Vehicles: Page 201

SUZUKI. wants to meld 3 brands into 1 image

While it isn't likely Suzuki car dealers will start selling motorcycles or boat engines, the parent company is hoping an evolving effort will help leverage the identity of the three brands into one cohesive Suzuki image.One problem is that it's not that unusual for people who are familiar with Suzuki's motorcycles to be unaware they sell cars or for their marine customers to be unfamiliar with the

By Jeff Green • July 1, 2000

Developers Say Steam is Clean Power of the Future

DETROIT - Probably the most intriguing display at the recent Global Powertrain Congress 2000 here is a new-century spin on an industrial-revolution antique: the steam engine.Once or twice every decade, somebody revives the prospect of the steam engine for modern passenger vehicles. And once or twice every decade, those promoters quietly go away when questioned about overall efficiency; transferring

By Bill Visnic • July 1, 2000

Ten Best Engines 2000 - Long-term Intro

We all love when a totally new engine breaks onto the annual Ward's Ten Best Engines list, because it becomes an immediate target. The new engine beats plenty of excellent competition, not to mention displacing an engine that previously won a spot.Is this winner worthy, or just a flashy new engine that briefly impressed the Best Engines judges?That's why General Motors Corp.'s 3.5L Twin-Cam V-6 is

By Bill Visnic • July 1, 2000

Renault Joins Fuel Cell Venture

BMW AG and Delphi Automotive Systems have a third partner in their quest to bring automotive fuel cells to market. French automaker Renault SA joins the solid-oxide fuel cell development agreement launched by Delphi and BMW in April 1999.BMW intends to use the solid-oxide fuel cell as an auxiliary source for gasoline-powered passenger cars, while Renault will install them in light and heavy-duty diesel

By WARD'S AUTO WORLD STAFF • June 1, 2000

Saturn Gets $1.5B, 4 Vehicles - But No New Plant

Even with four new products coming in four years, thanks to a $1.5 billion investment from parent General Motors Corp., Saturn Corp. says it has no plan to add assembly plants to its manufacturing operations."It's probably not in the cards at this point. The (forthcoming sport/utility vehicle) is going to Spring Hill, and there is potentially extra capacity at the plant," a Saturn spokesman says.Saturn

By WARD'S AUTO WORLD STAFF • June 1, 2000

Dropping the Bomb on Hydrogen

Fuel cell-powered vehicles that employ hydrogen as fuel are the acknowledged future hope for passenger-vehicle transportation. Hydrogen is billed as the ultimate non-polluting energy source. Burning hydrogen means no emissions, save water vapor, and as the earth's simplest element, it appears to be in huge supply.The trouble is, hydrogen isn't there just for the taking; it must be separated from other

By Bob Krantz • June 1, 2000

Breaking Away: Global Powertrain Congress

DETROIT - You might have missed last year's Global Powertrain Congress. But if the upstart industry conference's organizers can make good on their vision, this year's GPC (June 6-8) here at Cobo Hall will lay the groundwork for GPC's emergence as a must-attend event for powertrain engineers.Global Powertrain Conference president M. Nasim Uddin is no stranger to organizing a good trade show - the original

By Bill Visnic • May 1, 2000

Vinyl Headed Out the Door

First, vinyl disappeared from our record cabinets. Now it's disappearing from car and truck interiors. Likely by the end of this decade, it'll be bye-bye vinyl as a covering for instrument and interior door panels in new vehicle programs in North America.Also known as PVC, (short for poly vinyl chloride) vinyl will be replaced by thermoplastic olefin (TPO) as the skin for IPs and door panels.Why?

By Frank S. Washington • May 1, 2000

GM Expects Big Dividend from New Diesel

PHOENIX, Arizona - General Motors Corp. plans to make a heavy duty impact in the heavy duty pickup market this fall when it luanches an all-new V-8 turbodiesel engine as an option for its 2001-model Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra three-quarter-ton and 1-ton "work" pickups.The new 6.6L turbodiesel engine - dubbed Duramax - was developed by GM and Isuzu Motors Ltd. through their joint venture, DMAX

By Bill Visnic • May 1, 2000

Birthday Bash

Lear Corp. is marking the one-year anniversary of its acquisition of UT Automotive in grand style.This month, the company opens its Lear Electronic and Electrical Division (LEED) in Dearborn, MI, aimed at a new discipline - "intertronics," the meshing of, you guessed it, interiors and electronics.Lear invested $2 million to expand and upgrade the LEED headquarters, most of which was spent in the new

By Laurel Wright • May 1, 2000

Fueling NAFTA Region Growth

ZF Friedrichshafen AG says its continuously variable transmission (CVT) joint venture with Ford Motor Co. will turn out 1 million units annually by 2005, part of the reason the company foresees the NAFTA region as its biggest growth market going forward.The Ford-ZF JV will begin producing CVTs in fall 2001 for both Ford and Fiat Auto SpA, says ZF Group North American Operations Chief Executive James

By Dave Zoia • April 1, 2000

Automobile wins runner-up honors

We dissent, but the ballots are in and counted. The automobile ranks a mere second on the 20 Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Century, second to electrification. Nominations from 20 professional engineering societies were selected and ranked by a distinguished panel of the nation's top engineers and announced by astronaut/engineer Neil Armstrong during National Engineers Week last month. We

