profitable than the others.
Lewis Hamilton does not have good luck in France. Of all the races he's won in these past two seasons, he's yet to take the checkered flag at the French Grand Prix, has had his license revoked by the French gendarmes, and has now had his appeal thrown out of court in Paris. Following the Belgian Grand Prix earlier this month, Hamilton was penalized by the race stewards with a 25-second penalty (in lieu of a pit-lane drive-through penalty) that bumped him down from first place to third, and allowed Ferrari's Felipe Massa to close the lead down to one single point. The penalty was given to Hamilton for having cut through a chicane on the Spa-Francorchamps track called the "bus stop", which race officials ruled gave him an illegal advantage. Hamilton's team McLaren decided to appeal the penalty in the FIA's court in Paris, however the court threw out the case as inadmissible, quoting sporting regulations that stipulate that drive-through penalties cannot be appealed. McLaren presented precedent from a repealed penalty handed to Toro Rosso in Japan last year, however the court of appeal was adamant in their refusal to hear the case.
It's an epic poem that could have been written by Byron: you suffered a nasty breakup and met a new girl, you dated for a while, things were looking outstanding, you proposed... and then the bottom dropped out of the medium-duty truck business. We've seen it all before. And now that it's happened, Navistar has backed away from it's non-binding commitment to purchase GM's medium-duty truck operations. GM and Navistar only had a memorandum of understanding, so there appears to be no harm, no foul in Navistar getting icy feet. The brief announcement of the dissolution presents it as a mutual affair: "Due to significant marketplace and economic changes, GM and Navistar have decided not to renew the memorandum of understanding to purchase GM's medium duty truck business," but we imagine GM standing at the altar, watching its Navistar groom bolt from the church and hop in a taxi. GM is still talking to Navistar and looking at other ways to dump find a good home for its medium duty truck business. A shame, because they make some fine vehicles.
Are they really "one-of-a-kind," as stated by Kruse on its official auction page, if there are 25 of them going up for auction on the same day? That's not to say getting one of the 500 Hertz Shelby Mustang GT-H Convertibles (sheesh, that's a mouthful!) that were built in 2007 is a bad thing, but nobody really knows if these vehicles will ever really gain in value over more pedestrian versions of Ford's iconic pony car like their forebears have. Rest assured, though, you are not going to be bidding the same $250,000 that collector Ron Pratte paid for serial #001. For reference, the last batch of rent-a-racers that were auctioned off managed about $33K per unit.
The car itself is powered by a 319-horsepower version of Ford's ubiquitous 4.6-liter three-valve V8 engine mated to an automatic transmission -- perfect for the kind of top-down summer cruising that these vehicles are likely to see. If you want one of the 25 going up for auction, they'll be at the Kruse Select Auction in Monterey, CA next week.
