New Vehicles

Auto leasing deals abound these days, with offers that often seem too good to be true. How about a well-equipped Honda Accord for $250 a month with no down payment or any other drive-off fees? Or better yet, $199 a month for a Chevrolet Malibu? So, what's the catch? There isn't any if you know what you're getting into. There are always details. You need top-tier credit to qualify. You pay a penalty if you turn that Honda in with more than 36,000 miles. And the payment is not $250 a month because of that little matter of tax. It is more like $275, depending on where you live.

Twenty-one-year-old Taylor Dankel darts around a quick corner of the racetrack and buries the throttle. The supercharged, 650-horsepower V-8 in his father's modified 2008 Shelby Mustang GT500KR lets out a guttural roar. It's a scene that would have put a smile on the face of Shelby American's founder, Carroll Shelby. An automotive icon whose career evolved from chicken farmer to world-class racer, engineer and businessman, Shelby died in May 2012 at the age of 89. Photos: Shelby after Shelby But his legacy is everywhere on this windy day in Pahrump, Nev., about an hour outside of Las Vegas.

Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is closing Jan. 7 to undergo an overhaul to replace its tracks and vehicles and to give it a new paint job. It will be the third major overhaul of an iconic ride in as many years. The railroad in the Frontierland section of the Anaheim park has been operating since 1979 and portrays a runaway train that speeds through a barren Old West mining town. The ride is expected to reopen in the fall of 2013. Disneyland completed a similar overhaul to its Matterhorn bobsled ride earlier this year that also included a paint job, new tracks and new vehicles.

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. After two years of disappointing sales of its Leaf electric sedan, Nissan replaced the executive overseeing its electric-car program. Toshiyuki Shiga, the automaker's chief operating officer will take charge of Nissan's zero-emission-vehicle planning and strategy as well as production of batteries for such cars, the company said.   Hideaki Watanabe, a corporate vice president who headed the division, was shuttled off to a Nissan-affiliated supplier.

Lawmakers admonished state administrators Wednesday for expenditures such as furnishings costing up to $7,000 per employee, an airplane for Caltrans inspectors valued at nearly $1 million, a $429,000 boat and 1,300 cars, motorcycles and trucks costing $34 million. "I find these expenditures to be an insult and very disrespectful to every furloughed state employee, to every taxpayer who has been working very hard to make ends meet, who is driving an old car on its last legs when this state chooses not to do the same," said Assemblywoman Audra Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks)

Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is closing Jan. 7 to get new tracks, vehicles and paint. It will be the third major overhaul of a major Disneyland ride in as many years. The railroad in the Frontierland section of the Anaheim park has been operating since 1979 and portrays a runaway train that speeds through a barren Old West landscape. The ride is expected to reopen in fall 2013. Disneyland completed a similar overhaul of its Matterhorn Bobsleds ride this year that also included new paint, tracks and vehicles.

Having read that a car manufacturer is eliminating ashtrays in its new vehicles because of lack of use, one has to wonder: Are turn signals next? STEPHEN B. KENYON Long Beach

Pentagon budget: An article in Saturday's Section A about a potential battle over remaking the military said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had moved to cancel the Future Combat Systems military modernization program, a system of unmanned aircraft, tanks, transports and robotic vehicles linked by technology. Gates has proposed cancellation of the vehicle portion of the system but would keep other parts of it and move toward development of new vehicles.

The City of San Diego has become the latest beneficiary of the rampaging corporate trend to get company logos before the public eye in imaginative ways. Nissan Motor Corp. has agreed to supply the city lifeguards with the use of 19 new vehicles a year for the next five years. At the end of each year, the city will have the option of buying the vehicles for 50% of their wholesale value.

This week's East Coast storm destroyed tens of thousands of vehicles - an unfortunate fate for car owners but one that may give automakers a sales boost in the coming months. For those who returned to their storm-damaged neighborhoods to find their cars flooded out or buried, General Motors Co. and the Nissan and Infiniti brands are offering special incentives and discounts on new vehicles. GM, for example, is offering $500 toward a purchase or lease, on top of existing incentives, to people living in a federally designated disaster area.

Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is closing Jan. 7 to get new tracks, vehicles and paint. It will be the third major overhaul of a major Disneyland ride in as many years. The railroad in the Frontierland section of the Anaheim park has been operating since 1979 and portrays a runaway train that speeds through a barren Old West landscape. The ride is expected to reopen in fall 2013. Disneyland completed a similar overhaul of its Matterhorn Bobsleds ride this year that also included new paint, tracks and vehicles.

Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is closing Jan. 7 to undergo an overhaul to replace its tracks and vehicles and to give it a new paint job. It will be the third major overhaul of an iconic ride in as many years. The railroad in the Frontierland section of the Anaheim park has been operating since 1979 and portrays a runaway train that speeds through a barren Old West mining town. The ride is expected to reopen in the fall of 2013. Disneyland completed a similar overhaul to its Matterhorn bobsled ride earlier this year that also included a paint job, new tracks and new vehicles.

This week's East Coast storm destroyed tens of thousands of vehicles - an unfortunate fate for car owners but one that may give automakers a sales boost in the coming months. For those who returned to their storm-damaged neighborhoods to find their cars flooded out or buried, General Motors Co. and the Nissan and Infiniti brands are offering special incentives and discounts on new vehicles. GM, for example, is offering $500 toward a purchase or lease, on top of existing incentives, to people living in a federally designated disaster area.

Autumn is a grand time to be a gearhead. By fall, most of next year's vehicles are in dealerships and we can finally compare and contrast them for ourselves. No more idle speculation about how much oomph the new Audi will have. No more flame wars in the blogosphere about whether Chevy or Ford makes the most capable pickup.  We invited a quartet of auto experts to discuss some of the new (and imminent) SUVs, crossovers and trucks that have critics raving and drivers craving.

It's an ongoing dilemma for carmakers: How long can a given model last before it needs refreshing? How long until you have to junk it altogether in favor of something completely new?  If you do decide to retire a familiar brand, you risk alienating drivers who loved the old model and there is no guarantee that new buyers will flock to its replacement. How long will it take - and how much will it cost - to build new brand loyalty? Luckily for automakers, there's a middle road: radical redesign.

Imagine getting fuel efficiency that reaches 40 mpg and beyond, on models that sell for thousands of dollars less than hybrids. Manufacturers have delivered just that with several new and redesigned gas-sipping rides for 2012 - many of them available for less than $20,000. In fact, much-improved gas economy is a top trend for this new model year, with Chevy and Hyundai weighing in with a handful of slick new rides in the 40-plus club. And, of course, it couldn't come at a better time.

Compact pickups were all the rage in the 1970s and '80s, when they were popular among young drivers, working stiffs and weekend warriors who loved their flexibility and bargain price. The bed was big enough for ladders and lawn mowers, fishing equipment or horse tack. Fit a cab to the back, toss a sleeping bag in the bed and you suddenly had yourself a camper. And if you parked it backwards at the drive-in on Friday night, you and your sweetheart could watch a movie beneath the stars.  By the 1990s, trucks had gone super-sized and compact pickups had taken a back seat to their brawny gas-guzzling big brothers.

It's an ongoing dilemma for carmakers: How long can a given model last before it needs refreshing? How long until you have to junk it altogether in favor of something completely new?  If you do decide to retire a familiar brand, you risk alienating drivers who loved the old model and there is no guarantee that new buyers will flock to its replacement. How long will it take - and how much will it cost - to build new brand loyalty? Luckily for automakers, there's a middle road: radical redesign.

Compact pickups were all the rage in the 1970s and '80s, when they were popular among young drivers, working stiffs and weekend warriors who loved their flexibility and bargain price. The bed was big enough for ladders and lawn mowers, fishing equipment or horse tack. Fit a cab to the back, toss a sleeping bag in the bed and you suddenly had yourself a camper. And if you parked it backwards at the drive-in on Friday night, you and your sweetheart could watch a movie beneath the stars.  By the 1990s, trucks had gone super-sized and compact pickups had taken a back seat to their brawny gas-guzzling big brothers.

Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group made financial headway in a sluggish economy in the second quarter, increasing sales and slashing debt. Ford sales rose 13% to $35.5 billion, although profits fell 8% to $2.4 billion as the Dearborn, Mich., automaker spent more money on materials such as steel and on designing and building new vehicles. Sales jumped 30% for Chrysler but losses widened to $370 million as the automaker repaid U.S. and Canadian government loans taken out during the financial crisis.