From the Detroit auto show in a working person's town in January to the high-end distractions of this week's Geneva auto show, the focus of the auto industry next moves to an annual exhibition whose personality lands somewhere in between those two: the New York International Auto Show.

Scheduled for the Jacob Javits Center in New York from March 29 through April 27, with a press preview beforehand, the New York show mixes the glitz and accessibility of the world's most important media market with the fact that the event is a big and relied-upon marketing boost for Tri-State auto dealers just before the heavy annual selling season begins.Continue reading...

If you're Tim Allen, you might be hoping that your return to television comedy in ABC's Last Man Standing continues to be well-received. Because there are more hints that your long-standing and respected gig as the mellifluous voiceover for Chevrolet's "Chevy Runs Deep" campaign has reached its end.

In bringing Alfa Romeo back to the U.S. market this year, Fiat has three big goals for the move: broadening the car lineup of its joint stable with Chrysler Group; trying to re-establish an Alfa brand that long ago was tarnished in America; and boosting output at its home-market manufacturing operations in Italy.

Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne told Reuters at the Detoit Auto Show that Fiat plans to introduce an Alfa Romeo 4C sports car to the U.S. market late this year. Marchionne said that the biggest remaining obstacle is to "make sure we hit the powertrains dead on." Still, he told the news service, "We are finalizing the car now, so it should be" in the U.S. this year.

From an American perspective, Alfa Romeo is one of the wild cards that got thrown into the deck when Fiat acquired the carcass of Chrysler from the U.S. government in 2009. It exited the U.S. market about two decades ago with a tattered quality reputation. Now, Marchionne has built the marque into one that would have a shot even in today's highly competitive U.S. market.Continue reading...

If Sergio Marchionne weren’t the CEO of Fiat and Chrysler, globetrotting across three continents on a regular basis and running companies based on two of them, the man probably would have to make up a similar job just to contain his prodigious energy.

This week, he and the increasingly worldwide automotive operation he runs have made news in North America, Europe and Asia. And the charismatic, peripatetic Italian car mogul has displayed some of the inner edges of his famously expansive personality as well.

In the biggest news, Marchionne signed a deal in Michigan with Guangzhou Automobile Group to build Jeeps in China as Fiat, Chrysler and their brands try to play catch-up in the world’s biggest automotive market. Guangzhou will build at least 100,000 Jeeps there beginning in 2014, and output could double at some point, Marchionne said this week. Continue reading...

Talk all you want about German engineering, Japanese reliability and Korean ambition in the high-end automotive market. When it comes to getting the blood of car enthusiasts pumping, there's nothing quite like the Chevrolet Corvette.

Car aficionados continue to create buzz around Chevy's introduction of the seventh-generation Corvette at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, the so-called C7. GM is deliberately invoking some of the 60 years of the car's history by calling its new version the Stingray. It harkens back to a special version of the Corvette in 1963 that set the design standard for the overmuscled sports car for the last half century.

Corvette has been known as the life's aspiration of a plumber or a gym teacher — its typical buyer is a white male in his 50s. But automotive journalists this week are hailing the new Stingray as a revelation: a car that simultaneously remains worthy of the Corvette's heritage but that also introduces a sort of panache — and the kind of technology — that should broaden its appeal with other emographics that wish to buy expensive cars.Continue reading...

It's too early to determine whether the new Cadillac ELR truly will be a game-changer in the sluggish U.S. market for plug-in hybrids. But in unveiling the new vehicle to the world's automotive press at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, at least General Motors is bidding to change the dynamics of the segment in a significant way. Already, it's been deemed best production car of the show, as Cadillac proudly tweeted.

ELR isn't expected to go on sale until early 2014 ("winter" is what GM is promising) and at a price tag (before U.S.-government tax credits for a "green" car purchase) of more than $50,000. GM is relying on the same basic powertrain in Volt, a combination of powerful batteries that can take the car 25 or 30 miles on a charge and a small gasoline engine that takes over once the batteries are out of juice and provides an effective range for the vehicle of about 300 miles.Continue reading...

Ford tops Experian loyalty ranking as automaker earmarks "billions" for relaunching Lincoln — and may alter marque to please Chinese car buyers.

Apple stock slides on disappointing iPhone 5 sales.

Lance Armstrong creates buzz in advance of "emotional" TV confession with Oprah Winfrey.

Alibaba says founder is to leave CEO post.

BMW and Mercedes-Benz are chasing younger buyers.

Brandweek is being revived, at least in name.

Burberry says own-store sales rise but wholesale suffers.Continue reading...

Over the past few years, fuel economy became the predominant theme of the Detroit Auto Show, as brands battled recession, $4-a-gallon gasoline, the heavy hand of the federal government and one another to lure American buyers into their increasingly "green" machines.

But at the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, one of the clearly emergent themes is a return to more substantial and practical vehicles — specifically, to utility vehicles. Fuel economy isn't being ignored; it's more that decent mileage is a given for just about every new model these days.

One after another, brands at the first of two press-preview days at the show on Monday revealed new production models of mid-sized and compact sport-utility and "crossover" utility vehicles, plans to field more of them, or both.

"We're absent from the midsize-SUV segment" in the United States, Jonathan Browning, president and CEO of Volkswagen of America, said at a press conference where the brand introduced a new concept SUV called CrossBlue. That segment has "predicted growth of more than 20 percent by 2018, the biggest predicted for any segment," he said.Continue reading...