is issuing a recall of 20,278 SUVs from the 2011- and 2012 model years including the base model as well as the S, Hybrid and Turbo. The vehicles in question, produced from March 8, 2010 up to January of this year, may have been fitted with faulty headlight locking assemblies. In case of assembly failure, the headlights could detach from the fenders – something that might be dramatically inconvenient if you’re driving at night on a dark, winding road, say.
Porsche is sending notices to owners and dealers will fix the issue free of charge. There’s an official press notice from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration with a little more info.
The sets itself apart from the other international auto shows with a gathering of Europe’s smaller boutique manufacturers and tuners. One of those is Gumpert, the German builder of supercars that have impressive performance and a polarizing appearance. Gumpert has had a strong showing at Geneva the last couple years, debuting the in 2010 and the coachbuilt last year.
Gumpert has big plans for this year’s Geneva Motor Show, and back in November released a showing a new supercar that would be revealed in March. Now that the show is just days away, Gumpert has released another teaser (seen above), and a few more details, including the fact that two Apollo models will be making their debut. First is the Apollo R, which Gumpert says is a “a true racecar with the brute power of up to 860 horsepower.” Second is the Apollo Enraged, an exclusive model limited to just three examples that will be the “strongest Apollo that Gumpert has ever set on the road.”
Gumpert also hinted at a time of 7:11.75 – no doubt a Nürburgring lap set by one of the aforementioned cars. Could the German supercar maker have nicked the set by the back in September? We’ll have to wait to find out. Check back on March 6th and 7th for official details and photos for both cars, as well as the rest of our Geneva Motor Show coverage.
is making progress in its quest to be the one automaker to rule them all. According to The Detroit Bureau, Volkswagen saw profits more than double last year as sales increased by 14.7 percent. All told, the company earned $20.5 billion in 2011, up from $9.1 billion the year prior. The profit figure is well ahead of what industry analysts predicted for the German automaker. Total revenue is up by 26 percent as well, which is around two percent more than forecasters calculated.
It’s worth noting that a fair chunk of the automaker’s earnings were due to the ongoing merger battle between Volkswagen and . Last year, Porsche attempted a raid on Volkswagen stock in an attempt to take over the larger company before Volkswagen had a chance to swallow the smaller manufacturer whole. The effort failed, however, and while Porsche is now facing down multiple lawsuits as a result of the company’s stock assault, Volkswagen enjoyed a swell in pre-tax profits last year – 18.93 billion euros in 2011. In 2010, the automakers pre-tax profits were 8.99 billion euros.
spent much of 2011 jousting with Italian labor unions over contracts and plant security. The matter was when Fiat signed new labor agreements, but a sign of Fiat’s take on the matter was its , an Italian business group, over concerns that group labor agreements were crippling international competitiveness. Some recent comments by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne, though, seem to point the company back to loggerheads with labor.
According to a Reuters report, Marchionne said that Fiat might close two of its five Italian plants “if plans to export to the growing U.S. market don’t materialize.” The plans in question appear to be based on getting Alfa Romeo back to the U.S. market, but the only public news we’ve and . The report didn’t say when Marchionne was considering shutting down the plants, but with Alfa’s U.S. return timed for next year at the earliest, it seems a bit early for Marchionne to turn into a crapehanger.
Indeed, the report has riled the head of Italy’s largest metalworker’s union, who called the comments “worrying,” cited the failed attempts to get Alfa here and called plans for the brand “weak, overambitious and adventurous.”
What’s not in question, however, is that Marchionne has to figure out how to get more from Fiat’s Italian operations. While Chrysler plants are at capacity, put Fiat’s Italian factory utilization at 38 percent in the first three quarters of 2011, and said Italian workers produced 30 cars per year on average while Polish workers produced 100, before accounting for model and work disparities. Pinning hopes on Alfa’s export possibilities to turn those numbers around strikes us as odd.
