is earning quite the reputation of underrating its turbocharged engines. From the early days of the , through the iteration and straight on to the , the crafty Bavarians have always erred on the low side with their factory-quoted power figures.
According to the dyno run that you’ll see , the tradition continues with BMW’s new twin-scroll turbocharged four-cylinder inline N20 engine that sees duty in the . The mill is rated at 240 horsepower and 255 pound-feet of torque, and on at least one Dynojet dyno, a stock 328i put down 226 horses and 230 lb-ft.
Assuming that around 15 percent of power is lost to the various friction forces of the drivetrain, these results indicate that the engine is really spinning out 265 horsepower and 270 pound-feet of torque. Those are mighty impressive figures, and equal about 25 more horses than stock and at least 15 more lb-ft of torque. Suffice it to say, this engine is an extremely tempting proposition for future 3 Series owners.
Tesla and Daimler are set to collaborate on a new electric . According to Gigaom.com, the fourth-quarter earnings report released by Tesla earlier this week revealed the company is set to supply a full powertrain for an unnamed electric Mercedes-Benz in the near future. Those components include a motor, transmission, inverter and all of the software necessary to keep the car whirring along. Funds from the deal are supposed to begin trickling in by the second quarter of this year, though no details about production timing or volume were available in the report.
The two automakers aren’t strangers. Daimler is an investor in the small electric vehicle manufacturer, and Tesla already supplies battery packs for the low-production Smart ED. Mercedes-Benz made waves at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show when it unveiled the . At the time, the vehicle boasted a lithium-ion battery sourced from a joint venture between Daimler and Evonik, though it’s certainly possible the German automaker has changed course on the five-door. Then again, the B-Class E-Cell Plus was an extended-range hybrid, whereas the Tesla earnings report seems to hint toward a full-electric model. Consider us curious.
If you think is still reeling from negative opinions stirred up by the company’s rash of recalls in 2009, North Carolina State University has some news for you. According to a new study conducted by researchers at the institution, the recalls had “little to no impact” on how buyers see the Japanese automaker. Robert Hammond, an assistant professor of economics at NCSU, says the research specifically looked at the used car market to negate the impact of outside factors like incentives, marketing campaigns and models not associated with the recall to begin with.
The idea was that examining average prices of models affected by recalls associated with sudden acceleration would give researchers an idea of how willing buyers were to pay for the vehicles. Overall, used cars covered by the recall campaigns saw their price decline by a mere two percent. The figure is within the statistical margin of error for the study.
So, what’s behind the slow in Toyota sales? Despite an abundance of fleet sales last month that saw the company’s figures swell by 7.5 percent over January 2011, Toyota still fell well behind the industry average. With production back on track after last year’s earthquake tragedy, the company may have some explaining to do. for the full press release.
When the curtains rise on the in a couple of weeks, so will lift the veil on a vital new product: the V40. Replacing the , and , the new V40 is the Swedish automaker’s assault on the , , et al.
We’ve had our glimpses at what to expect with a , a and a solitary , but with the V40’s debut rapidly approaching, the Scandinavian motor press has hardly been able to contain itself, leaking a series of shots from the Swedish edition of Auto Motor und Sport.
The images are small and grainy, but from what we can see the new V40 looks rather shapely. The nose follows closely on the formula set down by the larger , the windshield looks steeply raked and the hindquarters rather tapered, so don’t expect a lot of cargo space back there. We’ll wait to see the real thing when we get to Geneva, but for now you can check out the leaked images in the gallery for a closer look.
You wouldn’t expect something called the Roadyacht to weigh as little as 1,030 kilos (2,270 pounds), but that’s the curb weight that niche Dutch automaker Savage Rivale is claiming for its new GTR racing model. Couple that with between 700 and 800 horsepower, and what started out as a boulevard cruiser is shaping up as a serious performance machine.
That boulevard cruiser, as you may recall, is the , a four-door exotic hardtop convertible, which in roadgoing spec is already pegged to pack 600 horsepower from its Z06-sourced 7.0-liter V8.
The GTR packs an extra one or two hundred horses (this time from a turbocharged 6.2-liter V8), and while its creators were initially hoping to claim the Nürburgring lap record for four-doors, that the racing model has just two doors – and makes no such claim – leaves us wondering where the plans changed.
The finished product is set to make the mid-April trip from The Hague to Monte Carlo for the Top Marques Monaco show, after which no more than 69 examples will be made available at €141,250 (before taxes, or roughly $185k) – which is significantly less than the €257,000 sticker price for the street version (around $335k). Follow the jump for the brief announcement and full specifications, and scope out the high-res images in the gallery for a closer look.
can attribute much of its uptick in sales last month to fleets. While the automaker saw its sales leap by 7.5 percent compared to a year earlier, Newsday.com reports Toyota sold 47 percent more cars and trucks to fleet customers in the U.S. than in January 2011. Without the fleet sales, the improvement would have been less than one percent. All told, rental companies accounted for 93 percent of the automaker’s fleet sales in January, with the remainder going to other organizations.
Toyota and other Japanese automakers have always been reticent to embrace fleet sales. Doing so is not only generally less profitable than individual consumer sales, but can also lead to degraded brand image and resale value. Last month, was cited for having of the company’s going toward fleets.
Toyota, meanwhile, says the news isn’t the start of a trend. When Toyota factories were hobbled by earthquake and tsunami activity in Japan last year, the automaker put a stop to fleet sales altogether to keep its dealerships fed. According to Bob Carter, Toyota U.S. sales chief, the company promised to make up deliveries to its fleet customers, and January represents the automaker fulfilling that promise. Carter also said that while fleet sales will be high once again in February, things should return to normal once again in March.
General Motors today reported its earnings for last year and the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011. The automaker’s profits for 2011 totaled $7.6 billion, up from $4.7 billion in 2010.
While the news was excellent for the full year, fourth quarter net income was only $472 million, or about the same as Q4 2010. While that makes eight straight quarters of positive numbers since the company emerged from bankruptcy in 2009, the earnings were weighed down by losses of $562 million in Europe from GM’s Opel subsidiary.
There were also a number of one-time events that affected earnings in the fourth quarter, without which GM’s profit would’ve nearly doubled to $900 million.
Still, the company counts 2011 as a successful year, and the stats tend to agree. TrueCar.com reports that GM increased its sales by over 13 percent, increased market share by half a point, grew average transaction prices by over $1,100 and lowered incentive spending by five percent. Based on that performance, all 47,500 hourly employees will receive profit sharing checks of up to $7,000. Check out The General’s official press release .
Don’t call it the Cajun anymore. has officially announced the company’s upcoming small sport utility vehicle will be called the Macan. As with the vehicle’s larger brother, the , the Porsche Macan will blend the seemingly incongruous worlds of tall-riding off roaders and low-slung sports cars with performance to match.
The Macan is the latest effort in Porsche’s plan to expand its portfolio by 2018. While true purists may once again cry foul at the notion of another non-sports car with the Porsche shield on the hood, something tells us this Porsche will meet with far less skepticism this time around. The Cayenne and the have proven Porsche can successfully expand into segments beyond sports coupes without sacrificing its core principles. The Macan is likely to toe that line as well.
From , the Macan will arrive on the same chassis as the Audi Q5, though with suspension, brake and engine tweaks suitable to the Porsche range. Rumors have also hinted toward both hybrid and three-door iterations as well.
The automotive world has been mistakenly calling the upcoming baby Porsche the Cajun for more than a year after Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn mentioned the name in an interview. for the full press release on the Macan name, as well as a quick introductory video.
apparently set a precedent when it teased its . That with all the tell-tale bits of kit blurred out. Now, BMW is ready to give us a taste of its new fitted with an assortment of M Performance baubles and it’s taking a similar tact to tease us.
In the video you’ll see the 2012 BMW 1 Series hatch running around the paddock and the track with all the “important” M stuff – fascias, mirrors, etc. – strategically blurred out.
Like the M diesels, we’re hoping this is more than just an assortment of tacked-on body mods and more of a comprehensive, factory-approved upgrade path. We’ll find out soon enough, as there’s a solid change we’ll see the M Performance 1 Series in next month.
The has always been a bit of a anomaly in the luxury segment, spanning the space between the entry-level // and mid-size //. But with the introduction of the , the CTS has room to grow, and based on these first set of spy shots, it’s doing just that.
Based off a stretched version of the Alpha platform that’s underpinning its smaller sibling, the 2014 CTS’ wheelbase is likely to grow a few inches, affording rear seat passengers up to 40 inches of leg room. While the front overhangs are still short and will continue on with Cadillac’s Art and Science design motif with angular headlamps that stretch up the front fenders, the rear will likely extend a bit further back, maximizing trunk room in the process.
It’s expected that the base engine will continue to be a V6, but churning out something in the neighborhood of 350 horsepower, possibly through the use of forced induction. The current six-speed automatic will likely be swapped in favor of to keep up with the rest of the luxury set.
If we had to place bets, we’d put our money on the 2014 CTS debuting at the next year, with sales beginning late in 2013.
