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Raising A White Flag To The Competition
We all benefit from highly competitive battles. In the automotive sector, few campaigns are so closely fought as the decades-long struggle for supremacy in the fullsize half-ton pickup truck segment. The Ford F-150 has dominated for ages, but Chevrolet, Ram and GMC have been closing the gap with freshly redesigned trucks that are rocking the industry.
Today's half-ton trucks are better than they've ever been, and we have fierce competition to thank for that.

Toyota, Mazda partner to build EVs at new $1.6 billion U.S. plant

TOKYO — Toyota and Mazda plan to build a $1.6 billion U.S. assembly plant, the two said on Friday, as part of an alliance that will also see the Japanese automakers jointly develop electric vehicle technologies. The two will take small stakes in each other as part of the tie-up: Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker by vehicle sales last year, will take a 5 percent share of Mazda, extending its dominance in Japan's auto sector. Mazda will take a 0.25 percent share of its larger rival. The plant, something of a surprise at a time of overcapacity in the U.S. market, will be a boost to U.S. President Donald Trump, who campaigned on promises to increase manufacturing and expand employment for American autoworkers. The plant will be capable of producing 300,000 vehicles a year, with production divided between the two automakers, and employ about 4,000 people. It will start operating in 2021. The electric vehicles cooperation, meanwhile, comes as the tightening of global emissions regulations prompts more automakers to develop battery powered cars, as the industry struggles with hefty research costs and intense competition from technology companies over technology like self-driving cars. As part of the agreement, Toyota and Mazda will also work together to develop in-car information technologies and automated driving functions. Toyota, Japan's biggest auto company, has been forging alliances with smaller Japanese rivals for several years, effectively engineering a loose consolidation of the Japanese auto sector. It already owns a 16.5 percent stake in Subaru, Japan's No. 6 automaker, with which it also has a development partnership. Toyota is also courting compact car maker Suzuki to cooperate on R&D and parts supply as Toyota seeks to tap its smaller rival's expertise in emerging Asian markets. A stake in Mazda may also prevent future incursions by tech companies, one analyst said. "For a technology company which lacks the expertise in making cars, Mazda could look like a very interesting acquisition. They're very good, they're not too expensive. Maybe Toyota realizes this," CLSA managing director Chris Richter said. "By buying a 5 percent stake, Toyota takes Mazda off the table rather than having it sit out there like a free agent which could someday be used against them." COROLLA PRODUCTION SHIFT Mazda stands to gain from a deal that gives the small automaker a production foothold in the United States.

Junkyard Gem: 1992 Lexus SC 400

After Toyota stunned the automotive world with the Lexus LS 400 in 1989, offering a majestically engineered luxury sedan with an all-new DOHC V8 at less than half the cost of its Mercedes-Benz 560 SEL rival, what could be done to follow that (other than a money-printing Lexus-badged Camry, that is)? Clearly, the missing piece of the Lexus branding puzzle at the time was a sports coupe, something to extract the money of car shoppers considering, say, a new Mercedes-Benz 300 CE or Acura Legend coupe. That car turned out to be the Lexus SC, styled in California and known as the third-generation Toyota Soarer in Japan. Here's one of the very first SCs sold in the United States, found in a Denver-area self-service yard last month. These cars had intimidatingly good build quality (I know, because I dismantled a '92 SC 400 down to its smallest components a while back), clearly designed to last at least a quarter-million miles with routine maintenance. This one got hit hard in the right rear, however, and it wasn't worth repairing the damage to a non-SUV pushing three decades of age. Americans could buy a six-cylinder version, the SC 300, which came standard with a five-speed manual transmission (almost all buyers "upgraded" to the automatic, of course). This car is the SC 400, which means it has the same 1UZ-FE V8 engine as the LS 400. That's 250 super-smooth horses and six-bolt main bearing caps keeping the crankshaft from going anywhere it shouldn't. The SC 400 never was available with a manual transmission, nor was its SC 430 successor. This one has the mandatory Aisin-Warner four-speed automatic. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Lexus SC400 articulated door hinge operation The complex door hinges offered good clearance in tight parking spaces. These cars were very quiet and comfortable and they could cruise all day at triple-digit speeds, but a curb weight pushing 3,600 pounds meant that the SC 400 wasn't going to beat its Porsche 928 rival on a race track. Actually, the 1992 928S4 cost more than twice as much as the 1992 Lexus SC 400 ($80,920 versus $37,500) and had both a more powerful (326hp) V8 and available manual transmission; perhaps the 1992 Cadillac Eldorado Touring Coupe ($32,470, 200hp V8, automatic) was a more realistic sales rival for today's Junkyard Gem.