Automobile Reviews Simply Done: Take Your Top Off
Call it fashion, call it passion, no experience compares to the pleasure of driving with the wind in your hair, absorbing the landscape and being one with the car as you dominate the curvaceous Riffa roads. A convertible car captures this feeling of oneness with the practicality of a conventional roof (hard-top) and the pleasure of lowering the same when the sun is shining. Designing a convertible car is not as simple as chopping off the roof and installing a folding cloth (soft-top). Issues pertaining to structural strength and aerodynamics have to be considered in the design stage. Addressing these issues is what raises the price of a convertible car as compared to its fixed roof model. Technically the roof of a car keeps it from twisting and bending. A car without a roof is like a suspension bridge without cables. This requires the bottom part of the car to be extra stiff with heavy reinforcement brackets which increase the weight of the car.
Ford鈥檚 main reason for designing the VEP was that it believed the company鈥檚 shares were undervalued. Ford believed that having its shares undervalued limited its ability to attract, retain, and incentivize employees. So Ford thought its recapitalization plan would enhance and increase the value of its outstanding shares, provide flexible value, and better align Ford鈥檚 management with its stockholders. Additionally, Ford specifically believed that the recapitalization would reshuffle the interests of its shareholders and owners in a way that would further improve the performance of the company. Ford also felt that providing its employees with more equity would incentivize them to improve their performance and create more value for the company. In addition, Wall Street Analysts suspected that Ford initiated a VEP PLAN, as opposed to a Buyback plan, to better protect the interests of the Ford family, whom had the greatest voting rights in Ford. They felt that this plan would give the Ford family the liquidity it needed in the form of class A shares.
A dealership can be a downright scary place for someone looking to buy a new car, with four-box scams, shady financing, dodgy service, and pushy salesmen. Consulting firm Pied Piper surveyed customers at 1,592 dealerships to show what we already knew, that not all dealer experiences are created equal. The survey covered the customer service regardless of whether or not the perspective buyer actually purchased a vehicle. Predictably, luxury car dealerships topped the list, lead by Acura and Land Rover, but volume brands Saturn, Nissan, and VW were among the automakers that scored above the industry average. The folks from Pied Piper say Acura scored in the "top five or six" across the board regardless of whether the customer bought anything. Honda, Toyota, and Hyundai were right at the industry average in the customer survey, and Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler all scored below the Mendoza line. Perhaps the Pied Piper survey's most important statistic is that eight out of 10 of the top automakers averaged over 250 sales per year per dealership, and only three of the bottom ten dealers hit the 250 mark. Hit the jump to read the Pied Piper press release, it does a great job of breaking down the vast amounts of data collected.
I finally made it to Kramer Arch, east of Barstow, CA. I've tried to get there before but my previous car (Acura MDX) wasn't up to handling a short section of road that's seriously rutted. My new Land Rover drove right over it without any problems. Gene and Bobak were with me on this trip. We were on our way to Zion NP, and this made for a nice diversion along the way. That's Gene in the photo, standing on top the arch. Here's a Google map centered on the arch location. I approached the arch by taking Mule Canyon Road and Phillips Drive, both of which are sandy washes. To make things interesting, I left by continuing on to the east, following a road / ATV trail until it met up with E. Phillips Drive. We got the truck to the best pitch angle so far: 27 degrees down. The roads always seem much steeper than my inclinometer shows. I've begun to wonder if the truck's automatic leveling suspension is possibly negating some of the steepness sensed by the passenger compartment (and my inclinometer).
What 4x4 sales dip? Land Rover has scored a global sales record for the second year running. In 2006 the firm sold 192,500 vehicles around the world, an increase of 4 per cent (8,500 vehicles) on 2005. And now the US is Land Rover's single biggest market with a sales increase of 3.5 per cent. Sales in the US were driven by the phenomenal success of the Range Rover Sport, which saw an 80 per cent growth. In the UK, sales of Range Rover Sport and Range Rover increased by 52 per cent and 12.5 per cent respectively in a year which saw the run out of Freelander, which ceased production in July. The all new Freelander 2 only went on sale in the UK in December, but still notched up nearly 900 sales in this traditionally short sales month. Land Rover's modern, clean and efficient diesel engines are now dominating the UK market, accounting for 92 per cent of sales. Demand for the new TDV8 Range Rover saw diesel derivatives of the model surge by 145 per cent in the final quarter of last year. Sales of Range Rover Sport have exceeded 75,000 since its launch to become Land Rover's best selling model. Discovery 3 continues to collect critical accolades with 85 international awards to date.
