It’s been a bad week for cars for myself and those around me.
On Christmas Eve an old friend from high school posted this pic of what was left of her car following an accident she had on the highway:
Then, on the day after Christmas, my old Honey and my old mother-out-law had a crash in her big ole Lincoln when someone pulled out in front of them:
(not her actual Lincoln. Nobody thought to take a picture of the real crash scene.)
Then, while off with his family for Christmas, a storm sent a tree crashing onto a carport that another friend’s car was parked beneath.
Then last night the bad car Karma caught up to me, when my car started making some horrible noise on the highway. The temperature gauge reached the boiling point, and the heater quit working. No word yet on how bad the damage is, but there wasn’t a drop of coolant in the reservoir, so I fear the worst.
Jakarta, 22 Desember 2009 - Toyota Yaris kembali membuktikan ketangguhannya sebagai Indonesian Car Of The Year 2009. Kemarin malam diajang kejuaraan nasional Djarum Black Night Slalom Test 2009, Toyota Yaris berhasil keluar sebagai juara nasional kelas modifikasi (kelas F) dengan pembalapnya James Sanger dari TTI (Toyota Team Indonesia).
Penampilan James Sanger pada putaran terakhir kejuaraan nasional Djarum Black Night Slalom Test 2009 yang digelar di Pekan Raya Jakarta sangat impresif meneruskan performa Toyota Yaris yang semakin menanjak selama kejuaraan. Toyota Yaris berhasil menjadi juara kelas F malam itu setelah melewati 3 putaran yg sangat ketat semenjak siang harinya.
Pada putaran terakhir yang menentukan James Sanger dengan All New Yaris berhasil mencatatkan waktu 43,37 detik dan akhirnya menempatkan dirinya sebagai yg tercepat di kelasnya malam itu. Sementara di posisi kedua dan ketiga diikuti oleh Dika CHserta Andri SA. Toyota Yaris mendominasi kejuaraan di kelas F dengan menempatkan 6 pembalapnya di posisi teratas.
Dengan poin maksimal yang diraihnya malam itu, James Sanger tidak hanya berhasil menutup malam yg indah itu dengan trophy dan penghargaan. Tapi juga berhasil menjadi pengumpul point terbanyak dari seluruh kejuaraan di kelas F dengan 92 point dan berhak menyandang status sebagai Juara Nasional Djarum Black Night Slalom Test untuk kelas F.
“Kami sangat senang dan bangga atas pencapaian ini, musim 2009 merupakan musim yang berat tapi kami berhasil membuktikan ketangguhan team yang secara bersama-sama terus bekerja saling membantu untuk mencapai yang terbaik,” ujar Memet Djumhana Manajer Operasional Toyota Team Indonesia.
“Toyota Yaris malam ini menunjukkan performa yang sangat baik, kami bangga bisa menjadi yang terbaik di kelas favorit ini,” sambung Usman Adhie Manajer Teknik dari Toyota Team Indonesia.
“Kami semua sangat bersyukur dengan keberhasilan TTI menggapai prestasi juara pada ajang kompetisi nasional slalom Test, Toyota Yaris menunjukkan kemampuan handling dan performa yang baik, sangat cocok untuk mereka yang berjiwa sportif,” tutup Johnny Darmawan Presiden Direktur Toyota-Astra Motor.
There are so many car out there that I wish I could own…
Some day I hope.
Lots of photos today and evey one video down at the bottom so make sure you click the “Read more” link.
As 2009 draws to a close Toyota will mark the end of an era for Toyota Motorsport as it transitions from a division of South Africa’s largest motor manufacturer to a privately controlled entity backed by Toyota South Africa. While this opens up new horizons and challenges for Toyota Motorsport, it also sees the end of what has been an exceptionally successful period spanning close to 20 years.
TEXT: Toyota South Africa. IMAGES: Motorpics.
During this time, under the management of the quietly spoken Wammy Haddad, Toyota South Africa emerged as the dominant force in local motorsport, especially in national championship rallying. It is this highly competitive team that will form the foundation of the new privately managed organisation to be run by Glyn Hall.
Wammy joined Toyota in December 1990 to take up the challenge of raising the level of competiveness of a team, that up until that time, had featured well both technically and competitively but lacked consistency in a highly competitive environment.
