has grown its share of the U.S. luxury market with the help of a steady stream of new products. But while Audi has been on a product rampage, not all of its latest designs take up residence in U.S. showrooms.
Included in that group of vehicles is the Q3, but AutoWeek reports that Audi’s North American CEO Johan de Nysschen is at least considering bringing the diminutive CUV to America. That’s not a lot to go on, and de Nysschen tells AW that the Q3 will need to “overcome certain challenges” in order for Audi to introduce the model to U.S. customers.
In other words, the Q3 will need to be cheap enough for U.S. consumers to want to buy it, yet expensive enough for Audi to turn a tidy profit. What’s more, the Four-Ringed crossover will need to sell at a decent clip even if the price is right, or Audi could still lose money. If the stars align and the Q3 gets the green light, de Nysschen says it’ll likely happen in time for the model’s mid-cycle refresh.
apparently has a mind to turn out a convertible version of the RS5. A slew of patent drawings depicting the high-performance drop-top have made their way to the internet via our Spanish-speaking sister site.
Judging by the drawings, we can tell that the vehicle will have room for four occupants and use the same power electric folding soft top as both the and . The rest of the vehicle wears the same facelifted garb as the new S5 unveiled at this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show.
Under the hood, chances are buyers will see the same naturally aspirated 4.2-liter V8 found in the RS5 coupe. The kicking eight pot is good for 450 horsepower and 317 pound-feet of torque, and will likely be mated to the company’s S-Tronic dual-clutch gearbox. As you may have guessed, all-wheel drive will be standard.
Thus far, Audi hasn’t made mention of where the vehicle will debut or exactly which markets will get to enjoy the convertible heathen. Stay tuned.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Gullwing America was all about the classic Mercedes-Benz 300 SL and its modern-day successor, the . But disregarding the name, the company has stepped out of Stuttgart’s shadow for its latest classic recreation.
GWA calls it the 340 Competizione, as it pays tribute to the original 1952 Ferrari 340 Mexico. Only three of those racers were made, and they were designed specifically
to tackle the legendary Carrera Panamericana where, fittingly, Mercedes’ 300 SL dominated.
The modern interpretation takes a Ferrari 456 GT as its starting point, retaining its 470-horsepower 5.4-liter V12 and six-speed manual transmission, but upgrading the aerodynamics, suspension and brakes, draping fresh aluminum bodywork over the mechanicals. The interior likewise pays homage to the 340 Mexico, but packs modern touches like carbon fiber seats.
It’s a work in progress, and only one example is reportedly set to be built. Which is just as well, because knowing how keenly Ferrari likes to protect its property, any prospects of serial production – however limited – would likely be kiboshed by Maranello. We’ll look forward to watching the project unfold, but for now, you can check out the renderings in our image gallery for a closer look.
Jeremy Clarkson has let slip what viewers can look forward to in terms of this year’s Top Gear Christmas Special. As it turns out, James May, Richard Hammond and the curly-haired host are taking to India for filming this year. At this point, it’s unclear exactly what the trio will get up to in the Asian country, but given that Clarkson hasn’t had kind things to say about the area in the past, we’re all but guaranteed some sort of multi-cultural dust up. Previously, Jezza has called the country’s roads a “war zone.” Clearly, he hasn’t seen what passes for a network of streets in Detroit.
Last year, the Top Gear crew drew the ire of both Muslims and Christians after the trio were filmed wearing the traditional Muslim hijab and depicted the birth of Christ with a baby Stig in a manger. At least they’re an equal opportunity offender. Head over the UK’s WitneyTV to watch the full Clarkson interview talk about India, along with what stars he’d most like to see in the show’s Reasonably Priced Car.
and are all we have to go on when it comes to the upcoming Subaru BRZ. We’ve had enough of that, however, and it seems is finally ready to show us a bit more of what’s in store for the future sports coupe. The automaker will unveil a concept version of the BRZ at the , and it will be wearing real sheetmetal this time.
The BRZ will make its official debut later on at the , where it will join its / siblings. All three versions of the car will wear similar body panels with the exception of the face. Subaru will apply its own mug, while the Toyota and Scion versions will be identical minus the badging.
Subaru will be responsible for production of all three versions, and the sporty coupe will be built at the Japanese automaker’s Gunma, Japan facility. There the cars will be fitted with 2.0-liter boxer motors, and paired with either a six-speed automatic or six-speed manual gearbox.
We’re completely smitten with Chrysler’s latest hi-po Hemi, which displaces 6.4 liters and offers up to 470 horsepower and a matching 470 pound-feet of torque in the engine bay of such vehicles as the . Of course, not everyone can manage a two-door with limited space inside for passengers and cargo, which is why Chrysler has placed the massive lump under the hood of the latest as well.
