Everybody knew it was coming, but the extent of the disintegration of the US automotive market came clearly into view today as automakers reported their sales figures for June. During a month when the national average price of gasoline topped an average of four bucks, what does one expect? Well ? how about an 18.8% decline in sales. Fercrissakes, the Hummer brand saw a year-over-year fall of almos   ...read more

You're going to be reading in the mainstream press about how horrible sales were in the U.S. during June, 2008. Yes, they were bad for many automakers, but consider that there were only 24 selling days last month versus 27 days in June, 2007. This makes comparing raw sales numbers misleading, since there were three fewer days to sell. Thus, as always, all the percentages below represent the change   ...read more

Pitting three environmentally correct hybrid cars against each other on a drag-racing strip sounds a lot like gratuitous blood sport. Certainly, parked in the bays normally reserved for rocket-propelled machines with names such as Sidewinder and Fabulous Freight Train, the sombre-looking Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid and Lexus GS 450h looked like Christians waiting to enter the Colosseum. Ladie   ...read more

The all-new 2008 Lexus IS F high-performance sedan is the first Lexus to wear the brand’s ‘F’ marquee, and is the fastest Lexus production car ever built. Based on the robust IS sport sedan platform, the IS F delivers 416hp from a specially engineered 5.0 liter V8 engine giving it the power to accelerate to [...]   ...read more

Lexus crashes the luxury sport sedan party along with 416 of its prized horses.   ...read more