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Junkyard Gem: 2010 Pontiac Vibe

Just over a month before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2009, General Motors announced that the 83-year-old Pontiac Division would be "phased out" by the end of 2010. Only three Pontiac vehicles were sold as 2010 models in the United States: the Solstice, Vibe and G6 (new G3s were sold here during 2010 but they were all 2009 models, while the G5 was available as a 2010 model only in Canada and Mexico). Today's bit of junkyard automotive history is one of the very last Vibes ever built, found in a yard near Denver, Colorado. This car is significant not just as one of the final vehicles to bear Pontiac badges but also as one of the last cars built by the New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated GM-Toyota joint venture in California, better known as NUMMI. The NUMMI factory began life as GM's Fremont Assembly, which built its first vehicle (a C-Series pickup) in 1963 and closed in 1982 after building its final vehicle (an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera). Rebooted as NUMMI, the first 1985 Chevrolet Nova (an Americanized AE82 Toyota Corolla Sprinter) rolled off the line in December of 1984. A quarter-century and better than eight million vehicles hence, NUMMI shut down production after its last Corolla was finished on April 1, 2010. While there was some noise about the Oakland Athletics building a new stadium on the site at the time, Tesla ended up buying most of the site soon after that. Tesla now builds more vehicles per year there than NUMMI ever did. The Vibe was co-developed with Toyota and based on the same platform as the ninth-generation Corolla. The Toyota Matrix was mechanically identical and was built in Canada, while the Japanese-market version (known as the Toyota Voltz) was built on the same NUMMI line as the Vibe and shipped across the Pacific. The Vibe/Matrix/Voltz got a redesign for the 2009 model year, but few noticed due to all the turmoil in the GM world at the time. The final Vibe was built in August 2009. This car was built in July of 2009, just before the end. It was living in West Texas just prior to coming to Colorado. El Paso is about a ten-hour drive from this car's current location. Once in the Centennial State, it got parked somewhere it shouldn't have been and ended up being auctioned to Pick Your Part. An occupant of this Vibe had time to sample some of the local agricultural products before that happened.

Scion FR-S Convertible (in Toyota GT86 form) spied in South Africa

Though the eventual existence of a convertible version of the Toyota GT86 (and its Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ versions for America) is a no-brainer, we've yet to get a glimpse of the real-deal car until now.
Spotted in Cape Town, South Africa, of all places, this completely undisguised GT86 convertible seems to be in a remarkably advanced state of development. The image seen here was obviously sniped from quite a distance and without the aid of a powerful lens, but we can still make out a production-ready looking piece of rear bodywork for the convertible top to hide away in, as well as a functioning trunk lid. It's hard to make out with any certainty, based on this evidence, but there does seem to be space retained behind the front seats for two, small rear chairs.
With the first car spotted, we'd expect to seem some more and better images of it flow through in the near future, and if not, Toyota has already confirmed a concept version for next month's Geneva Motor Show, dubbed FT-86 Open, so stay tuned. For now, click through to the FT86Club.com forum to have a slightly closer look at the images.

Toyota settles first wrongful death suit related to unintended acceleration

Toyota's sales seem to have rebounded from the unintended acceleration issues from 2009 and 2010, but the automaker is far from done dealing with this situation. Following a settlement worth up to $1.4 billion for economic loss to affected vehicle owners, Toyota has settled rather than going to trial in a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from an accident in Utah in 2010 that left two passengers dead. This isn't the first case in which Toyota has settled, but it was the first among a consolidated group of cases being held in Santa Ana, CA.
According to The Detroit News, this case was scheduled to take place next month, and it was for a November 2010 incident in which Paul Van Alfen and Charlene James Lloyd were killed in a Camry when, based on findings by the Utah Highway Patrol, the accelerator got stuck causing the car to speed out of control and hit a wall; the terms of the settlement were not announced.
The article says that while Toyota will settle on some cases, it doesn't plan on settling on all of them as it still wants to be able to "defend [its] product at trial." This will probably be the case in suits claiming that software for the drive-by-wire accelerator was the cause of an accident in a Toyota or Lexus vehicle. The question of whether or not the electronic accelerator played any role in this problem has been a hot-button topic since the beginning. Toyota has issued recalls in the past to attempt to prevent unintended acceleration caused by trapped floor mats and faulty accelerator pedals, but it also says driver error was to blame in some instances.