Inside Line cites “a source close to the project” as saying the Grand Cherokee’s platform sibling, the , may also be in line for a 470-hp power infusion for 2013. It only makes sense, since the and the share major assemblies between them and both offer the same V6 and V8 engines (besides the range-topping SRT8, for now…) and since Dodge has historically been Chrysler’s performance division.
Possibly tipping the scales in the opposite direction, though, is the fact that the Durango R/T, which features a 370-horse version of the Hemi mill, has reportedly not been selling up to expectations. IL also cites pricing as a possible roadblock, since the Jeep SRT8 already tops $50,000 and the Durango SRT8 would likely hit that figure as well, since it would use the same engine, all-wheel-drive system, adjustable suspension and massive Brembo brakes.
As for us, we can think of few better ways to shuffle yourself plus six passengers and their luggage than in a 470-horsepower Durango. And so we ask you: Should Chrysler offer a Dodge Durango SRT8?
fans are abuzz over the sight of , and details about the mystery machine are leaking out across the intertubes. The folks at AutoGuide have somehow managed to get shots of the Nürburgring-running prototype parked in a garage along witha a conveniently displayed spec sheet which gives us a lot more information about the sporty four door shown testing on the ‘Ring.
According to their information it’s called the Lexus LS TMG Edition, and the TMG stands for Toyota Motorsport GmbH. That would be the European motorsports branch for the Japanese automaker, which helps to explain the Cologne plates spotted on the car. According to the spied spec sheet, the LS TMG boasts a 5.0-liter V8 engine that produces 641 horsepower and 524 pound-feet of torque. That should be enough to push the large luxo rocket from 0-62 miles per hour in 4.2 seconds and on to a top speed that’s a hair under 200 miles per hour.
While we have no idea whether this is a production prototype, a one-off exercise or something else entirely, the very existence of a 641-horsepower, 200 mile-per-hour suggests that the crew behind the are holding increasing sway over the luxury asylum. Needless to say, we’re okay with that.
If you’re heading to Hell, you’re probably going to take a ride in a hearse at some point in your journey. Seems only fitting, then, that a group of hearse owners chose the tiny hamlet of Hell, Michigan as the place to set a world record. An official from the Guinness Book Of World Records was on hand to verify that the 51-hearse gathering is a new record in a category that we didn’t even know existed.
Hearse owners descended on Hell to roll into the record books together, and the vehicles arrived in a variety of shapes and sizes. to watch the entire crew ride into the pages of history in a couple of videos. In the second video, skip to the 4:25 mark to catch a glimpse of our favorite hearse of the bunch.
How This Supercar Fares Without Its Signature Doors
There are several ways to get to Monte Carlo once you’ve landed in Nice. There’s the train, a 23-minute meandering trek over and through the wooded undulations of the intervening cities that deposits you at Monte Carlo’s downtown station. There’s a taxi, more than 30 times the cost of a train, and it takes twice as long, but it does offer service porte à porte. Or there’s Heli Air Monaco with a fleet of choppers stationed at the Nice airport. Those fine gents can get you to the Monaco heliport in eight minutes, floating past seafront redoubts and over an azure Mediterranean dotted with billions of dollars of sailing and motor yachts.
Of those three modes of transport, only one is appropriate when Mercedes has invited you to Monte Carlo to drive its new SLS AMG Roadster. We offered the appropriate “Mercis” to our chopper pilot for providing a smooth ride.
The was introduced at the 2009 . The roadster was engineered alongside the coupe, but it’s taken two years to remove the top for public purposes. It will take you two minutes of top-down driving to begin quoting high school poetry in homage to it: “Come with me and be my love,” you’ll coo, “and we will all the pleasures prove….”
How This Supercar Fares Without Its Signature Doors
There are several ways to get to Monte Carlo once you’ve landed in Nice. There’s the train, a 23-minute meandering trek over and through the wooded undulations of the intervening cities that deposits you at Monte Carlo’s downtown station. There’s a taxi, more than 30 times the cost of a train, and it takes twice as long, but it does offer service porte à porte. Or there’s Heli Air Monaco with a fleet of choppers stationed at the Nice airport. Those fine gents can get you to the Monaco heliport in eight minutes, floating past seafront redoubts and over an azure Mediterranean dotted with billions of dollars of sailing and motor yachts.
Of those three modes of transport, only one is appropriate when Mercedes has invited you to Monte Carlo to drive its new SLS AMG Roadster. We offered the appropriate “Mercis” to our chopper pilot for providing a smooth ride.
