Archive for June, 2005

A Last Ride

By Marty PadgettMarty Padgett, June 30th, 2005

I owe my car life to two men. And when one of them left us today, I kept his Duesenberg and his Rolls-Royce. Last Friday my sister called. She doesn't call at 10 in the morning. So before I took the phone, I made a checklist - gas up the Honda, put my black suit in its bag, don't forget my long socks. In an hour, she was ready too, and we drove back home to Washington for the funeral that had been a long time coming. My grandfather, William Grove, didn't just love cars. He was part of the car life in America. His grandfather puddled steel in Pittsburgh and at 70, moved to Detroit to build cars. His father was a taxi driver and, when he was... Read More

Tags: Reviews

Still going

By TCC TeamTCC Team, June 29th, 2005

There's auto show season. Then there's auto survey season, as regular readers of TheCarConnection.com know. We've seen a spate of reports in recent months, including Strategic Visions' Total Quality Survey, and the oft-quoted J.D. Power Initial Quality Survey, both of which look at how owners rate the quality of this year's products. Yet it's easy to argue that the most telling tale of all is told by the new Power Vehicle Dependability Study (you'll see more in the June 30 edition of Daily Edition). The VDS measures problems experienced by original owners of 3-year-old vehicles -- in this case, those purchased in 2002. The top performer is... Read More

Tags: Industry

Posted in: 2009, Toyota, Camry

Mean, Green...and My Machine

By TCC TeamTCC Team, June 29th, 2005

Petroleum prices are again on the rise, even as war weariness seems to be setting in over our likely long-haul involvement in Iraq. So I wasn't surprised to see a new study conducted for General Motors concluding that Americans more than ever want to declare energy independence. Of course, to GM, the conclusion is that we need to launch a national program, on the order of the "moon shot," to build the infrastructure for a so-called hydrogen economy. "The survey shows broad support for continued partnership between government and industry in the development of a hydrogen economy, an effort that GM has been aggressively pursuing with the U.S.... Read More

Tags: Industry