? Good. Mercedes AMG? Better. Mercedes AMG Black Series? Now we’re talkin’. The top of the line range from the German automaker’s performance division has tinkered with CLK, , and to devastating effect. The trouble is, as much as we love driving these kinds of performance machines on the road, we have to begrudgingly admit that most of the earth’s surface is covered in water. That’s where Mercedes’ partnership with Cigarette speedboats comes into play.
The two powerhouses have collaborated in the past on an , then passed the goods on to partner Ducati for a , but now the partnership has lead to the 50-footer you see here.
The Black Series 50′ Marauder takes its inspiration from the , but where the muscle-coupe has an impressive 510-horsepower 6.3-liter V8, the Cigarette packs a pair of Mercury Racing engines good for 1,350 horsepower – each. The beast is decked out in a black and white paint scheme, swathed Alcantara and fitted with a hundred billet aluminum components.
The result was unveiled at the 2012 Miami Boat Show – the largest annual event in Florida – just last month, but if you missed it you can check it out now in the press release and the high-res image gallery.
We can attest to the joys of , having spent several days this past fall becoming addicted to the 4.8-liter V10 and race-bred suspension. We aren’t the only ones who have developed an affection for the $400,000 Lexus supercar, though. Alex Wurz, former Formula 1 driver and two-time Le Mans winner, recently got behind the wheel of the LFA and seemed duly impressed.
Not one to just take the LFA out for a lazy drive, Wurz makes proper use of all 552 horsepower and 9,000 rpm running the Estoril Circuit in Portugal. After a few laps of pushing the supercar around the track, Wurz heaps praise on the LFA for its super-aggressive looks, neutral handling, and the sound of the downshifts from the V10.
If you want to see a video of the Lexus LFA being driven the way it was intended, then and turn up your speakers.
It’s more a rear-lift than a facelift, since only the back end has changed on the 2012 Urban offered in Canada. There are two noteworthy changes for the decontented model, the first being that Suzuki swapped the full-sized spare tire for a temporary “donut” spare and moved it from the rear gate to underneath the floor of the cargo area.
The other big change is the price: a current Vitara JL starts at $28,135 CAD, the revised model goes down in price to $26,995 CAD. For comparison, that new price equates to $27,007 USD, nearly $1,700 more expensive than the base price of the top-dog Grand Vitara Limited AT 4WD, which starts at $25,379 USD here.
It’s been speculated that the changes are meant to lure more female customers (Vitara buyers are 60-percent male). Other specs and features haven’t changed, which appears to make this a stopgap while everyone waits on , which will of the platform.
China is ’s second-largest market, so important to the brand that it is building its . Infiniti will also adapt to the local tastes in another way this year when it offers an M37 sedan variant that’s stretched by 150 millimeters for the Chinese market.
By now the Chinese preference for extended-wheelbase vehicles is well known, ’s A6L having left a trail of money that the 5Li, E300L and S80L were quick to follow. The longer Infiniti M will go up against that bunch. Unlike its competitors, however, the M isn’t built in China, so even though it helped Infiniti last year, some suggest the price disparity will handicap its chances.
We’ll know the specifics once the extended-wheelbase M debuts at the Beijing Auto Show in April. A hybrid version after the first model goes on sale in June.
is launching a new commercial for the redesigned that will initially air during the Daytona 500 this weekend. This is the first time that the Blue Oval has promoted its pony car on television since it launched the new 2011 Mustang V6 in 2010.
Conventional marketing wisdom might dictate that Ford would use the airtime to promote the 2013 Mustang’s revised design, the 420-horsepower V8 or the pony car’s history of nearly half a decade. Instead, Ford is touting the personalization aspect of the Mustang, counting on the fact that more than four million people have already built their own version using the .
The commercial depicts a real-life version of the customizer, with a variety of bystanders “unleashing their inner Mustang,” turning the car into a custom Mustang GT, or … and at least one tiny dancer injecting a little darkness into her ballerina outfit for a ride worthy of Natalie Portman.
