is recalling 67,872 models over a potential issue with the transmission skid plate. The recall deals solely with Wranglers from the 2010 model year, equipped with automatic transmissions. It’s been found that debris can collect on the skid plate that protects the transmission, leading to the risk of a fire if the debris makes contact with the nearby catalytic converter.
Chrysler will begin notifying owners this month, at which time they can take their Wranglers to be repaired free of charge at the dealer. for the complete release from the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration.
The has launched a formal field inquiry into the by a sedan, Bloomberg reports. The conflagration, which destroyed the Karma, the garage and a few nearby vehicles, took place on May 3 in Sugarland, Texas.
Claude Harris, NHTSA’s director of vehicle safety compliance, said that the investigation is “ongoing,” adding that “no determination has been made at this time.” Until an official cause is isolated, we’re betting there will be a good bit of , finger pointing in all directions…
It’s worth noting that NHTSA has also been actively investigating the safety of battery packs used in the after reports of fires in the wild and after NHTSA’s own crash testing procedures.
The in its various guises positively romps on its popularity, making special-edition hay with terrific frequency. This latest outing in the form of the 695 Edition follows a familiar trail, coming three years after the that debuted at the 2009 .
That hatch had a tuned 1.4-liter turbo four putting out more than 180 horsepower, a variable exhaust system and paddle-shifting automated manual under its 430 Scuderia-mimicking paint scheme. But aside from the paint, this one gets much the same treatment: 180-hp output, Abarth Competizione gearbox and dual mode exhaust.
It goes the GranTurismo route instead of hard-core sports car, though, using the convertible Abarth as a base and adding Pontevecchio Bordeaux paint with a gray top, sand-beige leather and black interior, Jaeger instrumentation, and 17-inch Maserati-style Neptune wheels and hexagonal tailpipes. Still, it gets even bigger Brembo brakes than the Ferrari version.
Just 499 will be made for “mainly” European markets, naturally, so the closest we’ll get to it is the high-res gallery above the the press release .
The overhaul of ‘ marketing battle plan isn’t finished. The Wall Street Journal reports that Joel Ewanick, GM’s global marketing chief, is giving the brand a hiatus from Super Bowl advertising, believing it’s just got too expensive and that variety is called for. Thirty-second spots for next year’s big game are projected to cost $3.8 million.
The development comes quickly after GM decided to citing a lack of effectiveness (), and comes during a year of realignment efforts throughout the company: a began earlier this year and , a brand for and set up shop in Detroit, and personnel .
The General’s global ad spend in 2011 was $4.7 billion, and word is that GM doesn’t plan on spending less, it only wishes to spend better – Ewanick says the changes made so far will net the company $2 billion in savings over the next five years. It’s clear he’s looking to unlock more efficiencies; observers say that GM is also trying to improve its ad performance overseas and find better ways to reach demographics that have migrated in all directions and to all media.
A lot of things go down when a high-profile company is in high-profile trouble – unlikely entities can arrive with unexpected sums of money and take the company in unpredicatble directions. Such was the case with DeLorean Motor Car – which is – when the business, headquartered in Detroit and building cars in Ireland, was taken over by the Russian emigrant who founded discount retail stores Big Lots and Odd Lots.
Hemmings Blog has the tale of how Sol Shenk rescued a bankrupt DMC from the banks in 1982 after John Z. DeLorean’s arrest. Shenk already had experience in the specialty car business having bought the bankrupt hulk of Malcolm Bricklin’s car company and taken over the parts distribution business. Shenk set DMC and its inventory up in a Columbus, Ohio building on Dublin Avenue that had housed turn-of-the-century carmakers, hoping to make the most of a brand that still had clout.
Obviously, that didn’t happen. From his corn-belt HQ, Shenk was able to have more cars built in Ireland and sell most of them and the inventory, as well as offering a gold-plated DMC-12 for a Big Lots giveaway. But he couldn’t run the company and sell the cars at a profit, which led to him selling what remained and all the rights to the owners of the new Texas DeLorean Motor Company.
