User:Karrmann/Carofthedayarchive
Previous cars of the day.
June 2, 2007, Saturn Aura
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We all know Saturn Corporation, right? Well, many simply know them as a maker of plastic clad cars that often break down that many wouldn't get caught dead in. The new Saturn Aura is hoping to change that. Instead of the bubbly and quirky styling of the most recent Saturn sedan, the ION, the Aura has crisp, European styling with manystyling features borrowed from that of Eurpoe's Opel division, which happens to also be owned by General Motors. Inside, the Aura continues on its Euro feel, with a crisply designed and upscale interior, that used a nice blend of rick plastics, wood, and aluminum with little touches of chrome. Saturn intends the Aura to be a sports/touring sedan, and they carry that out with a 252HP engine and a six speed automatic transmission that can either be automatic, or shifted manually by two F1-style paddle shifters on the steering wheel. Overall, the Aura is a well done and well built product, and it shows hope for Saturn's future as a potent import fighter to not only the Japanese, but to Europe as well. And because of that, it is the car of the day.
June 3, 2007 Ford Contour
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It seems that in the 90s, Ford despritely wanted to create another "world car" like the Model T was. An example of a world car would be the BMW 3-series, where the same model of car is popular throughout the world. Anyways, Ford decieded to bring its smash hit from Europe, the Mondeo, to the United States to replace the aging Tempo. (Note that the Escort was a different model than the one sold in Europe) Ford brought the Mondeo over and renamed it the Contour for 1995. Although sales were good, the Contour came under criticism about how rear leg room was tight. To counter this, Ford scooped out the front seats and moved the rear seat back two inches for 1996. Ford thought that would increase sales, but at the same time the improved Contour was launched, Ford launched the redesigned Taurus, which would end up to be the big needle for the Contour. This was because the Taurus was roomier than the Contour, though its price was barely more expensive than the Contour. As a result, Contour sales took a landslide, and even a facelift in 1998 couldn't change that. After a short run of 2000 models, the Contour was laid to rest, and its plant was retooled to build the Escape, which would go on to become a bestseller. The Contour had a Mercury twin, the Mystique. Its sales were so poor that many Ford insiders took to calling it the "Mercury Mistake". The Contour's story isn't all sobs, though. The Contour started a trend that the big three are using today, where they import popular models from foreign countries into the states in hopes of bringing buyers back to the brand. Examples of this would be the new Pontiac G8, which is a rebadged Holden VE Commodore, and the Saturn Astra, which is a rebadged Opel Astra. The Contour also became the car the Ford drew off of to design all of its late 90s models, with clean, rounded designs. because of that, it is the car of the day.
As yours truly is one year closer to getting his driving license, today is dedicated to one o fhis favorite cars, and what he wants to get when he gets his license. The Scion tC is part of Toyota's new Scion marque, that is designed to bring younger buyers to the Toyota brand. The tC, however, breaks the mold of it's stablemates, the xA and xB by being a sleek 3 door fastback instead of a 5 door wagon. The tC was also specially created for Scion, while the xA and xB are rebadged versions of Japanese market Toyotas. The tC borrows it's chassis from the Toyota Avensis sedan, and it's engine from the Toyota Camry. The tC has been immensely popular due to its low price and innovate advertising. Scion's dealer installed aftermarket parts may have also contributed to this. In all of the botched ways that the automakers have tried to reach out to young buyers, the tC was successful for it's plain bang for the buck, and for that, it is the car of the day.
June 5, 2007, Mercury Milan
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To put it shortly, Mercury has taken a plunge. From the fhopped and lowered Fords of the thirties came to Ford models with a different grille and taillights in the nineties. At the turn of the century, the guys at Ford decieded to differentiate Mercury from Ford and give it, along with Lincoln, a more upscale image. With the launch of the fourth generation Mercury Sable, that was made possible. The Sable had many upscale design features such as a waterfall griller and oversized headlights. But, the Sable aged and became nothing more than Rental-car chic. As its replacement, Mercury brought in a young gun, the Milan. The Milan is essentially a jazzed up Ford Fusion, but it has enough styling features to dfferentiate that of the Fusion. Don't get me wrong, Mercury may still be fledging, but the Milan maight just be what they need to get back their image of style and luxury. And for that, it is the car of the day.
