GM’s Opel follows in the Footsteps of Ford, Asks Bloggers to Write About the Astra GTC to Attend the Presentation

Those of you readers that have been with us for a while might remember our revealing post about Ford Motor Company’s shady marketing tactics (via its media agency) to attract attention and web traffic to the brand by asking bloggers to participate in a Ford website-linking contest and win a place in the company’s 2010 Model Year Drive event.

That said, we are no strangers to the mommy-blogger-type approach from marketing companies representing major automotive brands, but we never cease to be amazed. This time we were approached by a social media agency called Knallgrau on behalf of GM’s European Opel unit. When we received the first email, we believed it was a media / press invitation but upon our request for additional information, we discovered that wasn’t the case.

In a similar fashion to the Ford incident, the agency asked if we wanted to write about the new Astra GTC and participate in a type of contest, the winners of which will be invited to the official unveiling of the three-door hatchback at Opel’s headquarters in Rüsselsheim, Germany.

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Carscoop: And we’re back online again

They say bad things happen in threes (don't go all Tosh.0 on us now - the opening picture was a random choice that has nothing to do with our dislike of BMW's all-wheel drive turn to crossovers), and that seems to be the case for Carscoop these past couple of weeks. After Google’s cloud outage that left us offline for more than 24 hours earlier this month, this week we were faced with a new technical problem followed by a computer blackout that wiped out one of our hard disks… Well, what matters is that we’re back online now and ready to provide you with the latest auto news.
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Carscoop Version 5.0 has Arrived: Tell us What You Think about our Latest Redesign

If you wondering why we have been dragging our feet on the news front these past few weeks, it’s because we were busy with the HTML5’s and CSS’s of our brand new template. True, the feel and the design have remained more or less the same with some subtle changes in the aesthetics and the size of our site, which is slightly more compact, but almost everything underneath is new.

Think of Carscoop Version 5.0 as something like a new Porsche; while the looks remain the same (to the previous Version 4.3), everything else is new or revamped. In our case, this should translate to a better experience on most modern browsers and more importantly, faster speeds regardless the connection.

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Good News Everyone! We’re Back after Blogger’s 24-hour Outage

As Professor Farnsworth would say, Good news, everyone! We’re back! For those of you that missed our rants and were wondering what in tarnation happened to us for the past 24 hours, put the blame on Google’s engineers and a supposedly regular maintenance issue that turned into a widespread outage. Here at Carscoop, we’ve “lost” about a day’s worth of posts, but Google’s people have promised to reinstate them soon. If they don’t keep their word for any reason, no worries, we’ll just do it the good ‘ol fashioned way – manually… Read more »

2011 New York Auto Show Live Coverage: Walk Around the Motor Show Floor with us

Welcome to Carscoop’s coverage of the 2011 New York International Auto Show, which we'll be covering live from the show floor thanks to the brilliance of modern technology and a little of your much appreciated patience. Like our trip to the Tokyo Auto Salon, we'll be bringing you photos of all the new models, the ladies, and live pics as we walk around the show.

For the truly live updates, simply check out the window (unlike Tokyo, uploads should be much more fluid), while higher-res "live" photos will appear as soon as we manage to peel ourselves away from the metal and get plugged back into the computer. Also like Tokyo, we'll be doing our best to keep up with comments and requests, so feel free to get involved as we take you along with us.

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Carscoop’s April Fool’s Day Hoaxes

Just in case you hadn’t already figured it out, the Chrysler Group has no plans to offer the latest Dodge Charger with Alfa’s turbocharged four-pot nor will Gawker restore Jalopnik’s classic blog look.

Other automotive-related April Fool’s Day jokes found around the net include: Autoblog’s Honda Accord Crossdressed Cabriolet; Pickuptruck’s 2012 Cadillac DRW Platinum Heavy-Duty Pickup; BMW’s costly M3 Pickup Truck (the joke here is that it won’t enter production because the ute is real); and Jalopnik’s announcement that AOL’s new empress, Arianna Huffington, bought the site and merged it with Autoblog to create Autoblognik.

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We're Looking for New Carscoop Writers

We’re seeking new writers to join our motor-head team here at Carscoop.

Here's what we are looking for: 1) you need to be passionate about cars and up to date with the latest events and models in the global auto industry, and 2) you must be fluent in English with excellent writing skills (no exceptions) and have the ability to produce well written articles that are both informative and entertaining to read.

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Tokyo Auto Salon Update: Photo Problem Solved

If you've been following our news section, you'll know that Phil flew out to Japan the previous weekend to cover the 2011 Tokyo Auto Salon. While our live coverage of the event went according to plan, unfortunately, we encountered a persistent technical problem that didn't allow us to post our photographic material on our blog, but we finally found a solution. As the saying goes, better late than never. Hope you enjoy our upcoming posts from the show.

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Carscoop Reports Live from the Tokyo Auto Salon 2011 [Day 3]

Ok, we're here live at the 2011 Tokyo Auto Salon in Japan getting as many photos as possible (and maybe some videos too). Bookmark this page and keep checking back for the updates as they come rolling in through the hand-held God machine that Steve Jobs created.

We'll be getting some high-quality photos as well, but they'll be coming through a bit later as I'm currently a one-man band, out in the realm of sushi, Gundam, VIP rides, and love hotels.

Remember to take into account that I'll be 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, but it should be an adventure full of cars, chicks in short shorts, perverts with professional-grade photo/video equipment, and maybe even some drifting on Day 2. Stay tuned, it's gonna get busty...I mean busy. Follow the break for our live coverage.

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