Engines keep getting smaller, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting weaker. Case in point: , which is developing a new 2.3-liter four with turbocharging and direct injection. It’s rumored to go into the in a couple of years, but sources from across the pond (read: Hot Hatch country) expect it to power the next RS.
The engine would crank out at least 320 horsepower, and replace the 2.5-liter inline-five that Ford borrowed from (from which it has since divested) for the previous Focus RS. If you’re worried that a turbo four would lack the roar of the previous five, Ford is reportedly preparing to equip the new Focus RS with active noise cancellation and pipe in sound to replace it.
Ford is reportedly ruling out the all-wheel drive you’d expect from other hot hatches like the or , due to high weight and cost, in favor of the RevoKnuckle torque-steer compensation system found in the previous Focus RS, and similar to the systems used in the Renaultsport Megane and Vauxhall Astra VXR.
Since the new Focus has yet to appear in any form other than four-door sedan, five-door wagon or five-door hatch, Top Gear expects the new Focus RS to pack five doors where the previous model had three.
As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to try and get . In his State of the Union address in 2011, he and proposed turning the $7,500 tax credit into a point-of-purchase rebate. That hasn’t yet happened, but in the President’s proposed budget that was released this week, Obama took another stab at promoting plug-ins: upping the maximum credit to $10,000.
To go along with pushing PHEVs, the budget calls for cutting more subsidies that Big Oil currently enjoys. Of course, the President’s political opponents that would divide America. Others are entirely.
Getting to a million plug-ins in four years will be tough. Last year, the top two plug-ins, the and the , sold just 17,345 units, . Add in sales of the and the new , and that leaves 980,000 or so to go. Do you think an extra $2,500 off the price of the car – plus more models to choose from – will do the trick?
is recalling certain 2012 model year sedans and wagons due to side curtain airbags that may not deploy in the event of a crash. A total of 381 vehicles are affected by this recall, all of which were manufactured between December 1 and December 23, 2011.
So, why won’t the side curtain airbags deploy? We’ll let the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration explain it:
These vehicles may be equipped with side curtain airbags that contain an incorrect propellant mixture for the initiator component used, resulting in insufficient output of compressed gas.
We don’t need to tell you why having faulty airbags is a bad thing. Subaru will notify its owners and will replace the car’s side curtain airbags free of charge. The recall is expected to fully kick off by April, and concerned owners can contact Subaru at 1-800-782-2783 for more information. NHTSA’s official statement is available , as well.
Oh how we love the CJ-8. Of all the classic CJ’s, the “Scrambler” was one of the coolest. It was certainly one of the shortest-lived, with less than 30,000 produced during the five years between 1981-86. So we probably don’t need to explain why we love the “Red Jacket Edition” that recently showed up on Jay Leno’s Garage.
A product of VWerks of Adrian, Michigan, the candy apple red Jeep was shown at SEMA last year. The Red Jacket Jeep uses Mopar’s to turn a into one bad off-roader. VWerks developed the aftermarket kit, which they’ve installed on the Red Jacket, but that’s just the beginning. They’ve also fitted the Wrangler with a four-inch suspension lift, a one-inch body lift, new rock-crawling bumpers and some monster 40-inch tires.
Mention the names Disco Volante and Touring to connoisseurs of classic Italian automobiles and you’re going to need to start handing out bibs.
The Disco Volante, for the uninitiated, is not a rave held inside , but one of the most beautiful Alfa Romeos ever made. Officially know as the C52, the 1950s-era Alfa prototype – of which only four were ever made – was named Flying Saucer (in Italian) because of its aerodynamic shape. It was based on the Alfa Romeo 1900 but rebodied to its streamlined shape by – you guessed it – Carrozzeria Touring.
That coachbuilder had long since disappeared into obscurity, but was more recently revived to give us some very alluring designs, from concept cars like the and to coachbuilt conversions of existing vehicles like the and – perhaps most enticing of all – the .
Now the reborn Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera is preparing to reinterpret the Disco Volante in modern form. The show car set to be unveiled at the next month is reportedly based on the 8C Competizione (another one of the most beautiful Alfas ever made) so we’re expecting the 450 horsepower, 4.7-liter V8 to carry over, though reportedly mated to a paddle-shift transmission.
What we’re looking forward to, however, is the form that aims to modernize the design believed by many to have inspired the Jaguar E-Type. All we have to go on for now is the rendering above, but we’ll be watching for more.
A diesel ? Perish the thought! But if and the M division can make diesels, anything is possible. And that appears to be just what Maserati has planned.