By WARD'S AUTO WORLD STAFF • April 1, 2000

Variable Compression: Small Engine, Big Power

GENEVA - An astonishing 30% reduction in fuel consumption and in consequent emissions is claimed for a variable-compression engine concept developed by Saab Automobile AB and revealed at the recent Geneva motor show here.Saab, long recognized for its out-of-the-box engine engineering, has a history of bringing cutting-edge engine designs to production. The company is largely responsible, for example,

By David Scott • April 1, 2000

Eaton Debuts Four Products

Eaton Corp. introduces four new products to reduce vehicle emissions and improve fuel economy.The company says its new electronic locker, electronic limited slip differential, cylinder deactivation system and ultralight valves were designed for use in light trucks, SUVs and specialty vehicles.Eaton's electronic locker is a fully controllable locking differential that is compatible with electronic

By Rebecca Wall • April 1, 2000

HERE’S A LOOK AT WHAT WILL BE IN CARS OF THE FUTURE

DETROIT - What types of vehicle options and features will consumers demand in the coming years?That's hard to say for sure, but the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress and Exhibition offers a glimpse of what's ahead.About 50,000 engineers and other industry folk attended the annual event in Detroit last month. The show's 1,200 displays cover just about every system that goes - or may soon

By Steve Finlay • April 1, 2000

INTERIOR TRIM ENTERS THE STONE AGE

Automotive designers used to have three choices when it came to decorative trim for interiors: real wood, fake wood, or just plain plastic. That left little room to create a unique personality for a specific car or truck.But automotive design now is shifting to a new era that tries to give a hand-crafted look to mass-produced interiors, and that's leading to the use of new textures and materials inside

By Drew Winter • April 1, 2000

Deep SAE Diving

Not every exhibitor at the Society of Automotive Engineers' 2000 World Congress had BMW's allure, DuPont's booth placement (next to the front door), Lear's popular pick-your-own-interior side show or Delphi's budget.Some of the largest Tier One suppliers are naturally good at grabbing attention at the auto industry's largest gathering of engineers - just over 49,200 this year.But there were 1,300

By Tom Murphy- with Bill Visnic • April 1, 2000

e-ENGINEERING

In the 1950s, Ernest Hemingway really had the lifestyle down: Live in a sub-tropical paradise like Key West or pre-Castro Cuba. Get up at first light. Write brilliant prose until noon. Then gas up the boat. Fish for marlin in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream until sundown. Drink. Do it again the next day. It was a good life. Very good.In fact, he caused millions who couldn't put two sentences together

By Drew Winter with Tom Murphy • March 1, 2000

Auto Talk: Auto Writer Don Schroeder Dead at 35

The automotive community was shocked and saddened by the loss of Car and Driver senior technical editor Don Schroeder, who died Feb. 11 following the crash of a high-performance RENNtech Mer-cedes-Benz that he was test driving at Fort Stockton, TX.He was the sole occupant when the engine exploded and he lost control of the vehicle at high speed."Don was an experienced and fully qualified test driver.

By WARD'S AUTO WORLD STAFF • March 1, 2000

Engineers in High Demand

I typed in the words "engineering career" on America Online one day last month and hit GO. The search engine found 173 matching categories and 3,635 matching Web sites. Within those parameters lay the reason for the shortage of automotive engineers.The number of experienced engineers and the number of students pursuing engineering careers has not gone down over the years. But the number of companies

By Frank S. Washington • March 1, 2000

How to put subprime customers into the “right” vehicle

The sooner you can identify a secondary finance customer in the sales process, the greater the odds you will deliver a vehicle and the greater the profit will be.In spite of this, most dealerships keep using a sales process designed to support primary customers, not the special needs and considerations of secondary customers.The primary sales process requires salespeople to assume that every customer

By Dave Bartels • March 1, 2000

AIADA’s 1st woman chief: “I’m ready to lead”

As the first chairwoman of a national dealer association, Barbara Vidmar figures she'll be watched more closely than were her male predecessors.But Mrs. Vidmar, new head of the American Import Automobile Dealers Association, has passed many tests as co-owner with her husband William of Vidmar Motor Co., Pueblo, CO.She declares with a smile, "I'm ready to lead AIADA in the new century as a strong and

By Maynard M. Gordon • March 1, 2000

Loan car shutoff wins court approval

A Michigan judge ruled in favor of megadealer Mel Farr in connection with his installing engine shutoff devices on vehicles sold to customers of his Triple MMM Financing subsidiary.Wayne County Circuit Judge Kaye Tertzag denied an injunction request by attorneys suing over the OnTime Device, with which missed loan payments can result in electronically disabling the borrower's vehicle.The device, primarily

By Mac Gordon • March 1, 2000

The Driver Behind GDI

Akira Kijima Board member and vice corporate general manager of car research and development at Mitsubishi Motors Corp. If a word describes Akira Kijima, it's his 'passion.' And the issue he feels most passionate about is Mitsubishi's 'direct injection' gasoline engine."There's no way this technology can fail," says Mr. Kijima. "It may take 100 years, but this engine is the way of the future. The

By WARD'S AUTO WORLD STAFF • March 1, 2000

TIPS FOR ENHANCING FUTURE PROFITS

Many dealers tell me that 1999 was their best year since they have been in business, and most of those same dealers feel that 2000 will also be a very good year.Most economic indicators and industry forecasters also support the thought that this year, while not being equal to 1999, will be good. Increasing interest rates and fuel prices are two indications that change may be on the horizon.So what

By Tony Noland • March 1, 2000