Jim Miles Fast Cars

Mazda has joined Facebook Deals, the first social network ecommerce opportunities offered in the UK. The British division of Mazda is giving a 20% discount on all Mazda MX-5s as well as the chance to win a Mazda MX-5 Miyako special edition for five months. All the customer has to do to be eligible for this discount is to check in on Facebook at one of the five Mazda dealerships through the most recent version of the Facebook app or on the Smartphone at facebook.com.

This customer then has to claim the deal and present the deal voucher via his or her mobile phone to the salesperson. The competition has the same check-in process but the customer must enter the details into the data pod in the dealership. At the end of the competition period, the five competition winners will be drawn at random. Claire Andrews, Marketing Director, Mazda UK, said that while social media allows one to communicate to a wide range of people, it is only now that consumers get any real commercial benefits.

“Social media has always been about communicating to as wide a range of people as you want, but until now has not given any commercial benefits to consumers,” commented Claire Andrews, Marketing Director, Mazda UK. “Facebook Deals recognises the consumer’s appetite for a deal and brings a real financial benefit to social media use. Just by being one of Facebook’s 26 million UK users you are suddenly entitled to some fantastic offers and 20 percent off Mazda’s iconic sports car, a deal you cannot get anywhere else,”

Lotus CEO Danny Bahar has made it clear that he intends to rely on the British automaker’s glorious history in order to rebuild for the future. And while at the forefront of that plan is the launch of an all-new lineup of cars, it’s little surprise that the former head of Ferrari’s marketing department will also look to retail merchandise sales.

Beginning at the Paris Auto Show, Lotus has been showing off a selection of its regal get rugged items, like leather jackets, polo shirts, sweaters and leather goods. And in keeping with the new image of the brand, all of the items are of the highest quality.

At the time Lotus kept quiet about its retail plans but now it has announced a complete line, titled Lotus Originals, will go on sale starting in February. This will coincide with the launch of Lotus Originals at London’s Fashion Week. To start, all items will be available exclusively through www.lotusoriginals.com, with a flagship retail store set to open in London by the end of the year.

Check out a selection of the finer items in our gallery below, or see all the goods at www.lotusoriginals.com

If you sit down and think about it, the notion of making a left turn across oncoming traffic at a stoplight is pretty absurd. All that stands between you and certain oblivion is the hope that other drivers headed your direction are obeying the speed limit and paying enough attention to notice when the light turns red.

Traffic engineers have known for years that hanging a left increases the likelihood of an accident and wastes fuel. The minds at UPS have even gone so far as to design their delivery routes with fewer left turns, and transportation departments all over the country have adopted so-called "superstreets" that force drivers to make a right and then a U-turn in order to go left or straight.

Sound absurd? Think again. According to Smithsonian Magazine, researchers at North Carolina State University have found that the superstreet design is more efficient and safer than allowing drivers to turn across traffic. After examining data from 13 superstreet intersections and comparing them to their traditional counterparts, researchers found that, on average, the superstreets delivered a 20-percent decrease in travel time and caused 46 percent fewer reported traffic collisions. More importantly, the superstreet design caused 63-percent fewer accidents that resulted in personal injury.

There’s some food for thought the next time you’re hanging a left.

By William Jeans at AOL Auto’s:

Imagine that you are an auto executive who has just overseen the spending of a couple of billion bucks on a brand new model. Now you must select a name for it; it’s your baby, after all.

Do you think you might aim for a name that made sense? A name that owners could utter with pride at cocktail parties? Sure you would, but look at the long list of existing model names, and you will inevitably conclude that they came from a lunch that lasted two hours too long or were drawn from a hat by a blindfolded marketing executive.

The Acura TL? The Hyundai Elantra? The Chevrolet Sonic? A kid with a set of alphabet blocks could replace nine marketers at Acura, and Elantra sounds like one of those drugs on television that comes with "minor side effects such as frequent vomiting, loss of hearing, and leprosy-like symptoms." The Sonic, which replaces the Aveo, at least breaks some ground; it is the first car to be named for a chain of drive-in restaurants.

It is obvious even to the comatose that not enough thought goes into most model names despite there being some truly unforgettable ones−consider the Emotional Liter Car (Nissan, years ago) and the Mysterious Utility Wizard (Isuzu, more recently). But, God knows, it is not easy to get a good name through fifteen layers of terrified executives.

