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2017 North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year entries announced

Over 40 vehicles will compete for the 2017 North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year awards. If that name looks a little strange, it's because the competition added a third category. In years past, pickup trucks, crossovers, SUVs, commercial vans, and minivans competed for the same award. That's why there were occasionally weird comparisons, like last year's competition between the Volvo XC90 and Nissan Titan XD. The new format separates pickups and commercial vans into the truck contest and CUVs, SUVs, and minivans into the utility competition. A complete list of eligible vehicles is below, but here are a few highlights. For one, the entire list of entries has a luxurious lean. Of the 43 vehicles, nearly half of them are from premium brands. There are two eligible Bentleys – the Bentayga and Mulsanne – the Rolls-Royce Dawn, Jaguar F-Pace, Audi Q7, and the Mercedes-Benz GLS-, E-, and S-Class Maybach. The performance ranks are lofty, too, with the Audi R8, Acura NSX, Alfa Romeo Giulia, Mercedes SL- and SLC-Class, Porsche 718, and F-150 Raptor. The mainstream entries are just as comprehensive. From the Chrysler Pacifica to the Chevrolet Cruze to the Fiat 124 Spider to the Mitsubishi Mirage, NACTOY has covered an enormous price range with this year's contestants. Of course, these are only the eligible vehicles. They'll need to run through three rounds of judging, starting in September at NACTOY's traditional Hell, MI, test drive. The Canadian and American journalists involved in the judging will announce this year's nine finalists – three in each category – on December 6. Cars Acura NSX Alfa Romeo Giulia Audi A4 Audi R8 Bentley Mulsanne Buick Cascada Buick LaCrosse Cadillac CT6 Chevrolet Bolt Chevrolet Cruze Fiat 124 Genesis G90 Hyundai Elantra Infiniti Q60 Jaguar XE Kia Cadenza Lincoln Continental Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan Mercedes-Benz S550 Maybach Mercedes-Benz SL-Class Mercedes-Benz SLC-Class Mini Clubman Mitsubishi Mirage/G4 Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman Rolls-Royce Dawn Toyota Prius Prime Volvo S90 SUVs Audi Q7 Bentley Bentayga Buick Envision Cadillac XT5 Chrysler Pacifica GMC Acadia Infiniti QX30 Kia Sportage Mercedes-Benz GLS-Class Jaguar F-Pace Mazda CX-9 Nissan Armada Trucks Ford F-Series Super Duty pickups Ford F-150 Raptor Honda Ridgeline Nissan Titan half-ton Related Video: Featured Gallery Bentley Bentayga View 23 Photos News Source: Automotive News - sub.

Takashi Yamanouchi to retire as Mazda chairman

Takashi Yamanouchi has been with Mazda for a long time. He signed on with the Japanese automaker in April 1967 - one month after graduating from Keio University - and rose through the ranks over the years. By 1996 he was named to the company's board of directors. In 2008 he was named president and CEO, an office he held until 2013, after which he handed over the day-to-day reins to Masamichi Kogai and took up the seat at the head of the board room to serve as the company's chairman. But now, after 47 years working for Mazda, Yamanouchi-san is retiring at the age of 69.
During his tenure as CEO and then as chairman, Yamanouchi was credited with growing Mazda's business despite unfavorable fluctuations in exchange rates, opening the company's first plant in Mexico, and spearheading the development of Mazda's Skyactiv technologies and Kodo design language.
In his place, current vice chairman Seita Kanai will take over as chairman. The changing of the guard will take place after the annual shareholders' meeting on June 24.

Mazda won't build new Mazdaspeed3 or 6 based on current models

It's sad news but not entirely unexpected: According to a Motoring interview, Mazda doesn't intend to build high-performance versions of the latest Mazda3 and Mazda6. Instead, it will wait for the next generations of those cars to arrive before applying the Mazdaspeed treatment. When the future performance models do eventually arrive, expect them to take a step upmarket compared to the last ones. In the meantime, the Japanese brand will focus its engineering resources on the next-generation Skyactiv engine family, according to Mazda's North American operations president and CEO Masahiro Moro. "Our research and development department is 100 percent focused on delivering Skyactiv generation two and if we don't have this we don't have any other derivatives," Moro told Motoring. Once the new engines arrive around 2017, Mazda's engineers can start to develop performance versions. "MPS or performance model or a sort of iconic model of the future will be a little bit later at this stage," Moro said. Moro is already thinking about the direction for the future performance vehicles. He calls the previous Mazdaspeed3 "childish" and thinks it's time to go a different way. "Mazda brand has become more mature, more upscale, more sophisticated, and we have a new transition of the brand to relate that direction," he said. Rumors last year suggested that Mazda might introduce a new Mazdaspeed3 (speculative rendering above) as a concept at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show. It would have reportedly used the CX-9's 2.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder tuned to 295 horsepower and an all-wheel-drive powertrain. The vehicle never appeared, though. The current Mazda3 and Mazda6 arrived in 2014, so a new generation of each wouldn't arrive until around 2020. That would put Mazdaspeed derivatives at 2021 or later. In short, it will be a while. For customers that have the Driving Matters attitude now, Mazda still offers the award-winning MX-5 Miata as a convertible and soon with an impressive folding hardtop. Plus, Fiat will sell its own versions of the car with 160 hp. We wouldn't mind if Mazda turned up the heat a little by introducing something like the Racing concept from last year's Tokyo Auto Salon, though. Related Video: