Ford buyers appear to love their cars more than customers of any other automotive brand, returning back to the American automaker when it comes time to purchase their next vehicle. According to a study by Experian Automotive, six of the top 10 vehicles for customer brand loyalty wear badges from the Blue Oval. That includes the Ford Fusion (62.4 percent), Ford Edge (57.9 percent), Ford Five HundredTaurus (56 percent), Ford Freestyle (51.9 percent), Ford Escape (49.4 percent) and the Ford Focus (47.57 percent).
Other vehicles making up the top 10 include the Toyota Prius (52 percent), Chevy Impala (51.7 percent), Toyota Camry (47.8 percent) and Toyota Corolla (47.56 percent). This brings up an interesting question: With the closing of automotive brands like Saturn and Pontiac, where are those buyers to turn for their next automotive purchase?
Apparently, not back to General Motors. According to Experian, Pontiac owners are most likely to look to the Ford lineup for their next car or truck and Saturn shoppers will switch to Toyota or Honda – not particularly surprising given that Saturn was meant to compete with import brands. Experian predicts that GM's overall market share will fall from 20 percent to about 17.5 percent, with most of the slack being picked up by Ford, Honda and Toyota.
Talk about a foregone conclusion. Researchers at Canada's John Molson School of Business at Concordia University in Montreal took thirty-nine typical young men (i.e. college guys) and placed them in one of two cars. The first was a Toyota Camry. The second was a Porsche 911 Cabriolet. They then let the men drive up and down on two streets. One was busy and filled with women. The other was deserted. After each little cruise, each man's saliva was measured for levels of testosterone. Results?
Interestingly, whether there were ladies present or not, the mens' testosterone didn't increase at all after driving the Camry. Can anyone else hear Toyota's CEO Akio Toyoda groaning? The Porsche? Well, this is interesting. When a young man drives down a skirt-filled street in a Porsche droptop, his testosterone level rises. And when then same young man drives down a totally empty road all by his lonesome in a Porsche convertible his testosterone level... rises. To the same level, in fact, as it did when all the ladies were around.
Says lead researcher Gad Saad, "In other words, just put a guy in a Porsche, and his testosterone levels shoot up, whether people watch or not." This biological reaction, according to Saad, is a form of "sexual signaling." A way of signaling to potential mates that the driver of said car is the best breeding stock, the best potential mate. Continues Saad, "It's saying, 'all you pretenders out there - you couldn't be driving this Aston Martin - you couldn't even rent it.'" Insert crack about auto journos borrowing it for a week here.
The faster you drive, the more fuel you use. Common sense, right? Absolutely, but it's still helpful to see real-life data, as you'll see by checking out the results of a recent test performed by Consumer Reports. Not all cars perform the same at various speed limits, and as you might expect, America's most fuel efficient models are also the vehicles most affected by higher speeds.
A total of seven vehicles were tested by CR: a Acura TSX with a 2.4-liter four-cylinder; a new 2010 Honda Insight; a Lexus RX350; a Mercury Mountaineer with 4.6-liter V8; Toyota Camry and RAV4 with 2.5-liter four-bangers; and a Yaris with a 1.5-liter four.
As you're probably aware, today's hybrids are optimized for high fuel economy at city speeds and therefore lose much of their miserly ways on the highway. As it turns out, this was especially true of the new Insight hybrid, which lost over 15 miles per gallon moving the needle from 55 mph to 75 mph – the largest drop in the contest.
The 2-ton SUV is sliding completely off its intended course. The steering wheel is at full opposite lock, yet uncontrolled oversteer flips the rear end of the Toyota 4Runner around like a cat with its tail on fire. In one last-ditch attempt to halt the pendulum process, I stab the throttle. All four tires desperately claw at the frozen surface, but it is too late to really help. The grip the four small contact patches manage to find simply drives me directly into the thick snow bank on the side of the road. The truck immediately comes to a stop and I sit there stupefied shaking my head with embarrassment. Over the radio, my instructor tells me to back up and try it all over again. No harm done, as the "crash" is all part of the learning process at the Bridgestone Winter Driving School. Follow the jump to read all about our full-day experience in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
In addition to the 2010 Toyota Prius and iQ-based FT-EV, ToMoCo is taking the wraps off the redesigned 2010 Camry at the Detroit Auto Show later today. Due to go on sale this March, the restyled Camry offers the same soul-sucking practicality and Maytag levels of usability as its forbearers, but features a few engineering and design tweaks to bring it into the next decade. On the outside, the 2010 Camry receives a new front bumper with enlarged air intakes, uprated headlamps and a set of restyled taillights. The XLE model includes 16-inch, ten-spoke wheels, while the SE rolls on 17-inch hoops and the base LE makes due with wheel covers. Inside, a new optional stereo with USB port, Bluetooth, satellite radio, single CD and MP3 capability is fitted, and Vehicle Stability Control is now standard on all models. The Camry Hybrid gets a slightly reworked fascia, along with a new gauge cluster and silk protein/synthetic fiber cloth seats that Toyota claims are more gentle on the skin. Under the hood of the base Camry, LE and XLE models is a refreshed, 169-hp 2.5-liter four equipped with VVT-i. The SE model uses the same engine, but comes packing another 21 hp and can be had with either a six-speed manual or six-speed automatic gearbox. Both the 268-hp, 3.5-liter V6 and the hybrid drivetrains soldier on unchanged.
