Petra

Looks ricey on the outside, comatose on the inside. I'm really quite curious to see where this car will find a home. High-powered Supersedans with Automatic transmissions has long been the domain of AMG alone, but this IS challenges them and adds a little rice flavour that will appeal to younger buyers.

At first glance, it is quite shocking. However, once you see a few hundred of them on the road, the shock will wear off. The front end actually reminds me a lot of the old Accords from about 1990-1992.

I'll reserve judgement until I see it in person on Sunday. However, the Big 3 should definetely take this new Tundra very seriously.

Very nice... It's everything an American sports sedan should be. Bravo, Cadillac!

I am absolutely flabbergasted that the Aura beat the Camry & Fit. Still, stranger things have happened... remember when the Cirrus/Stratus won this award?

I actually like it. Ford did a pretty commendable job of sprucing up this aging model, though the loss of the 2.3L. engine is lamentable. I'm betting it is one of those cars that looks better in person than in pictures.

The concept cars, like the Camaro, Volt, Trailhawk, etc. are not open, they merely rotate on turntables. Otherwise, though, pretty much all of the regular production cars on the floor will be open. As with any other major public attraction (automotive or otherwise), the earlier you get there, the better. Even still, anticipate big crowds around the most popular concepts. Unless you are freakishly tall, there's nothing much you can do. I gave up on getting a clear, full-body shot of the Camaro last year because of this happening:

Sunday the 14th worked out good for me last year, so that's when I'm going again. Of course, I'll be taking lots of pictures.

You guys were expecting style? This is a Minivan, after all. Personally, I think it looks rather like a curvier Jeep Commander. Those features sound nice and all, but it would still not be enough to entice me back into the Chrysler fold, especially considering that the "new" 6-speed Automatic is basically the same old nightmarish 4-speed with two extra cogs. So long as that transmission or its decendants is in the Chrysler stable, I'm staying away.

I got a new camera for NAIAS: http://www.fujifilm.ca/x8277.xml

All-in-all, I like the new Altima, except for one thing: The way Nissan packages their options, it is impossible to get a fully-loaded, 4-cylinder car with a Manual transmission. You can only get the 2.5 SL with the CVT. Say what you will about the Honda Accord, but at least you can get a Manual with the 4-cyl. EX. Sames goes for the Mazda6 GT 4.

The trouble with doing this sort of list is that it always turns into a bashfest, with little genuine insight into what the (insert topic here) is. Nevertheless... 1: Toyota Prius. The ultimate car for Sophists. Sure, at first blush, it seems like a great idea. Dig deeper, though, and you'll find holes: It doesn't deliever the mileage it promises, it would be cheaper in the long run to just buy a Yaris, the batteries are anything but environmentally-friendly, and so on. Yet this car is lauded almost universally. 2: Toyota Camry. The Camry has become the default car for people who need "A to B" transportation. There are far better choices on the market, but the typical Camry buyer has closed their mind to alternatives. 3: Pontiac Solstice. Subjective styling aside, the MX-5 is a better car, even it if wasn't more popular this year (just wait until the initial buzz for the Solstice wears off). 4: Toyota Corolla. Refer to previous remarks re: Toyota Camry. 5: BMW 3-Series. Just not a good bang-for-the-buck deal. The competitors do it better for less. 6: Chrysler 300. As previous posters mentioned, once you get by the cinderblock styling and the HEMI, there really isn't much there. I like the 300, but not because it's a good car. 7: VW Jetta. Consistently ranked highly in comparison tests, consistently ranked poorly in reliability tests. Unless you're planning on leasing for just a couple years, stay away. Your money would be better spent (and you'd be spending considerably less of it, too) on something Japanese. 8: Nissan Altima. Though it brought some muscle to the family sedan market, it didn't really bring much else. I hope the new, 2007 version has moved beyond this one-trick pony status. 9: GM's GMT-800/900 Trucks & SUVs. They're good, and they represent an admirable effort on GM's part. However, I think they didn't quite go the extra mile that was needed, as Ford trucks are still tops in their respective segments. I think GM will come to deeply regret this next year. 10: Pagani Zonda F. C'mon, the Koenigsegg CCX is waaaaaaaaaaaay cooler.

Whenever I see this car, I think of that Jiffy Lube commerical with the guy inside the glovebox. "Have you checked your Owner's Manual lately?"

