Tag Archives: Ken Zino as AutoCrat

GM 1940 Design Sketches Found in Rochester NY

“Nobody knows how the binder journeyed from Detroit to upstate New York. When Josh Quick found it in a barn at an estate sale, he grabbed it without thinking. It was only days later, while flipping through the pages, that Quick realized he was holding a missing piece of General Motors history,” Bob Sorokanich, senior editor, GM News posted last week.
In 2024, Josh Quick went to a farm estate sale in the small town of Conesus, about 45 minutes south of Rochester, New York, on the hunt for antique tractor parts. He thought he’d hit the jackpot. “I asked the guy, what do you want for all this stuff? He said, ‘two cases of Busch Light beer,’” Quick told GM News.

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Door Recall – Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer

Chrysler (FCA US) is recalling ~163,735 model year 2022-2025 Jeep Wagoneer and Jeep Grand Wagoneer SUVs. The so-called DLO [door Day Light Opening. Supplied by Cooper-Standard – AutoCrat] trim on the driver and passenger doors may not have been installed properly, which can allow it to detach. A DLO trim which detaches from the vehicle may create a road hazard to operators and occupants of other vehicles and can cause such vehicles to crash without prior warning. Customers may notice that the DLO trim has started to separate from the vehicle.

“The DLO trim may not have been properly secured at the vehicle assembly plant and may detach from the vehicle,” FCA said in the mandatory safety defect recall filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA). Continue reading

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Milestones – 1908 Billy Durant Founds GM

William “Billy” Crapo Durant founded General Motors this week on 16 September 1908 with Buick as the cornerstone. Durant soon brought Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland (Pontiac predecessor) and two dozen other companies under a GM holding company. However, Durant lost control of the company to bankers in 1910 after his money supply was cut off. To get new financing, Durant, while remaining a GM vice president, relinquished control of the company to a new board comprised of bankers, but in those days GM was running without taxpayer subsidies or bailouts.

“The business philosophy was simple and as history shows enormously successful. One company – General Motors – would own and sell multiple brands making for greater growth and profits. It proved true,” said AutoCrat. Continue reading

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Michigan to Make First AVs, but Loses Ford Transit to Mexico

In a transparent attempt at spin – in AutoCrat’s view laughable and tragic – Ford is re-adding a second shift at Flat Rock. The plant will become the production home to vehicles from the company’s next-generation battery electric flexible architecture. These vehicles will follow, ahem, the all-electric performance SUV coming in 2020 from Ford’s Cuautitlan, Mexico plant. Continue reading

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Chrysler Expands Takata Recall Nationally

Chrysler Group is expanding its current regional recall of Takata PSDI-4 driver airbag inflators to all 50 U.S. States and Federalized Territories at the request of NHTSA. Continue reading

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