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A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

Chrysler extending production of current Dodge Avenger, Jeep Wrangler, Grand Caravan

Are you hesitant to pull the trigger on a brand new Dodge Avenger in hopes that a new one will be coming? Well, don't hold your breath. According to The Detroit News, Chrysler will be extending production of the current Avenger sedan through the end of 2015.
Originally, we heard that the company would kill the Avenger to better focus its midsize sedan efforts on the Chrysler 200 replacement. But then new reports stated there would indeed be an Avenger successor, and that we could see it as early as next January. This Detroit News report cites supplier sources confirming the extension of Avenger production, though Chrysler has not released an official statement on the matter.
These same suppliers say that the current Jeep Wrangler will live on through mid-2018 - that's right, another five years. The Detroit News reports that a replacement for the iconic, go-anywhere Jeep was due in mid-2016.

Dodge Durango to stay classy with Ron Burgundy as spokesperson [w/video]

The upcoming 2014 Dodge Durango has a lot of things going for it, including its 290-horsepower V6 and 360-hp Hemi V8 engine options, an eight-speed automatic and aggressive looks. And now it will have Ron Burgundy, the fictional television news anchor played by comedian Will Ferrell, as a spokesperson, Adweek reports. He follows in the footsteps of other non-fictional Chrysler brand spokespeople such as Eminem, Clint Eastwood and the late Paul Harvey.
Though the star of 2004's Anchorman and the upcoming Anchorman 2 is wildly popular, we're not sure we see a Dodge spokesperson in Burgundy. (Please, no womanizing or scotchy, scotch, scotch before test test drives). But at this point there's no turning back: Chrysler's chief marketing officer Olivier Francois previewed three ad spots at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Masters of Marketing conference in Phoenix on Friday, and says Chrysler has already filmed 68(!) Durango ads with the fictional newsman.
According to Adweek, one of the ads previewed had Burgundy highlighting the SUV's glovebox size, and in another he compared its horsepower to a white horse standing next to him. Will this help Dodge Durango sales improve? We can only wait and see. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts in Comments, and check out the trailer for Anchorman 2 below.