HarleyEarl

Absolutely agree. Ideally it would be great if they all bought GM products. But we don't know their individual circumstances. It's a freedom we all enjoy. Many people work in sales, service and manufacturing of many items that they don't necessarly purchase.

Mitsubishi touts its Japanese heritage While other Asian automakers try to hide their overseas origins, it will promote them. By Bryce G. Hoffman / The Detroit News ROMULUS -- Armed with new models and free gas incentives, struggling Mitsubishi Motors Corp. is hoping to win back lost ground in the American market by turning its Japanese roots into a selling point. "While our competitors are kind of hiding from the fact that they are Japanese (we want) to celebrate the Japanese-ness of our brand," said Dave Schembri, head of sales and marketing for Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc. "If you want the American story, we have that as well." Speaking at a press event in Romulus marking the launch of its new Raider pickup - which will be built in Warren - Schembri said Mitsubishi's marketing research shows that most Americans associate Japanese products with quality and value. So, while other Asian automakers try to hide their overseas origins by promoting their made-in-America products, Mitsubishi is peppering its advertisements with sumi brushstrokes and taiko drums. It is all part of an effort to ride the wave of "J-cool" -- a love affair with all things Japanese, notably comics, video games, and animation -- that Schembri compares to the British invasion of the 1960s. Not everyone is convinced it is a good idea. "It's controversial," said Jim Sanfilippo, senior industry analyst with AMCI Inc. in Bloomfield Hills. "I'm not sure what value that has with the American consumer." After plunging 37 percent in 2004, Mitsubishi's U.S. sales have dropped another 30 percent this year. But in August, sales rose 2.1 percent from a year ago. The gain has been cause for celebration at a company that has not seen any increases for two years. Schembri credits much up of that increase to the new Eclipse sports coupe. "We're on a good roll now with our Eclipse launch," Schembri said, adding that the company hopes to keep that momentum going with the Raider. Launched last week, the Raider marks Mitsubishis return to the American truck market after a 10-year hiatus. The midsize pickup, which is based on the Dodge Dakota, is being manufactured through a partnership with DaimlerChrysler AG, which owns 12.9 percent of the Japanese automaker. Mitsubishi hopes the Raider will draw a new crop of customers. But it also puts the company squarely in competition with strong-selling models like the Ford Ranger and Toyota Tacoma. "It's a very, very crowded market," Sanfilippo said. Schembri acknowledged the Ranger, Tacoma and others are going to be tough products to beat, but he is confident the new Mitsubishi pickup offers a unique mix of sporty styling and under-the-hood power that will make it stand out from the pack. The Raider is the only mid-size pickup with an import nameplate to feature a V-8. Mitsubishi is planning to roll out six more new models over the next 26 months. While it enjoys strong brand recognition, model recognition is weak with consumers. Mitsubishi's new "gasoline comes standard" sales campaign is another important part of the company's turnaround. The promotion, which runs through October, gives motorists who purchase any 2005 Mitsubishi a year's worth of gasoline valued at $1,500 to $2,500. You can reach Bryce G. Hoffman at (313) 222-2443 or [email protected]

This car has style in spades. It really grabs your attention on the street. I have heard that the driving experience is not that great as a sporting car. The droptop is less successful designwise.

There really aren't many good looking, affordable coupes around. The Toyota Solara is just too weird looking for me. The Accord Coupe and the G6 coupe is just about all that there is in this class.

http://www.canadiandriver.com/roadtest/06megacab.htm

I agree...Chevy needs a midsized coupe like the Baretta. I suppose some would argue, the Monte Carlo fills that niche. But I would like something inbetween it and the Cobalt.

....and then, if Frankie Sparkles actually wore sparkles while doing some fight scene. I'm ascared.

Thanks for the sweet engine shot...just found a photo of it and was going to post. Great shot...

The current Stratus is a very decent looking car. And the rear wing is quite radical.

I just saw a new coupe on the street and it looks very good in person. It was in a medium blue...very striking.

So , it's so good to be alive when cars like this exist. Another sublime reason to be come stinkin' filthy rich. I like everything about it....that little dip on top of leading edge at rear...o man..so choice. And 725 HP!....I feel damp.

