I had the opportunity to be a guest on WDIV's Flashpoint yesterday. The show is the Detroit NBC affiliate's micro-sized version of Meet The Press. As you'd expect from a Meet The Press Detroit version — it was all about the auto industry, and this week the topic of the 2008 Detroit Auto Show was front and center.…
My quick question-and-answer session with one of the Nissan Forum's product managers didn't give me a chance to see everything that the Nissan Forum is packing. So I sent our intrepid video reported back to capture more features on this conceptual parenting-mobile. I can't believe I missed the the Bose speakers and…
You thought you had seen the last of the 2008 Mazda Furai concept didn't you? We certainly had enough coverage on the lusty concept that didn't make Popular Mechanics' Top 10 New Cars of Detroit list. What with the teaser photos, track video, live reveal shots, and super sneaky close ups - but no, we're not done yet.…
The Cobo Center, home to the Detroit Auto Show, provides approximately $600 million annually to the local economies, with much of that money coming from the show itself. With that in mind, state and local officials are working on a plan to spend $595 million to expand and renovate the center. This change would include…
We can hardly believe our eyes. We all were under the impression after the last set of rumors from Automotive News that we here in the U.S. would be seeing a Zeta-platformed wagon and ute sometime before the end of the decade. We'd even done our darndest trying to track down that rumor ourselves — first with Rick…
In Italian, Collezione Cento means "Collection of One Hundred," and we're guessing you're not one of the hundred getting the Maserati Quattroporte Collezione Cento. And just in case you didn't get the picture, Maserati reminded us in a press conference they could give less than a shit about the "mass wealthy" (head…
We were breaking stories like madmen at Detroit, after our world exclusive drive through Cobo we went to see the 2009 Dodge Ram 1500 to have the world's first tailgate using the awesome new RamBox feature. And who volunteered to down the first bottle? Why that would be Dan Bodene of Chrysler Communications. Drink it…
Since the motoring press is not going to get to get our hands on either the 2009 Dodge Ram or the 2009 Ford F-150 for a while we thought we'd jump the gun and do a comparison based off things we've seen and scraps of info they've told us.
Normally booth babes are virtually invisible at the Detroit Auto Show - all bundled up in pantsuits and acting as "spokesmodels". This year saw some cracks in the wall of political correctness through which a few foreign manufacturers snuck in very lovely ways to make a bunch of dudes look at their cars. The field of…
Though the Fisker Karma Hybrid has a significant backer in VC firm Kleiner-Perkings, much of the Karma prototype we saw was still held together with epoxy. In fact, we weren't even allowed to open the doors ourselves. A specially trained assistant was there to make sure we didn't break the car. All this goes to say…
The Detroit Auto Show was an absolute hootenanny of reveals, confirmed rumors, shattered expectations, and free tea sets. Of course, we handed out grades to automakers. And you, dear readers? Which ones did you think flunked? Which soared? And which aimed squarely for the mediocre middle? Don't hold back. Spare the…
Tucked into a corner of the basement is a 1937 Seagrave Safety Sedan, known amongst fire truck junkies as the Detroit Safety Sedan and it represents one of the more interesting untold stories here at Detroit. When a firefighter falls in the line of duty, there is a longstanding tradition of using a firetruck as the…
As our time at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show draws to a close we're ready to crank up our powerful evaluation device, based on technology available to any third grader, to grade each of the automakers ( and major quasi-subsidiaries) on the most important metric of this, the Super Bowl of auto shows, buzz. Prepare for As,…
I had a chance to talk with David Rojas and Robert Jablonski, the exterior and interior designers of the Hummer HX Concept with one question on the table: What's the link between the HX and the Warthog from Halo? The answer wasn't as clear as I was hoping. I couldn't get either of the twentysomething designers to…
The PR people at VeeDub were more than happy to give us a walk through of the black Volkswagen CC, which looks even better than the silver model. Though it's called the Passat CC, and will be likely thought of as a Passat, the current talk is that they'll drop the Passat moniker and offer it as the next step up for…
Between whipping us like the cattle we are and sipping his lattes, Senór Wert made time to work up some amusing daily commentary for this years Detroit Auto Show. Unfortunately, he was too busy wielding the whip over getting ever-larger galleries up to get his own spiel up. Luckily the comedy act over at Dubspeed was…
We had a little too much fun yesterday, as you can see above. Though the last press day of the Detroit Auto Show is supposed to be a bit slower, no one got the memo. Our staff continued to burn off pretzels running through Cobo Hall chasing stories and, unsuccessfully, the cuter car models. We'd like to share with you…
British cheerleaders set the world record for most people crammed into a Smart car by cramming 14 lassies into the diminutive city car. Being the sporting gents we are, we decided to see how many burly Detroit Auto Show goers could fit, including Ben and our videographer Mark. The result? If you count them up we…
We're pretty good picture-takers and we did a pretty good job picture-taking here at the Detroit Auto Show. Zerin on the other hand, is better. [SpeedSportLife]
Anyone want to buy a 2009 Corvette ZR1? The official website just went live. [Chevy]