Toyota first appeared as a national championship rally winner in 1968 when Jan Hettema and Raggy Schjolberg won that year’s Moonlight Rally. The pair followed that up with a win in the Tour Natal Rally. These two wins combined with consistent finishes in the other five events in the 1968 championship saw Hettema and Schjolberg secure Toyota South Africa’s first championship win. Hettema repeated this success in 1969, this time together with Franz Boshoff.
A lean spell followed for Toyota with the advent of the super fast Group B rally cars and the transfer of the Audi Quattro technology (virtually unbeatable in international competition) to South Africa with few results for Toyota through the seventies and early Eighties.
A new era for South African rallying dawned in 1989 when South Africa adopted a unique new rally formula for the National Championship based on four-wheel drive cars fitted with naturally-aspirated 2-litre engines. Sound familiar? Sure it does – this is the basis of the highly successful S2000 formula that has evolved internationally in the past four years and has been our premier rally class since 2005.
In this ultra-competitive period in South African rallying, four manufacturers fielded cars for as many as ten top class competitors with Toyota the class of the field.
Up until the time that Wammy joined Toyota, the company had won just 17 national championship rallies in 22 years. During his 19 year spell, 74 national championship wins were added to the total, a total that falls just four victories shy of eclipsing the total number of wins scored by all other manufacturers together during this time. It is this success that has made Toyota the dominant manufacturer in the 49-year history of the South African rally championship. Two seasons in particular underlined that dominance – the 1995 and 1996 championships where Serge Damseaux won seven of the eight events in each of those two years.
An outstanding feature of this period for Toyota was the close working relationship that developed between the team and Serge Damseaux. This close understanding between team, manager and driver of just what was required to be successful led to a string of nine drivers’ championships for Damseaux (out of his total of ten) and 14 manufacturers’ championships for Toyota with successive manufacturers’ titles over the past 12 years.
Fundamental to the success in the manufacturers’ championship has been the role played by privateers with significant support provided with Wammy always available to provide guidance and assistance together with a clear path to progression through the classes.
During the past 20 years there have been numerous changes in direction in the rules for the premier class in rallying. On each occasion Toyota has been able to adapt and field superbly competitive vehicles from the outset. This without being able to draw on any engineering support from the parent company in Japan.
When the rules changed to ban the 2-litre 4X4 cars that had proved so successful, Toyota was caught short without a suitable competitor for the top class. Undeterred the team chose to take on the field with an A8 class car, one class down from the top class, as a stop gap and went on to score a stunning win first time out with this car and the championship that year as well.
When it became clear that the FIA was looking to move to a new reasonably priced and competitive regional formula, Wammy Haddad became a forceful campaigner for the adoption of S2000 as both our premier national championship class and the premier regional FIA rally class. Based on his experience and high level of success with 2-litre naturally-aspirated 4X4 rally cars, together with Andre van der Watt, he was a powerful lobbying force with the FIA to ensure that a true regional competitor perspective was adopted by the FIA when they finalised the S2000 rules, highlighting a number of potentially expensive pitfalls.
The engineering approach adopted for the RunX was one of functional simplicity, one that provided excellent performance without the expensive add-ons that look good, add to the cost of rally cars, but don’t add that much in terms of performance.
When the FIA homologation inspection took place it was attended by a representative from Peugeot in France who at the time were busy preparing the 207 for its entry into S2000. This representative was heard to comment that they, Peugeot, had perhaps gone a little too sophisticated in their approach and misread the requirements of a true regional rally car that was so well engineered into the RunX.
Toyota Motorsport was the first organisation in the world to build and compete in an event with an S2000 car – the 2005 Tour Natal Rally – and went on to win four of the eight events that year. If it were not for a minor electrical fault in that first event, Serge Damseaux would likely have been a winner first time out.
In the frantic world of international rallying, Toyota Motorsport was narrowly beaten by FIAT in the race to achieve the first full FIA S2000 international homologation. The RunX was, however, just the second S2000 car to achieve this distinction. The RunX S2000 did, however, achieve the distinction of being the first ever S2000 car to compete in a round of the World Rally Championship.
This was in the 2006 WRC Wales Rally GB when Alistair McRae gave the RunX its WRC debut. After a number of teething problems on the first day of the event, McRae stunned the established international class N4 competitors with a number of quickest stage times for the class, prompting a number of seasoned competitors and enthusiasts to comment that the RunX had provided a convincing display of the potential of S2000.