I don't care that this car had lots of plastic, don't care that it was relatively low tech, I always have and always will like this car. I see them on the streets, and they still look good. Glad you spotlighted this Pontiac. It sold in big numbers for GM and deservedly so.

I like this idea....would be a great idea for Camaro.

2006 Honda Accord Coupe V6.

Incredible!!!....the Lingenfelter Corvette C6, limited edition, to celebrate Lingenfelter's 25th anniversary. Available in coupe and convertible in black, red or yellow.

Stratus out, Avenger in at Dodge Name change may not be enough to battle Asians By Brett Clanton / The Detroit News Chrysler is expected to yank the Stratus name from its Dodge midsize sedan when the car's replacement arrives in early 2007. The new vehicle will be called Avenger, a moniker last used on a Dodge coupe that was killed off in 2000, according to sources familiar with the situation. Chrysler officials declined to confirm the name change, which comes as the DaimlerChrysler AG unit is moving to toughen up the image of Dodge cars to mesh with the bold marketing of Dodge trucks. Analysts say the car, even with a new name, will face challenges as it prepares to enter the ultra-competitive midsize passenger car category now ruled by the popular Toyota Camry and Honda Accord. "It's going to be difficult to make as big of a splash as they have in other segments," said Erich Merkle, an industry analyst at IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids. In 2004, Dodge passenger car sales plummeted by more than 25 percent, ending the year with 1.8 percent of the U.S. market, even as Chrysler's overall sales improved, according to Autodata Corp. But the truck-heavy Dodge brand is hoping to revive car sales with vehicles like the recently launched Charger full-size sedan and upcoming Caliber, a small sport wagon due in early 2006. "We always want to be competitive in these categories," said Chrysler spokeswoman Beth Ann Bayus. "That's certainly a priority for us." The Avenger name was last seen on a coupe built for Dodge by Mitsubishi Motors Corp. that was on the market between 1995 and 2000. The nameplate also appeared on a 2003 concept vehicle. Avenger is an improvement over Stratus, a name that reinforced the blandness of the current vehicle, said Jim Hall, an analyst with AutoPacific in Detroit. "When the name is a punch line in a 'Saturday Night Live' skit, you got problems," Hall said, referring to a sketch starring Will Farrell as the father of a dysfunctional family who repeatedly screams "I drive a Dodge Stratus!" Chrysler will spend $240 million to renovate a factory in Sterling Heights for the launch of the next generation Chrysler Sebring sedan and convertible and the four-door Avenger. The first Sebring is expected next summer. The Sebring-Stratus lineup hit its peak in 2001 with sales of 251,000, according to industry consultant Global Insight. But the Sebring-Avenger combo is expected to fall short of that mark.

