Posts published in November, 2007

Viva Knievel, the Final Chapter

By Jerry Garrett
Evel KnievelMr. Knievel in 2006. (Photo by Chris O’Meara/Associated Press)

“When you die,” Evel Knievel told me in a 1998 interview, “I think your spirit goes on.”

The infamous stuntman’s body gave up the ghost today, but somewhere, I think, his spirit has gone on. Probably to a golf course.

When I met Knievel that summer day in 1998, at a country club in his native Butte, Mont., he was gasping, choking, spitting and stumbling around — until he got a golf club in his gnarled hands. Then his body would quiet down, he would draw the club silently back, and stroke gently forward. The ball would rocket away and invariably drop mere feet from the hole. Gobbling pain pills like after dinner mints, he shot an 81 — and fleeced three playing partners out of $1,500.

“I was in a wheelchair for several months, until yesterday,” he chortled.

The problem that took the old daredevil was liver failure. Somewhere along his rocky road of failed jumps, crashed motorcycles and barroom brawls, he had contracted hepatitis C. The disease nearly killed him that summer. But he somehow finagled a liver transplant soon after that. “At best,” he said at the time, “the transplant is a 10-year reprieve.” He wasn’t far off in his guesstimate.

Evel Knievel at the Snake River CanyonEvel Knievel being lowered into his rocket-powered vehicle prior to his attempt to jump over the Snake River Canyon in 1974. (Associated Press)

He just turned 69 on October 17, but he looked closer to 100. He claimed to have broken every bone in his body, several times. I don’t know if that was true, but his body and every limb on it was crooked, twisted and bumpy as a motocross track.

Knievel stopped riding motorcycles years ago, after one, embarrassingly, fell on him in the parking lot of his Clearwater, Fla., apartment. He was trapped under it for hours, until a passersby heard his weakening cries for help.

But he still kept a couple of his fancy show bikes. One, he let me ride once. It was a custom chopper finished in gold chrome and a “Captain America” style red-white-and-blue paint job. He even gave me his helmet to wear. Riding around Butte, everyone must have thought I was him, because people waved, honked horns, came out of stores and gawked.

Knievel and I stayed in touch over the years after that interview. Once, he and his girlfriend Krystal Kennedy showed up at my house in southern California in a motor coach, hoping to camp out in my driveway for a few weeks. He said he was running from “the government” who he claimed was still trying to collect an old tax lien. He dealt in cash only, he said, and insisted any of his many endorsement deals be paid out in non-sequential bills. He told me once he had $3 million in cash with him. Since I never saw any of it — and I questioned whether he really had much money at all — I guess it would have been stashed in his motorhome. He didn’t seem to own a car then.

A few years earlier when he still did own a few fancy cars, he had been picked up a couple of times for traffic violations — and was found to have dozens of unregistered firearms in his trunk and under the driver’s seat. He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service for all that. He claimed to have robbed a bank and had never been caught. He’d gone to prison once for beating up his former publicist with a baseball bat. Asked upon his release from the penitentiary if he was sorry, Knievel said, “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t kill the guy.”

Knievel had plenty of enemies. Some of the people who hated him most were probably those closest to him. Ms. Kennedy, 31 years his junior, once got a restraining order against him, then married him. Then divorced him. Got another restraining order. And then took care of him for years as his health deteriorated. One of his golf partners that day I followed him claimed that he’d once caught Knievel with his wife. “I hate the guy for that,” he said, “but I still can’t pass up a round of golf with him.” Knievel was estranged from his four children most of the 10 years I knew him, and off and on, from the love of his life, his first wife Linda.

Most people will remember Knievel for his storied jumps: crashing at the Caesars Palace fountain in 1968, the disastrous attempt to fly across the Snake River in a Skycycle in 1974, or nearly killing himself at London’s Wembley Stadium after clearing 13 buses in 1975. He’d show up drunk for many jumps — and ride like a champion.

He was like a ticking bomb. You never knew what was going to happen next with him. In between blowups, however, he was a natural athlete who had mastered many sports, an accomplished oil painter and watercolorist. He had a love-hate relationship with religion. He loved women, children and guns, “not necessarily in that order.” He had acted as himself in a couple of successful films (one, “Viva Knievel,” is still a late-night cable fave) and he had been the subject of a few others.

