So Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda’s finally manned up and is going to testify before Congress this week. Hoping they nab him to the wall? Hoping Toyota gets what it deserves for its bungled handling of the whole unintended acceleration mess?

Just be careful what you wish for.

From an enthusiast’s point of view, the flashes of brilliance at Toyota — the first front-drive Celica with the Lotus-tuned suspension, the twin turbo Supras, the original Lexus LS 400, the first-gen MR2, the Lexus IS-F — have been few and far between. But that hasn’t stopped most of us in this business recommending Toyotas to people who want reliable, no-nonsense transportation. A Toyota has always been something you could confidently recommend to someone’s great aunt in Duluth.

Until now, of course.

The alteration inflicted on Toyota’s reputation over the past few months has been enormous, and will take a long time to heal. Is it permanent? Probably not — look how Ford recovered from the Pinto gas-tank and Firestone fiascos and how GM got over the Corvair. What could be permanent, however, is fallout from this week’s hearings in Washington.

Congress is now engaged in the Toyota recall saga. What started out as an issue between Toyota, its customers, and country regulators, has now entered the realm of political theater.
House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman has already fired the first salvo, in a letter sent to Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc: “Our preliminary assessment is that Toyota resisted the possibility that electronic defects could cause country concerns, relied on a flawed engineering report, and prefabricated misleading public statements concerning the adequacy of recent recalls to address the risk of sudden unintended acceleration.”

A media advisory from Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Ed Towns makes a point of noting the hearing “will examine the Federal government’s response to the recall, and to acquire a better understanding of the nature of the sudden acceleration problem in Toyota vehicles and what should be done about it”.

Toyota says it has rewritten its engine management software to ensure the brake will always override the engine, thereby preventing any potential for an unintended acceleration. In the current climate, however, it wouldn’t take much of a stretch for lawmakers to simply decide to mandate similar override software on all cars and trucks sold in the United States. It would be an cushy way of being seen to be doing something about the issue.

So the Toyota affair may become another excuse for politicians to engineer the cars and trucks we drive, whether we need their help or not.

Tomorrow, General Motors is expected to announce that will run three shifts at its Lordstown, Ohio assembly plant on three shifts when production of the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze begins later this year. At least that's what the Wall Street Journal is reporting today.

The declaration is said to be a sign of the company's bullishness on small cars. That reasoning isn't borne out by the numbers, however, as the article also notes that the size of the small car segment has remained unchanged since last year at around 12% of total sales. It also pointed out that GM also upped production at its Texas truck plant recently to replenish short supplies of its full-size SUVs.

WSJ 

No big surprise here. Now that the TSX has grown in size there's some room in the lineup for something a little smaller. According to a report in Automotive News from Acura's recent dealer meeting, the company is seriously considering such a vehicle.

It would help Acura meet looming CAFE requirements, not to mention give it something to compete against cars like the BMW 1 Series and Audi A3. With competitors like that in mind a hatchback vehicle similar to the old RSX sounds likely, but Acura officials declined to say whether to say what configuration the company is considering.

Automotive News

Now that Sync has prefabricated a study for itself in the automotive world, various automakers are attempting to catch up. Kia recently announced its UVO system and now there's Mini Connected.

The new interface will debut in the Mini Countryman and according to Mini it will feature the industry's first web broadcasting system. "Once a MINI is linked to the outside world via MINI Connected, the driver has a choice of broadcasting stations streamed to the vehicle from anywhere in the world, provided the station is acquirable in the extensive station database."

We're not sure how big that database will be, but adopt that will include more stations that your current FM selection. Hopefully more than satellite broadcasting too. The rest of Mini Connected appears to be your basic  iPod integration system along with a spiffy new graphical interface.

Lotus' preoccupation with all things light weight has driven the company to unveil this concept, which in the study of mass reduction does away with a body, seats, drivers, passengers, axles, cupholders and many other things that would make this an automobile.

Oh, all right. The image above is simply an illustration of the power train that will sit underneath the Italdesign series-hybrid city car concept that the Italian design house will unveil next week at the Geneva Auto Show for Malaysian manufacturer Proton. The concept itself (pictured left) looks like, well, a five-door hybrid city car concept. This small-but-tall, four-seat A-segment car has a raised floor to accommodate the hybrid system's batteries.