The Modenese automaker, as you may recall, is planning not just one replacement for the current , but two. The Quattroporte itself (pictured above) will grow in size to proportions similar to the and , while a smaller model – internally dubbed Maseratina – will be closer to the or . It’s that model that’s tipped to get a diesel version.
According to AutoBild, however, that diesel will be no slouch, packing some 300 horsepower and over 500 pound-feet of torque. With those kinds of figures, it would be significantly more powerful than the , which packs about 250 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque. Its inclusion in the line-up would surely help Maserati increase its market penetration, particularly in Europe where diesels account for a high proportion of sales in the segment.
Fans of Dodge’s all-American supercar likely know that there have (so far) been two different logos used to depict the fanged . The first, affectionately referred to as “Sneaky Pete,” ran from 1992 until 2002. The second appeared in 2003, when the Viper got a major styling update, and was called “Fangs.”
An all-new Viper is at the , and it will do so with an equally fresh logo. We’re not sure exactly when the Stryker design was first revealed – anyone who looked closely enough got an early black-and-white glimpse when the automaker in January of this year – but we do know that the latest set of images released by the SRT hive mind offer a much more detailed look at the logo.
According to , the logo was named at the 2010 Viper Owners Invitational in Salt Lake City, Utah, and was chosen by Viper owners from amongst a handful of options. While we know very little about the actual car it will adorn, Mark Trostle, Head of SRT Design, said the following: “The new Stryker badge is the most refined, sinister looking and beautiful badge yet, just like the shape of the car.” Consider our interest piqued.
is on track in the quest to restructure its debt, according to a report from Reuters. The famed Italian styling house shuttered its manufacturing business in 2011, with that had seen Pininfarina assemble the , in order to focus on its automotive design business.
While good news for the long-term financial health of the company, the deal will hand the Pininfarina family’s 77-percent controlling share over to creditor banks that include Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit, Mediobanca and Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.
Previous plans called for a sale of the company, but Reuters reports that no serious offers were ever made – apparently, because any potential suitors can contract with Pininfarina whenever necessary, outright ownership of the company was deemed unnecessary.
In any case, it sounds as if Pininfarina’s design consultancy will continue to pump out beautiful Italian shapes for the foreseeable future, the only change being that it won’t be controlled by the descendants of Battista “Pinin” Farina as it has since its founding in 1930.
Radio-controlled cars and trucks truly are a labor of love. An expensive hobby no matter which way you slice it, the costs get exponentially higher the more scale accurate you try to make your machines. And when you’re talking R/C construction equipment, we’d wager that hundreds of dollars quickly turn into thousands of dollars.
Now that we’ve established that R/C machinery is an expensive hobby, let’s talk about its impact as a time-sucking activity. After all, not only must you completely assemble and perfect your radio-controlled creations, you’re certainly going to get them out to play with them. Or, if you’re a particular Joe from Saskatchewan, you’re going to do real-life work with them.
According to a massive , every morning Joe gets to work by loading his scale R/C excavator onto the back of a specially made R/C semi truck, then pilots the not-so-heavy equipment into his basement construction site. And by every morning, we mean every morning since June of 2005. Now that’s dedication to the hobby. At the end of each day, all the newly excavated dirt and rubble is driven up a spiraling ramp and out the basement window.
Fortunately, Joe has documented his small-scale R/C basement construction project, so we can all gawk and gander at a full suite of photographs and videos showing how it’s all been done. Check out the attached image gallery and the videos to see for yourself. We see only one problem… this leaves no way to eventually .
We’re big fans of the latest . Offering a generally refined driving experience, a good amount of room for its class and a smorgasbord of options all at a reasonable price, the Elantra is more than competitive with the best vehicles in its class.
One thing the Elantra will never be accused of, though, is being too sporty. With 148 horsepower and 131 pound-feet of torque from its 1.8-liter four cylinder engine and a six-speed automatic gearbox, the Elantra has adequate power and scores extra points for fuel economy. That’s all well and good, but that’s just not enough oomph to compete with machines like the , Si and .
Interestingly enough, those are the exact vehicles mentioned by as competitors for its innovative three-door . According to a report from Auto Express, the Elantra may one day get a welcome injection of power courtesy of a turbocharged engine just like its little brother.
According to AE, the Veloster Turbo’s 1.6-liter mill, which puts out respectable figures of 201 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 194 pound-feet of torque from 1,750 rpm, is slated as an option for the three-door hatchback version of the UK’s (that’s the Elantra in the States). Sounds pretty good to us Yanks, though we’re hoping the forced-induction love is spreads across the range to the GT five-door hatch and sedan, as well.