Knievel was the most complex man I’ve ever known — although I don’t claim to have known him. He was someone you hoped you would never cross. But a blood brother unless and until you did. He always told me I should call him by his real name, Bobby.

Beyond the intriguingly gifted, private man that I remember, how should the world remember this larger-than-life daredevil? He was seemingly fearless, driven to try stunts that were — admit it — astonishingly stupid and pointless. But as a P.T. Barnum-caliber showman, he made the outcome seem somehow relevant and made millions care about what happened to him. He had an amazing, unfathomable need to be a real-life superhero.

But what a price he paid, only to be proven a mere mortal, time and time again. Perhaps his mortality is what made his fans adore him so. He failed so many times, so spectacularly and so publicly, that he ended up instead the ultimate antihero.

To Save the Polar Bears, Ride a Cub

By Christian Edstrom
2007 Honda InnovaThe 125cc Honda Innova was introduced in Europe in late 2002, after years of success in southeast Asia.

Beyond being the quickest way to telegraph to fellow highway travelers that you enjoy macrobiotic salads and care about the environment, the Toyota Prius gets pretty good gas mileage. But it’s still not as good as the E.P.A. would have you believe.

The original E.P.A. mileage ratings for the Prius were 60 m.p.g. in city driving and 51 on the highway (where the electric motor does much less of the work). But beginning with the 2008 model year, those numbers were recalculated to 48 and 45, partly in response to consumer complaints that real-world mileage didn’t measure up to the E.P.A. numbers. Even so, Prius drivers consistently report 38 to 42 m.p.g. in highway driving and 34 to 35 m.p.g. in city driving.

With those numbers and a substantial price premium over, say, a comparable Corolla, one has to wonder whether the Prius will keep its place at the top of the eco-pyramid. Based on its locavore-and-polar-bear credentials, I think it will. But for drivers who primarily drive in the city, and who are most concerned with actual fuel cost savings, a better solution may be found in keeping your regular car for the odd highway trip and adding a city vehicle from that other Japanese motor conglomerate — Honda.

The Honda C90, introduced in 1958 as the the Honda Cub, is a 90cc motorcycle whose popularity in developing nations is undisputed. If people were asking Henry Ford for a faster horse, the C90 is Honda’s answer to a better-humored donkey.

Powered by a clean-burning four-stroke engine, the C90 produces far fewer emissions than the two-stroke scooters common in many parts of the world. In fact, the latest variant for Europe, the Honda Innova 125, beats the Euro III emissions standards by more than 50 percent. And the real-world mileage for the C90: nearly 200 m.p.g.

With more than 50 million produced (making it the single most popular motor vehicle in existence), the C90 is durable, dependable transportation. And with its step-through design and fashionable leg shields (a traditional feature meant to keep your trousers from being splashed), it’s a design icon as well.

The rub? As of now, Honda doesn’t sell the C90 in the United States. The Innova is available in Britain, and Mexico receives both brand-new C90s and Waves. And if you don’t mind buying used, the C90 was sold in the United States from 1958 to the early ’70s under the Honda Cub name, and again in the early ’80s as the Passport.

So, if you want to telegraph that you really care about gas consumption, and that in addition to organic tomatoes you also enjoy ecotourism and vintage design, start searching eBay. Or call a friend in Mexico.

Do We Need Another El Camino?

By Richard S. Chang
Holden UteThe Holden Ute is sold in Australia.

Autoweek recently reported that General Motors is on the verge of approving an El Camino-like vehicle to slot into the new Pontiac G8 model lineup (based on vehicles sold by G.M.’s Australian subsidiary, Holden).

The G8 sedan goes on sale early next year. It replaces the Grand Prix and will be Pontiac’s flagship sedan with a starting price around $25,000.

The G8 wagon will be a performance vehicle similar to the Audi A3 wagon, sources say. The G8 sport truck will be reminiscent of the Chevrolet El Camino, which was produced in North America from 1959 through 1987.