Toyota Motorsport is to date the only manufacturer in the world to have homologated a second generation S2000 car. This was achieved with the FIA homologation of the Auris in September of this year. It is this second generation S2000 from Toyota that has done so much to inject an element of intense competition into the Sasol South African National Rally Championship over the past eighteen months. Stage times now need to be recorded down to tenths of a second to separate competitors, and this year’s championship saw Johnny Gemmell and Hergen Fekken go into the last event with just one point separating them.
The introduction of the Special Production vehicle class in the Absa South African National Off-Road Racing Championship brought with it the challenge of developing the latest generation Hilux into event-winning form to take on Nissan with its vast store of experience gained on the Dakar Rally. The Hilux showed its true form in the 2009 season when it proved to be arguably the quickest SP class vehicle in the field. The first win for the Hilux came at the Carnival City round this year when Gary Bertholdt took his privately entered Hilux, built to Toyota Motorsport specification, to a fine win. Anthony Taylor underlined the fact that the Hilux was now the vehicle to beat in the SP class when he won the final event of the year. Added to the dominant success in rallying are three Manufacturers’ Championships in off-road racing for the Hilux.
Another feature of Wammy Haddad’s term at Toyota Motorsport has been the relationship with title sponsor Castrol. This relationship has proved to be one of the most enduring and successful in South African motorsport.
Strategic decisions within Toyota South Africa have dictated change within the organisation of Toyota South Africa’s motorsport operations. After a competitive bid process the company has awarded Glyn Hall a contract to take the team forward. Glyn faces new challenges, but with a solid foundation to build on.
The moment we’ve been waiting for us is here: Toyota has announced it will offer a plug-in Prius to the masses in 2011 and it will be an “affordable” car, offering triple-digit fuel economy.
The world’s No. 1 automaker has for years offered a litany of reasons why adding a cord to the world’s most popular hybrid wasn’t as easy as all those enthusiasts who have done it would have you believe. There were questions about range, reliability and cost. But it seems Toyota has at last answered them, and today it announced it will offer the plug-in Prius in “widespread release” as a 2012 model.
So what made Toyota finally get off the dime? Could it be that the company that made hybrid a household word is a wee bit worried about losing the green mantle to General Motors or Nissan? After all, theChevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf electric vehicles roll into showrooms at the end of next year.
The New York Times says Toyota has “scrambled to gain the upper hand in an increasingly crowded battle over next-generation ‘green’ technology.” It’s a fair assessment, now that everyone’s jumping on the hybrid bandwagon. You know it’s a crowded field when there’s a Porsche Cayenne hybrid and even a Tata Nano hybrid on the horizon.
Clearly Toyota needs to do something if it is to retain its rep for innovation. And when you look at what Toyota is bringing to the showrooms, the plug-in Prius is a fairly nice piece of kit. For starters, it will be the first Toyota with lithium-ion batteries. It will allow the corded car to travel 14.5 miles on electricity alone. Not much, but it’s a start. More impressive is the fuel economy — Toyota’s claiming 134 mpg.
The Times notes Toyota is throwing its considerable weight behind hybrids and won’t be looking at battery electrics or other alt fuels anytime soon.
“We have been working on developing efficient powertrains to be able to use oil as efficiently as possible. Many hurdles remain for alternative fuels,” Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota’s executive vice president, told the Times. He went further when he talked to the Wall Street Journal: “Toyota believes that plug-in hybrids are a realistic solution among vehicles using electricity.”
Toyota is developing the batteries through its partnership with Panasonic, which has provided the nickel-metal hydride batteries in the Prius we all know and love. Production started last month at its Teiho factory in Japan, but Bloomberg reports future batteries could be sourced from other suppliers, such as Sanyo Electric Company.
Although we won’t see the plug-in Prius in showrooms until 2011, Toyota is rolling out 500 of them in the coming months. It’s providing 350 of them to municipal fleets in Japan to further refine the technology. Another 150 are slated for fleets in the United States early next year. Toyota will collect info on a variety of topics, including how and when the vehicles are charged, whether the batteries are depleted and how they are performing.
