Chrysler to Issue Recall for Commercial Trucks and Grand Cherokees

Chrysler Corporation The 2013 Ram 5500.

  Chrysler will recall about 1,000 of its 2013 commercial Ram 4500 and 5500 trucks because of a possible steering problem, along with about 4,500 Grand Cherokees from the 2014 model year for a parking-light problem, according to reports posted Tuesday on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Web site.

The safety agency also says it is upgrading its investigation into fuel leaks on about 23,000 BMW R Series motorcycles from the 2005-8 model years.

Chrysler says the problem with the Rams is that the track bar may not be securely fastened to the truck’s frame. Should it detach, there could be “a loss of directional control,” the automaker said in its report.
Chrysler’s 4500 and 5500 truck models are known as chassis cabs. The manufacturer provides a passenger compartment, and the buyer decides what to attach on the frame behind the cab, including an ambulance body or a cargo bed. The automaker said in a news release that about half of those vehicles were still at dealerships and that it wasn’t aware of any accidents related to the issue.

The problem with the Grand Cherokees stemmed from a voltage spike that could cause vehicles’ LED parking lights to fail, the automaker reported.

Chrysler described the recalls as voluntary, but once an automaker is aware of a safety problem it has no choice but – within five business days – to inform N.H.T.S.A. of its plan for a recall or face a civil fine.
In a report posted on the N.H.T.S.A. Web site, the agency said it would upgrade its investigation into fuel leaks on about 23,000 BMW motorcycles. The agency began looking into the problem last fall after receiving 28 complaints from owners regarding fuel leaks.

Now, the agency says it has received 95 complaints from owners, many of whom say fuel leaks are severe enough to soak their legs. Consequently, the agency is upgrading the investigation to an engineering analysis, which could result in a recall. There were no reports of fires or injuries.

Mini’s Vanishing Van Edition

Mini The Mini Clubvan is like a Mini Cooper Clubman, but with its rear windows blanked out.
In which we bring you motoring news from around the Web:

• Not long after last year’s debut, Mini has discontinued its Clubvan, which is essentially a Mini Cooper Clubman with sheet metal in place of rear windows. Introduced last year as a future concept that would become available in the North American market, Mini pulled out after selling 50 of the miniature sedans. The automaker cited low demand and the 25 percent “Chicken Tax” tariff on foreign commercial vehicles as reasons for its decision. (Green Car Reports)

• Facing multiple lawsuits over hybrid vehicle fuel-efficiency claims, the Ford Motor Company announced that it would update software on 77,000 Ford Fusion, C-Max and Lincoln MKZ hybrid vehicles to increase fuel economy. Midwestern customers, whose vehicles face colder temperatures and higher speed limits than average, have posed a particular problem for Ford, which told hybrid owners that they would update the software by the end of July. (The Detroit News)

• The 2013 Ram 1500 pickup has lumbered to the top of the Consumer Reports full-size pickup heap, according to Consumer Reports’ latest ranking. The redesigned model, introduced last summer, received a number of modifications including weight reductions and high-tech fuel saving measures like grille shutters and a variable demand fuel pump. In its report, Consumer Reports points out that rankings in the highly competitive pickup truck market are likely to shift, but for now the publication lauds the truck’s simultaneous refinement and capability. (Consumer Reports)

• Diamond Electric, a Japanese company that manufactures ignition coils for Ford, Toyota and Subaru, has plead guilty to the Justice Department charges on price fixing and conspiracy charges. The company agreed to pay a $19 million fine for its role in the conspiracy. This is the latest in a two year antitrust investigation, which has led to 15 executives and 10 automotive parts suppliers pleading guilty to price-fixing charges and has generated a number of fines that have reached $828 million.


• With sales of the Volkswagen Passat on the wane, Volkswagen AG has decided to bring the Phaeton back to the North American market. VW had pulled the Phaeton – Volkswagen’s most expensive model – out of the American lineup seven years ago, after weak sales. According to a report from Bloomberg, the new Phaeton may make an appearance at the Detroit auto show in January.