The vehicles will closely resemble the Holden VE Ute sport truck and Commodore wagon.

There was debate within G.M. about whether to give the sport truck to GMC. GMC won’t get it.

Instead, G.M.’s marketers wanted — and will get — a Pontiac sport truck so G.M. can market the three [rear-wheel drive] vehicles as a high-performance family.

The sport truck will have the same drivetrain as the Chevrolet Camaro, and it will use a modified sedan architecture.

If you’re curious what the Holden VE Ute looks and drives like, Edmunds Inside Line recently published a test drive.

Is the world ready for an updated El Camino? I’m just as nostalgic as the next guy, but I remember that I used to laugh at it. Even on paper, an El Camino now doesn’t make sense. The Holden VE Ute weighs nearly 4,000 pounds, which isn’t svelte. It seats only two. It has meager towing ability and a big honking V-8 engine that guzzles gas. I didn’t like it the first time around, when it was called the Chevy SSR.

Google tangent: I looked up the SSR’s sales figures just to see how big of a flop it was (around 24,000 sold — pretty big flop) and made a beeline to the Aztek for comparison. Not as big of a flop, by the way; over 100,000 Azteks were sold in its five years. But while researching Aztek sales, I noticed in 2004 Pontiac offered an Aztek RALLY EDITION. More important question: how many eyeballs did this concept go past before it hit the showroom floor? One?

Cooler heads may still prevail. According to Autoweek, there’s still a big obstacle to G.M.’s plans for a new El Camino: “Sources say the wagon and sport truck may be repriced or canceled if the U.S. dollar continues to drop.”

Let’s hope so, unless people are just dying for an El Camino … are they?

Fat Boys and Dreamliners, but No Mustangs?

By Jerry Garrett

ROME — Airbus, the giant Europe-based aircraft maker, complained this week that its American archrival, Boeing, is “killing us.”

Tom Enders, the Airbus chief executive, told union leaders that the Airbus business model as a competitor to Boeing is “no longer sustainable.” It is, he added, “a life-threatening” situation for Airbus.

The problem for Airbus is this: The Airbus cost structure is based on the euro; Boeing’s is based on the dollar, which is sinking to record lows against the euro. Boeing makes great airplanes, and because of the low value of the dollar against other currencies, Boeing also can make higher profits on planes like the upcoming 787 Dreamliner and still undercut Airbus on price.

So what does this have to do with the American auto industry? Sadly, almost nothing.

It could have something to do with Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, if those companies made cars that were as competitive in the world auto market as Boeing is in the aircraft industry.

After a week spent driving the roads of Italy, I initially couldn’t get over how few American cars are here anymore. I travel abroad from the United States quite often, and over the years I’ve always seen a smattering of American cars overseas. But this time it was different. I saw two diesel Jeep Grand Cherokees and a Chrysler minivan. That was it.

Why should I be surprised? American cars have for years been little more than curiosities abroad. They are too big for normal parking spots in Europe or space-challenged Japan. They are too wide for most roads. And they guzzle gas. In countries like Italy, where gas prices approach $8 a gallon, few people can afford the luxury of owning an American car — even ones that aren’t luxurious.

Last year, I spied a Ford Lightning F-150 pickup streaking down a German autobahn. What a rare sight that was. The owner must have been very rich, I mused, because filling that sucker up would cost about $200, and the owner would be stopping at a gas station every 300 miles or so. Over the course of a month, that could be a mortgage payment.

Of course, Ford and G.M. do have operations in Europe. But those international units make and sell cars in Europe for Europe. They, in turn, have the same unsustainable cost structures as Airbus when it comes to exporting their products. That is a big reason why Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo are so unprofitable for Ford right now; what if those models were built in American factories and shipped overseas instead? (Volvo is studying this plan now, taking advantage of underutilized or idled Ford plants in the United States) These divisions could probably be transformed into money-makers. Why do you think Mercedes and BMW are building more and more of their vehicles in the United States?

