2014 Chevrolet Traverse 1lt on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Cadillac CT6 production ceases January 2020 as part of D-Ham layoffs

General Motors filed paperwork under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act with Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity this week, detailing events to come at the automaker's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant. Starting February 28, 814 salaried and hourly workers at D-Ham, as its called, will be laid off. The 753 workers represented by the UAW will begin receiving offers in January to relocate to facilities in Michigan and Ohio, or buyout offers. As the 4-million-square-foot plant winds down through April 3 to a skeleton crew, the Cadillac CT6 ceases production in January 2020, and the last Chevrolet Impala comes off the line on February 28. The loss of the CT6 represents the end of Cadillac's latest brief, and highly regarded, adventure into flagship sedans. It might also mean the end of the 4.2-liter Blackwing twin-turbo V8 engine, at least for the moment. Both casualties are calamities. The death of the Impala closes the door on a nameplate in production for 52 years since 1957, having started off as a top-tier trim for the 1958 Bel Air known as the Bel Air Impala, once advertised with the line, "Lets you know you're the boss." As part of the new four-year labor agreement with the UAW, GM is keeping D-Ham open to build a new line of battery-electric vehicles, ultimately investing $3 billion and tripling employment to 2,225 workers when fully operational. The agreement described the coming EV as a "van" that would commence production in late 2021, but various reports say what's actually coming is a range of premium EVs in pickup and SUV bodystyles under the program codename BT1. The easy predictions put an electric GMC Sierra and Cadillac Escalade among the EV fold, but not until 2023, according to auto industry forecaster LMC Automotive. Before that, LMC claims an electric van will debut in late 2021, along with a battery-powered rebirth of the Hummer brand in pickup and SUV forms, also in late 2021. 

The cars and trucks of 'Transformers: Rise of the Beasts'

The latest spectacle in the Transformers franchise is about to hit the theaters. The final trailer was released, giving us peeks at what appears to be a pretty boilerplate story about the end of the world. There's some kind of ancient interplanetary war brewing and it's up to some teenagers to sort it out with the help of their robot buddies. But this is Autoblog, so we're not even going to try to suss out a plot so thin it won't hold a spittle globule's worth of water. We'll just go over the cars. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts | Official Final Trailer (2023 Movie) Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.8: Mirage So far the star of the film, car-wise, looks to be a blue-on-silver 964 Porsche named Mirage that is voiced by Pete Davidson. It's been the most promoted of the movie cars, even more so than formerly central characters like Bumblebee and Optimus Prime. Except, this isn't just any ordinary 911; it's a Carrera RS 3.8, a European-exclusive model of which Porsche only built 55 units. As the name implies, it came with a bored-out M64 turbo flat-six as opposed to the 964 Turbo's 3.6. It wore the Turbo's wide-body badonk with a bi-level rear wing, but Porsche reportedly stripped out 570 pounds' worth of weight despite embiggening key performance parts like brakes and wheels. Fortunately, no actual RS 3.8s were used in the movie. Producers instead built five cars for different purposes — shooting closeups of actors, jumps, the obligatory driving backwards real fast — out of lesser 911s. However, the sound department did record the engine note of an actual RS 3.8 for accuracy, as the higher crank speeds of the 3.8 have a distinctive sound.  In the original 1984 Transformers lineup Mirage was a Ligier JS11 Formula 1 car, complete with faux Gitanes cigarette branding (on a children's toy!). An F1 racer would raise an eyebrow on the streets, so it made sense to update to a street-legal sports car. If you're wondering why this Porsche isn't the character Jazz, whose original vehicle mode was an ultra-cool Martini-liveried Porsche 935, well, he was remade into a Pontiac Solstice voiced by Darius McCrary during the GM product placement rewrite in 2007's Transformers reboot, then unceremoniously killed. 1977 Chevrolet Camaro: Bumblebee Formerly the franchise star, Bumblebee gets far less screen time in the trailers. He's still a Camaro, but because Transformers: Rise of the Beasts takes place in 1994 he's not a fith-gen.

Before Chevrolet's Redline, there was the Saturn Red Line

While Chevy rolls out Redline special editions across more of the lineup at this year's Chicago Auto Show, we've been eating some 'member berries and started thinking about the last time GM used the term. Back in 2004, Saturn rolled out Red Line (two words) editions of the Ion and Vue. The lineup was joined by the Sky Red Line in 2007, and the second-generation Vue kept the tradition going in 2008. This was in the heady days of the mid-2000s, before the financial crisis and GM's bankruptcy reorganization that saw the end of Saturn. The press release headline for the 2008 Sky is now cringe-worthy: "Hot-selling Sky helps drive Saturn product renaissance." Performance lineups were the hot new thing, as automakers attempted to cash in on the tuner trend popularized by The Fast and the Furious. Chevy had SS models, Pontiac had GXP, and Saturn had Red Line. Across the Detroit Metro area, Dodge had a slew of SRT models, and Ford's Special Vehicle Team brought us the SVT Lightning pickup, the SVT Focus, and a smattering of hopped-up Mustangs. The performance cred of Red Line models varied from car to car. The Ion Red Line shared the same engine as the original Chevy Cobalt SS, a 205-horsepower supercharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder, 65 hp more than stock. Car and Driver tested one with a 0-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and said the Ion "tears down the wall that has separated enthusiasts from the Saturn brand for so long." The Vue Red Line, meanwhile, came with the same optional Honda-sourced 3.5-liter V6 you could get in the regular Vue, and added a stiffer, lower suspension, bigger wheels with more aggressive rubber, and recalibrated steering assist. When the Vue was redesigned for the 2008 model year, the Vue Red Line was a similar proposition. The engine was now from GM, and up 7 horsepower to 257, but you could get it in both Red Line and XE trim. Aside from the tire and suspension upgrades, Red Line models now came with a unique front fascia and rear exhaust cutouts. The most exciting Red Line, of course, was the high-performance version of the Sky roadster, which shared underpinnings with its Pontiac Solstice twin. This model came with GM's hot 2.0-liter Ecotec Turbo, good for 260 horsepower. The extra power was crucial in covering up the Sky's unfortunate manual gearbox ratios, which left the non-turbo model aching for torque in lower gears. As we all know, Saturn was taken by the grim reaper in 2009 after an attempt to sell the brand to the Penske Group.