Autoblog

Bringing his experience heading Lexus with him when he defected to Ford, Jim Farley's got his eye on some premium-Toyota style brand growth. Ford's past party line has been that the Lincoln nameplate is strictly for North American consumption, but Farley's been conferring with other Forders like Peter Horbury about taking Lincoln worldwide. Lexus is enjoying rapid growth in markets like Russia and Saudi Arabia, so it's not a new concept for Farley, and Horbury has previous global-brand experience, as well. Whether Ford intends on turning Lincoln into an American Lexus (whatever that might mean) isn't clear, but our domestic luxury marques sometimes enjoy a better reputation elsewhere – witness Buick's stature in China (Counterpoint: witness Cadillac's stature in Europe). The newly unveiled MKS is a good weapon to shoot across the globe, riding on a platform that originated at Volvo. We don't think Lincoln will swipe customers from Volvo, as they're likely different groups of buyers - so what it really may mean is more potential buyers to snap up Ford's production capacity.

Thanks for the tip, throwback!

[Source: Auto News - sub req]

So Acura won't be making it to Japan just yet, and the new NSX has been delayed until at least 2010, but parent company Honda is not slowing down for anything. Company President Takeo Fukui is determined not to let Honda get left behind in the battle for global automotive supremacy. In the name of meeting demand, he announced that Honda will be building five factories, two engine plants, and two R&D facilities. Much of the new construction will be taking place in Asia to fulfill demand in the Asia-Oceana region: Thailand, and Tochigi, Yorii, and Ogawa Japan. With everything in place, Honda plans to turbocharge production of its increasingly ubiquitous small cars by an extra 300,000 per year by 2010.

Thanks for the tip, Dylan!

[Source: Car Advice]

According to Global Insight, the US auto market will grow next year. From 16.2 million cars sold in 2007, the mark will reach 17 million by 2010 and 17.7 million by 2012. Imports will move 4.4 million units that year, up from 3.7 million now.

But by saying that The Big Three have "have lost the baby boomers," Insight predicts five straight years of declining market share for the American makers, eventually losing seven percentage points by 2012. And before they can think about getting that back, they'll have Chinese imports to worry about. With oil expected to remain above $60 per barrel, and competition coming from all sides, the Detroit boys and girls have their work cut out for them. But we would think that a Volt here, a Jeep JT and awesome 300 replacement there, and some of Ford's brilliant Euro product brought over here, could begin to stem the tide... no?

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]

As if Ferrari needed any help promoting its brand, they've gone and hired Dany Bahar. During his tenure at Red Bull, the intrepid Turk transformed the energy drink company from a simple sponsor into team owners, first acquiring Red Bull Racing from Ford when Jaguar's F1 team went bust, then going in on an unprecedented second team – Scuderia Toro Rosso – and even spearheading Toyota's entry into NASCAR in a team owned by... you guessed it, Red Bull. Bahar also orchestrated the deal that brought Ferrari power to Red Bull last season and to STR for 2007.

Bahar left Red Bull way back in February, and it didn't take long before the rumors of his defection to Maranello started flying around like a club-going teenager jacked up on taurine. Although the speculation initially indicated that Bahar would assume a role at the Scuderia, Ferrari announced that he'd be put in charge of a new department that will operate alongside the racing team and road-car divisions, and report directly to the CEO.

With the construction of the Ferrari World theme park already under way, the company's merchandizing efforts already seem to be at full tilt. It'll be interesting, therefore, to see what new direction Bahar takes the brand.

[Source: Italiaspeed]

General Motors has proven it should be taken seriously in its efforts to harmonize its many global outposts into a single, coherent unit. The Opel-ifying of Saturn is the most obvious example, but Chevy, which is enjoying increased popularity in Europe, wants in on the globalization action, too. AutoWeek reports that GM's everyman brand wants to commonize its nameplates globally over the next couple of years. Right now the brand sells same models in various regions under different monikers. Our Chevy Aveo, for instance, is called the Kalos in Europe and the Lova in China. When Chevy introduces a brand new small car around the end of the decade, it will be known as the Aveo everywhere it's sold.

GM also plans to unify the marketing strategies and retail systems that sells Chevy brand vehicles worldwide. When the new Aveo was introduced around the world in 2006, for instance, it was accompanied in India by the slogan "An Indian Revolution", an obvious play on Chevy's own tagline here in the States, "An American Revolution". In the future, a global marketing council for Chevy with reps from each of the four biggest regions will decide on a unified brand message.

[Source: Autoweek via Winding Road]

General Motors reported global sales of 2,296,000 vehicles in the third quarter, which is a 3-percent decline versus Q3 of last year. That's only 66,000 unit off what was sold during the same period in 2005, and the GM spinmeisters attribute the difference to the employee pricing war last year and the company's commitment to reduce rental and fleet sales this year. Aight, we can buy that, so perhaps GM really did hold its ground this year in the global market.

The automaker claims its market share in North America, which includes the U.S. and Canada (it's first and third biggest markets) has increased steadily each quarter this year, from 23.8 percent in Q1 to 24.1 percent in Q2 to 25.1 percent in Q3. Since the press release has no hard numbers, that claim is difficult to verify, but most around the Autoblog office believe it to be true since the General's done particularly well with its more vanilla offerings like the Cobalt and Impala. Still, the General's global brands kicked it up a notch with Chevy seeing growth in nearly every market, especially the ones that will become increasingly important like India (up 44%) and China (up 6%). As we reported earlier, HUMMER sales are also strong around the world, up 54% year to date. It's all about the H3 though, with GM neglecting to mention the H2 in its press release at all.

Check out the rest of GM's report on its Q3 performance after the jump, but as with any sales report, be ready to wade through some spin.

[Source: GM]

One thinks of a classic cartoon when investigating the upcoming exploits of Toyota... "Whatcha wanna do tonight, Brain?" "The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!"

Toyota has announced that it will produce a whopping 10 million vehicles by 2010. As part of the grand scheme, the automaker plans to build an additional 10 manufacturing plants to keep up with the projected three million additional cars Toyota must make to boost production to that point. Toyota currently produces 7.35 million vehicles annually.

Lucky recipients of the plants include Texas, China, India and France, among others to be announced. A jump to 10 million will put Toyota well past General Motors, which currently makes just above 9 million vehicles.

Narf!

[Source: Reuters]