Just this week, it was reported that G.M. was thinking about importing from Australia a cute little El Camino-type vehicle to America. An Australian El Camino? Is there any vehicle more all-American than an El Camino? Why aren’t Americans building their own El Caminos? Why aren’t Americans selling them to the world, instead of vice versa?

Have American automakers given up on the idea of making the world drool over Detroit iron again? They complain about tariffs and taxes levied by foreign governments. Yet, while at the Tokyo Motor Show last month, I noted German automakers are succeeding where American automakers have failed: They are selling cars to the Japanese because they are making the types of cars the Japanese want.

Why can’t American manufacturers do the same thing? If American cars were smaller, lighter and more fuel efficient, to better suit overseas markets, wouldn’t they better serve America’s driving needs as well?

Fabrizio Giugiaro's Mustang concept carFabrizio Giugiaro’s Mustang concept car, unveiled at the 2006 L.A. Auto Show, offered a glimpse of Mustang muscle combined with Italian design. (Photo by Reed Saxon/Associated Press)

Harley-Davidson gets this.

“Through the first nine months of 2007, retail sales of Harley-Davidson motorcycles in our international markets came in at 68,870 units, a 12.9 percent increase compared to the same period in 2006 and continuing a trend of international growth for the company,” Bob Klein, Harley-Davidson’s director of corporate communications, told me in a recent e-mail message. “For example, full-year international retail sales of Harley-Davidson motorcycles increased 18.6 percent in 2006 over 2005, and 15.0 percent for 2005 over 2004. From the standpoint of international mix, for the first nine months of 2007 international shipments represented 26.8 percent of total shipments, up from 22.5 percent for the same period last year and the high teens for the full years 2004 and 2005.”

Sure, Harley-Davidsons are different than cars. But in foreign countries like Japan, and throughout Europe, Harley-Davidson is an iconic brand.

And like American airplanes, American motorcycles are now attractively priced overseas. Where others see obstacles, Harley-Davidson sees opportunity.

“International markets have been an area of increased focus for Harley-Davidson for a number of years,” Mr. Klein continued. “We believe our international growth is evidence that the strategies we’ve been implementing in international markets are working — including improvements in the dealer network, enhanced marketing programs, focused products and a more effective and efficient distribution model.”

It is unfortunate to see American carmakers lose out on such an opportunity. I wonder if anyone in Detroit is asking why container ships full of American-made cars shouldn’t be crossing oceans to overseas markets, just the way Japanese cars are?

Why can’t a Ford Mustang, optimized for overseas customers, be just as big a sales success in Europe as a Harley-Davidson? Alan Mulally, Ford’s chief executive, is probably better positioned than anyone in the American auto industry to answer that question. After all, he used to run Boeing.

From Roundabouts to ‘Naked’ Streets?

By Richard S. Chang
Roundabout in Lincroft, N.J.A roundabout in Lincroft, N.J. (Photo by Laura Pedrick for The New York Times)

I got a kick out of reading Jill P. Capuzzo’s story on the introduction of roundabouts in New Jersey. Growing up outside of Boston, I was raised on roundabouts and rotaries. There was a roundabout between my house and the high school. There was another one on the way to a local farmer’s market. I never thought twice about them.

We also had rotaries. (I didn’t know there was a difference, either until I read Ms. Capuzzo’s article. Apparently, rotaries are bigger and have multiple lanes.) Anyone heading into Cambridge from Rt. 2 has to cross through two rotaries along Fresh Pond. I remember sitting in the back seat as a boy while my dad cursed drivers who were either too timid to enter the rotaries or merged in front of him without warning. During my college years, I held summer jobs in Cambridge and Boston and drove through those very same rotaries every day to work. I found myself pulling my hair out as well. How hard could the rotaries be? As far as I could tell, there was only one rule: Entering cars yield. I was stymied by my fellow commuters’ confusion.

Until I encountered the four-way stop in Illinois.

Even more basic than rotaries, the four-way stop tried my patience. Again, there’s one simple rule: First car at the intersection wins. Tie goes to the car on the right (O.K. then, two rules). But few drivers seemed to understand. Or maybe they were just polite. Whatever the case, I still think about the wasted time staring at the three blank faces staring back at me from other directions. Don’t get me started on the six-way intersection in Beverly Hills.