The power train, conceived and built by Lotus Engineering, delivers what the company calls "acceptable electric-only operating range for city use." When the journey is longer than just to your local Aldi, the Proton's 1.2-liter, 3-cylinder engine fires up to replenish the battery charge and wage electrical power to motivate the electric drive motors. The battery can also be charged by plugging it into a surround outlet. Sounds a bit like something we've hear before (We're looking directly at you Chevrolet Volt). But instead of coming up with a whole new description for the set-up as GM has with its "Extended-Range Electric Vehicle," Lotus simply calls it what it is, a series hybrid.

Dodge announced today that it will be building another batch of Challenger Drag Pak cars for 2010.

The company constructed 100 of the drag-strip specials for 2009. The 2010 car is priced at $39,999 and is built for sanctioned NHRA Stock, Super Stock and Comp Eliminator racing. Don't get any funny ideas now, the Drag Pak cars are not street legal.

The 2010 car is offered only with the 6.1-liter Hemi V8. The 2009 car could also be had with a 5.7-liter Hemi and a 5.9-liter Magnum Wedge. The company says 90 percent of the 2009 cars were ordered with the 6.1-liter so there was little point in continuing with the other engines. The 2010 car can be ordered with a 6-speed manual or a 5-speed automatic transmission.

Like the 2009 version, the new batch of cars are about 1,000 pounds lighter than the two-ton-plus street Challenger and includes composite lift-off hood with scoop, Viper-style front seats, polycarbonate door windows, a light-weight cooling module with electric fan, manual rack-and-pinion steering, light-weight front brakes and a special cable-operated throttle linkage and pedal assembly.

Want one of the 70 Drag Pak cars that Mopar will build for 2010? Well, then you've got to submit an application to Mopar, which is, or soon will be,  acquirable at www.mopar.com.

This is the latest test mule of the 2011 BMW X3. As you can see, it's not all that different form the current X3. It's your basic compact SUV with a high seating position, all-wheel drive and a little bit of cargo room out back. From what we hear, this X3 will go on understanding toward the end of this year just before the slightly smaller X1 arrives in primeval 2011.

This sketch is an primeval tease of the 2011 Kia Optima that will make its world premiere at the 2010 New York Auto Show. We caught prototypes of the next-generation Optima awhile back and this rendering seems to fit with the shape of the test mules.

Kia says this Optima will be longer, lower and wider than the current model and go on understanding in the U.S. in the fall. More sketches next page.

Since a bunch of pics and a little bit of info on the Audi RS5 leaked out over the weekend, the company decided to just go ahead and give up the rest. So here you have another set of official pics and we can confirm that this new super coupe will be powered by 4.2-liter V8 of the FSI variety.

Audi says it's closely related to the V10 in the top of the line R8, so figure its just like that lovely piece with a couple cylinders lopped off. Power is still substantial though, with ratings of 450 horses at 8,250rpm and 317 pound-feet of torque at 4,000rpm. It's a routed though a seven-speed dual clutch transmission and a quattro system with torque vectoring technology.

The heavily revised suspension results in a near one-inch drop in ride height compared to a standard A4. All RS5s will ride on standard 19-inch wheels with 265/35 tires at apiece corner. A set of 20-inch wheels is optional along with carbon ceramic brakes. Audi's Drive Select adjustable suspension is part of the package as well and on the RS5 it adds adjustable exhaust flaps that open things up a bit when in Dynamic mode. Nice. More pics next page.

You may have heard that Cadillacs aren't real big in Europe. In fact, part of their barely noticeable presence is their sheer size. The company tried to cure that problem with a small sedan based on a Saab, but no Euro was buying that one. It also didn't help that they were sold through some third party distributor that eventually went belly up after giving a good try for a few years.

Now Cadillac has announced that it is going full steam ahead once again in Europe. This time it will sell its latest models through franchised dealerships just like the U.S. According to the release, Cadillac Europe will start off by selling all the various iterations of the CTS, so sedan, coupe, sport auto and V-series versions of the first two.

Sure the new CTS will give the Europeans something to consider seriously. But the real question is, with all of GM's troubles in the U.S. is this a good time to be branching out into a market is notoriously difficult to break into with U.S.-based products? We'll see by this time next year.