If you visit the Toyota Jamaica website and have a look at the box under Toyota cars, you'll see these models listed: Avensis, Camry, Corolla, Yaris. Look at the pictures next to the cars listed, and you'll see an Avensis, an Accord, a Corolla, and a Yaris. That's right -- there's a Honda Accord thumbnail pictured next to the link for the Toyota Camry. According to tipster Michael, it's been that way for more than a year. We can certainly understand the odd spelling error or even the wrong picture... for a little bit. But substituting your bread-and-butter for your direct competitor's bread-and-butter for more than a year? Well, life is indeed relaxed in Jamaica town.
A recent night of excitement: driving the Camry XLE to the Super Wal-Mart. So lame, but that's not the car's fault. Like Wal-Mart, the Camry has been excoriated as a work of Satan, antithetical to all that is American, never mind where it's built. Despite the gleeful way everyone always lobs shots at Toyota's midsizer, there's a lot of virtue here. After all, there has to be some kind of hook to this car attaining such vaunted status, besides the bounce-lending automotive cult of personality. Since nobody actually reviews the Camry – we just complain about it as it outsells everything else – we rustled up an XLE powered by Toyota's 2.4-liter four cylinder and tried it out.
Did Toyota get some silver? Did it get a little gold? What did it get, to keep the Camry Solara Convertible from the Gallows Pole*? According to Steve St. Angelo, president of Toyota's Kentucky operations and of no relation to Robert Plant, Toyota got a lot of grief from customers and dealers who didn't want to see the drop-top swinging from the Gallow's Pole. The Hangman was supposed to come for the Solara 'Vert this month, but production has now been extended for two full years. Automotive News reports that Toyota only sold 28,479 units of the Solara Coupe and Convertible in all of 2007, and while the majority were likely 'verts, the number still seems too low to argue that demand was high enough to give it two years' worth of extra production. St. Angelo also didn't clarify if the Solara Coupe would enjoy the convertible's amnesty or not. Regardless, the Hangman's wrong on this one and the Solara should be swinging.
Taste: some have it, some don't. Case in point this Toyota Camry spotted in Dubai where the burgeoning middle class apparently wants to roll just like their oil-funded upper class but lack the money to secure a Rolls-Royce or Bentley. While we've reluctantly grown accustomed to customers opting for the gold-tone bright-wear instead of the standard chrome detailing – especially on cars like the Camry – this owner actually had the badges, grilles, side mirrors and wheels plated in 24k gold. Seriously.
If this somehow strikes you as a good idea, it can be yours for only 135,000 Dollars. Thankfully those are Arab Emirate Dollars, worth about $37 grand in American greenbacks. But please, if you're even thinking about it, contact us first and let us convince you of all the better ways you could spend $37k on a new car that won't instantly lose half its value the minute you take a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood.
Corporate clients have long grown accustomed to being shuttled around in the back seats of Panther-platform Fords. The throwback Town Car that most car services run doesn't exactly sip fuel, so T.J. Donaghy of Orlando, Florida decided a Toyota Camry Hybrid would be a good addition to his fleet at Aristocrat Transportation. City officials have denied Donaghy's attempt at greening his livery fleet, reasoning that the Camry doesn't fit any of the five classes of vehicles for hire that the City of Orlando regulates. The city contends that the type of service offered by Donaghy can only use luxury cars. Adding to the confusion, the city has no exact language defining exactly what comprises a luxury vehicle, but like Potter Stewart, they know it when they see it, and it's not the Camry.
There is a real concern that opening things up for the Camry could have Kia Rios running around as "limousines" if some line in the sand is not drawn, but the high price of fuel along with ongoing greening efforts may make the path easier for the Camry. Other communities in Florida already allow Camry hybrids, also setting some precedent. It seems that the crux of the dustup is the idea of what exactly a "luxury" working car is, and how to fit the Camry Hybrid in somewhere without stretching the definition so much that King Midgets could get a free pass. All of this could have been avoided if Donaghy had just coughed up the loot for an LS600hL, though the Hybrid Synergy Drive system in that vehicle is used to bolster performance instead of fuel economy.