June 6, 2007, 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee
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Back in the 80s, American Motors was barely still in business, and they needed something new, but they couldn't afford to develop it. So, they called in Renault, someone who had the money, to lend them a hand. The Cherokee was aging, and AMC wanted to replace it with a new and revolutionary vehicle to get the ailing automaker on its feet. That vehicle became the Grand Cherokee. By 1988, the vehicle was ready for production, along with the Eagle Premeir. But, AMC wasn't the only one who was impressed by the Grand Cherokee. Lee Iacocca, who already wanted the Jeep brand for himself, saw the car and despritely wanted it, and his Chrysler, which just recovered from a similar finicial strain as AMC, now had pockets deep enough to go to extreme lengths to get it. As a result, Iacocca made some deals, and in 1988, Chrysler bought out AMC. Now with the Jeep brand under Chrysler's portfolio, the Grand Cherokee was ready for production. Iacocca put production on hold, however, as he ordered a redesigned Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager instead. In 1992, the new Minivans were ready, although Iacocca had already retired by then. The new CEO of Chrysler, whose name has slipped my mind, put the Grand Cherokee in production at the same time of the revolutionary LH cars, the Chrysler Concorde, Chrysler LHS, Chrysler New Yorker, Dodge Intrepid, and Eagle Vision. The Grand Cherokee was a solid hit, and immediately became a top seller, challenging the mass-selling Ford Explorer for the top of the market. This makes me wonder if AMC would have been able to pull themselves out of finicial ruin if Chrysler wouldn't have bought them out....
June 7, 2007, 1991 Ford Explorer
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Back in the 80s, nobody thought of a SUV as a family car of city cruiser. Many people bought sedans, and others bought station wagons for the room. And well, with attractive wagon and sedan choices such as the Ford Taurus, who wouldn't? But, while the Taurus was pillaging the sedan market, Ford was developing another model that would change the way that the world built a SUV forever. THus came the Explorer. It was still a SUV, with SUV styling cues and SUV off road capability. But, the Explorer was styled like a Car, and didn't sit as high off the ground or look as aggressive as other SUVs. The Explorer's interior was very passenger friendly, offering a lot of room and comfort features, which was a rarity on SUVs on the time. The Explorer also employed a "Shift on the fly" system which meant that it could go from 2WD to 4WD by the puch of a button, without the owner needing to get out and lock the hubs, nor fumble with a large handle. The Explorer became a knockout hit, and it changed the way SUVs are built, forever. However, and Explorer can also be a double edged sword, as it also triggered the SUV craze in the United States, which caused the big three to focus all their money and pin their profits on SUVs, while letting their passenger car range just to wither, which caused the big three to be in the finiacial trouble they are in today, as well as driving up gas prices and getting envoirmentalists such as Ralph Nadar to contiously attack the industry. So, the Explorer could be a friend or foe, going by which way you look at its story.
Back in the United States in the 80s, Japanese luxury was an oxymoron. All of the Japanese makes in the US, like Honda, Toyota, and Nissan all made entry level and mid priced cars. If you wanted luxury, you bought German or American. Simple as that. But, deep in Japan, Toyota was developing a revoultionary new car that would change the industry forever. That car would become the Lexus LS. For this new vehicle, which was developed specifically for the US market, Toyota would launch a new brand to sell this vehicle, called Lexus. The Lexus LS offered the room of the Lincoln Town Car, the toys of a Mercedes-Benz, and the build quality and reliability of Toyota. It also had technology like adaptive suspension, which was way ahead of its time. The LS also set a new benchmark for quality, as it was probably the most solidly built vehicle of its time. The LS' designers payed close attention to detail, and it payed off. For its launch, Lexus demonstrated the car's smoothness by setting a pyramid of champigne glasses on its hood and then accelerating it to top speed, where none of the glasses fell. Other Japanese companies also launched luxury brands, such as Honda's Acura and Nissan's Infiniti, but they never reached the amount of fanfare of Lexus. Today, Lexus is now the best selling luxury make in the United States, as it contines to follow the LS' formula of paying close attention to the smallest details. Today, Lexus is now a worldwide marque, being sold in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Japan.
