CNN LOOKS AT FERRARI REPLICARS

Alessio Vinci, CNN's bureau chief in Rome, zoomed in a story that isn't news to most automotive enthusiasts but strikes much of the world as disturbing. Not all Ferraris are created equally.... apparently. Allegedly. 

Vinci headed straight to the top; speaking to Ferrari personnel and the polizia. Here's the link to the CNN video of Ponterraris. Or is it Ferroyotas? 

HYUNDAI DISCONTINUING TIBURON

The Scoupe gave way to the Tiburon. The Tiburon is now simply giving way. Hyundai forsook the 'shark' etymology in other parts of the world; sometimes the Tiburon was simply the Hyundai Coupe. 

While the upcoming rear-wheel drive would appear to be a replacement for the just-announced discontinued Tiburon, Hyundai insists that a future small front-wheel driver could be in the pipeline. Don't be surprised to see a pricing scheme for the car that could be a Tiburon replacement that reflects the need for some more separation between two sporting coupes with the same badge. 

Had the Tiburon remained beyond the '08 model, its already lowering sales would have faced an even more drastic dropoff. The Genesis Coupe represents tremendous value, surprisingly high horsepower levels, and a proper rear-wheel drive configuration. Its Hyundai-style pricing would have made the ageing Tiburon appear too expensive for safety in the lineup.

2003 HONDA ACCORD RECALL

Some 350,000+ Honda Accords face a recall related to their windshield wipers. The circuit breaker responsible for the wiper motor can become very prematurely corroded, eventually leading to the wipers failing to operate. Honda plans to cover the section in order to keep water out. If corrosion is already present, new parts will be used to replace the affected corroded areas.  

Honda's luxury division issued a similar recall on the Acura TL at the end of February. No surprise then, that with rampant component sharing, multiple vehicles are affected by the same issues.

HUGE HYUNDAI RECALL NEEDS YOU, SONATA DRIVER

Sit yourself down in the front passenger seat of your 2006, '07, or '08 Hyundai Sonata and determine whether or not the airbag system knows you're present. If the sensor is confused, contact your dealer. You could be in for an ordeal - free of charge, of course.

In reality, encouraging owners to participate in diagnosing the problem with passenger-side airbag sensors and whether or not they're activated and deactivated at the correct times is fine. However, if these sensors are confused, it's more than likely that the light on the dash will provide different reactions at different times. Hyundai estimates that just 1% of the 394,000 cars potentially involved actually are, and if your car is, the seat cushion will be heading outside of the dealer. Yep, it could be a while. 

Hyundai will be providing customers with transportation for the intervening period. For those of you still seated in your 1985 Citation (see Memoriam here) and finding yourself dreadfully uninformed as to the great concept of airbags, figure it this way: airbags hurt. If they explode in the face of a child or very small adult, they do more than just hurt. Therefore, seats are tasked with deciphering the size of the person seated therein, so that small people won't be exposed to the high-speed bag in the event of the crash. 

It appears as though some Hyundai Sonata airbags are unable to perform this task.

VOLVO CANADA INCENTIVE UPDATE

It's no secret that the U.S. dollar has been struggling. That fact has been a boon to the Canadian dollar. However, for the most part, vehicular pricing hasn't reflected this equivalency. 

Volvo has been reaching out to Canadians in order to show that they do see the cost disparity and has offered suitably large incentives. This link will tell you a little bit about that while also giving a bit of background on this new table (below) that Volvo just emailed out. In order to understand the mess that Canadian automobile is in, read this story about personal importing.

COUPEIZING GOOD SEDANS

Turning your garden variety sedan into a two-door coupe isn't a simple chop job. Automakers rightly assume that the coupe buyer needs to see more than just missing doors to assume the coupe version is a good version. Therefore, the manufacturer decides to differentiate the two-door in other ways - sometimes succeeding; sometimes not. 

