2010 Toyota Corolla Le on 2040-cars

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Honda Civic losing ground to Toyota Corolla, sales crown threatened

Oh, what a difference a year has made. When the numbers were tallied for 2013, the Honda Civic was riding high by claiming its segment's sales crown in the US despite being challenged by the latest generation of the Toyota Corolla for part of the year. However, with just a month to go in the battle for C-segment supremacy in 2014, it looks like Toyota gets to hoist the trophy this time. Looking at November sales numbers, Honda moved 300,644 Civics through the first 11 months of the year, down 2.1 percent in volume. Furthermore, for the month alone, the company sold 23,060 Civics, a 12.3 percent drop. Meanwhile, on Toyota's side, business has been booming comparatively. Through the first 11 months it sold 309,373 Corollas, a 10.6 percent jump, and for November alone it moved 25,609 examples, a 14.2 percent improvement. With fewer than 10,000 cars between them, it would take quite a December slump for the Corolla to lose this fight. According to The Truth About Cars, the Civic actually started out the 2014 somewhat positively with 5 percent growth over the previous year, though still behind the Corolla's figures. However, the Honda has seen a slide since then with five consecutive months of sales drops. Meanwhile, the Toyota has generally kept showing growth. Being the newer model of the two, the Corolla comes to this fight with an advantage. Honda hasn't let the Civic languish; it gave the model a CVT in 2014 to boost fuel economy. That's nothing like the Toyota's thorough recent rethink, though. According to TTAC, Honda does have reason to crow about the Civic, just not necessarily in the US. The model is on track to be the bestselling vehicle in Canada for the 17th consecutive year and have its best sales since 2008 there.

New version of Toyota FT-1 Concept gets racy for Gran Turismo 6

Gran Turismo 6 has been the preferred marketing springboard for quite a few brands and concept cars since its debut last winter. Specifically the GT Vision concept idea - allowing manufacturers a built-in place to offer up new, original, drivable content - has enticed the likes of Mercedes, Nissan, Volkswagen, Toyota and more to dream big on the digital stage before pulling the sheets back on real concept cars.
In fact, Toyota teamed its live reveal of the FT-1 Concept at the Detroit Auto Show with an in-game launch of the car, just this past January. Looking for a second bite at the GT6 apple, Toyota has just released a teaser video for a new, FT-1 Vision GT version of the same concept.
The company isn't giving us much to go on save for the 30-second video, saying only that the concept was penned by Toyota's Calty Design Research team in California, and that it will "soon be available for download." By the looks of it, the new FT-1 seems to be more of a racecar than the original, without obvious changes to the basic form. No word on whether or not there's a physical concept car in the offing at a yet-to-be-named auto show. Stay tuned.

2014 Toyota Tundra

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.