Formula One Chief Indicted on Bribery Charges

Kamran Jebreili/Associated Press Bernie Ecclestone, pictured in this April 19 photo, has been indicted on bribery charges.
Bernie Ecclestone, the 82-year-old Englishman who controls the commercial rights to the Formula One racing series, has been indicted in Germany in a seven-year-old bribery affair, it was announced on Wednesday in Munich.

News of the indictment, while expected for some time, adds one more subject, and a major one, to the problems faced by the Formula One community. Mr. Ecclestone is accused of paying a $44 million bribe to Gerhard Gribkowsky, a German banker who was responsible for helping the Bavarian state bank dispose of certain assets, including 47.4 percent of the shares of Formula One Holdings, of which Mr. Ecclestone is chairman.

The shares went to CVC, an British private equity firm, per Mr. Ecclestone’s wishes. He has openly admitted the payment, saying it was a fee for services, and not a bribe. Mr. Gribkowsky was sentenced to eight years by a German court for tax evasion as a result, and is currently serving that sentence.

The indictment adds to Formula One’s current list of challenges, not the least of which is the lack of a logical successor to Mr. Ecclestone. Although he has become a billionaire from the series, he has also elevated the incomes of practically everyone involved in the world championship.
A trial date has not yet been set.

This Citroën DS Is a Real Transformer

The 1965 Citroën DS is a beautiful, inspiring car that recalls an age when French automobile manufacturing had reached its apogee. The car’s swept-back body is arguably one of the most elegant designs of the 20th century.

Chico MacMurtrie, a Brooklyn artist, took things a step further and built a real life transformer out of one of the Gallic beauties.

That may sound ridiculous, but the thing actually works. He started with a real Citroën DS and turned it into something altogether different. One moment there’s a gorgeous bare-metal-finish DS sitting there, its shiny headlamp buckets gleaming, and the next it’s slowly morphing into a fantastic 60-foot-tall shape that looks like something between a lanky human-bot and a metal tree.

Chico MacMurtrie / Amorphic Robot Works Totemobile’s skin is all Citroën, made from a real 1965 Citroën DS.

  That it also looks like a space age totem pole is reflected in its name, Totemobile. When Mr. MacMurtrie was building it in 2007, he had to remove some of the roof beams from the converted Red Hook church he uses as a workshop for Amorphic Robot Works. Fully extended, the animatronic sculpture stretched up into the peak of the tall building’s roofline.

“Our roof peaked at 45 feet, and it was ultimately 60 feet tall,” he said. “It shows really well in very big spaces, but it’s not meant to be shown outdoors or in small spaces.”

When in car form, Totemobile’s lovely French bodywork hides, according to Mr. MacMurtrie’s Web site, “nearly 50 interdependent machines of varying aesthetic and functional purpose.” A series of electric linear actuators initiate movement from its car form to the fully extended sculpture. The robot is equipped with four laser shields, although they don’t, in Decepticon fashion, zap intruders. Instead, they control emergency stop systems, which freeze Totemobile’s movement if a spectator somehow gets too close to it. A computer system receiving information from more than 100 sensors tracks the machine’s movement as it rises into its final statuesque pose, an automated air-filled spire blooming above it.

Here’s how Mr. MacMurtrie describes Totemobile’s evolution from car to robotic form on his Web site:

As the familiar structure visually decomposes into its constituent geometric parts, each part becomes a more organic version of the original, and eventually lends its decomposing body to support the life of the new organism it harbors.
The form of the totem pole is narrative in nature. As the sculpture rises, multiple narratives unfold. In the collision, negotiation, and compromises reached between the organic and the inorganic aspects of itself, narratives suggesting entropy, domination, transformation, mortality and the nature of strength are exposed.

Heady stuff, to be sure, although its funding came from more a materialistic source. Designed for display in Citroën’s showroom at 42 Champs-Élysées in Paris, Totemobile started as an idea Mr. MacMurtrie had to convert his rusty pickup truck into an anthropomorphic transformer.
“I had been saving parts to turn my Nissan longbed into a dog monkey, a character I’d created, and the drawings from that idea inspired a television commercial Citroën made,” he said, adding that the automaker then asked him to propose a display idea for their cavernous showroom. “The Citroën DS was the first lowrider, and being that I’m half Mexican, I wanted to make the car do something that was metaphorically different than what a lowrider does. It grows up instead of lowering.”

