2008 Toyota Yaris Automatic 4-door Sedan on 2040-cars

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Toyo Tires will bring another wild catalog of rides to SEMA

Toyo Tires carts all kinds of toys to SEMA every year, the rubber company planning another 30 or so automotive exhibits this year in two locations. One of them, the Baja 911, comes with a pedigree not usually associated with the bewildering wares hawked at the Las Vegas show. TJ Russell was once lead fabricator for Singer Vehicle Design, now he's the head of Russell Built Fabrication in Sun Valley, CA. Sticking with the marque he knows well, Russell started with a 1991 Porsche Carrera 4 cabriolet, fitted the interior with a full roll cage, then built a hardtop around it to design a desert runner channeling the old Rothmans safari 911s. Underneath that bodywork lives a box-plate trailing arm suspension with 12 inches of travel, working 15-inch Fifteen52 FIA-approved Gravel wheels and 30-inch Toyo Open Country A/T II tires. Power comes from a purpose-built 3.8-liter air-cooled flat-six with about 350 horsepower — 100 hp more than stock — in a car that weighs 400 pounds less than the original. Oh, and as documented on Instagram with the tagline "All race outside, all business inside," the interior's full of quilted, cross-stitched leather, and Toyo says Russell's going to do a low-volume run of the Baja 911 starting early next year. ruffian-ford-mustang-sema-01 View 10 Photos Chris Ashton built a 1970 Ford Mustang Fastback called the Ruffian Mustang, inspired by the Trans Am Racing Series. The exterior changes are more subtle than one might think – the chin spoiler, hood scoop, and side mirrors are barely exaggerated versions of those on the original car, the intake vents astride the front lights and the steel bumpers teleported from 1970. Changes outside include de-chromed and flush-mounted glass, vented hood, front fenders that are dropped an inch, rear fender vents, dual side-exit pipes, and gargantuan fender flares over staggered Signature One wheels and Toyo Proxes 888 tires. The interior's fitted with a roll cage and race car workings. In spite of the Boss 427 badging, the engine's a 625-hp Chevrolet LS3 V8. button-built-ferrari-355-sema-01 View 13 Photos The Button Built Ferrari BB355TT picks up from last year's stanced BB328GTS widebody that gave many Internet denizens heart attacks. Laid up on a 1999 355 Berlinetta, the BB version appends a widebody kit designed Mitchell Button, rendered by Khyzyl Saleem and drenched in Azzuro la Plata, a color from Ferrari's Scagliette palette first used on a 1967 275GTB Le Mans racer.

Toyota hits 10 million Camry models sold in US

This year marks 30 years of sales for the Toyota Camry in the US, and in that time, it has amassed more than 10 million sales. In its first year on the market, the Camry sold 52,651 units, but it has gone on to become the best-selling car in the US for the last 11 years.
Toyota says that "virtually all" current Camry models sold in the US are made here, and three-quarters of all Camry contents are domestically sourced. Scroll down for the official press release from Toyota, and be sure to check out our gallery of images showing every model year and bodystyle of the Camry since it first went on sale in 1983.

GM might lose 90-year U.S. sales crown over chip shortage

Automotive News editor Nick Bunkley tweeted on October 1 that according to AutoNews data, General Motors "has been the largest seller of vehicles in the U.S. every year since passing Ford in 1931." With automakers having turned in light car and truck sales data for the first three quarters of 2021, GM's 90-year-run might not reach 91. According to AN figures, Toyota was 80,401 vehicles ahead when the October workday started. Worse, GM is so far behind its historic pace that it might only sell enough light vehicles in the U.S. to match its numbers from 1958.  Meanwhile, the New York Times put a few more salient numbers to the pain GM and Toyota are enduring alongside the the rest of the industry. GM sold 33% fewer cars in Q3 2021 than it did in Q3 2019 during the dark days of the pandemic, 446,997 units this year as opposed to 665,192 last year. GM's Q3 2020 was only down 13% on Q3 2019. Over at Toyota, the bottom line showed a 1% gain in Q3 2021 compared to 2020, with 566,005 units moved off dealer lots. The finer numbers show two steps forward and one step back, though; Toyota's September sales were down 22% compared to last year.  GM remains optimistic about what's ahead, GM's president of North American operations telling the NYT, "We look forward to a more stable operating environment through the fall." We'd like to see that happen, but we don't know how it happens. The chip shortage said to have been the inciting incident for the current woes isn't over, and not only can no one agree when it will be over, the automakers, chip producers, and U.S. government still can't get on the same page about who needs what and when. Looking away from that for a second shows articles about "No End In Sight" for supply chain disruptions in early September, before China had to start working through power supply constraints, global supply chain workers started warning of a "system collapse," and roughly 500,000 containers sat waiting to be unloaded at Southern California ports — a record number seemingly broken every week. And back to chips, we're told just a few days ago the chip shortage is "worse than we thought."   For now, the NYT wrote that GM dealer inventory is down 40% from June to roughly 129,000 vehicles, and down 84% from the days when dealers would cumulatively keep about 800,000 light vehicles in stock. However, GM just announced it would have almost all of its U.S. facilities back online next week, although some would run at partial capacity.