The Dirt Road - Car News

Porsche fights London law that triples the cost of driving into town, Isuzu slides into the void, Toyota fights mites.

BY TONY QUIROGA, PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM LUDWICK
May 2008

Porsche pounding: London mayor Ken Livingstone is proposing a hike in the congestion charge levied against most privately owned vehicles that enter the city center between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Enacted in February 2003, the £8 ($16) congestion charge was an attempt to reduce traffic and pollution in the city. Under the new plan, vehicles with engines over 3.0 liters of displacement will have to pay £25 ($50). Oddly enough, one of the groups fighting the scheme in London’s High Court is a definite outsider, the German automaker Porsche, whose only model under 3.0 liters is the base Boxster. Porsche is requesting a judicial review and taking the mayor’s Transport for London to court in hopes that the new policy will be deemed illegal. Porsche’s interest in the matter is probably purely selfish. Should the change come to pass, the sports-car maker will likely lose the lucrative business of the wealthy banker types who live and work in central London.

Gone fishing: Product-starved Isuzu has seen its sales plunge from more than 100,000 in 1999 to just over 7000 last year. So Isuzu will stop selling new vehicles on January 31. With no product of its own since 2004, the brand was relegated to selling rebadged Chevy Colorados and TrailBlazers (Isuzu i-series pickups and the Ascender), and sales headed south, big time. Introduced to the U.S. market in 1981, Isuzu products enjoyed brisk sales through the ’80s and ’90s on the strength of its SUVs, the Rodeo and the Trooper. Recall that before Honda had an SUV of its own design, it sold rebadged Isuzu Rodeos as Honda Passports. The Isuzu name won’t disappear entirely; the company will continue to sell its larger commercial trucks.

Skin crawl: Toyota is coming out with a new seat fabric that virtually eliminates disgusting but nearly omnipresent dust mites. Dust-mite infestation in fabric or upholstery can produce an itchy allergic reaction that’s as bad as the mere thought of the microscopic creatures crawling on or under your skin. The new fabric will debut in Japanese-market Toyotas and will presumably be offered on future Toyotas in the States.

Face time: At the Detroit auto show this past January, Hyundai was still mulling over which grille it would place on its new Genesis luxury sedan. On the Hyundai stand were the two candidates, a classic grille with the “H” logo and a chrome-laden “waterfall” grille without any brand marking. The Korean carmaker has now decided that the Genesis will wear the “waterfall” grille without the Hyundai logo.