, Italy’s largest automaker and the company in control of , has announced that it is suspending sales to amidst a wave of global sanctions against the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear efforts. The automaker says this includes passenger cars, trucks and buses under its Iveco brand.
The automaker said it will honor a limited number of binding contracts but would stop exporting any cars or parts to Iran immediately. Fiat also said that its business in Iran was “totally immaterial in a quantitative and qualitative sense.” In other words, the move won’t have any real impact on the company’s bottom line, apparently.
Fiat joins , PSA and as automakers no longer doing business in Iran. No American automakers sell vehicles in Iran. Read the complete statement from Fiat , along with a response from United Against Nuclear Iran.
Every year at every auto show we see concept cars that envision replacing the rearview mirrors with digital cameras. They’re usually the exterior mirrors and not the central one above the windshield, but whatever the case, and however much sense they seem to make, government regulations prevent them from being put into production. But has found another use for the idea: its racing cars.
The latest R18 Le Mans prototype features, among other more considerable advancements, an AMOLED screen in the closed cockpit that’s hooked up to a video camera, housed in carbon fiber and protruding ever so slightly from the tail fin. The system allows the drivers – who are put under enormous strain over the course of an endurance race – to clearly see the traffic coming up behind (or that they’ve just passed), which is apparently of great benefit considering that these mid-engined, closed-cockpit LMPs have no room for a rear window through which a conventional mirror would peer.
While they were at it, Audi moved the gear indicator, some warning lights and the tire slip gauge to the high-mounted central display. The side mirrors are still there on the outside, so the system doesn’t eliminate that drag (for now), but it operates independent of the sight-limiting vibrations that can occur at the high speeds an LMP can reach, and of the weather conditions that can cause reduced visibility from spray in the wet.
Though it may take some time, if Audi wins on Sunday, it could end up selling this technology in its road cars on Monday.
In pretty much any racing series you go to, the cars tend to progress in an evolutionary, not revolutionary fashion. This year’s crop of Formula One cars, for example, may have those ungainly stepped noses, but they otherwise look pretty much the same as last year’s cars, which looked mostly the same as the cars the year before and the year before that, and so on and so forth. The same could be generally said of Indy, Le Mans prototypes…even stock cars. The DeltaWing project, however, is another story altogether.
Designed and developed by an alliance of some of the biggest names in racing and recently backed by , the DeltaWing represents a comprehensive rethink of what form a race car can and should take. The idea was originally fielded as a proposal for the new IndyCar chassis, but that series’ organizers went once again for something much more conventional. So the brain trust behind the project adapted it for endurance racing and are taking it to Le Mans this year.
But surely they didn’t put all that work into it just to race it once – outside the classifications as a demonstration only – did they? Not if Don Panoz has anything to say about it. One of the partners in the DeltaWing project and the father of the racing car manufacturer that bears his name, Panoz hopes to find a way to race the DeltaWing in the American Le Mans Series which he essentially founded.
A way to equalize its performance with either the LMP1 or LMP2 classes would need to be found with the IMSA and the FIA, but considering how it was adapted from an IndyCar proposal to a Le Mans racer, the platform seems pretty flexible. But Panoz doesn’t want to race just one. Sure, a solitary entry in the full ALMS calendar would be a great start, but Panoz reportedly envisions assembling a quantity of DeltaWings at his factory in Georgia that has over the years built cars for Indy, Champ Cars, Superleague Formula and of course Le Mans and the American Le Mans Series.
Just how many remains to be seen, but with powerhouses like Panoz, Nissan, Highcroft, Chip Ganassi and Dan Gurney on board, we would be very surprised if the DeltaWing ran just the once.
The passing of automotive legend Carroll Shelby has led to an , including a replay of a toe-tapping melody from country music great Mac Davis. Davis has enjoyed a long and successful career as both a performer and songwriter, with several number one songs including three written for Elvis Presley.
If you watch Mac’s tribute to the one and only Carroll Shelby, you’ll see his talent on display. Davis took the time to sing his Shelby song that he’d written years before, and you can view it yourself by . The lyrics are pretty amazing, and they can be a bit of an elaborated history lesson for enthusiasts who thought Shelby’s fame is relegated to a few models.
It could be said that no auto show is as glamorous as the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. Held on the picturesque shores of Lake Como in northern Italy, the annual concours is sponsored by . So it only stands to reason that the Bavarian automaker wouldn’t let the show come and go without making a splash on its own.
Previous years saw BMW roll into Cernobbio with such show-stopping concepts as the and the , but this year it’s not looking back on its history to draw its inspiration. Instead it’s teamed up with celebrated Italian coachbuilder Zagato to dream up the concept you see here.