I'd be curious to know how much it would really cost to engineer a Minivan off of the Lambda platform. This is one case where that sort of badge engineering would not be so bad, because, rather than starting off with a mediocre product and cloning it (like in the case of the TrailBlazer - 9-7X), they would be starting off with an excellent product and tailoring it to meet the needs of a specific customer. That is what smart companies do. Honda, for example, has done it in reverse, engineering the Pilot off of the Odyssey's platform, then evolving the Ridgeline even further off that same design. I also think there is a huge potential market for MPV-type vehicles in the States, like the Mazda5. They are perfect for budget-minded Minivan buyers, new families, or people who just need a little extra space from time to time but don't want to sacrifice car-like ride, handling & fuel economy. I'm sure that GM has some sort of MPV in the European market, they are huge over there. So, I ask again: How hard would it be to bring that over here and slap a Saturn badge on it? And, furthermore, would it be so much to ask for GM not to be late to a new vehicle segment for once? Introducing an MPV into the American market would pretty much make them a segment leader right now.

Woah... The '03-present Accord didn't take things far enough style-wise, but this may have taken things a little too far. With a car like the Accord, it's a fine line to tread.

This actually sounds like a pretty good idea to me. There is a reason why it's called the Honda Motor Company: They build excellent engines.

I don't know why, but the big slogan, "COME ON IN WERE OPEN" on the dealership's window cracked me up. Maybe because they don't know how to spell "We're".

Looks to me like a Hyundai Accent hatchback wearing platform shoes... Eeeeeeew.

No to Forester, yes to Legacy.

A 1993 Grand Marquis, with the 4.6L. V8.

On Tuesday, Sept. 12th of 2006, on Highway 402 just past Airport Road in Sarnia, Ontario, my Mercury's odometer rolled past 200,000 miles. And I caught it with my camera phone: The KPH view: When I first looked at the pictures, I thought it was a little odd that 200,000 miles would work out to such a round number in kilometers. So, I looked into it further. According to this website, 200K miles equals 321,868.80 kilometers. So, somewhere over the course of its 13 year life, my car has "lost" more than 1,800 kilometers, or more than 1,100 miles!

Whew... I'm a little surprised this place made it 5 years. Glad, though! And props to everybody who's brought in those screen caps... the original C&G homepage was just a foggy memory for me!

I'm just west of London here. We probably got about 2 cm. of snow yesterday. It's still lingering on the top of my roof, but it's supposed to rain today, so that will get rid of it... for now.

I agree that GM needs to give their divisions more freedom to set their own courses, be that in regards to marketing or anything else. However, don't lose sight of the fact that the GTO was also a great product, regardless of how much or how little it was marketed.

I see BM is still on his little power trip to pin everything wrong with GM on Rick Wagoner. What BM doesn't realize (and most rational people here do) is that GM was sick long before Wagoner was in any position of power. The sorry state that GM is in today has more to do with mistakes made in the 1970's and 1980's than mistakes made recently. Not that there hasn't been any... Enculturating buyers to depend upon "the deal" rather than the product through the use of incentives has proved to be a disaster in the long-term. But that pales in comparison to the utter arrogance and senseless decisions that were made decades ago. I'm not saying that Wagoner is going to be the man who saves GM. Like I said before, he's made his share of blunders. However, I would say that the progress he has made so far is outstanding, given the circumstances. Imagine GM as a runner. Its competitors are fast, strong, have great endurance, have been training for years, and are more photogenic. And then up walks the defending champion: GM. An athelete's body is in there somewhere... underneath a layer of blubber. The clothes that once fit so well are now dangerously tight. GM didn't bother to train until the last second, thinking that its competitors were nothing to be afraid of. And GM is ugly and old-looking, and it doesn't photograph well. If you were given the task of trying to make GM competitive, to say nothing of making it win the race, what would you do? What could you do? That is the challenge facing the people who run GM (the real GM) today. To say it is an unenviable task is to spit in the face of the phrase "unenviable task". Yet, Wagoner, Lutz and the rest have taken it on. And they are making progress. Slow progress, but progress all the same. And I don't see anybody else out there who could do any better. If you see anybody more fit to lead, then let me know. I sure don't see a leader in BM... Just a crybaby who never got his way. Same goes for Kirk Kerkorian. I have never understood this penny-pinching attitude that some old people seem to have (except in the case when they are genuinely materially poor, but that is obviously not the case with Kirkorian). What better time to spend a little of your hard-earned dough, love your life a little before you lose it? Kirk Kerkorian will die a fabulously wealthy man someday soon. But I doubt he will die a happy man.