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A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

2019 Maserati Ghibli GranLusso S Quick Spin Review | A mixed designer bag

It's been a minute since we've driven the Maserati Ghibli (our first drive was way back in 2013), the twin-turbocharged, V6-powered smaller sedan from the legendary Italian outfit. In the last couple years, rumors have swirled that the Ghibli would donate its platform to the Dodge Charger and its Challenger and 300 siblings. So, in a sense, our time in Southern California in the 2019 Maserati Ghibli GranLusso S was both a preview of FCA's shared rear-drive sedan future as well as a check-in about how the Ghibli is maturing in general. Not that the Ghibli hasn't evolved in the six years since it went on sale. For 2018, Maserati moved to an electrically-assisted steering rack, mostly to enable driver assistance systems with steering intervention. The V6's output has been bumped in the S, to 424 horsepower. The headlights and grille have been updated, too, to compliment the newer and more aggressive Levante. In Los Angeles, at least, the Ghibli doesn't stand out – the town is lousy with Ghiblis, Levantes, and Quattroportes. Good for Maserati, I suppose, but bad for exclusivity. Nor does the car pop in photos like it does in person. My tester was a metallic, creamy white, which is flat and dull in photos or from far away. That's a shame, because this car has phenomenal contouring. From behind the wheel, the driver's side fender porpoises above the shapely hood. Walking along the side, the curvature of the rear fender where it meets the deep tumblehome of the C-pillar is delightful. Everybody stares at an exotic, but the owner of a Ghibli should feel special contemplating their sheetmetal. This sense of specialness dissolves inside. There are Maserati tridents everywhere, presumably to help you remember that you're looking at the expensive Italian sports sedan you just purchased rather than a riot of low-rent, Chrysler-derived bits. The steering wheel buttons feel cheap and wobbly, the too-shiny center console finish seems synthetic, the prominent lighting and engine start/stop controls to the left of the steering wheel are ensconsed in a dull plastic surround. Some of the aesthetic choices – subjective, yes – are confounding. Take the textile inserts on the seats and door cards. I love the fact that interior designers are playing with textiles, which can be used to great effect. And the pitch here is compelling: an apparently famous Italian designer (Ermenegildo Zegna) used a fancy fabric (mulberry silk) with special weaves and textures.

Stellantis ready to kill brands and fix U.S. problems, CEO Tavares says

  MILAN — Stellantis is taking steps to fix weak margins and high inventory at its U.S. operations and will not hesitate to axe underperforming brands in its sprawling portfolio, its chief executive Carlos Tavares said on Thursday. The warning for lossmaking brands is a turnaround for Tavares, who has maintained since Stellantis was created in 2021 from the merger of Italian-American automaker Fiat Chrysler and France's PSA that all of its 14 brands including Maserati, Fiat, Peugeot and Jeep have a future. "If they don't make money, we'll shut them down," Carlos Tavares told reporters after the world's No. 4 automaker delivered worse-than-expected first-half results, sending its shares down as much as 10%. "We cannot afford to have brands that do not make money." The automaker now also considers China's Leapmotor as its 15th brand, after it agreed to a broad cooperation with the group. Stellantis does not release figures for individual brands, except for Maserati which reported an 82 million euro adjusted operating loss in the first half. Some analysts say Maserati could possibly be a target for a sale by Stellantis, while other brands such as Lancia or DS might be at risk of being scrapped given their marginal contribution to the group's overall sales. Stellantis' Milan-listed shares were down as much as 12.5% on Thursday, hitting their lowest since August 2023. That brings the loss for the year so far to 22%, making them the worst performer among the major European automakers. Few automotive brands have been killed off since General Motors ditched the unprofitable Saturn and Pontiac during a U.S. government-led bankruptcy in the global financial crisis in 2008. Tavares is under pressure to revive flagging margins and sales and cut inventory in the United States as Stellantis bets on the launch of 20 new models this year which it hopes will boost profitability. Recent poor results from global carmakers have heightened worries about a weakening outlook for sales across major markets such as the U.S., whilst they also juggle an expensive transition to electric vehicles and growing competition from cheaper Chinese rivals. Japan's Nissan Motor saw first-quarter profit almost completely wiped out on Thursday and slashed its annual outlook, as deep discounting in the United States shredded its margins. Tavares said he would be working through the summer with his U.S. team on how to improve performance and cut inventory.