Have a look at the 2013 Mustang commercial for yourself , and let us know whether you think it’s the most effective use of Ford’s ad dollars in the comments section below.
While we wait for the unveiling of the , the inevitable speculation over what it’s going to look like continues. In broad terms, we already know what we’re going to get in the third generation of Chrysler’s flagship sports car. We’ve seen enough , and to know that the final product is going to look like, well, a Viper – long hood, wide stance, massive grille, big wheels.
Ah, but the details. The big questions concerning and performance specs and such won’t truly be answered until actually rolls out some real cars. But perhaps more importantly, we do have a good sense of the Viper’s new face. Its triangular headlights and triple hood scoops look to raise the aggro level, and those features have been nicely illustrated by one of our readers.
Spen Oner created the rendering you see above, using that Hot Wheels image as its basis. As we noted in our original post about the Hot Wheels car, the wheels are a bit over-sized, and the angle of the shot only accentuates that. We also know that there will be something other than gaping black space in the grille area, as we’ve seen a stylized version of Dodge’s crosshair grille in the .
Thanks to Spen Oner and stay tuned for more news. We promise we’ll do our best to make you sick of the Viper before it’s even released!
It’s been a long while since the guys at Motor Trend went through the trouble of picking the best driver’s car, and for good reason. In order to pull off an actual test with any merit, the publication would need to wrangle some of the most impressive pieces of automotive engineering together on the same track on the same day. When we’re talking about vehicles like the , , , and the like, that can be a daunting feat, even for a rag of MT’s swagger.
The stars aligned, however, and the crew managed to collect the hardware above as well as heathens like the , Porsche 911 GT3 RS, Porsche Cayman R, Audi R8 GT, and the Ford Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca. All told, the collection was worth more than $1.5 million, and Motor Trend took the time to put them all through a battery of grueling performance tests before handing over the keys to a pro driver for a few quick laps at Laguna Seca. Rough times, guys.
The decision-making process has been split into three parts, and Part 1 is . Enjoy.
and the company’s lawyers are nothing if not determined. After a judge smacked down the electric vehicle manufacturer’s and Top Gear for comments made about the range of the , the automaker rallied with a second, amended lawsuit. It didn’t take long for the the same judge to nix the new case, too, saying the amendment was “not capable of being defamatory at all, or, if it is, it is not capable of being a sufficiently serious defamatory meaning to constitute a real and substantial tort.”
That sound? It’s the smack of the judicial backhand.
The judge went on to say drivers know a manufacturer’s claim about range is dependent on driving conditions and habits.
The dustup, as you may recall, began when Top Gear put the Tesla Roadster through its paces on the show’s test track. While Jeremy Clarkson lauded the car’s acceleration, the segment claimed the vehicle ran out of juice after just 55 miles of abuse. That figure is far south of the 200 mile range Tesla claims for the vehicle. CEO Elon Musk called the show “completely phony” not long after the segment aired and brought out the legal guns. The rest, as they say, is history.
If you believe the gossip around Detroit, one of the Group’s minivan twins is fixin’ to be killed. This is not news. In fact, it’s now been over one year since that either the or will likely get the axe by 2013. What’s still unknown, however, is exactly which of the two minivans will be left standing after the vehicles merge into one Pentastar van.
“If we were to combine them into one minivan, Town & County has the natural fit to continue,” Chrysler brand CEO Saad Chehab said while speaking to Automotive News, adding that the T&C is the “bread and butter” of his brand. “It’s always been Town & Country that leads the way for the business of minivans, but there is a certain cache and there is loyalty that we’ve got to consider to move forward.”
In 2010, the Chrysler Town & Country was the best-selling minivan in the United States. Things shifted in 2011, however, where the Dodge Grand Caravan outsold the Town & Country – 110,862 units to 94,320 – and both were bested by the in sales. We suspect it isn’t just owner loyalty that Chrysler would be keen to maintain with the Town & Country – it’s also priced higher and that presumably translates into bigger margins.