The was introduced at the 2009 . The roadster was engineered alongside the coupe, but it’s taken two years to remove the top for public purposes. It will take you two minutes of top-down driving to begin quoting high school poetry in homage to it: “Come with me and be my love,” you’ll coo, “and we will all the pleasures prove….”
Whenever a new contract between the and a major automaker is being hashed out, interesting tidbits regarding future products seem to leak out. Such is the case with the between and the UAW. A report from indicates that General Motors is negotiating with local union leaders from the Wentzville, Missouri plant to add 1,850 new workers and a second shift to build a midsize pickup truck.
Currently, the Wentzville plant builds the fullsize and vans. Adding an entire second product line and another shift to the plant makes us wonder if GM is rethinking whether or not to offer the next-generation and pickups in the States.
GM has shown off various iterations of the next Colorado in both concept ( and ) and production () guises. We’ve also seen . As of this point, though, we’ve yet to hear official word from GM regarding the midsize truck’s availability in the U.S. That said, the mouths of smaller-than-fullsize-pickup fans can officially start watering… now. Oh, and one more thing – would it be too much to ask for a small-displacement diesel?
Call it practical, call it luxurious, or call it a thinly veiled dilution of a legendary marque. -Whatever you want to call the Cygnet, at the end of the day, there are apparently a sizable number of customers lining up to drop the approximate equivalent of $50,000 on the tarted-up Toyota iQ. So many, in fact, that Autocar has learned that Aston can hardly keep its supply up with the demand.
The thing is that Aston takes its time building each Cygnet, receiving the chassis from and trimming them out to order to suitably Aston Martin levels of sumptuous fit and finish. Which sounds nice and all, but apparently customers are less keen to wait to have theirs built than they would be to simply drive one home from the dealership on the spot.
As far as we can recall, Cygnet models were only supposed to be sold to owners of other Aston Martin vehicles, so presumably this demand isn’t just the result of regular (if well-heeled) consumers deciding to trade in their current car over something like a .
After , is ready to put you in touch with a live operator by way of its Sync Services system. Should you feel the need to speak to an actual person, Ford will put you in touch with an operator who is standing by, as it will henceforth be included as a standard feature in Sync’s suite of functions.
Live operators can assist with turn-by-turn direction while also sending any relevant information about your destination to your phone. According to Ford, relaying the live information will help drivers keep their eyes on the road while the person on the other end does the data digging. Customers who are new to Sync will receive 60 complimentary sessions, while current Sync customers will receive a set number of complimentary sessions based on how much time is remaining on their agreement. Full details posted .
The is dead, long live the Porsche 911. The German automaker’s latest and greatest has taken to the Nürburgring where old marks have fallen hard. The 2012 Porsche 911 Carrera S was sent through the Green Hell, where it promptly beat the time achieved by the prior 997 version by a whopping 13 seconds.
With a time of 7:40, the 2012 911 matches the mark set by the previous . If you happen to own a previous generation 911 GT3, we’ll pause here for a moment while you go out to smash something with a hammer.
Back? Great. You shouldn’t fret too much, because this just means the next-generation GT3 should be a land rocket capable of blistering the surface of the ‘Ring. guys, your numbers are still safe… for now.
If this whole making cars thing doesn’t pan out, Victor Muller and his team at Swedish Automobile N.V. would appear to have an excellent career in magic ahead of them. The executives behind troubled automaker have earned the right to reorganize under government protection thanks to a ruling by the Court of Appeal in Gothenburg, Sweden. This, after being by the District Court in Vänersborg on September 8.
The Swedish government’s voluntary reorganization approval suggests that Saab representatives were able provide blueprints for the automaker that demonstrate a reasonable chance for future financial success. Saab has been waiting for the release of promised monies from Chinese automakers Pang Da and Youngman (deals hung-up pending approval by the Chinese government), and other parties have also expressed interest in supporting the marque. Saab insists it is merely looking for short-term funding and legal protection because it has longer-term financial partners and a business plan already lined up.
As a result of the new ruling, Saab will now have at least three months to undergo reorganization, though that deadline can be extended by the government if the court feels that reasonable headway is being made. During that three-month period, the Swedish government agrees to pay the wages of Saab employees.
As a result of this court victory, Muller and Swedish Automobile are also requesting the cancellation of bankruptcy filings by several of its unions. to read Saab’s official statement.
On Tuesday, August 23, a lone 2012 Infiniti M35h ripped down the UK’s rain-drenched Santa Pod Raceway and sped into the record books as the world’s quickest hybrid vehicle.