Going After the Kids By Scott Oldham Date posted: 09-22-2005 As usual, it comes down to the numbers. Honda says there will be 81.5 million Americans between the ages of 15 and 34 by the end of the decade. That's enough iPod addicts to make Gen Y the largest consumer group ever, topping even the baby boomers. In order to take advantage of this next "age wave" Honda is taking action now. After selling 7 million Civics over 22 years, the company is shifting the Civic's U.S. market focus from baby boomers to Gen Y-ers. It even says it has designed this all-new eighth generation of the Civic specifically for that 80-plus million who are packing iPods. This qualifies as radical thinking for Honda, which is often so conservative it makes the 700 Club look like The Howard Stern Show. But here's the cool part: this shift in the Civic's desired buyer demographic has put a priority on design and performance. You know, the things the kids like. And the resulting 2006 Honda Civic is sleeker, more powerful and better performing than any Civic before it. Fact is, the new iteration is undeniably the best and most interesting Civic Honda has ever produced. More Style, Less Room Available in two body styles — coupe and sedan — the new 2006 Civic is offered as four distinct models: the Civic Coupe, Civic Sedan, Civic Hybrid (sedan only), and the racy Si (coupe only). The hatchback body style, which was exclusive to the previous Si, is a goner. For the first time, the coupe and sedan don't share a wheelbase. Honda's engineers felt the sedan's new 106.3-inch wheelbase was just too long for the coupe to feel as sporty and responsive as they desired. So while the new sedan's wheelbase has grown 3.2 inches over last year's, the coupe's is only 1.2 inches longer. Even with the longer wheelbase, somehow the coupe has lost 2.5 inches of rear-seat legroom. Meanwhile, in the name of styling, Honda's designers sacrificed some rear headroom. The new coupe's roofline is several inches lower than its predecessor's. Combine that with the car's radically fast backlight, and those with large craniums should ride in the front. "True coupe buyers will sacrifice a little rear-seat room for better performance and sexier styling," says Greg Thomas from Honda's product planning division. "But you can still sit full-size adults back there very comfortably." He's right, you can. The sedan's rear-seat room is about the same as before, and both body styles gained 1.4 inches of additional width, so sticking a third in the backseat of either no longer qualifies as bad karma. Due to the shorter rear overhang, trunk space also took a hit. It's now 12 cubic feet in the sedan and 11.5 in the coupe (both used to be 12.9). But Honda points out that the trunk sides are now flatter so the space is more useful. And the rear seat in every model but the hybrid folds flat to increase cargo space. Futuristic Style Let's face it: The last Civic's look was the automotive equivalent of a Lunesta. Whether you like the new style or not, the shape of either body will never be compared to a sleep aid. Honda says the new Civic has a one-motion profile and calls the car's design expressive and futuristic. We think the sedan looks a little too much like a Toyota Prius, but its laid-back windshield, minimal front and rear overhangs and tight 50mm tire-to-fender gap (Honda says that's tighter than the gap on a BMW 5 Series) do make it look more upscale. Honda also points out that the coupe, which was designed in Ohio, and the sedan, which was drawn in Japan, don't share a single body panel. The two body styles don't even share the same windshield rake; the sedan's is laid-back at 23.9 degrees, while the 21.9-degree rake of the coupe's glass is the most radical in Honda's history. Yes, sharper than even the NSX's. Beam Me Up, Scotty The new interior design mixes elements from previous Civics, Toyota's Prius and the Starship Enterprise. The result is a comfortable and pleasantly ergonomic environment with one of the strangest gauge layouts ever conceived. It seems the radically slopped windshield forced Honda to oversize the dashboard. The Civic's dash is so big it's rumored to be the location for Diddy's next bash. To camouflage all that space, Honda divided up the instruments, keeping the analog tachometer in the traditional location and placing a digital speedometer and gas gauge up at the base of the windshield. Honda calls it a two-tier design. We call it questionable. A space-saving Z-shaped parking brake handle opened up real estate for larger cupholders and a center console that can hold 25 CDs. More Money, More Stuff As usual, the coupe and sedan are available in DX, LX and EX trim levels. The hybrid sedan is equipped very much like a sedan LX, while the Si coupe sort of does its own thing. Content and prices are both up in the customer's favor, according to Honda. The least expensive model is the DX coupe which starts at $14,360 with a five-speed manual. The least expensive sedan costs $200 more. Pricing for the hybrid, which will go on sale in October, and the Si, which will hit dealers December first, haven't been set yet, but the Si will start under $20 grand. New standard features on all models and trim levels are side curtain and front side airbags, ABS, active front-seat head restraints and a tilt and telescoping steering wheel. And for the first time all Civic audio systems have MP3/WMA CD playback capability and a satellite navigation system is available. More Power Horsepower is up on every model. Now the front wheels of all coupes and sedans, regardless of trim level, are