We have seen the future and it is…a Cube? It is for Nissan, anyway, beginning in the spring of 2009. Sold in the Japanese market since 2002, the Cube is aptly named because, well, it’s a cube.

Technically it’s a parallelepiped, defined as “a solid with six faces, each a parallelogram and each being parallel to the opposite face,” or more colloquially, a rectangular solid. Or more simply, a box. Who says you don’t learn anything here?

We have more to say about this parallelepiped on wheels, of course. Click on Nissan Cube for our full take then come back and tell us whether a parallel…Cube is in your future.

Posted in Cube, Nissan, car review, road test by admin on June 25th, 2008

My doctor hasn’t prescribed bloodletting as a cure for a long time. I don’t see why the corporate version that armchair executives trot out ever so often is any better.

The “bloodletting” I’m referring to in the first sentence, of course, is the recurring cry of automotive pundits that this or that (almost always) American manufacturer should eliminate this or that division or nameplate. The argument is not whether it should be done but whether which should be eliminated. At GM, they say, Pontiac and GMC should go. They’re already laying flowers on Mercury’s grave.

Not that the manufacturers themselves haven’t been a party to all this. After all, Chrysler pulled the plug on Plymouth and GM dumped Oldsmobile. Perhaps those were good decisions. Maybe GM had plans at the time to make Saturn the new Oldsmobile because the original Saturn model wasn’t working anymore and Saturn had more value as a brand than did Oldsmobile. It’s hard to get the young to go to Olds, but who wouldn’t want to go to Saturn. The young and adventuresome certainly would. more

Posted in General Motors, corporate management, quality by admin on June 20th, 2008

Acura touts the all-new 2009 Acura TSX as a player in the “premium sports sedan segment.” We think they’re missing the boat. Or at least the boat should be named Mr.Smoothie. Or somesuch.

The boat we’re talking about is that the “premium sports sedan” description somehow misses the fact that the 2009 Acura TSX is smooth. Smooth as velour pavement. Smooth as cream on strawberries. Smooth as that guy your daughter brought home from college. Though with the TSX you do not have to spend the evening checking the function of your shotgun.

We’re just kidding about the shotgun but not about the supersmothness of the 2009 Acura TSX. Take a ride with us and we’ll tell you more about Mr. Smoothie, then come back and tell us what you think.

Posted in Acura, Red Line, TSX, car review by admin on June 19th, 2008

The Chevrolet Corvette is such a fixture in the American landscape, if Grant Wood were still alive he’d paint that dour-faced pitch-fork holding farm couple in a Corvette, the farmer with his hand on the shifter and grins on both their faces. And no doubt he’d update the duds as well.

As such, it doesn’t seem like there’d be much to talk about with the 2008 Corvette: front engine, big horsepower, plastic body and, especially in recent years, a tenacious grip on the road. What more needs be said?

Quite a bit, actually. While the 2008 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 continues with its impressive particulars and 505 horsepower, the “ordinary” Corvette Coupe and Convertible have a new engine dubbed the LS3. There’s more, of course, so click here to read the authentic carbuzzard.com new car review of the 2008 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible (and don’t miss the new carbuzzard.com RoadSkill Report video!).

Don’t forget to come back and tell us what you think. 

Posted in Chevrolet, Corvette, car review, road test by admin on June 18th, 2008

So gasoline has hit $4.00 per gallon and seems poised to go even higher. Well, la-de-da.

And why do we say that? The law of supply and demand says the current price bump is from the well-known effect of supply and demand. Pardon the tautology for a moment because in this case, much of the demand comes from future-trading speculators who are pushing the price up in hopes that the price will keep going up, a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Futures trading is like signing on for home heating fuel at a price set for the season. If the price goes up, you win. If the price falls, you’ll pay higher than market price for your heating oil. A futures trader promises to pay $X/bbl for the delivery of $Y/bbl in the futures. The more traders who think the price is going up will buy now, that that demand is what is pushing up prices.

It’s an effect that will continue as long as the prices don’t fall. Pardon the tautology, but when prices do start to fall, the speculators will get burned and oil—and the price of everything depends on it—will fall as well. That’s gasoline prices, the prices of plastics made from petroleum, product transported by petroleum fuels.

Can prices really fall? There are people who thought that real estate prices could never come down. Surprise. more

Posted in gasoline, oil, prices by admin on June 9th, 2008