But back to traffic circles in Jersey, which seem to be getting the best of the state’s drivers while raising an interesting point:

One problem stems from the fact that the generally unwritten rules governing traffic circles run opposite those governing roundabouts.

With roundabouts, those entering are supposed to yield to those already in the roundabout, who have the right-of-way. For traffic circles, the rules are a little more ambiguous, with the advantage going to what is deemed the dominant roadway.

The New Jersey Driver Manual published by the Department of Transportation does not do much to clear up the confusion. “There are not set rules for driving into, around and out of a traffic circle in New Jersey,” the manual states. “Common sense and precaution must prevail at all times.”

Roundabout sign(Photo by Laura Pedrick for The New York Times)

Common sense… Really? Can behavioral research back that up? Ever since I saw “Lord of the Flies” in English class, I’ve believed that humans need guidance and structure. Otherwise, it’s just a free-for-all, absolute madness and chaos, and Piggy goes down the cliff.

Maybe not. According to this article in the Guardian UK from June 30, 2002, some towns in Holland have been rid of their traffic lights and signs for years:

The unusual traffic arrangements are based on forcing motorists to rely heavily on eye contact with each other, pedestrians, cyclists and bus drivers instead of falling back on road signs and red lights to dictate their driving. When drivers have to keep an eye out for potential obstacles and casualties because there are no lines, traffic lights or lane markings they automatically slow down to below 20 m.p.h. — a speed where a child who is knocked down is five times more likely to live as one who is hit at more than 30 m.p.h.

In Europe, the idea of “naked streets” seems to be catching on. Towns in Denmark, Belgium and Germany have already stripped streets of their traffic lights and signs. And a few towns in Britain have been pondering the concept.

Could naked streets be safer? Perhaps. I’ve just come back from Buenos Aires, where traffic signs are a luxury on the smaller side streets. I was there for three weeks and didn’t see a single accident. But there’s one important factor that will probably prevent the naked street concept from really expanding — it’s not cheap. The European Union spent $1.66 million to make the German town of Bohmte sign and light-free. And it only sees 13,500 cars a day.

L.A. Auto Show: Driving Honda’s Fuel-Cell FCX

By Norman Mayersohn
Honda FCX ClarityThe Honda FCX Clarity, powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, will be leased to retail customers next year.

LOS ANGELES — Before hustling off to LAX for my flight home from the auto show last Sunday, I spent a morning driving what may be the most advanced road vehicle on the planet: the Honda FCX Clarity. This fuel-cell-powered car, unveiled in production-ready form at the convention center earlier in the week, will be built in small numbers and leased next summer to retail customers for their everyday use.

The FCX is an astonishing accomplishment on many levels, some of which we’ll soon be reporting on in the newspaper. Not the least of its praiseworthy qualities is the degree of refinement it exhibits. Forget for a moment about the technology of its compact new Honda-developed fuel cell stack and the cleverness of its experimental home refueling system. What really impressed me was how polished it was: on the road it was totally glitchless, and under the hood it looked no different from the plastic-swathed engine bays of dozens of current cars.

This was no escapee from the R&D lab, no geeky engineering student’s senior project. It’s the real thing, fully qualified for showroom duty and its eventual trip to the motor vehicles department for license plates. Anyone who has driven a Toyota Prius will find the controls completely familiar. Read more…

Amphicar Ahoy!

By Nick Kurczewski
Amphicar in ParisIs the Amphicar the perfect solution for transit in Paris? (Photo by Nick Kurczewski)

PARIS — The transit strike that brought train service in Paris and other parts of France to a screeching halt for the last week is causing commuters no end of pain and annoyance. But Parisians are coping with the inconvenience by taking advantage of the city’s new rent-a-bike program, car-pooling, or by putting on their most comfortable walking shoes. To see how the strike had affected everyday life in my new hometown, I decided to take a walk through the Place de la Concorde.

Peering over the edge of the Pont de la Concorde, I caught sight of the perfect solution to the strike — an Amphicar. It was bright red and parked on top of a handsome houseboat floating serenely in the Seine.