Mr. MacMurtrie said that Totemobile was set up at the Shanghai Biennial over the winter. Now, it’s in storage in Amsterdam, awaiting its return to Paris this year.

Chico MacMurtrie / Amorphic Robot Works Fully extended, Totemobile stands 60 feet tall.

  The idea of organically themed mechanical contraptions touches the rest of Mr. MacMurtrie’s work as well. In September, he says he plans to display a huge, articulating architectural structure – operated by pneumatic, mechanical and computer controls – inside Red Hook’s Pioneer Works. At the same time, he said he would unveil his robotic church, which is a collection of 85 robots and machines he’s built from the 1990s until today, all assembled under one roof. The automated sculptures will perform a percussion-dominated robotic church service of sorts in his workshop, which Mr. MacMurtrie said was originally a church for Scandinavian fishermen in the 19th century.

Already taking shape, the college of robot clergy, taking up positions around the edges of the main room, are poised to play various unique percussion instruments – one uses dripping water for effect, another plays a huge xylophone, another has a body that resembles the innards of a piano and plays itself.

“The sculptures are all set up kind of like saints, and they will rise up as they play percussion instruments,” he said. “For the mechanically inclined person, they’ll find representations of just about every mechanism that’s ever been made: hydraulic and pneumatic and gear driven. What I’m tying to do is get people to walk away with a physical effect of the sounds and the overall effect of being in the church.”

A Jaguar Man’s Jaguar: Designer Ian Callum Does the Mark 2 His Way

Arpingstone via Wikimedia Commons The Jaguar Mark 2 (a 1963 model is pictured here) features Jaguar’s rounded, elegant mid-century styling.

  Ian Callum, the design director of Jaguar, has — strangely enough — never actually owned one of his company’s cars. But he’s rebuilding one to his own specifications. Slowly taking shape at Classic Motor Cars in Bridgnorth, England, is a very special 1962 Jaguar Mark 2 that incorporates Mr. Callum’s subtle design upgrades.

“Being a designer, I can’t leave my cars alone,” Mr. Callum said in a telephone interview. “Much as I admire people who restore cars and bring them back to original specifications, I can’t do that myself.”

The Mark 2 will have reduced chrome and incorporate such features as added “in period” vents for better air flow. It will have a 5-speed full-synchromesh gearbox.

Classic Motor Cars Ian Callum, at Classic Motor Cars, in Bridgnorth, England. “I’m also designing some new body parts on my computer at home, and the process can be time-consuming,” he said. The famous XK engine will be under the hood, but with an upgrade from the original 3.8 liters to 4.2.

“As a designer, Ian knows exactly what he wants,” Nick Goldthorp, managing director of Classic Motor Cars, wrote in an email. “So we have to follow and interpret his changes in great detail.”

According to Mr. Callum, he’d originally thought that C.M.C. would “hate me” if he insisted on modifications to a classic like the Mark 2, but when the well-known Jaguar restoration facility let it be known that it was game (it actually offers several upgrades for the model, including alternator conversion kits and central locking), the search was on for a suitable car.

Mr. Callum is the designer responsible for the new Jaguar F-Type convertible, as well as such models as the XK, XF, XJ and a number of Aston Martins. It’s his design language – capturing the essence of the classic models in a way that’s determinedly modern – that is stamped on the company’s products. That makes this new/old Jaguar “a small project,” but one that’s close to his heart.

“It’s my personal indulgence,” Mr. Callum said. “An E-Type would have been too obvious for me, but I’ve just always loved the Mark 2. This project is about the aesthetics of the car; simplifying it as much as possible.”

C.M.C. said the Mark 2 would be finished in about six months, at which point Mr. Callum plans to drive it to work. That’s unless he takes one of the other classics in his garage. Mr. Callum, who grew up in Scotland but has decidedly trans-Atlantic tastes, owns a 1990 Mini Cooper that’s been “tricked up a bit,” a 1932 Ford Model B “Deuce Coupe” with a Ford Windsor engine that makes about 430 horsepower and a custom 1956 Chevy Two-Ten that’s likely to get kitted out with Corvette components.