About a century ago, when I worked for Ford’s advertising agency, I participated in the naming of the Taurus. The process involved repeated and lengthy meetings between the agency and the Ford marketing and advertising folks. I’ve never liked meetings, particularly ones unlikely to produce a concrete result, and at one of the Taurus gatherings, in frustration and as a joke, I put forth the name Howard. The ad manager, a true gentleman named Doug McClure, responded by suggesting that we resurrect the name Edsel.

McClure even suggested a slogan: "This time we’re really serious."

Taurus had been Ford Engineering’s project name for the car and, as things turned out, became the actual name. It worked out far better than Edsel or Howard might have. We all ultimately settled on it simply because it sounded right.

How a name sounds, to my mind, is as good a way as any to decide what you’re going to call a new car. Take the new Buick compact recently shown on the show circuit. It’s called the Verano, a nice enough sound. The word, in Spanish, means summer and begs the question whether Buick will call subsequent sedans the Otoño (fall), Invierno (winter), and Primavera (spring).

Naming its sedans after the seasons would imply a dedication to nomenclature consistency on Buick’s part, something I don’t look for. We’ll be left with Verano, LaCrosse, and Lucerne−a season, a sport, and a Swiss city. Throw in the Enclave SUV and you have a fine mess equal to anything Laurel and Hardy ever came up with.

Ford, doing its part in the odd name sweepstakes, has showed what is surely the new Escape, but the Blue Oval labeling mavens call the concept Vertrek, a name that looks like leftovers from a Scrabble game. Oh, I suppose that a dedicated wordsmith could extract "trek" from the name and somehow associate it with off-pavement travel, and he might get an ecobuzz with "vert," the French word for green, but doesn’t all that sound just the tiniest bit convoluted?

What should a name do for a car?

For one thing, it could carry on a consistent theme of some sort. Look at BMW with its numerical appellations for its cars: 1 series, 3 series, and so on, until the prospective buyer reaches the top-of-the-line 7 series. The bigger the number the bigger the car; an idiot could absorb that system, which is a good one.

Mercedes-Benz has almost as good a system, using letters with the word "class" instead of "series," but the company has complicated things with a double handful of models ending in LK and LR and beginning with S and C.

Ford once sought consistency by announcing that it would use only names beginning with an F. That was hailed internally as marketing savvy of the finest kind until the realization that no sane marketer would change the name of the Mustang to Fireball or something. Moreover, there was a strong likelihood that Crown Victoria owners were too set in their ways to accept a new name.

Another thing a name might do is communicate the personality or performance of a vehicle. That’s if you don’t have a BMW- or Mercedes-type system in place. This approach goes way back. No potential buyer ever thought that the Apperson Jackrabbit or the Stutz Bearcat was a slug. Thunderbird was a great name (which ultimately lost its meaning), and you’d have to go some way to beat Corvette Sting Ray or Plymouth Fury. The Hudson Hornet sounded mean, and was.

A name does not, of course, have to hint at horsepower if the vehicle that carries it is intended to project luxury. Rolls-Royce names such as Silver Wraith, Silver Cloud, and Silver Ghost did not make an overt statement, but you knew when you heard them that you were not talking about some high-mileage low-dollar econobox. Ditto the Buick Roadmaster, the Chrysler Imperial, and the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.

Speaking of hearing, the manner in which a name strikes the ear can be enough to carry the day, never mind how nonsensical it may be. The Chevrolet Bel Air and Impala could be placed in this category. They just sounded right, never mind that one was a sniffy Los Angeles suburb and the other an obscure African antelope.

Which brings up the subject of foreign names. Like it or not, most Americans are uncomfortable with foreign pronunciations. Lincoln-Mercury actually had to generate sales material that told people how to pronounce Merkur (MAIR cure), and when Dodge named the Plymouth Volare, the badge read Volaré, incorrectly indicating that the final syllable was to be accented. I cannot bring myself to discuss the incalculable number of ways that the Pontiac Le Mans has been mispronounced.

If you must use an overseas name, be careful. I thought that Kia had named one of its products, the Sorento, after a city, until I realized that an "r" was missing.

Silly me. The town in Italy is spelled Sorrento, while Sorento I believe to be a cold preparation that may cause frequent vomiting, loss of hearing, and leprosy-like symptoms.