No word on what the plug-in Prius will cost, but Uchiyamada promised it will be “affordable.” The 2010 Prius starts at $22,400.
He already traded it for an AE86, but it’s still an awesome car. Rear wheel box hatch. It was born to win. Check out his build….http://www.driftworks.com/forum/drift-car-projects-builds/45979-kp61.html
Last pic is a little bit before the above pics. It’s sportin different look, and some Hoshino Impuls. I heart those rims.
Jakarta, 10 Desember 2009 - Presiden Direktur PT. Toyota-Astra Motor (TAM) Johnny Darmawan dianugerahi oleh MarkPlus, Inc sebagai “Marketing Champion” pada bidang Automotive, Logistic and Transportation. Penghargaan ini diserahkan ditengah-tengah acara Markplus Conference 2010 di Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Pacific Place, Kamis (10/12)
Sukses Johnny meraih penghargaan ini salah satunya dikarenakan keberhasilannya membawa Toyota Indonesia untuk berhasil melalui krisis ekonomi global. Tidak hanya mampu bertahan, TAM bahkan berhasil mempertahankan untuk tetap menjadi produsen otomotif pilihan utama konsumen di Indonesia.
Di bawah kepemimpinan Johnny Darmawan yang sebelumnya mendapatkan beberapa penghargaan Best CEO 2009 versi majalah SWA dan CEO Idaman bidang otomotif versi majalah Warta Ekonomi, Toyota di tengah situasi ekonomi yang tidak kondusif sepanjang tahun 2009 malah berhasil menaikkan pangsa pasar hingga 39.2% (hingga November 2009). Hal ini menunjukkan sebuah kinerja positif ditengah gejolak pasar sepanjang tahun 2009.
Beberapa apresiasi pun telah diterima oleh Toyota sepanjang tahun 2009 berkat tangan dingin nya, antara lain seperti Toyota Yaris sebagai Indonesian Car Of The Year 2009 versi majalah Mobil Motor dan juga Toyota Prius sebagai Car Of The year 2009 versi majalah Autobild. Serta yang terbaru penghargaan untuk Toyota Rush dan Fortuner yang berhasil meraih penghargaan JD Power Asia Pasifik untuk IQS (Initial Quality Survey) 2009.
Johnny memaparkan untuk meraih kesuksesan tersebut, dia menerapkan”Winning concept, Winning team, Winning system dan Humble” atau yang disebutnya sebagai 3 W + 1 H. Dengan rendah hati bapak tiga orang anak ini memaparkan kesuksesan yang diperoleh adalah berkat kerjasama tim.
“Saya bersyukur atas penghargaan yang dianugerahkan kepada saya ini. Namun penghargaan ini sejatinya milik team yang bekerja bersama saya selama ini, hal ini yang membuat Toyota dapat berhasil melalui tahun yang penuh tantangan ini.” ungkap Johnny.
CORNING CHEVROLET BUICK
2087 Solano Street
Corning, CA 96021
Call Bill Bradley Toll-free: 800.881.9262
VEHICLE INFORMATION
2009 Pontiac
Vibe Sport Wagon 4D
Stock #: 5060
VIN: 5Y2SP678X9Z434289
Engine: 4-Cyl. 2.4 Liter
Transmission: Automatic
Color: Teal Green
Mileage: 34965
VEHICLE FEATURES
ABS (4-Wheel)
Air Conditioning
AM/FM Stereo
Cruise Control
Dual Front Air Bags
Power Door Locks
Power Steering
Power Windows
Roof Rack
Single Compact Disc
Tilt Wheel
COMMENTS
Bill Bradley 800.881.9262
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Redding Kia: (Visit Online | Get Directions)
Budget Auto Center: (Visit Online | Get Directions)
Corning Chevrolet Buick : (Visit Online | Get Directions)
Di bawah kepemimpinan Johnny Darmawan yang sebelumnya mendapatkan beberapa penghargaan Best CEO 2009 versi majalah SWA dan CEO Idaman bidang otomotif versi majalah Warta Ekonomi, Toyota di tengah situasi ekonomi yang tidak kondusif sepanjang tahun 2009 malah berhasil menaikkan pangsa pasar hingga 39.2% (hingga November 2009). Hal ini menunjukkan sebuah kinerja positif ditengah gejolak pasar sepanjang tahun 2009.