powered by an all-aluminum, single-overhead-cam 1.8-liter inline four-cylinder engine with 16 valves and Honda's i-VTEC variable valve system. It makes 140 hp at 6,300 rpm and 128 lb-ft of torque at 4,300 rpm. Honda still makes the world's best four-cylinders. This engine is silky-smooth, fun to rev, and gets better mileage than the two smaller and less powerful engines it's replacing. With the optional five-speed automatic, the Civic is EPA rated at 30 mpg city and 40 mpg highway. We covered the Si's new hardware, including its 200-hp, 2.0-liter engine, in a dedicated First Drive of that model, so let's move onto the hybrid. It also gets more guts, 23-percent more combined power than the 2005 Civic Hybrid. The fourth generation of Honda's IMA (Integrated Motor Assist) system still consists of a 1.3-liter, single-overhead-cam four-cylinder gas engine (which is the car's primary power source) connected to an electric motor and a Continuously Variable Transmission. And a Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery pack still captures and stores electricity for the motor. For the first time, however, the gas engine features a high-profile camshaft within its i-VTEC system. It kicks in at high rpm and increases output to a 93-hp peak at 6,000 rpm. That's 9-percent more than before. The electric motor provides up to 20 hp and 76 lb-ft of additional torque. Mileage is up, too. Honda says it gets 50 mpg in the city or on the highway, which would give it a maximum driving range of over 600 miles. The improved efficiency is largely due to a third stage added to the i-VTEC and Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) system. The additional stage allows the computer to deactivate all four cylinders under deceleration and in steady state cruising situations. When the engine shuts down, the electric motor alone propels the car. We briefly drove a Civic hybrid through the wide-open expanse of Joliet, Illinois, and found its new technology to be very much transparent and its newfound power welcome. On occasion you would be aware of the gas engine stopping and starting itself, but it's generally unobtrusive. Better Handling A new, stronger body structure with 35-percent more torsional rigidity gave Honda's suspension engineers a better place to start. They kept the front MacPherson strut suspension and the rear multilink layout, but all the parts are new and much of the geometry is changed. In the front they added caster, reangled the struts and moved the steering box lower for more on-center steering feel and more off-center effort. In the back, new longer shocks are mounted closer to the wheels so they perform better throughout the range of suspension travel, and the aluminum rear shaved some unsprung weight. To make the coupe feel sportier, it gets its own suspension tuning, with higher spring rates, stiffer dampers, and thicker antiroll bars. Only the Si and the hybrid get Honda's excellent Electric Power Steering. The rest of the lineup uses a proven variable speed-sensitive rack and pinion hydraulic power steering system with a quick 13.73-to-1 ratio. All Civics but the Si are equipped with 10.3-inch front disc brakes, but the hybrid, LX and DX models use 7.9-inch drums in the rear. EX trim-level cars get 10.2-inch rear discs. Every Civic gets a new four-channel ABS with Electronic Brakeforce Distribution, and Honda increased the size of the power brake booster for added pedal feel. The hybrid and DX examples ride on standard 15-inch wheels and tires, while LX and EX get standard 17-inch rubber. We sampled a coupe EX and a sedan LX, and both rode beautifully. Each felt tight and responsive and both were noticeably quieter out on the road than their predecessors. The coupe's shifter felt a little flimsy, but its clutch was easy to modulate, as were its brakes. Still a Civic It might not look like any Civic we've ever seen, and that funky dash is going to take a while to grow on us, but this is still a Civic. It's a well-made, very comfortable and very affordable car with strong performance and a fun-to-drive attitude. Honda wants to sell 300,000 a year. That sound you hear is the iPod addicts lining up.

September 26, 2005 Most Americans favour oil company taxes to finance alternative energy research Washington, D.C. - A poll conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation found that four out of five Americans surveyed would support a "tax on the windfall profits of oil companies", if the revenues were devoted to alternative energy research. The poll of 1,019 respondents, conducted for www.40mpg.org, also found that 87 per cent of Americans polled think oil companies are gouging gasoline companies; 81 per cent say the federal government is not doing enough about high energy prices and over-reliance on Middle Eastern oil; 73 per cent believe that recent gas price hikes make it more important that the government impose higher fuel-efficiency standards; and four out of five said U.S. automakers should follow Toyota's lead, which intends that "all of its new cars going forward will use fuel-saving hybrid technology". In response to the poll, 40mpg.org is launching an online petition allowing Americans to tell their members of Congress and the White House that they want major steps taken in oil profit taxes and tougher fuel-efficiency standards on vehicles. An earlier survey in March found that two out of three respondents thought it patriotic to buy a fuel-efficient vehicle and therefore require the U.S. to import less Middle East oil. Of the one-third that disagreed, 14 per cent did so strongly.