Driven by Tim Pollard, associate editor of the UK’s Car Magazine, and overseen by Guinness World Records, the 360-horsepower M35h dashed down the quarter-mile track in 13.9031 seconds (average of all runs). The quickest run of the day tripped the clock at 13.8960 seconds. In describing the M35h’s record-setting run, Pollard stated, “At Santa Pod you could feel the instant torque of the electric motor away from standstill – the car just leapt off the line.”
Lest you think it’s only quick for a hybrid, Infiniti points out that, in the hierarchy of quick vehicles, the M35h’s time puts it on a par with the following performance icons:
1982 Countach S: 13.9 secs
1998 : 13.8 secs
2007 : 13.6 secs
2007 : 13.6 secs
1966 Shelby Cobra: 13.5 secs
1964 250 GTO: 13.5 secs
The M35h scoots from 0 to 62 miles per hour in 5.5 seconds and tops out at 155 mph. On the consumption side, the of 27/32 mpg city/highway, with a combined rating of 29 mpg. Currently, the M35h is North America’s only 350-plus horsepower, 30-plus mpg highway vehicle. Feel free to read all the details in the press release .
Sad news if you were hoping to see fender skirts return to the automotive design mainstream; according to Automotive News, General Motors has already spent a fair chunk of time and money investigating whether or not adding the aero pieces could lead to increased fuel economy.
As it turns out, covering the rear fender wells could indeed go a long way toward making vehicles more aerodynamic, but the costs and drawbacks associated with applying the pieces are too steep for production. For starters, manufacturers would have to run narrower tires at the rear of the vehicle, possibly decreasing handling prowess at the same time.
In addition, GM found that running fender skirts causes tire pressures to increase dramatically, potentially leading to and increased likelihood of tire failure. That’s not something that any automaker wants to induce in a production vehicle.
Then there’s the fact that adding fender skirts to a vehicle would invariably add to production costs. At the end of the day, the domestic automaker found that fender skirts simply aren’t worth any additional aerodynamic advantage given the risks and costs associated with their use. Oh, and most consumers don’t really seem to like them, either…
The battle-tested and it’s time to bid farewell to the aging military vet.
In the Humvee’s place could step the L-ATV. The Wisconsin-built Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle is built by Oshkosh Defense. Powered by a diesel-electric hybrid powertrain, the The L-ATV appears capable of traversing nearly any type of terrain.
The L-ATV is highly armored, can accept multiple armor configurations and has nearly unmatched off-road capabilities. Oshkosh’s proprietary TAK-4i independent suspension system offers an impressive 20 inches of suspension travel at each wheel, which Oshkosh says is 25 percent more than any vehicle currently in use by the U.S. military.
While drivers of the L-ATV probably have more pressing issues to consider than the vehicle’s carbon emissions, they no doubt don’t want to be stranded by a vehicle that runs out of fuel deep in enemy territory. That’s one reason why the L-ATV’s diesel hybrid powertrain make sense (). So, as the aging Humvee retires from active duty, do you think it will be the diesel hybrid L-ATV that takes over?
The minds at Raging Artists are typically tasked with producing unique marketing spots for a variety of companies. The crew recently applied their creative minds to the world of minivans, and designed a spot they feel helps put the people mover in a light that appeals to the fathers of the world.
A dad is given orders to take the kids to school, and the family’s to the car wash. didn’t commission the piece, but the Odyssey is clearly the star of this show. It’s used to shuttle the father through a variety of tasks, only two of which were actually part of his original wife-mandated marching orders.
to watch the spot. Once you do, sound off in the comments and tell us if you think this is what minivan commercials are missing, or if something more along the lines of spots are more appropriate.
It’s a good thing we aren’t fabulously wealthy, otherwise our domiciles would be clad in all sorts of clever automotive art. We’re not just talking cheesy vinyl bench-seat sofas and engine-block coffee tables, either. We like to think our taste elevates above some of the more common automotive décor we’ve seen. Take Wim Delvoye’s intricate tire carvings, for example. Each piece is filled with exquisite detail and is hand carved. Untold hours have been sunk into each piece (we have to imagine that this isn’t the type of thing that gets churned out in an afternoon – or a week of afternoons, for that matter).
The only question, is how does one go about displaying a decorative carved tire in one’s home? Would it work as a stylish table center piece? How about hanging from the ceiling? We say let experimentation be your guide.
Judging by the gallery names on Delvoye’s site, these carved tires might actually be a few years old, but this is the first time we’ve seen them. If they’re new to you as well, check out our full gallery, then visit Delvoye’s website by clicking on the link below.