A rare instance of Munich reaching beyond its own design department, the BMW Zagato Coupé is a one-off concept, but is far from a fragile show car. The shape is aerodynamically optimized and the car is fully road registered in Germany, and has already undergone high-speed testing at BMW’s own test facility. The Bavarian automaker remains tight-lipped on its underpinnings and running gear, but the obvious conclusion – whether ultimately correct or not – is that it’s based on the roadster.
Whatever lies beneath the hand-crafted aluminum shape, however, is of less consequence than its design. Reinvigorating a tradition of collaboration that goes back to the 1959 BMW 3200 Michelotti Vignale through to the Giugiaro-designed M1 of 1978, the Zagato Coupé concept aptly embodies design cues attributable to both BMW and Zagato – from the twin-kidney grille (whose mesh is made up of little Zs), over the double-bubble roof (a hallmark of Zagato styling originally intended to accommodate a racing helmet in early designs) to the Kamm tail that BMW and Zagato both claim as common heritage.
The greenhouse is set way back and the hood is longer than it took us to put together the immense gallery of high-resolution images BMW has released of the show-stopping concept, which you’ll want to check out in detail along with the full press release .
It looks as if aims to spread the Alltrack love around. Autocar reports the German manufacturer is currently mulling a lifted version of its next and . European buyers would be able to sink their teeth into the smaller of those two creations, while Americans would be left to enjoy the larger Jetta Alltrack. Like the Passat Alltrack shown above, the vehicles would enjoy a taller ride height, black plastic cladding on the wheel arches and unique front and rear fascias. Why would Volkswagen look to add another crossover to its ranks when it already has the ?
The next-generation Tiguan will likely be larger and offer third-row seating, leaving a compact crossover-sized void in the company’s lineup. An all-wheel drive high-riding Jetta could be just the answer. There are no solid details on what the driveline could offer, but we’d be surprised if anything other than the current spate of gasoline and diesel four-cylinder engines showed up under the hood.
The 70s were a definitive decade for music and movies. Fashion and cars, not so much. The 80s corrected one of those oversights, an era of ethereal supercars like the 959, game-changing exotics like the Testarossa, and, best of all, everday cannons that offered mortals a generous portion of lairy thrills, such as Chris Harris’ 1986 e28 .
In 1986, a 3,100-pound, 286-horsepower luxury sedan straight from the factory that could also handle was as rare as a goose with lips. Sure, there was a more powerful AMG but it didn’t want to get into a lengthy conversation about handling, and there was the AMG Hammer, but that was a terrifically expensive tuner special. The M5 weighed the same as the 1986 and had 225-section rear tires just like the ‘Vette, but the M5 had 36 more horsepower. And it had four, leather-covered seats. And it could corner.
All of which has to do with why Drive’s Chris Harris spends eight minutes explaining, and showing, why he loves his personal M5 so much. to learn about the sedan that compels him to say “it’s the best money I’ve ever spent on a car.”
Picking up a used luxury car is a great way to save some coin. Letting the previous owner take the fall on depreciation is a smart move, but it’s worth remembering that high-end autos carry with them high-end maintenance and repair costs. Using Edmunds.com data, 24/7 Wall Street has compiled what it says are the 10 most expensive vehicles to own, and the list is populated by some not-so-surprising names. and soak up the lion’s share of the offenders, though other manufactures make a showing as well. Perhaps not surprisingly, the takes top honors as the most expensive of them all with a “true cost of ownership” of $245,469. That’s in addition to the gullwing supercar’s $210,875 MSRP.
The calculations not only factor in deprecation, but also things like fuel, maintenance and insurance costs.
All told, Mercedes-Benz models takes four of the 10 spots on the list. That’s twice as many as BMW, and the rest are split between makes like , and . If that last one seems a bit out of place, keep in mind Nissan makes the mighty (and mighty complex) . Check out our gallery below for a full list of the biggest offenders.
2,500 rpm in a family sedan generally isn’t a whole lot to get excited about. In fact, it’s traditionally closer to idle speed than anything offering the possibility of real entertainment. But each and every one of those 2,500 revolutions in this offers a frisson of excitement when whirling away in concert. Why? Because they add up to 100 mph. In a four cylinder.
Process that for a minute: 2,500 revs = 100 mph in a 2.5-liter normally aspirated four-door kinshlepper. This, friends, is impressive. We first verified the figure for ourselves during a prototype drive at Nissan’s Arizona proving grounds back in March. More real-world numbers include 2,000 rpm at 80 mph and just 1,450 rpm at 60 mph. Credit the Altima’s Continuously Variable Transmission, which has been extensively reworked for this new model. Seventy percent of the transmission’s parts are new, and internal friction has been reduced by up to 40 percent through a battery of small tricks including redesigned internals swimming in lower viscosity oil. The transmission has a super-wide 7.0 gear ratio spread and reprogrammed control logic to help the keep all four pots on boil as necessary.