Said the VP of that company of the Columbus address, “When the BlueJackets [hockey team -ed.] came to Columbus, the Dublin Avenue address became much more expensive, and we moved all the inventory to a new facility in our hometown just outside Houston.” Head over to Hemmings to read the whole story.
has released the first 30-second ad spot for the 2013 , with its seventeen intial seconds spent covering the era of Lincoln glory from 1922 to 1976. The ad almost feels like an apology for the MKS, as if the ad team really wanted to sell the 2013 but was assigned the penalty-box MKS and had their protestations silenced with, “Just make something!”
We think the MKS deserves a little more love than that.
Our own lensman Drew Phillips caught sight of this at Cars & Coffee in Irvine, California: the 2013 . This is the first time it’s been seen on our shores. The targa version of the Venom GT packs the same 1,200 horsepower as the coupe – which also , one year ago – but adds $150,000 to the price.That means you’ll need $1.1 million for that wind-in-your-very-rich-hair feeling.
We still don’t have exact specs on the car beyond a very limited build and its “enhanced driving sensations,” but the high-res gallery of photos above should fill in enough blanks for now.
According to the timing sheets for the Nürburgring 24-Hour race, the P4/5 Competizione set a lap time of 6:51 during qualifying. That would make it faster than the of 6:58.16 in 2010, and the fastest -powered vehicle to ever run the ‘Ring.
In case you don’t remember, the 700-horsepower 599XX was also a purpose-built, track-only racer driven by a test driver. On the other hand, we don’t have specs on the P4/5 Competizione to compare, but that doesn’t make the achievement itself any less impressive. The only car ahead of the P4/5 Competizione in the not-street-legal category is the Pagani Zonda R, which . Glickenhaus himself told Jalopnik he thought the feat was “pretty cool” and that Ferrari was welcome to challenge it.
Surely the most important of the classic is the 250 series. Over its decade of production, the 250 series gave us some of the most recognizable models of the marque’s history, including the GTO, the Testa Rossa, the Lusso and the original California Spyder.
This year Ferrari is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the series that was built around Giachino Colombo’s enduring 3.0-liter V12. To mark the occasion, the Ferrari Museum in Maranello is displaying two unique and important 250s from its historical archives. One is the 250 GT SWB Berlinetta that Stirling Moss drove to victory at four races in 1961. The second is the so-called Breadvan, which was commissioned by Count Volpi di Musurata and developed by Piero Drogo and Giotto Bizzarrini. It was one of the original shooting brakes and provided the inspiration for the new .
The two are already on display in the museum for any visitor to see, but if your travel plans aren’t sending you to Maranello anytime soon, you can still check them out in the photo gallery above and the press release below.
Can’t wait for to start producing the EXP 9 F? Sold on the idea but not on the execution? Armortech may be able to help you out.
They’ve teamed up with Atelier Valdeig to turn the Q7 into something of a Bentley SUV, only without the Bentley badge. Called the Tresor (from the French word for “treasure”), the custom igets fully restyled, and boasts an interior that has been (or will be, from the look of the cabin renderings) retrofitted to Bentley-like levels of opulence.
The customizers can base their modifications on any version of the Q7, all the way up to the 493-horsepower V12 turbodiesel, and can even stretch the wheelbase or armor it – a particularly sought-after feature in markets where security is a luxury. The full press release is posted below, and you can check out the renderings in the photo gallery for a closer look.
The curtain is rolling back on Cars Land, which opens at Disney’s California Adventure next month. Mater himself makes appearances in a network commercial and the new microsite, and on the latter he’ll be happy to take you on a tour of some of the attractions at the live-action Radiator Springs, including a Racer’s test drive and Luigi’s Flying Tires.
You can watch the commercial and to check out the microsite.