Until the next-generation Chrysler Group minivan launches in 2013, we won’t know which of the two current minivans will get the axe, though earlier reports have stated that , depending on the market. Still, one of America’s minivans is going away, so sound off in our poll below to tell us which of the two nameplates you’d like to see stick around.
And here we thought we everything planned to bring to the . We were wrong. The German automaker has announced that it will debut a new M135i Concept, marking the first time it has paired a gasoline-burning engine with its new moniker.
We’ll get to the powertrain in a moment, but first, take note of the three-door hatchback body. Up until now, we’ve only seen the in , and while the M135i is officially a concept, we’d expect the production version to rock this basic shape, sans the enlarged air intakes up front and the rest of the body kit.
BMW says the three-door 1 Series has “a more dynamic and elongated appearance” than its five-door sibling, pointing to details like its rising character line, frameless windows and “powerfully flared wheel arches” as unique elements. We won’t argue any of that, but we’re still not entirely sold on the new 1er’s nostrils.
Underhood lies BMW’s well-known Twin Power Turbo 3.0-liter inline six that sends “more than 300″ horsepower to the rear wheels. The suspension has been modified for M Performance duty, and the wheels have been upgraded to 18-inch M-branded alloys. We expect something along these lines to show up in production guise in relatively short order… at the very least for European buyers.
Check out the high-res image gallery above, then to read the official press release.
Yesterday’s didn’t come from the GOP (for a change), but , one Michael Degusta. His charges against include suggesting that its cars will have “eventual, inevitable, catastrophic battery failure,” lambasting the company for poor warranty service, accusing Tesla of tracking its owners without consent, and intimating that the company is not only failing to provide owners with proper notice of this phenomenon but also covering up the whole sordid affair. Serious stuff, this post of his that’s rippled through the automotive web with the force of a 185-kW electric motor.
Yet all may not be what it seems. Late yesterday, an e-mail surfaced on Green Car Reports, in which a disgruntled owner who bricked his battery pleads his case to Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The e-mail, sent by one Max Drucker, CEO of Santa Barbara-based Social Intelligence Corp, is a clear plea for assistance in the repair of his car. Drucker identifies his car as Roadster #340, the same car that serves as the primary example in Degusta’s piece. Drucker has since spoken with Autopia about his car, admitting that he drove his Roadster down to a 25 percent charge, then left it parked for six weeks, something .
Now, let’s turn our attention towards Degusta, who noted at the end of his screed, “No one has paid me to write this article” and pointed out that his blog is not advertising-supported. That’s an important point, as it’s clearly designed to give readers the impression that Degusta is an unbiased outsider, something of a modern-day Upton Sinclair, defending the poor, innocent owners of $100,000 sports cars from the uncaring electric car company and its billionaire co-founder.
Yet, a few minutes spent with Google shows that Drucker and Degusta are also business partners, having registered at least four corporations together in California, . It also turns up , from the November 15, 2000, issue of Insurance & Technology magazine, a profile of Drucker, in which he is quoted describing Degusta as his “partner in crime.” Indeed, we wonder if the Tesla might be considering another libel lawsuit against this muckraking duo.
Translogic has driven a lot of interesting vehicles over the past two years. Our sister site filmed in a , drove , got behind the wheel of an , turned in the first test drive of the , tried out the , and even found a wacky You’d think there wouldn’t be anything more outrageous for those guys to find seat time in. Yet they’ve managed to find yet another crazy transportation project with an alternative power source to top them all: human waste.
While , this episode of Translogic features an actual road test, filmed onsite at the Wessex Water waste treatment plant in England. The plant produces biogas, a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide gas that’s used to power this . The conversion sounds pretty straightforward, and is similar to adapting a gasoline engine to run on propane.
will begin rolling out its 1.0-liter, three-cylinder Ecoboost engine this year in overseas models like the UK-spec and . Replacing the naturally-aspirated 1.6-liter four-cylinder, translates its minimal displacement into versions with 99 horses and 118 horses, and up to 125 pound-feet of torque. A report in Autocar suggests Ford can do even better, speculating that The Blue Oval is currently testing a unit outputting 177 hp.
