1993 Chevrolet Corvette Red Convertible 6-speed Manual on 2040-cars

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Autoblog Minute: VW Q3 financial woes, 2015 Tokyo Motor Show

Consumer Reports pulls its Tesla recommendation, the U.S. Copyright Office offers a ruling affecting car owners, VW gets hit hard with third-quarter losses, and lots of exciting news from Tokyo. Autoblog senior editor Greg Migliore reports on this edition of Autoblog Minute Weekly Recap. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00] Consumer Reports pulls its Tesla recommendation, the U.S. copyright office offers a ruling that affects car owners and gear heads, VW gets hit hard with third-quarter losses, and lots of exciting news from Tokyo. I'm senior editor Greg Migliore and this is your Autoblog Minute Weekly Recap. After a week away testing vehicles for Autoblog's Tech of the Year award, we're back in the office to recap the week in automotive news. [00:00:30] One of the things you might have missed was Consumer Reports pulling its recommendation of Tesla's Model S sedan. The blemish for Tesla comes after a tally of reviews from customer surveys. The most common problem areas for the Model S as cited by survey takers included: the drivetrain, power equipment, charging equipment, body and sunroof squeaks, rattles, and leaks. So lots of stuff. Though they could not ignore a score of "worse-than-average", Consumer Reports still [00:01:00] highlighted the fact that the Model S was "the best performing car" they've ever tested. Telsa CEO Elon Musk took to social media to defend his sedans saying: "Consumer Reports reliability survey includes a lot of early production cars. Already addressed in new cars." And, "Tesla gets top rating of any company in service. Most important, CR says 97% of owners expect their next car to be a Tesla (the acid test)." In Financial news, Volkswagen took a hit and reported an operating loss of [00:01:30] $3.84 billion. This is the first such loss for VW in 15 years. Toyota reclaimed the crown as the world's largest automaker as well. It's important that it's not all doom and gloom for VW though in Q3. Sales revenues were up and the company's automotive division boasts $30 billion dollars in liquid assets. It's a sizable war chest that will no doubt come in handy, as the company has yet to feel the full brunt of the diesel emissions scandal. Good news for gear heads. The US copyright office [00:02:00] ruled in favor of mechanics and car owners by granting an exception to existing copyright law. The law was originally meant to prevent software pirating and bootlegging of Hollywood movies.

Suzuki, please come back and bring the Alto Works with you

The list of JDM vehicles we'd love to see imported into the United States keeps growing. But if there's one we could wish for in 2016, we dare say it's the one you see here. It's called the Suzuki Alto Works, and it looks like an absolute riot. The Alto, for those unfamiliar, is a tiny little Kei car. It rides on a 97-inch wheelbase and weighs less than 1,350 pounds, which makes it not only smaller than a three-door Mini, but also about half its weight. All it needs is a 660cc inline-three to pull it around the streets of Tokyo. And perhaps best of all, where the previous Alto adopted rounded, cutesy styling, the new model introduced in Japan a year ago takes a more squared-off, industrial design that looks much better to our round eyes. Suzuki made a punchy little Alto Turbo RS version (which you can scope out in the extra gallery below) that increased output to a still-puny 64 horsepower and 70 pound-feet of torque. And it won multiple awards for its compact, fun-to-drive nature. But now the Japanese automaker has made the Alto even more enticing with the new Works model. It's based on the aforementioned Turbo RS, but packs some key upgrades. Where the Alto Turbo RS was only available with an automatic, the new Alto Works can be had with a short-throw five-speed manual – driving either the front wheels alone or all four. Suzuki also boosted output modestly to 74 lb-ft, improved the throttle response, and recalibrated the steering for better accuracy. New 15-inch wheels are fitted to a retuned suspension with KYB shocks. It's all done up in a gunmetal finish with black trim, red-painted front calipers, and an interior with Recaro racing buckets, steel pedals, red stitching, and a boost gauge that changes color from white to red as it spools up. All of that can be had from only 1,509,840 yen, which may look like a lot, but translates to just $12,500 at current exchange rates. If only Suzuki still sold in the US market, because it does some of the best little hatchbacks around. And the new Alto Works looks like it'd be a hoot to drive.

Junkyard Gem: 1997 Geo Metro LSi

General Motors created the Geo brand in order to sell cars built in partnership with Suzuki, Isuzu and Toyota in the United States, and Geo-badged machinery was sold from the 1989 through 1997 model years. Today's Junkyard Gem, found in a New Orleans self-service boneyard recently, is one of the very last Geos ever built. There was always a close relationship between Geo and Chevrolet, which GM demonstrated by sneaking the Chevrolet bowtie into the Geo logo. The first three Geo-branded models began their careers with Chevrolet badging before getting Geo-ized for 1989. The Spectrum, twin to the Isuzu I-Mark, was a Chevrolet from 1985 through 1988. The 1985-1988 Chevrolet Sprint was a badge-engineered first-generation Suzuki Cultus, with its second-generation successor becoming the Geo Metro. The Prizm was a NUMMI-built Toyota Corolla Sprinter, which replaced the Sprinter-based 1985-1987 Chevrolet Nova. The Daewoo-built Pontiac LeMans never became a Geo, presumably because its ancestry was South Korean rather than Japanese. In 1989, Geo added the Storm (Isuzu Impulse), followed by the Tracker (Suzuki Sidekick) as a 1990 model. In December 1996, GM announced that the Geo brand would get the axe in the fall of 1997, with the Prizm, Tracker and Metro becoming Chevrolets. This car was built at CAMI Automotive in Canada in May 1997, making it one of the final handful of Geos assembled. The Chevrolet Metro stuck around through 2001. For its final model year, the Geo Metro was available with one of two trim levels: base and LSi. This car is an LSi three-door hatchback, which had an MSRP of $9,180 ($17,906 in 2024 dollars). The base three-door hatchback for 1997 listed at $8,580, or $16,735 after inflation. The most important difference between the base and LSi versions was found under the hood. The base Metro got a 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine rated at 55 horsepower and 58 pound-feet, while the LSi got the 1.3-liter "big-block" four-cylinder with 70 horses and 74 pound-feet. I owned a '96 Metro with the four-banger for a brief period, and it wasn't quite intolerably slow. This car has the optional three-speed automatic, which added $595 ($1,161 today) to the price. It also has air conditioning and a Delco AM/FM radio, which were included as part of the $1,346 1SE option package ($2,625 in today's money). It was thus a boring but serviceable commuter car that sipped gas and got its job done for 27 years and 113,610 miles.