Produced from 1961 to 1968, the German-built Amphicar remains the only mass-produced amphibious vehicle ever sold to the public. (Of course, mass-produced is a relative term when you consider only 3,878 Amphicars were sold before the company collapsed.) According to the Web site of the International Amphicar Owners Club, the vast majority of Amphicars — up to 90 percent — found homes in the United States. Read more…

Ferrari Promises CO2 Reduction in Future Models

By Richard S. Chang

This just came in through the wires: Ferrari is setting a goal to produce cars that are 40 percent more fuel efficient by 2012:

Amedeo Felisa, general manager of the Italian luxury sports car maker, said Ferrari wanted to reduce CO2 emissions from 400 grams per kilometer per vehicle to 280-300 by the target date.

“We have to face the challenge of reducing consumption but not affecting the performance of the car,” he said at the Reuters Auto Summit in Frankfurt. “Otherwise we move (away) from our position in the market and we do not want to do that.”

Felisa said Ferrari engineers were looking at everything from improving the performance of the engine to using lighter materials for the body of the car.

It will be interesting to see how Ferrari accomplishes this reduction. Earlier this year, the company revealed a very conceptual concept car (it was primarily made out of cardboard) called the Millechili, which was supposed to achieve green cred through a hybrid drivetrain and excessive use of lightweight materials like carbon fiber and aluminum.

Is this all marketing hype? Perhaps. You could make the argument that Ferrari doesn’t need to go green. The company only sells 6,000 cars a year (and most of those are driven sparingly). Compare that with the millions of S.U.V.’s and pickups sold annually by the major automakers, and you can hardly blame Ferrari for the longer summers in the Northeast.

Then again, Ferrari could be refining its focus on younger customers, perhaps those who made their millions in the tech industry. Not only is this demographic more concerned with buying greener cars, they’re actually creating greener car companies like Tesla Motors, Wrightspeed and Venture.

Could we soon be hearing the last of the Ferrari V-12s?

Monday Morning Motorsports

By Richard S. Chang
Jimmie JohnsonJimmie Johnson dominated the second half of the Nextel Cup season to earn his second consecutive championship. (John Harrelson/Getty Images)

Nascar: Jimmie Johnson has gone back to back. Johnson finished seventh at Homestead-Miami Speedway, which was enough to secure his second straight Nextel Cup title. He dominated the season like no driver has since Jeff Gordon won 13 races in 1998. This year, in a more competitive field, Johnson won 10, including four straight heading into the finale at Homestead, where he played it safe.

“We were being smart,” he said. “We played our cards right during the race. We would have loved to have won our fifth in a row, but the big prize was the championship.”

WRC: Sebastien Loeb is one step closer to winning his fourth straight championship after winning the Rally of Ireland. Loeb seemed to be in command after Marcus Gronholm crashed out on the first leg, but technical issues and difficult conditions made things tough. He incurred a 10 second penalty after an electrical problem delayed his exit from the service area. “For sure this rally was one of the most difficult we’ve ever done, because it was very muddy, but the car was really good. I had a really good feeling and I was not pushing so hard, just driving through with no risks,” Loeb said in a report from Autosport. Gronholm’s teammate, Mikko Hirvonen, gave Ford the constructors’ title by finishing fourth. The drivers’ title, however, will come down to the final rally of the season, the Wales Rally GB. Loeb leads the championship over Gronholm by 6 points.

Formula One: The World Motor Sport Council rejected McLaren’s appeal of a ruling from the Brazilian Grand Prix, one that had a slim chance of altering the outcome of the Formula One driver’s championship.

Race stewards in Brazil had investigated an irregularity in fuel temperature in the Sauber BMW and Williams cars. But after a lengthy examination, they decided there wasn’t enough evidence to disqualify the cars (and move Lewis Hamilton from seventh to fourth, which would have given him one more point than Kimi Raikkonen and the drivers’ championship), leading to McLaren’s appeal. Last Friday, the W.M.S.C. dismissed the case in curt fashion:

Following a report from the Technical Delegate indicating that the temperature of fuel pumped into the cars N°9 – Nick Heidfeld, N°10 – Robert Kubica, N°16 – Nico Rosberg and N°17 – Kazuki Nakajima, was more than 10 degrees centigrade below ambient temperature, the Stewards of the Meeting met to consider whether a penalty should be imposed.