Of course, it’s still a CVT, which is to driving enthusiasts what Mark Zuckerberg is to the Amish. But Nissan’s Xtronic unit at least makes a good go of it, thanks to a sport mode that introduces shift points to create a physical and auditory experience similar to that of a traditional torque converter automatic. To be fair, the revs don’t plunge quite as far as they would in a slushbox, but it keeps the engine in the meat of its powerband and still delivers a pretty convincing performance, even when subjected to aggressive throttle openings. Either way, those awkward “stretched rubberband” CVT moments are kept to the bare minimum, only rearing their head when the accelerator is buried in the carpet, and just for a moment. Under most circumstances, we imagine most Altima drivers probably won’t even notice they own a CVT.
You can now attack the configurator with tame abandon. Why tame? Because there are hardly any options; understandable for – just about everything is standard or included in a trim package.
The proceedings (plus $920 for destination) for the front-wheel drive XTS Standard, rising in increments of about $5,000 through three additional trims: Luxury, which adds ornamentation like dual stainless exhaust tips, , and more seat functions; Premium, which upgrades the to a 14-speaker Bose system and adds the 12.3-inch reconfigurable dash cluster, plus tri-zone climate control; and Platinum, which swaps for 20-inch wheels and installs power and manual rear shades. Step over to the all-wheel drive XTS and the bar moves up to $51,835 and begins at Luxury, moving through Premium to top out at $61,305 for the AWD Platinum.
There are five colors from which to choose, and on all but a few models there are just two cost options that aren’t already checked: the $75 engine block heater and the $350 compact spare tire. On the Luxury trim you can add the $1,450 UltraView power sunroof and $795 upgraded CUE system, on the Premium you can add the $250 power rear sunshade. There is nothing else for your fancy to do.
The only shocker we found were interior options: the trims below Platinum get four color options, including a couple of contrasting two-tones like the beautiful caramel and jet black (inset). The Platinum trim only gets two interior color choices, caramel not one of them. Checking all two boxes on the Platinum leaves you with a heady $62,725 for the lot. We’d advise you not to take our word for it, though, and get over to the configurator and start virtually outfitting one for yourself.
has already tipped its hand, revealing that it will introduce five new models over the next 15 months. Those five models include the , , , and . Of those, we’ve already spent some time with the Altima, and its improved performance, upscale interior and slightly larger dimensions once again had us wondering if there was still a need in Nissan’s portfolio for the pricier .
Apparently, there is. Despite the Max sharing the Altima’s basic platform and powertrains for some time now, Nissan says its most expensive sedan is viewed differently by consumers. Officials we spoke with at the Altima’s launch in Tennessee this week noted that the company sold about 59,000 examples last year, of which some 51,000 went to actual retail customers. For those keeping track of such things, Nissan says that actually makes Maxima America’s top retailing non-luxury V6 sedan, Number One in a catch-all segment that includes everything from the to the , , and (not to mention six-cylinder versions of cars like the , and ). The current Maxima has been on sale since 2008 and received a very minor facelift for 2012.
According to J.D. Power and its Power Information Network data, those purchases transacted at around $30,000, well above the Altima’s $24,000 sales sweet spot.
Add all this up, and you get a solid business case for the next-gen Maxima, on which work has just kicked off in earnest now that the company’s decks have been cleared of the Altima. Officials declined to nail down a timeframe for us, but given what we know about Nissan’s product cadence over the next 12 months or so, we suspect the eighth-generation Maxima will arrive for 2015. Given the current car’s quiet sales success, we don’t expect the next Maxima to radically change the formula, so exorcise any thoughts you have about a shift to rear- or all-wheel-drive architecture. The original Maxima arrived in 1980 as a RWD sedan but made the shift to FWD in 1984 and hasn’t looked back since.
Renault has officially released details on its Alpine A110-50 Concept. Designed to pay homage to the original Alpine A110, the machine wears a body crafted from carbon fiber and dipped in a shade of the same iconic Alpine Blue we all know and love. Up front, designers worked in a set of half-ring yellow LED lights reminiscent of the hood-mounted fog lights found on the original. That’s pretty much where the similarities end, however. Based loosely on the crushingly-sexy Renault Dezir Concept, the new machine boasts proud fender arches, a wild split-wing rear spoiler and scissor doors.
As we’d heard before, the A110-50 Concept rolls on the same chassis as the Megane Trophy, complete with adjustable Sachs dampers, 21-inch wheels and the notable absences of on-board nannies like ABS or traction control. Hefty 14-inch front brake discs are pressed by six-piston calipers, while the 13-inch discs out back make due with four-piston units.