The supplemental power would come from another turbocharger in a production guise, but for testing purposes comes from a supercharger feeding a turbo taken from Ford’s 1.6-liter, four-cylinder Ecoboost. A hi-po option would be slated some kind of “performance version of the Focus positioned some distance below the forthcoming 247bhp .”
Or, if Ford could really get that output to work for production the engine could be an option for the . Shown off last year, the hotted-up Fiesta was paired with a 180-hp, 177-lb-ft version of the 1.6-liter Ecoboost. Granted, this is all hypothetical, but even with the loss of a noticeable chunk of torque the idea might have its merits.
Back in the mid-40s, Pininfarina designed a car for Cisitalia called (simply enough) the . The auto marque has long since died, but the 202 lives on as a hallmark of harmonious design. Now the students at the IED in Turin are paying homage with a new design study slated for unveiling at the upcoming .
Something of a collective thesis project by the masters students of the school’s transportation design program, the Cisitalia 202 E Concept was penned by Chin-Hsuan Chen of Taiwan and implemented under the watchful eyes of Pininfarina and head designers. More of a 1:1 model than a rolling show car, the 202 E (for Evoluzione) would (theoretically) be powered by a V8 driving 450 horsepower to the rear set of 19-inch wheels and follows such recent designs as of 2011 and the of 2008.
It’s been five months since we first that was developing a version of its new euro-spec hatchback for competition in the highly competitive British Touring Car Championship. A month later, for the Japanese automaker behind the wheel of the outgoing Civic touring car. And just a couple of weeks ago, Honda a quintet of renderings of the version it is preparing in parallel for the World Touring Car Championship.
By now, the Honda team has not only finished building the new Civic NGTC – shorthand for Next-Generation Touring Car – but it has completed initial systems testing, carried out its first on-track shakedown and released these images to tell the tale. With everything running smoothly so far, the team is gearing up for further testing before the 2012 championship kicks off at Brands Hatch on April 1. That’s when Neal and Gordon “Flash” Shedden will campaign the new Civic NGTC against a vicious field of rivals driving , Vauxhall, , Skoda, Seat, , , and Proton racers. Heck, there’s even the new …but .
We’ll be watching keenly to see if Neal and Shedden can defend Honda’s title, but for now, you can check out the high-res images in the gallery above and the press release after the jump to see how their new ride is shaping up.
The is an unqualified hit. Sales of this playful econobox have increased year-over-year since it was introduced in 2009 as a 2010 model, with over 100,000 people bringing one home last year alone. In fact, the Soul was Kia’s second-best-selling model in 2011 behind the , beating out the critically acclaimed , gorgeous and entry-level .
Not only is the Soul outperforming products in its own portfolio, it’s also slaughtering what little competition there is out there that lines up straight against it. One could argue that the Soul competes with any sub-$20K five-door hatchback on the market, but most agree that buyers considering a Soul are also likely to check out the and . These three vehicles make up a tiny selection of boxy alternatives for people who shun the norm, but in just a few short years, the Soul has run away with the segment, accounting for 76-percent of its sales last year alone.
There are a number of reasons for the Soul’s success, not the least of which is an award-winning marketing campaign that stars a . Aside from rhythmically inclined rodents, the Soul has achieved what the xB and Cube haven’t because its unorthodoxy ends long before alienation sets in. A lot of people just find it charming, and it covers the basics of A-to-B transportation as well as any other vehicle with a starting price below $14,000.
But the Soul wasn’t perfect, as evidenced by the . With new styling tweaks inside and out, new and updated engines and transmissions along with additional features, the 2012 Kia Soul is a lot newer than one would expect of a vehicle just three years old. And while normally automakers are prone to sending out loaded models to review, Kia was confident enough to deliver us this Base 1.6L model for a week-long test.
