Dealership enjoys a day for the record books

Morale is running high at Bray Motors in Toronto, as well it should be. Read on to find out why employees are high-fiving each other. We’d say August 7, 2008 was a pretty good day at Bray Motors, a General Motors dealership in Toronto, Ontario. Years from now the people involved will remember exactly what they were doing when they heard the news. As the Canadian Press tells the story, salesmen were drinking beer and champagne in the showroom. An impromptu barbecue was set up and cake was served. The reason for the celebration? The dealership’s owner and his 24 employees received word that they held one of two winning tickets in Canada’s Lotto 6/49. They will share half of the $45 million jackpot, receiving just over $900,000 each. A dealership employee had been buying tickets for the group for the past 14 years.


Mercedes in-car device warns drowsy drivers

Mercedes-Benz has announced its new Attention Assist, a support system that is able to recognize driver fatigue at an early stage and warn the driver that a break is required. The system will enter series production next spring.The company said that studies indicate around 25 per cent of all serious crashes are caused by overtired drivers, a percentage more significant than driving under the influence of alcohol. The situation is worse during long-distance journeys in the dark or unchanging conditions at a constant cruising speed. After only four hours of non-stop driving, a driver’s reaction time can be 50 per cent longer. The risk of a crash is doubled after this length of time, and after six hours of driving it can be eight times as high. The system monitors the driver’s behaviour, generating an individual driver profile which is constantly compared to a flow of sensor data, measuring vehicle speed, linear/lateral acceleration, steering wheel movements, turn signal and pedal operation, and a number of specific control operations and external influences, such as side winds or uneven road surfaces. If the system detects the driver is drowsy, it sounds an acoustic signal and flashes a warning in the instrument cluster.


Well-known U.S. dealer groups make significant investments in domestic franchises

The Van Tuyl Group buys a Lincoln Mercury and a Ford store in Phoenix and combines them under one roof. Fred Beans receives final approval for a $10 million GM sales and service facility in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Some stock market investors like to follow the big money. See what the big boys are doing and do the same is the investment strategy. While the news is full of dealership closings and consolidations, it may be instructive to watch what some of the large dealer groups are doing. While we would love to write more happy news about the car business, this has not been a very happy year for most auto dealers. And a difficult year turned downright ugly when the buying public finally discovered the price at which gasoline would alter their car buying preferences. The collapse of the truck and SUV markets in the last three months was both disheartening and staggering. To be sure, both the Van Tuyl Group, with 65 locations in ten states and Fred Beans Automotive featuring 23 brands in and around Doylestown, Pennsylvania are heavily invested in all kinds of brands. But in recent times the trend has been away from domestic makes for many of the larger dealer groups and toward high-volume imports and high-line luxury brands. So it is significant when dealer groups that have a wide portfolio of brands make serious investments in domestic franchises that many see as tainted or at least shaky. The Van Tuyl acquisition reported by The Arizona Republic appears to be a classic consolidation move- bringing two separate dealerships together under one roof. For whatever reason, the two previous owners of these points could not come to that end on their own. The new consolidated location along Camelback Road will be added to an already impressive array of Van Tuyl dealerships along the same strip that includes Toyota, Honda and VW brands. Consolidation may also have played a role in the Fred Beans expansion. The new GM center will service a Chevrolet dealership as well as a Buick-Pontiac-GMC franchise. The 38,000 square-foot complex will be right next door to an existing Fred Beans Cadillac Saab point, making it a huge GM shopping center. As reported on the website phillyBurbs.com the new facility will be three times the size of the one it replaces. So, at least some of the “big boys” are investing in domestic brands.

20-litre cars will appear at Pebble Beach

Four vehicles with engines displacing more than 20 litres, or more than 1,220 cubic inches, will be on display August 17 at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance show in California. The vehicles, including a “tank car” owned by Tonight Show host Jay Leno, will be highlighted in a special class for 20 litres and over at the 58th annual event. On display will be the only long-chassis 200-horsepower “Blitzen Benz”, a custom Rolls-Royce modified to fit a 27-litre Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine taken from a P-51 fighter, and the 1953 Swandean Spitfire Special, using the same engine with a hand-fabricated chassis. The sole modern offering will be Leno’s custom car, which uses a 30-litre V12 Chrysler-built engine derived from an M-47 Patton tank.“It’s just ridiculous and probably the most inefficient fuelled vehicle ever devised,” Leno said. “There’s no practical purpose to it, other than it’s just fun and people get a kick out of seeing it. In an era where things are getting smaller and smaller, this is a throwback to a time when things were really, really big.” To put the cars into perspective, modern semi-truck engines generally top out at 13 litres. The 20-litre club class is a one-year-only display. “This is a tongue-and-cheek class not based on anything but fun,” Leno said. “I’m not even sure my car will be able to make it around the corner down there at Pebble Beach, so we’ll see what happens.”

Toyota Venza sketch debuts on YouTube

Toyota has posted a “time-lapse sketch” of its new 2009 Venza crossover vehicle, which is scheduled to go on sale later this year. “We wanted to create something entirely different,” said Kevin Hunter, president of Toyota’s Calty Design Research in Newport Beach, California. “Not an SUV, not a wagon, not a coupe and not a sedan. We aimed for a more road-focused vehicle and sporty direction.” The Venza is based on the FT-SX concept that debuted at the 2005 Detroit Auto Show. With overwhelmingly positive response to the show vehicle, Toyota decided to develop Venza with a distinctly American plan. It was one of the first times an American styling group created an overall design concept that engineers would follow for development. The new model will be built alongside the Camry, Solara and Avalon at Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Kentucky, with 70 per cent of its components coming from North American suppliers. The Venza design sketch video is available at YouTube.

Volvo builds four-millionth car in Belgium

Volvo has built its four-millionth car at its manufacturing facility in Ghent, Belgium. The milestone model, a V50 R-design, was ordered by a customer from Breda, Netherlands. Volvo has been building cars in Belgium since 1965, initially to avoid the country’s high import taxes on assembled vehicles. Over the years, the Ghent facility has become one of the company’s two main factories, along with the Torslanda plant in Göteborg, Sweden. The Ghent facility has more than 4,000 employees and built approximately 200,000 vehicles in 2007. The facility’s first model was the Volvo 120, also known as the Amazon; today, it builds the C30, S40, V50 and S60, and in a few weeks will begin assembly of the new XC60 crossover, which will launch in Canada in the first half of 2009. The factory achieved its one-million milestone in 1988, two million in 1997, and three million in 2004.