July 31 2009
Cash For Clunkers Faces Possible Suspension
There may need to be a new award for short-sightedness in Washington DC: The Clunker Award.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. is expected on Friday to announce a suspension of the popular Cash for Clunkers program that rewards car buyers for trading in old cars and trucks for new, more fuel efficient vehicles after just one week. Federal officials fear that a backlog of applications for rebates will quickly exhaust the fund, and will tell dealers on Friday to stop closing sales that depend on the government money.
July 30 2009
Is the worst over for Japan’s automakers?
There is no denying Japan’s automakers took some extreme measures at the start of the year. As sales slumped around the world, nothing was safe from cost cutting. Mitsubishi Motors apologized before one press conference for not providing water as an emergency cost saving measure. The chief engineer of a new Lexus shared a car with two colleagues rather than take the bullet train from Toyota City to Tokyo, even though it took four hours versus 90 minutes on the train, to save $300 in train fares. More important: the likes of Toyota, Honda and Nissan slashed production at the start of the year–in some months trimming output 65% from a year earlier–as they battled to reduce inventories.
July 29 2009
Cash For Clunkers Bringing Back Car Buyers
http://The controversial and much debated Cash For Clunkers bill is having the desired effect of boosting car sales, according to analysts and a few auto executives.
July 29 2009
MB Slot Ferrari 430 Challenge kits and RTR’s
New Ferrari F430’s at REH Distributors in Cincy this week.
BBR SL002/A Ferrari F430 Challenge RTR Limited Edition Retail $105.99 (very limited quantity)
BBR SL002 Ferrari F430 Challenge kit Retail $79.99
July 29 2009
Powerslot Lola’s
These two Powerslot Lola’s have arrived in the US at REH Distributors.
July 28 2009
New Avant Slot Peugeot 908 HDi #8
Criccrac.com is showing the new Avant Slot Peugeot 908 HDi from LeMans 2008, the blue and black No.8. at this link. Read the rest of this entry »
Enthusiast site Camaro5 posted a statement from GM regarding a temporary hold on the shipment of 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS models equipped with manual transmissions’ “Our engineering team is reviewing data related to the performance of the manual transmission on the Camaro SS, and have temporarily stopped shipment of this model to the dealers’ This only impacts Camaro SS models with manual transmission in production’ Camaro SS with automatic transmission, and Camaro LS and LT models are not affected and will continue to be shipped to dealers’ Since this is an in production review, we are NOT requesting vehicles be returned for any service or dealer deliveries stopped as a result of this action’” ‘
July 27 2009
Cash For Clunkers Kicks Off To Cheers and Jeers
The Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save (CARS) program, otherwise known as Cash for Clunkers program, which pays consumers to junk old cars and buy new ones kicked off Monday to cheers and jeers from auto companies, dealers, environmentalists and consumers.
July 27 2009
Mainline Rush 36k Motor, New Version
The following report was filed by Robert Livingston of Slot Car News.
Les at Mainline Hobbies kindly sent us two samples of the new-production Rush 36k motor. The first version was tested by the Slot Car News Motor List staff at 36,600 RPM at 12 volts; with torque at 215 gcm/12v, about as close as you can measure to the specified value of 218 gcm. Overall power in the mid range of RPM (the maximum power band) was computed at 19.7 Watts, which is plenty powerful indeed. By comparison, a Slot.It long-can Boxer 2 puts out 18.3 Watts.