“Nothing I own is standard,” he said. On Mr. Callum’s classic car wish list: a Triumph TR4 or TR6, and a 1932 Ford roadster. “I love buying parts for hot rods,” he said.

Chevrolet’s Bow Tie Turns 100

General Motors The logo from Chevrolet’s 1936 truck lineup. Chevrolet first used its bow tie logo in 1913 (only two years after the marque’s formation), for the 1914 model year lineup. Essentially a cross with the horizontal bar italicized and longer than the vertical one, with the word CHEVROLET written in all caps inside, the basic shape hasn’t changed over the last 100 years.
As long as you aren’t someone who’s been mistreated in some way by a Chevrolet product, the logo looks cool and has become one of corporate marketing’s most recognizable shapes. The big question is, where did that shape come from?

General Motors The Chevrolet bow tie was introduced in 1913 on the 1914 H-2 Royal Mail and the H-4 Baby Grand. The truth is, the Chevy bow ties’s origins are somewhat murky. Growing up, I always figured that because the Chevrolet brothers were French Swiss racecar drivers, the bow tie emblem I saw sitting atop the hoods of Caprices and Malibus must, like the fleur-de-lis, be a French symbol.
Of course I was wrong, but whether the Chevrolet bow tie was imbued with deep meaning for William C. Durant, the co-founder of Chevrolet with Louis Chevrolet (probably not), or was an arbitrary this-looks-cool-and-will-help-me-sell-cars sort of thing (probably so) isn’t important. After 100 years representing a brand that’s gone through many ups and downs, the italicized Swiss cross, or whatever it is, has one meaning now: Chevrolet.

General Motors The 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air saw the same Chevy logo as the original, albeit sans letters and with an upgraded background. If you wore one of these things in front of your collar as an actual bow tie, you would look silly. But at the front end of a Chevrolet, well, there aren’t many (if any) people left on Earth who can remember looking at a Chevy and not seeing it in some form or other. And there are a lot of Chevy bow ties floating around. According to General Motors, there are 60 million bow tie-clad Chevrolets on the road and about 215 million have worn it since 1913.
So where did the symbol come from? There are a variety of answers, and at this point, so long after the company’s deceased founders – themselves wrapped in layer after layer of enigmatic, self-promotional image building – there’s no one around who can say for sure.

General Motors The 1974 Chevrolet Imapa. The prevailing myth for a number of decades was that Mr. Durant had seen the bow tie shape on wallpaper at in a hotel room in Paris. But a 1929 book by his daughter, Margery, said that Mr. Durant had doodled it on a napkin at the dinner table.
Margery’s mother, Catherine Durant, had a different memory: her husband had seen the design in the paper when they were vacationing in Hot Springs, Va. She wasn’t more specific than that, but Ken Kaufman, a Chevrolet historian, deduced that the inspiration could have come from a nearly identical cross shape for Coalettes – “The Little Coals With the Big Heat!” – that Kaufman found advertised in a 1911 edition of The Atlanta Constitution.
Whatever the case, Chevrolet needn’t be concerned about Coalettes filing a trademark infringement lawsuit. According to a search through the Internet-based trademark search engine provided by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Coalettes probably didn’t register the odd bow tie symbol as its trademark. Also, Chevy’s isn’t quite the same. Coalettes italicized the entire cross, while Chevrolet has always left the center section stovebolt upright.

General Motors The 2014 Chevrolet Camaro SS. 

Blower Bentley Heading to Auction Was Modified, Historians Say

Bonhams This rare 4.5-liter supercharged Bentley, which historians say has been modified, will be auctioned on Aug. 16.

  An extremely rare Blower Bentley will cross the auction block at a Bonhams sale scheduled for Aug. 16 in Carmel, Calif. Experts agree on its rarity, but differ on how pristine an example this machine truly is.
In the 94-year history of Bentley Motors, perhaps none of its creations is held in more esteem than the Blower Bentley.

