– Toyota will invade another piece of domestic turf in 2007, when it begins competing in the NASCAR Nextel Cup and Busch series, the top two tiers of American stock-car racing. Toyota will race Camry-badged cars against entries from Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge, the first foreign manufacturer to run in NASCAR’s top stock-car series since Jaguar in 1955. Toyota has competed since 2004 in the Craftsman Truck series, a training ground for Nextel Cup. Toyota will mark its 50th year of U.S. sales in 2007.
– To distinguish all-wheel-drive crossovers from all-wheel-drive sport-utilities, Ford has come up with the CUV, or crossover-utility vehicle. SUVs will remain SUVs, of course.
– James Bond, the arbiter of style for men since his 1962 film debut, has careened around mountain turns in Lotuses, BMWs, a Citroen–even an AMC Hornet. In his next movie, “Casino Royale,” due out in November, he is back in Aston Martin, the DBS. Aston got its first supporting role in “Goldfinger.”
– The Honda Civic and Honda Ridgeline have taken the honors as North American Car and Truck of the year from 49 automotive writers.
– With so much attention devoted to hybrids last year, Ford Chairman Bill Ford was asked why his company did little to promote the hybrid Escape SUV in print or on TV. “When we launched it we only were going to build 20,000 so some decided we didn’t need to advertise it. As the volume increases, you can expect us to tell the story more,” promises Ford.
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Transportation in brief is compiled from the notebooks of Jim Mateja and Rick Popely, and from Tribune news services.
