Auto Mobiles

Volkswagen has a new goal: to triple its sales in the US by 2018. And one of the things that the car maker is doing to be able to reach such an aim is to hold an advertising campaign which would star a Volkswagen Bug. The whole campaign includes TV ads, print ads, and web ads.

According to a newsletter from AIADA, the company has chosen the Volkswagen Bug to represent the company in the whole series of ads. This is because the vehicle has a classic appeal which really makes consumers identify with the brand. ‘Max’ is the name given to the Bug and it is a 1964 unit painted black and has been restored.

Reports have it that the campaign using the Volkswagen Bug would be just the start of a series of campaigns. The company would later on be introducing new vehicles later on in the campaign.

The Chevrolet and Saturn brands will continue to stand alone, but there will be a new premium division containing Cadillac, Hummer and Saab and another division for Buick, Pontiac and GMC.

Following GM's announcement that it sold a record number of cars across the Atlantic in the first quarter of 2008, Ford recently revealed their own sales figures for the old world.

Chrysler LLC [CBS.UL] is in talks with Italian carmaker Fiat on a possible cooperation agreement for the production of Alfa Romeo cars in Chrysler's U.S. factories, a German newspaper reported.

Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea's top auto maker, said on Wednesday it plans to recall some 390,000 units of the Sonata sedan in the United States to fix a defect in the cars' air bag systems.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has revealed she would back a government-bailout to protect the Detroit 3 automakers from going bankrupt if the need arose.

I got a couple good suggestions on how to strip the paint from my wheels after I posted about them last month, but the first step in prepping the wheels was to remove the crud from the rim surface of one of the four wheels. You can see the crud all over the second wheel down in the previous photo, or you can see a little patch of it that I left for photo purposes in the photo above.

That wheel in particular sat on a severely shredded tire for who knows how long, which is what probably led to the crud buildup, but I couldn’t determine at all what it was or what cleaning solvent would destroy it. It looked like a combination of mold, grease and that liquid rubber tire-patch-in-a-can crap, hardened to not-quite-diamond strength. I finally broke out the wire cup on the angle grinder and made short work of it.

Also, while the homemade bushing press worked well, McGean broke out his Harbor Freight ball joint tool and figured out how to press bushings out of my control arms with it. He’s a little ashamed of using a Harbor Freight tool (made in China!) for something like this, but it worked and it didn’t distort the control arm, so I didn’t mind. Still need to figure out how to press the bushings from the coil spring seats, however.

Previous HMX posts

Okay, so we recorded this interview with Hemmings’ resident in-house mechanic, Jim Howe, before the recent announcement about the postponement of this year’s Great Race, but we still thought worthwhile his comments and input on how he prepared the Hemmings 1934 humpback Dodge for all the rally events we’ve taken part in recent years. And as proof spring’s finally sprung on Vermont, we got out of the studio for this interview and into the Dodge itself to record the noises it makes.

All of which we’ve made available in the latest episode of Hemmings Collector Car Radio, available for download now. If you have an RSS reader, make sure to subscribe to our RSS podcast feed for notification of future episodes. You can also subscribe to our podcast feed directly through iTunes.

Yes, it’s been forever and a day since we cleaned out the ol’ Bookmarks, but we certainly have found some good stuff on the webs lately:

* We’ve mentioned the curious origin of the name for Curious Yellow and we’ve touched on the other late-1960s High Impact/Big Bad/Grabber colors, but we’ve yet to see a website dedicated just to one of those colors, and we wouldn’t figure on ever seeing such a website dedicated to Panther Pink (and Moulin Rouge, the Plymouth counterpart), but it appears some men are comfortable enough in their masculinity to immerse themselves in color code FM3.

* McCourt pointed this one out to me. When shopping for a family car with four-wheel-drive powerful enough to conquer the Sierra Nevadas, no production-line vehicle will do for Brian Roth. No, instead he wanted a 1975 Volvo 245 wagon, powered by a Camaro 3.8-liter V-6, driven through a 1986 S-dime Blazer transmission and transfer case and put down to the front wheels via a 1984 Cherokee Dana 30 solid front axle. But he says it works and his family seems to love him for it. I just want to see more of the four-wheel-drive 1974 Honda Civic he built.

* Any vintage non-sports car Porsche deserves a mention here, whether it’s MTV’s Jagdwagen or, well, MTV’s Jagdwagen. We can at least add another vehicle to that short list now: the equally as rare B32, a factory-built Porsche Vanagon. It appears Porsche built just 10 or 11 such vans, and we’re still wondering why. We’re also wondering if there’s an Audi Quattro version, the next logical extension of the theme. (via)

* As always, no Four-Links is complete with a link to either Modern Mechanix or BigLorryBlog. We’ll go with the former this time, and their article (although brief) on streamlined German vehicles, including the above depicted 1935 Mercedes roadster. I proclaim ignorance on this roadster - can anybody provide details?

* Terry Cook’s been headed this way for a while now, but it appears he’s left kustoms behind for good and now started to focus on modern coachbuilt cars, starting with the Delahaye under the Delahaye USA banner. While the bodies mimic the original art deco cars of the 1930s, Cook infuses each car with modern chassis construction and drivetrains, with engine choices ranging from V-8s to V-12s, though he makes no mention in the press release of which V-8s, V-10s and V-12s he plans to use. Nor does the press release give a price range for the cars, though it’s safe to assume that they won’t be going for chump change. (via)

* Jen’s gotta be pinching herself right now. Our buds at CarDomain sent her out to Vegas over the weekend to cover Viva Las Vegas, and she came back with some awesome coverage of some of the most unique rods and customs to attend.

"This latest agreement builds on Nissan's proven track record to deliver win-win product exchanges with multiple manufacturers around the world"

Tag Links: Chrysler , Built , Nissan , Truck Chrysler Built Nissan Truck Chrysler LLC and Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., today announced two new agreements for the supply of products between both companies. via AutoSpies