Having heard the evidence they decided not to impose a penalty as they had sufficient doubt as to both the temperature of the fuel on board the car and to the true ambient temperature.

Having heard the explanations of both parties and having examined the various documents and other evidence, the Court decided that the appeal lodged by Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is inadmissible.

Dancing With the Cars: Vote Now

By Jerry Garrett
Chevy Groove, Beat and TraxGeneral Motors introduced the Chevrolet Groove, left, the Beat, center, and Trax minicar concepts at the New York International Auto Show. (Photo by Reuters)

LOS ANGELES — Chevrolet introduced three design studies for a proposed 50-miles-per-gallon “city car” at last April’s New York International Auto Show. The company invited the public to vote online for their favorite — Beat, Trax or Groove — promising that the winner would be greenlighted for production.

At the Los Angeles show, G.M.’s vice chairman, Bob Lutz, announced the results of the voting so far. “The Beat has over 875,000 votes,” he said, “and that’s great, because that’s the one we intended to do in the first place.”

He added, laughing, “I can’t tell you how many worried G.M. employees had to vote for the Beat to put it over the top.”

Mr. Lutz said the Trax might be saved from the scrapheap. “With over 719,000 votes, it’s obvious that design has quite a sizable following too,” Mr. Lutz added.

But the Groove model, a distant third, is probably destined to be turned back into Play-Doh.

Chevy Looks East for a Small-Scale Hatchback

Full Coverage: L.A. Auto Show

L.A. Auto Show: Governor Schwarzenegger’s Environmental Message

By Tori Tellem
Governor Arnold SchwarzeneggerGov. Arnold Schwarzenegger examining a Hummer at the L.A. Auto Show. (Photo by Monica Almeida/The New York Times)

LOS ANGELES — For the second year running, the biggest power name at the L.A. Auto Show was Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. When it comes to the environment and California, he’s the state’s A-list celebrity in more ways than one. And for an event that has become overwhelmingly green, he’s the ultimate display-booth babe.

Arnold made an appearance not only to walk the auto show and peruse the new production and concept vehicles, but to give the unofficial keynote address on the sidewalk just outside of the Los Angeles Convention Center. He spoke of California’s environmental agenda, which is, quite simply, that cleaning cars will clean the air. Fearing that oil will hit $100 a barrel, potentially compromising our economy and our national security, the governor explained that “we could avoid that if we work toward alternative fuels.” Read more…

Nascar Still Second Fiddle to N.F.L.

By Richard S. Chang
Jimmie Johnson and Jeff GordonJimmie Johnson, left, and Jeff Gordon. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Johnson! Gordon!! SUNDAY!!!

(Yawn.)

Despite having two of Nascar’s highest profile drivers battling for the Nextel Cup championship this Sunday, Nascar is having a tough time getting noticed.

The Chase for the Cup concept was supposed to inject life into the end of a very long and monotonous Nascar season, one that used to get lost in the glitz of the NFL. It hasn’t worked. Jimmie Johnson winning the last four races to pull 86 points clear of Jeff Gordon hasn’t helped much either.

Terry Blount of ESPN.com valiantly argues:

Upsets and surprising comebacks really do happen in sports. It’s one of the reasons fans love to watch. Just in the last few months, we’ve seen some shockers. Read more…

L.A. Auto Show: Still Crazy After All These Years

By Tori Tellem
History displays at the L.A. Auto ShowHistory displays at the L.A. Auto Show. (Photo by Monica Almeida/The New York Times)

LOS ANGELES — With all the hoopla the Los Angeles Auto Show has received during the past two years, due simply to a calendar adjustment, you’d think it was in its infancy.

Nope, the show is all grown up. The first was held in 1907, and as that year’s January 23rd edition of The Los Angeles Times noted, “Los Angeles has entered the automobilist’s galaxy by having an automobile show of her own, the first ever held on the Pacific Coast.” Familiar automakers — Ford and Cadillac among them — strutted their stuff, as did automakers no longer with us, like Overland and Peerless.