Coupes come and go like rising tides. Not only does the generic coupe sector sell with force and disappear again into the abyss, but specific models run through a cycle of faltering and ascending time and time again. Do you know of many small cars with the image once held (and still held) by the Acura Integra? Or its successor, the Acura RSX? Or its teammate, the Honda Prelude? They've all disappeared. Poof.

Coupe sellers persist, however. Many believe that the struggling U.S. economy will severely curtail sales of sporting cars, in the same way that convertibles are suffering now. Even so, Cadillac debuted a high-priced, high-class CTS coupe in Detroit and has every intention of seeing it through to production. Of course we all want it - it's spectacular - but will we buy it? Hmm.

BMW rides the wave of coupe success with the 3-series. Somehow, regardless of prevailing market conditions, the 3-series two-door squeezes past the "to axe" list.

This leads me to the more specific topic on my mind. The latest Honda Accord coupe is surprisingly stunning. Walk down Rodeo Drive or Main Street, it at least makes you turn for a second look. Honda didn't take the proverbial design hand book and throw it out the proverbial window, but, the typically staid company decided to give the Accord coupe added jazz compared with the sedan. Result.

Toyota's Camry isn't perceived as a sportatious vehicle and likely won't be anytime soon. The harder Toyota pushes the hybrid sedan, the less the Camry Solara makes sense to me. Its design elements would work well on an expensive yacht; but not a car. Interestingly, in the USofA, the car is entitled the Camry Solara on Toyota.com. Toyota.ca sticks simply to Solara. One way or another, Toyota did a good job of making the coupe appear truly different from the sedan. Different isn't always desirable. 

Then there's the Nissan Altima coupe. The Good Car Guy attacked it before for appearing awkward and bloated. That was before the car was seen live and in action. 

Who'd have thunk it possible that the Altima coupe could be worse than awkward and bloated? Nothing exposes a vehicle's awkwardness and bloatedness quite so much as a grocery store parking lot and a cell phone camera, so here it is. 

NISSAN & CHRYSLER - Pros and Cons

Nissan, a large Japanese automobile manufacturer which has at the heart of its North American product line the Altima and Sentra in addition to a large SUV lineup and the luxury brand of Infiniti, is teaming up with Chrysler. That'd be the constantly faltering Chrysler, the company that was once married to Mercedes-Benz and once purchased American Motors from Renault, a huge French automaker.

Yeah, that'd be Renault, the company that snapped up Nissan when it was at its worst. While Renault and Nissan have a binded alliance, Chrysler and Nissan insist that their plans are for simple product and manufacturing sharing.

Pros: Nissan will build a smaller-than-Caliber small car that the Chrysler group can sell in North America and perhaps some other markets, too. Chrysler and small cars go together like milk and pizza. Japanese manufacturers are traditionally small car experts, with Nissan's Micra (and the Renault Clio) being top sellers. 

Meanwhile, Nissan's next full-size pickup truck will be built by Dodge. Expect Nissanesque styling but a firm Dodge foundation.

The financial savings are huge. 

Cons: For the protectionist few, fears will be difficult to allay. Chrysler is a private American company. Renault, the dominant player in the French/Japanese marriage, has been extremely open in its attempts to court an American alliance. General Motors and Renault had some serious talks; Ford didn't react favourably to Renault's mating techniques. Considering Renault's past then, how can we be so sure that the plan is not for a full takeover? After all, a takeover could result in serious job losses.  

From Nissan's perspective, the idea of building a small car for a truck-oriented company shouldn't hurt its image. For instance, few seem to care that the Toyota Matrix is available at Pontiac dealerships. However, neither of these companies are purchasing product from the premiere builder of product in their specialty. Dodge builds trucks, but not at the rate that Ford does or with the excellence of General Motors engineering. Nissan builds cars but the Sentra is no Civic-beater and the Rogue crossover is not the top-of-the-class. This isn't as if Nissan is buying a Chevrolet Avalanche and Chrysler's getting a Mini Cooper.