Editorial: How Can the Aftermarket Get Out of its Slump?

Image courtesy of Mustangs Daily

Working in the cargo and logistics industry, you tend to get a pretty good gauge on how business is doing for various industries that import their products from other countries. One of the industries I happen to have some customers in is the aftermarket auto parts industry. Being a car nut, this is an industry that I am pretty interested in. For the last few years, the aftermarket auto parts industry seems to be in decline. One of my customers, whose company sells aftermarket suspension parts for import cars, has noticed the slump and shared some of his reasons behind why he thinks the industry as a whole is slowly dying.

Editorial: We should all shed a tear for the impending demise of Holden as we know it

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Recently, we found out that Holden, that quirky car maker from Down Under, would be ceasing its manufacturing operations in 2017 and have its vehicle lines replaced with re-badged Buicks that will likely be manufactured in China. This is sad news for the motoring world as Holden, even throughout its ownership by the folks at GM, has always been a bastion for rear wheel drive and big push-rod V8 motors. The Holden brand has been synonymous with fast cars even for American car enthusiasts since the final generation of the Pontiac GTO, the ill-fated Pontiac G8, and the current Chevrolet SS are all vehicles derived from vehicles that were a part of the Holden line-up. Of particular interest were the cars of the Holden Special Vehicles group, an in-house tuning arm that took the already relatively powerful cars and cranked up the engines, suspensions, and appearance to 11.

For our friends down in Australia, this is a particularly deep blow as Ford has already announced earlier this year that it would be eliminating the Ford Falcon from its line-up and would no longer be replacing that car with another rear wheel drive sedan. The fabled Falcon vs. Commodore rivalry seems doomed to an early demise as the V8 Supercars racing series will be losing these two major competitors, even as it gains the likes of Mercedes Benz and Nissan.

So as this means another blow struck for V8-powered RWD 4-door sport sedans, we slowly see the segment shrink to a very few competitors. In fact, once Holden passes into the annals of history, only BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Cadillac are left producing cars in this category and even the long-term existence of those cars may be called into question as a result of ever increasingly strict emissions standards, a greater emphasis on fuel economy from consumers, and the steadily advancing march of AWD technology.

As enthusiasts, we should take a moment to salute the demise of a storied brand's true identity and hope that we can all be forgiven for allowing such a travesty to pass. That said, it is a damn good thing that forced induction has made for some increasingly fun and dynamically intriguing performance cars in the last few years.

Test Drive: 2014 Infiniti Q50 AWD

The Infiniti line-up has always been sporty and is oft considered the Japanese equivalent of BMW, offering performance oriented cars with a touch of luxury. It's volume seller of the last decade, the G sedans and coupes, were among some of the best driving cars among the Japanese luxury brands. In fact, I nearly bought a G35 and a G37 when each car came out, the only thing holding me back being the slightly sub-standard interior materials and the poorly executed manual transmission shifter and clutch. However, if you were looking at the cars with automatic transmissions, they really were fantastic cars to drive. However, to replace the G37, Infiniti has developed not only a whole new car, but has also adopted a whole new naming scheme. What was once the G37 is now the much more non-sensical Q50. However, a lot more than the name was lost in this transition. The new Q50 may be a step up from the G37 in terms interior quality, but seems to have sacrificed some of its sporting character at the altar of luxury.

Editorial: Does Honda need to find their Bob Lutz?

Image courtesy of Acura.com

Honda has lost its soul.

As a long-time owner of Honda and Acura vehicles, it brings me no pleasure to have to point this out, but as an enthusiast, I feel it is my duty to do just that. Nothing that either brand has introduced of late inspires much enthusiasm and the upcoming 2015 NSX has yet to hit dealerships, so I am not counting that chicken until it hatches. After all, we all saw what happened with the vaporware that was the last supposed NSX successor. In fact, the rest of the automotive market does not seem the least worried by the 2015 Acura NSX, prompting Audi to start a Twitter war with Acura and calling the 2015 NSX vaporware just like its V10 powered predecessor. And even if it does materialize, that still only leaves a single car with any serious performance profile in the entire line-up, which is nothing to be proud of.

Looking back through Honda's history, there have almost always been a number of more performance oriented models in their line-up, either in the form of nearly race-spec versions of conventional models, a la the Integra Type-R, or dedicated models such as the S2000 and Honda Prelude. Light weight, sharp handling, and an engaging driving experience were characteristics that spread to all models and the company's racing lineage shone through in the continued use of double-wishbone suspensions front and rear to provide chassis dynamics that were exceptional. However, as the years went on, the Prelude and all Type-R models disappeared from the American market, the Integra was replaced with a strut suspension based RSX, and both the S2000 and NSX were allowed to fade away without successors. Now, we are left with only a very mediocre Civic Si to carry on the Honda performance car banner in North America, with the rest of the global market having absolutely nothing performance oriented coming out of Honda's factories.

Test Drive: Tesla Model S Performance

I freely admit, I am a fan of the Tesla Model S. Since the very first photos of the concept were released, I was smitten and started thinking about all the possible ways I could score a test drive. Of course, the problem up until recently was that one had to pretty much be a member of the automotive press or pony up the $5,000 deposit and wait for their turn in line in order to even have the opportunity. We were fortunate enough to get the chance to preview the Model S earlier this year that offered hands-on quality time with the car, but no test drives were available. Luckily, things have changed. In the last few weeks, with the recent positive news coming from Tesla, an influx of product availability means that the test drive policy is getting less restrictive and genuinely interested parties are finally able to experience the cars on public roads. So when Tesla store in Natick called me back to schedule a test drive, I jumped at the chance.