With the Town Car gone and the Navigator far out of fashion, Lincoln has been struggling. If they’re to survive as a premium brand, they need a reason for people to buy their cars. At the show this year, they offered a couple.

To some extent, Acura has never recovered from the advent of Lexus. They had a very good first few years with the Asian luxury brand space all to themselves, only to be consigned to the second tier by the larger, faster, quieter, smoother newcomer. But the real damage came later. First they dropped the popular Legend and Integra nameplates. Most… More →

Lexus badly wants us to think of it as a “dynamic and exciting” brand. So their top executive gave a speech declaring how dynamic and exciting they are, and (entirely without a sense of irony) how the car he was introducing had left him speechless–every word obviously read off a teleprompter. In this speech on speechlessness, Lexus’s fear of increasing… More →

…or die trying. Back when I was working on my Ph.D., the potential for more intensively involving consumers in the development of new products fascinated me. I saw potential to improve the lives of people on both sites of the equation, the creators of products and those who buy and use them. Perhaps they could even get to really know… More →

I had to skip Dodge’s presentation. But our good friend and photographer Eric Merrill made it and got some pics. I then stopped by to check out the car after Chevrolet.

So the new car introduction I was most looking forward to has come and gone. General reaction to the 2013 Ford Fusion is very positive. Me, not quite so much.

So now that I’ve had a chance to sleep on it, what do I think of the Cadillac ATS? The styling still doesn’t seem to make a strong enough statement to force the car into the public’s awareness. Certainly good enough, but people aren’t going to see one and wonder, “What’s that car?!” So the ATS is going to have… More →

I’ve been looking forward to the Cadillac ATS ever since I learned it was being developed a few years ago. Okay, I looked forward to the less expensive Pontiac off the same new “Alpha” platform even more, but that one’s clearly not happening. I like compact cars more than larger ones. And rear-wheel-drive tends to make a car much more… More →

The U.S. government offered to give a further five percent of Chrysler to FIAT if the latter offered a U.S.-built car that achieved 40 MPG in the EPA’s tests. The skeptic in me figured that FIAT would lightly rework one of its cars, minimally tweak the styling to make it a Dodge, and call it a day. But have they?… More →