Last year, the Monterey Motorsports Reunion announced that the Shelby Cobra would be the featured marque for 2012 in honor of the company’s 50th anniversary. It’s shaping up to be quite the celebration. Earlier this month it was announced that no fewer than 45 competition Cobras will be racing on the track come August, with owners from across the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Canada in attendance. In fact, demand to participate was so high that several entrants actually had to be turned away.
Shelby Cobras won’t just be on the track, though. The event expects at least 200 Cobras, real and replica, to gather in the infield car corral. Shelby and will also bring a collection of historic Cobras to display in the paddock. In other words, if you’re a Shelby Cobra fan then start making plans to attend right away.
You can read the official announcement from the Monterey Motorsports Reunion below.
has released a passel of official photosd of the 2013 , the sedan it “would like to make #1 if customers agree.” While the new styling might take getting used to, the other changes are all welcomed: it’s lighter, has a revised transmission, will return 38 miles per gallon if equipped with the four-cylinder, and starts at $21,500 before the $760 destination charge.
Now that the Altima and are known quantities, the pending reveal of the will fill out the field and then we’ll have a better idea of the fight to come. Until then, have a closer look at the new Altima in the photo gallery above.
It takes a fast and agile car to keep pace with MotoGP racing bikes. Fortunately the M division is up to the task, providing safety cars (or what we’d call pace cars on this side of the Atlantic) to the race organizers of the top-level motorcycle racing series.
The most recent vehicles to perform the duties have been the and the crossover, but now BMW is introducing a the new coupe to the mix. It’ll debut in safety car guise as pictured above at the Nürburgring this weekend.
While it’s unclear whether any modifications have been made to the 552-horsepower twin-turbo V8, the M6 MotoGP safety car has been upgraded with new spoilers front and rear, special lighting equipment and BMW’s traditional blue, blue and red striping on a white body. And if we were betting men, we’d put our money on some upgrades to the brakes, suspension and tires, too.
Toyota’s Huntsville, Alabama production facility, which makes the company’s four-cylinder, V6 and V8 engines, is getting a couple of big boosts: $80 million and roughly 125 new jobs. When the spending and hiring is complete, the enlarged factory and the plant’s 1,150 workers will raise engine-production capacity to more than 700,000 units, with V6 production more than doubled from 146,000 engines per year to 362,000.
Toyota’s been spending and hiring all this year, with $645 million invested in growth and 1,100 jobs added to the rolls. “This V6 line addition,” said a company EVP, “continues to reflect our growing optimism for an improving North American market.” Toyota’s press release is posted below.
If you need to haul some stuff in a big hurry, you could do a lot worse than the Estate wagon. It offers all the power of its coupe and sedan siblings, only with the added cargo space that so many European customers prefer over the betrunked versions. But if the stock 457 horsepower isn’t enough, the good folks over at Edo Competition are glad to help out with an upgrade of their own.
That upgrade, it turns out, is anything but negligible, pumping output up by nearly 150 horsepower to a stonking 600. Torque has also been boosted from 442 lb-ft stock to 501, where that extra single measure of twist makes all the difference.
The boost comes courtesy of new exhaust, headers, cats and filters, supplemented by 19-inch modular alloys riding on suitably low-profile Michelin rubber, with a slew of interior enhancements to make the Edo C63 feel all the more special.
The exterior, however, remains decidedly low-key – all the better for messing with the head of drivers on the Autobahn while hauling the whole family and all their gear. Check it out in the press release below and the high-res image gallery above.
If you’ve got the cash to place on the hood (or nose cone, as it were), most any Formula One team will sell you one of their old race cars. After all, they’re not using them anymore, and it’s a good way to raise funds to develop next year’s car. But not McLaren. The team from Woking – one of the most successful in the series – doesn’t sell its old cars, though with 176 grand prix victories, twelve drivers’ championships and eight constructors’ titles, you can bet they’d fetch a pretty penny. Instead, it keeps them all warehoused at a facility, location undisclosed, simply called Unit 2.