It was an immediate success, and visitors continued to flock to the event through the years. The show even managed to act as visual Prozac for a nation suffering through the Great Depression. But it wasn’t all highs.

In March of 1929, an electrical fire fried to a crisp more than $1 million worth of vehicles. On Jan. 15, 1932, Los Angeles recorded its heaviest rainfall — a whopping two inches — which was enough to sag the canvas roof the following day and shut down the display. Another low was in 1958, when the first Auto Queen was crowned; that process lasted only a decade, thankfully.

After World War II (and a 12-year hiatus), the show heated up as overseas manufacturers started to take Los Angeles seriously. The 1950s marked the launch of cars of the future (what we now call concepts), and the next couple of decades were rife with truly quirky prospects, from odd themes (Fashion on Wheels?) to out-there exhibitions (a Yugo toaster, complete with giant slices of bread?).

That’s much of the lure even in 2007. It’s Los Angeles, after all.

Full Coverage: L.A. Auto Show

The Taurus Is Back… What About the Buyers?

By Nick Bunkley
Ford TaurusFord brought back the Taurus badge to reverse slumping sales of the Five Hundred. Results have been mixed.

Before he became chief executive of Ford, Alan Mulally thought the company made a big mistake by killing off one of its most recognizable model names, the Taurus. But did Ford make another mistake by resurrecting the Taurus name this spring and slapping it on a slow-selling full-size sedan?

In October, sales of the new Taurus were 14 percent lower than its predecessor, the Ford Five Hundred. Year-to-date, they’re down 22 percent. That is partly because sales of all full-size cars are down this year, but still, the numbers suggest that Ford is not getting much mileage out of a name that used to grace the best-selling car in America.

Ford claims to see things differently, however. Executives say they consider the Taurus to be more successful than the Five Hundred because dealerships are selling many more of them. A lot of Five Hundreds had been dumped onto rental-car lots with big discounts just to keep the factory running. In fact, Mr. Mulally said dealerships sold 40 percent more Tauruses in October than they did the Five Hundred a year ago.

But he acknowledged that sales could be better.

“We knew that we lost some ground with that name change to the Five Hundred and people not knowing what it was,” Mr. Mulally said.

What Ford didn’t know, though, was that as forgettable as the Five Hundred name was for car buyers, its dealers would have more trouble letting go. CNW Marketing, an auto consulting firm in Oregon, visited dealers and found that one in five salespeople were still regularly saying “Five Hundred” instead of “Taurus.”

L.A. Auto Show: The Old Amid the New

By Daniel McDermon
1899 Lohner-PorscheThe 1899 Lohner-Porsche Elektromobil. (Photo by Monica Almeida/The New York Times)

LOS ANGELES — Not everything on display at the Los Angeles Auto Show is right off the assembly line. The main purpose here, of course, is to showcase new (or newish) models, and the manufacturers trumpet each feature and shade of paint as if they’d developed a rounder version of the wheel. But the shows also offer enthusiasts and car buffs the chance to get close to a few pieces of classic rolling sculpture.

Porsche, for example, is showing a hybrid car from the 19th century, the 1899 Lohner-Porsche Elektromobil, which Bradley Berman recently wrote about:

[Ferdinand] Porsche integrated battery-powered electric motors directly into the front-wheel hubs, producing one of the first front-wheel-drive cars. He later added an internal combustion gasoline engine to drive a generator, which charged the batteries. The Lohner-Porsche vehicle could reach a maximum speed of only about 35 miles an hour, but the proto-hybrid was born.

Porsche is better known today as the designer of the Volkswagen and for the famed sports car company brought to prominence by his son.

Also on display in Los Angeles is a restored 1957 BMW Isetta, which, the restorers allege, will travel 180 miles on a three-gallon tank of gasoline.

1957 BMW Isetta1957 BMW Isetta (Photo by John Hayes/Associated Press)

Does it seem as if a theme is emerging? Read more…