The more powerful supercharged version of the 4.5-liter, 4-cylinder engine was the idea of Tim Birkin, who along with Dudley Benjafield and Woolf Barnato, comprised the original “Bentley Boys” team of racers. The Blower was fast, but it consumed profligate amounts of fuel and was not particularly reliable. Ettore Bugatti derided the Blower Bentley as “the world’s fastest truck.”

Though its name is forever associated with Le Mans, the Blower never did win the famed French endurance classic. In fact, a Blower Bentley never won any major race.

But today, a Blower Bentley can be worth 10 to 15 times more than a nonsupercharged 4.5-liter model of the same vintage. Certainly, some of that disparity is because of its scarcity; only 55 of the supercharged models were among the 722 built during its 1927-31 production run, says Richard Charlesworth, a Bentley historian.

Adding to the rarity of the 1931 model being offered at the auction is the fact that it is one of only three of the 50 production cars that came with a Le Mans specification chassis, said Mr. Charlesworth.

“Always coveted and frequently copied, the Blower Bentley holds its place in history as a true automotive icon, and this incredibly rare and highly original survivor is one of the best in existence,” Bonhams says.
The auction house notes that the car is in its original 1938 trim. But by 1938, its level of originality had become debatable.

“Surely only the mechanicals may be classed as ‘highly original’ as the body has been totally changed,” Mr. Charlesworth said in an e-mail on Thursday.

Actually, it’s more egregious than that. By 1938 the Bentley bearing registration plate JK 1925 had traveled from England, to Florida, to Canada, where its original Vanden Plas four-seat body was scrapped, in favor of a home-built homage to its Canadian owner’s vision of a two-seat Brooklands-type racing shell. It had nonspec Stromberg carburetors installed; its temperamental 240-horsepower engine had actually been rebuilt with valves from a 1930s-vintage Ford tractor.

JK 1925’s history is recounted in fairly gory detail in a July 7, 1944, Autocar article, written by one of the car’s Canadian owners.

Bonhams suggested that the car was previously owned and raced by the “Bentley Boys.” But the former owner noted merely “a Bentley Racing driver, Thistlethwaite,” had raced it at some point.

Mr. Charlesworth said that the 1931 model’s racing provenance was at best limited, as it was sold and shipped to America within a year or so of its manufacture. He said that a succession of owners followed, with the well-worn car eventually ending up in Winnipeg, Canada, where it sold in 1938 for $500.

Apparently many more ownership changes followed until it was bought around 1959 by Charles R. J. Noble, a noted Bentley collector, who brought it to New York. Noble at one time owned four supercharged models, more than any other collector, according to Bonhams.

Noble was known for driving this car between his home in New York City and the Bridgehampton race circuit on Long Island. “He would race, win and return home in it with honors that included the prestigious 1967 Vanderbilt Cup,” Bonhams said, adding that the car remained in the ownership of the Noble family for “more than 55 years.”

Last July, Bonhams sold a 1929 Blower Bentley, once owned and raced by Birkin to several speed marks, for $7.87 million. The company said that represented the world record price for any Bentley sold at auction. The auction house did not, however, provide a presale estimate for the car going up for sale next month.

Honda Expands Fit Recall; Honda, Yamaha, G.M. Announce Recalls

Honda Motor Company The 2012 Honda Fit. Following tests by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Honda is recalling about 48,000 additional 2012-13 Fit models because the electronic stability control system may not stop a skid as quickly as it should, according to a report posted recently on the agency’s Web site.

The action is an expansion of an April recall involving about 44,000 of the 2012-13 Honda Fit Sport models for the same problem with stability control, a system the automaker calls Vehicle Stability Assist.

Stability control systems use sensors to determine if a vehicle is moving in a direction at odds with what the driver is doing with the steering wheel. The computer then applies braking to one wheel at a time in an effort to correct the movement.

In the April recall, Honda said that the problem stemmed from some Sport models being equipped with a different brand of tires than those for which the system was originally calibrated. Because of the change, the vehicles did not respond as quickly as the automaker intended.

Now, the remaining Fit models from those years are being recalled. However, the problem was not because of different tires being used, but because the electronic stability control is not working properly “under really extreme conditions,” a Honda spokesman Chris Martin, said in an interview.