The warehouse contains some 75 grand prix cars, an untold number of the team’s sports cars from other racing series (like Le Mans, Can-Am and Indy), and various road cars it’s produced over the years, like the legendary McLaren F1, the it built for , and the new MP4-12C. But while none of these cars are for sale, Unit 2 will soon be depleted of much of its stock.
Their destinations? The 35 global dealerships that McLaren Automotive has opened or will open by year’s end, like the one pictured above in Düsseldorf. Each showroom is to get a racing car to display alongside the road cars it has for sale, and many of them will be location-specific. The dealer in Monte Carlo, for example, will display the 1993 MP4-8 that Ayrton Senna drove to victory at the Monaco Grand Prix. The dealer in Brussels will reportedly display the 2004 MP4-19 with which Kimi Raikkonen won the 2004 Belgian Grand Prix. And the Philadelphia showroom will display the 1976 M26 that James Hunt piloted to victory at the US Grand Prix that year.
So if you want to see a piece of McLaren racing history, better call up your and find out when their show car is due to arrive. Just don’t go looking for Unit 2, because even if you can find it, chances are they won’t let you in.
If you’re in the market and mood for a 6.5-ton cab-over truck that also offers power to all its wheels, Fuso would like you to have a look at its new Canter 4×4. With the addition of selectable four-wheel drive, Fuso is hoping to expand the 4×2 Canter’s traditional market into unpaved uses like construction and municipal services.
Power comes from a 3.0-liter, four-cylinder turbodiesel with 175 horsepower and 317 pound-feet of torque. A stop/start system is also used to improve efficiency. Standard features include a locking rear differential, exhaust brake, approach and departure angles that are nearly doubled over the 4×2 model, and a 40,000-kilometer maintenance interval. Options are plentiful, including single or crew-cab bodies, two wheelbase choices, payload up to 3,725 kilograms, 320 millimeters of ground clearance and 100 plain, metallic and pearl-finish paint colors.
For truck fans, there’s a press release below and a high-res gallery of the Canter 4×4 in all kinds of poses.
We don’t need to tell you why rally racing – though awesome – is incredibly dangerous. As much as we love to watch turbocharged, all-wheel-drive Euro hatches being flung around on dirt, gravel, snow and tarmac, the fact that many of these races go through small towns and wooded trails leaves plenty of room for disaster.
Case in point: This racer went off course during the 2012 Mazowiecki Rally, leaving driver Patrick Osowiecki and navigator Maciej Wrona trapped upside-down in a lake. According to CarScoop, no race officials were near the scene of the accident, but some selfless spectators rushed in to attempt to free Osowiecki and Wrona from their racecar. to watch the action unfold.
Automakers are usually pretty decisive. They either build a car or they don’t. But has embarked down a bumpier road with Lagonda.
Aston bought the Lagonda marque way back in 1947, but after operating it as a separate brand for a few years, it let the brand peter out in the 1950s and 60s. The moniker was revived as a nameplate on a handful of Aston Martin sedans beginning in the 1970s, but that was pretty much the last we saw of it until the 2009 .
That’s when the British automaker unveiled the rather unusual concept vehicle (pictured above) to revive the Lagonda name once again as a separate brand. It was meant to test the waters, and the response was not favorable. So it had appeared that AML was dropping the L from its initials and the entire project along with it. But as a stand-alone niche automaker looking to stay afloat in a rapidly amalgamating industry, Aston needs to produce more than front-engined, rear-drive, two-door GTs. And the sedan apparently isn’t going to be enough, so it looks as if that the Lagonda project could be back on the table.
According to Autocar, the real impetus, however, could be coming from emerging markets in Asia – particularly China, but also the Middle East and Russia. The timing for a high-end luxury crossover built by a company known for its exotic sports cars, however, could prove to be good timing or poor: , and are all entering the segment in the coming years, so if Aston wants to get a slice of that lucrative pie pioneered by , it had better get those wheels in motion.
The overhaul of ‘ marketing battle plan isn’t finished. The Wall Street Journal reports that Joel Ewanick, GM’s global marketing chief, is giving the brand a hiatus from 
