AUTO CENTRAL - Chicago, August 21, 2016: Every Sunday Larry Nutson, Senior Editor and Chicago Car Guy along with fellow senior editors Steve Purdy and Thom Cannell from The Auto Channel Michigan Bureau, give you TACH's "take" on this past week's automotive news in easy to digest mega-tweet sized nuggets. If you wish to know more just click on the link that will take you to the full story as published here on The Auto Channel.

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Nutson's Automotive News Factoids Week Of August 8-13, 2016

* This middle week in August is the traditional time for two of the most important car events in the country - the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit and the Monterey Car Week culminating in the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on Sunday. The former celebrates the automobile and motorcycle interests of everyman with every imaginable type of wheeled vehicle spending every evening leading up to Saturday cruising up and down Woodward Avenue where many showed off their cars in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The latter is the most prestigious classic and collector car show in the country with way more trailer queens than driven cars.

* One of the prime corners on the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise route was the scene this week of the Historic Vehicle Association’s presentation of the most recent inductee into the National Historic Vehicle Register at the Library of Congress - the first production Camaro ever built. The honor comes on the 50th anniversary of the first of 52 pre-production Camaros built by GM. Logan Lawson from Kansas, 18-years-old and headed for college next month, found the car on a message board. Then he and his dad Corey researched and restored the car. The car is contained in an illuminated glass case for the duration of the Dream Cruise.

* Pebble Beach has become a popular venue for premium automakers to reveal new products. One of those this year is Cadillacs newest concept car called Escala, said to be based on the new CT6 rear-wheel drive big sedan. The Escala reveals a new design direction for the brand according to Cadillac boss Johan de Nysschen. The powertrain is a prototype 4.2-liter, twin-turbo V-8 expected to be used in future Cadillac vehicles. Even the infotainment system is a concept design with voice commands and gesture controls.

* Ford CEO Mark Fields announced the company’s plan to bring fully autonomous vehicles to the road in high volume by 2021. Commercial ride-sharing or ride-hailing companies will be the first to use these autonomous vehicles, which will have neither steering wheels nor pedals. Fields stressed these were not exclusive to the luxury market and will have an impact on society comparable to Henry Ford’s assembly line. The company is investing in or collaborating with four startups to enhance its autonomous vehicle development, doubling its Silicon Valley team and more than doubling its Palo Alto campus.

* The AIADA online newsletter reported that according to the website Priceonomics the Toyota brand and its gas-electric hybrid Prius are the winners in keeping maintenance costs low in the long run and luxury brands like BMW and Mercedes-Benz are on the high end of maintenance costs. Hyundai and Kia have the lowest maintenance costs for the first 75,000 miles followed by Toyota, Honda, and Subaru.

* And at the Olympics, a small green remote-control pickup, the same kind an 8-year old would play with, plays fetch during throwing events. The pickup is used to ferry shots, discus, hammers and javelins back to the throwing cage.

* Talk to me. Audi's 2017 Q7, A4 and A4 Allroad models will feature the first commercial use of vehicle to infrastructure technology. The technology allows Audi vehicles to “talk” to traffic signals, giving drivers a advanced warning of traffic light changes. It will be available in select cities and metropolitan areas across the U.S. The Audi receives real-time signal information from the advanced traffic management system that monitors traffic lights.

* Danny Thompson, son of American racing legend Mickey Thompson, has been trying since 2014 to set a Land Speed Record at Bonneville in the Challenger II, a streamliner built by his dad in 1968 and originally known as the Autolite Special. After two years of mechanical frustrations and environmental delays, the Thompson LSR team caught a break last weekend, turning in a pair of passes that averaged 406.7695 MPH, good enough to set a new Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) record in the AA/FS class.

* Federal Transportation regulators issued aggressive new emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks. Officials said the new standards would require up to a 25 percent reduction in carbon emissions (larger than previously proposed) for big tractor-trailers over the next 10 years, and somewhat smaller improvements for delivery trucks, school buses and other large vehicles. The cost to comply is expected to run $12,000 per vehicle and bring improvements from the current 6 mpg average fuel economy for the big rigs.

* Ford plans to extend production of its popular GT supercar for another two years. Ford received more than 6,000 applications for the first 500 GTs that will be produced as 2017 and 2018 model-year cars. Now the supercar’s run will extend through the 2020 model year with production of about 250 cars per year.

* AutoWeek reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is in talks with Volkswagen in an effort to settle criminal charges filed in January against company officials. The specific charges have not be listed, though in rare previous cases automakers have been charged with making false statements to the government and concealing information from regulatory agencies. The diesel emissions cheating scandal has cost VW billions of dollars in the U.S. and around the world and decimated the sales of previously popular diesel cars. It is unclear whether U.S. jurisdiction extends to individuals at the company in Germany.

* A new NASCAR star is on the horizon. Richard Petty’s 15-year-old grandson won his first stock car race last week at the Anderson Motor Speedway in South Carolina. Thad Moffitt drove the Number 46 Late Model Daytona 1 Challenger Series car to a win starting from the pole and he now leads the series. He has been racing quarter midgets and go karts before entering the Late Model Challenger Series. Grandpa Richard Petty is quoted as saying, “I’m just like anyone else, I’m a proud granddaddy."