June 9, 2007, 1978 Mazda RX-7
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In the United States, there was only one gas driven engine form in use up to the late 1970s: the piston engine. Many automobile manufacturers had already experimented with other forms of engine design--most notably with Rotary engines--but all had given up because they were unable to figure out how to turn the rotary design into a reliable performer. A major problem was the inability to overcome issues with the seal blades mounted along the appexes of the rotors. Poor seals had led to significant compression loss, serious fuel efficiency issues, and other problems.
One car was to change all that: Japanese car manufacturer Mazda's (in Japanese, the name is pronounced Matsuda) revolutionary rotary engined RX-7. First introduced to the American market in 1978, this two-rotor sports car greeted the U.S. public at a dark time for the sports car market in America. Awareness by U.S. consumers of potential fuel shortages--such as the Arab oil embargo that had driven gasoline prices to incredible highs earlier in the decade--led to great uncertainty as to whether any new high peformance sports cars would be able to survive the relatively new and still increasing federal fuel efficiency requirements as well as noticeably stricter national safety regulations. Mazda's rotary engined sports car, however, shone through all challenges! Its fuel efficency was sufficient to meet U.S. fuel economy/efficiency standards, it met emissions control standards; the vehicle handled extremely well, and the strict maintenance schedule (with detailed recording of service information) that was firmly imposed by Mazda on vehicle owners, served to help track--and prove--the engine's reliability. The RX-7 performed as well as any other quality sports car (a notable Japanese competitor at the time being the Datsun 280Z, a conventional piston engine design). Later models of the Datsun Z were thus completely renamed: Datsun became Nissan, and the comparable model competing with the 1981 Mazda RX-7, for example, was the Nissan 300ZX. The RX-7 became one of the most popular sports cars in the country, and enjoyed that reputation for a number of years.
Mazda's RX-7 had proven that the rotary engine--at least the rotary engine as Mazda designed it--was a practical, efficient, and dependable powerplant. The car rightfully became a living legend and remains very popular among sports car enthusiasts today despite the fact that Mazda discontinued actual RX-7 production some years ago. The RX-7 almost single-handedly saved the sports car market in the U.S.--and at the same time brought an entirely new engine design to the American public, one still used today in upgraded form in Mazda's RX-8. For these contributions, the RX-7 deserves to be honored as a truly legendary vehicle.
June 10, 2007, Oldsmobile Intrigue
[edit]Back in the 90s, Oldsmobile was in trouble. It lost its place in the marketplace, and didn't know what it wanted to be. It made cars in a large variety from the Achieva economy car to the mid priced Cutlass Supreme to the Aurora luxury car. Oldsmobile sales were dropping faster than Britney Spears' sanity, and the brand suffered from a stuffy brand image that they were "old people's cars". Thus came the Intrigue. The Intrigue was a touring sedan being built off of the platform of the Pontiac Grand Prix, but with a whole new body and design. Ths Intrigue was designed to somewhat resemble the Aurora, and it has a sleek, contoured, mature feeling design. The Intrigue was a very good car, but when put on sale, it tanked. This was mainly because when advertised, they failed to show that the Intrigue was an Oldsmobile, and didn't put a single Oldsmobile badge on the car, because they didn't want it to be assoicated with Oldsmobile's stuffy image. As a result, many prospective buyers mistook the Intrigue to be a Dodge, due to the fact that dodge was selling many similarly styled cars at the time, such as the Intrepid and the Stratus. It also resembled the Grand Prix too much in terms of specs and equipment. So, as a result, the Intrigue failed commercially, and the plug was pulled in 2001, just after four years in production and 300,000 units later. And sadly, Oldsmobile would end up getting the needle three years after that.