Mr. Martin defined extreme conditions as having extremely worn tires, wheels that are out of alignment and driving at high speeds. He said the automaker was not aware of any accidents related to the problem. The new failure was also discovered during testing by N.H.T.S.A., then confirmed by Honda engineers, Mr. Martin said.

Safety researchers have concluded that electronic stability control can significantly reduce single-vehicle accidents caused by driver error. Such crashes can be particularly dangerous because the vehicle often leaves the road, increasing the chance of a rollover. Accordingly, N.H.T.S.A. has required electronic stability control as standard equipment on all light-duty vehicles since September 2011. Light-duty is defined as cars as well as trucks with a combined curb weight and cargo capacity of 10,000 pounds or less.

Automakers certify that their vehicles meet the agency’s performance standards. However, the safety agency does some spot-check testing. It was during one of these compliance checks that the agency discovered the problem with the Fit Sport.

Honda described the recall as voluntary, but once an automaker is aware of a safety problem it has no choice but to inform the agency, within five business days, of its plan for a recall, or face a civil fine.
In other actions:

• Honda will recall almost 1,700 2013 Accord models because the fuel tank may not be properly sealed at the top, the automaker told N.H.T.S.A. in a report posted Friday on the agency’s Web site. It said Honda had 116 warranty claims but no reports of fire because of gasoline leakage.

• Yamaha will recall about 3,900 2014 XVS950CU Bolt motorcycles, according to a report posted Friday on the N.H.T.S.A. Web site. The problem is that the motorcycles’ wiring harnesses can sag and contact the exhaust manifold resulting in a short circuit that causes the engine to stall.

• In a news release, General Motors said it would recall about 840 of its 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra Crew Cab models because the passenger-side air bag may not inflate completely in a crash. The automaker said it wasn’t aware of any crashes involving the defect.

Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Cart review: Put your 27-inch tablet on wheels

Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Cart $299.00(When Rated) This cart is a very handy accessory for Lenovo's IdeaCentre Horizon, but you'll want to be aware of a couple design shortcomings before buying one.

 

 

I thought this cart for Lenovo’s 27-inch IdeaCentre Horizon tablet/all-in-one PC was pretty cool when I first laid eyes on the prototype, and I got even more excited when I heard the real thing would retail for $299. That’s a reasonable price for a specialized product that will never be mass-produced. I mean, I don’t expect Lenovo to sell millions of Horizons, and only a fraction of those buyers will pick up the cart to go with it.

 

Now that I’ve spent some time with the finished product, I’m not nearly as jazzed. Let me give you the upside before I bang on the cart’s shortcomings. The tablet itself weighs nearly 19 pounds, so it’s not something you can just tuck under your arm and move from room to room. And you definitely won’t want your kids lugging it to and fro. Mount it to the cart, on the other hand, and the combo can move effortlessly around the house—provided it’s rolling on tile, vinyl, cork, or hardwood floors or very low-pile carpet.

ROBERT CARDINThe cart lets you use the tablet as a roll-around all-in-one. The base renders the affair very stable, but you'll need to hold the keyboard on your lap.

Brakes on all four wheels keep the cart stationary when you arrive at your destination, and the base is wide enough that you don’t need to worry about it tipping over even if you push hard while the brakes are locked. Lay the computer flat in table mode, and you can play air hockey, arcade games, and board games using the provided paddles, joysticks, and E-dice.

 

Now for the other side of the scale: You can’t pivot the tablet into portrait mode, which means it’s no good for playing virtual pinball. And while you can tilt the tablet on its horizontal axis and use it as an all-in-one PC, you’ll need to hold the keyboard on your lap. The removable tray that mounts to the center column is suitable only for storing accessories. Also, you have no surface for operating the mouse, leaving you dependent on the touchscreen. Last, the cart is not height-adjustable—a big ergonomic no-no.

 

On the bright side, you twist just a single oversized knob to remove and reattach the tablet to the cart. So it’s easy to use the Horizon as an all-in-one PC most of the time, and as a roll-away arcade system on game nights.