June 12, 2007, Eagle Talon
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Under Iacocca's dule, Chrysler's lineup of exciting automobiles had taken a backseat to bland, fuel efficent automobiles, such as the Dodge Omni, Dodge Aries and the first generation Dodge Caravan. Nevertheless, these bland automobiles saved Chrysler from going under, and are the reason why there is a Chrysler today. But, by the late 80s, gas prices had stabilized and Chrysler needed to sell new and exciting automobiles, instead of just shoving fuel efficancy in our faces. So, in a bold move for the Jeep Grand Cherokee prototype, Chrysler bought out American Motors, or AMC. Now, when they bought AMC, they made the Eagle brand, hoping to be a speciality marque for Chrysler, aimed at the enthusiast driver. They threw Eagle badges on some Mitsubishis and the Renault Premier prototype, and thus Eagle was born. While all Eagle ended up being was a going charade of badge engineering, there was one model that stood out, the Talon. The Talon was developed in a joint venture between Chrysler and Mitsubishi. It was sold under the Mistubishi portfolio as the Eclipse (Which is still being sold today), and in the Chrysler portfolio as the Plymouth Laser and Eagle Talon. The Talon was powered by a bulletproof I4 engine that would later be used in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, which the 1st generation Talon and Eclipse would later become legendary among back yard tuners for. It also had four wheel drive as an option, the first Chrysler car to do that. The Talon, Eclipse and Laser were built at a advanced plant called Diamond Star Motors, thus the origin of the car's nicknames as DSMs. The Laser would turn out being a flop, and got discontinued in 1994. The Talon was the strongest seller of teh group, but was product of the fate of the crappy marque Chrysler stuck it under - Eagle was practically dead in arival, and finally sputtered and died in 1998.However, the Mitsubishi Eclipse is still being built, continuing on the DSM legacy.
June 14, 2007, Ford Escort
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Ford was in trouble to say the least in the 1980s. Their product line was bland and unappealing, and they didn't have any small, fuel efficent cars except for the exploding Pinto to counter the gas crisis. As a result, Ford knew that to start their recovery by making a small, fuel efficent car. Ford pooled together all of their divisions to develop this new car, and as a result, it had many european features, such as European style handling, and diesel engines etc. The new car was to be called "Escort". (Completely unrelated to the European Ford Escort) Ford launched this new vehicle in 1981, claiming that it was designed and developed y the world's best. The car was a hit, and one of the very first times that the US had created an economy car that could compete with the Japanese. The Escort set Ford back on track to recovery, with the Tempo moving them along and the revolutionary Taurus sealing the deal. And for that, it is the car of the day.
At teh turn of the century, Mazda had kind of fallen into obliviation. Their entire car line was bland and vanilla, and the only car to distinguish them from the rest, the RX7 had made its farewell, at least from the states. (It continued to be sold in Japan until 2002) Mazda needed to find a way to distinguish themselves from the rest. That way was the 6. Mazda took a radical new direction in its design with the 6. Instead of making the 6 a bread and butter car, they focused on instead making it sporty and European styled. The 6 also came with many options and features, and is still a gret value for the money. The 6 reminded many that Mazda still existed, and with the 6, Mazda released a slew of new or revamped models, all meant to be sporty. Thoe models include the resedigned MPV, the RX8, and the 3. With all of their models advertised of "having the soul of a sports car", these cars brought buyers back into Mazda showrooms. The 6 was the first Mazda in years that didn't seem like it got pulled from the bowels of rental car hell, and made Mazda competetive again. And for that, it is the car of the day.