Renault placed a 3.5-liter V6 mid-ship with a full 400 horsepower on hand. A roof mounted-intake funnels air from outside the engine bay into the machine’s carbon-fiber intake. Meanwhile, a dual-clutch six-speed gearbox allows the driver the choice of disengaging the transmission via a floor-mounted clutch pedal or shifting via steering-wheel mounted paddles.
the full press release as well as a couple videos.
According to the 2012 U.S. Automotive Industry Survey and Confidence Index by Booz & Co., alternative vehicle powertrains may take up as much as 10 percent of the total market by 2020, but only if the federal government continues to support development.
Without a helping hand from Uncle Sam, only 30 percent of the researchers, executives and consumers who participated in the survey believe alternative-fuel machines will be able to carve out that small slice of the market. Specifically, federal tax incentives for potential buyers could help push the technology forward in the future.
According to Wards Auto, further development faces a double hurdle. First, additional urban planning is required to demonstrate plug-in hybrids and EVs will be viable options for buyers, but at the same time, government agencies also need to see fuel cell and battery costs come down before being willing to pony up for chargers or incentives.
Even so, 70 percent of those surveyed said they were more confident about future hybrid demand than they were in 2011. Take a look at the full survey results .
The numbers haven’t been definitively crunched, but it is expected that the estimated 32,310 traffic fatalities in 2011 were the lowest on record in the 62 years that records have been kept. Yet the good news about the total number of fatalities masks regrettable news for traffic safety authorities: automobile fatalities are down, but motorcycle fatalities are up.
After a steady rise in motorcyclist death rates through the first decade of the new century, in 2009 and the beginning of 2010. Observers hoped the trend would continue, but that didn’t happen when deaths ticked up slightly over the course of 2010 and stayed steady through 2011.
Causes are varied, from high gas prices leading more people to ride motorcycles to inadequate training for both riders and automobile drivers on how to ply the roads safely. A report breaking down the numbers also “noted that 29 percent of fatally injured riders in 2010 had a blood-alcohol concentration at or above the legal limit, and 35 percent of motorcycle riders involved in fatal crashes were speeding.” It didn’t, however, indicate how much of those numbers overlapped – how many of those riders were over the limit when they died.
Nor does it look like current developments will allay the trend in the near-term. Only 19 states require riders to wear helmets, Michigan just repealed its compulsory helmet law and five other states are considering such measures. Again, the overall number of fatalities is welcome news considering how many more people and cars there are on the roads now compared to 1949, but the takeaway for motorcyclists is that there is now more reason to be extra careful when you ride.
Used to be if Renault wanted to celebrate a Formula One team with special edition, it would celebrate its own. But having sold the bulk of its own team to and Genii Capital in favor of supplying engines to a greater variety of independent teams, its latest commemorative hot hatches honor the (current) king of them all: Red Bull Racing.
Just a couple of months ago, Renaultsport rolled out the , and is now following up with a similar treatment applied to the smaller Twingo (with a special edition Megane to follow). Celebrating the team’s 2011 constructors’ title and the Renault-powered car that got them there, the Twingo RS Red Bull Racing features a black and yellow livery (though we don’t know what the color scheme has to do with the team that races in dark blue with red), the otherwise optional Cup suspension, blacked-out 17-inch alloys and the RS Monitor onboard telemetry system.
Order books are opening in June across nine markets in Europe and in Japan. But even if you’re not in one of them, you can still for the full press release and scope out the images in the high-resolution image gallery above.
We’ve seen some rather unfortunately garish chrome-jobs in our day, and yes, some have even ladled on the shiny stuff in gold. Many of those have also been vehicles. But while we’ve come to expect that kind of bling from owners with cash coming out of their Ferragamo shoes, we didn’t expect the same treatment to be carried out by Mercedes-Benz itself on its own vehicles.
We were wrong. Because that’s precisely what the German automaker had in store for this year’s Cannes International Film Festival. For the awarding of the prestigious 65th Palme d’Or, Benz rolled out a fleet of vehicles wrapped in gold in which it shuttled around movie stars and other celebrities. Among the attendees were the four-door coupe, sport-ute and limousine.
The AMG division was also on hand to show off the new and offer celebrities a chance to drive their latest offerings. Hopefully those convinced on the Cote d’Azur to place an order will have the good sense to forgo the gilded treatment, though. See what Daimler had to say for itself in the .
The Middle East is an enormously vital market for McLaren, and not just because its oil barons have the cash to buy as many MP4-12C supercars as they and every member of their family could possibly want. While the team has only won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix once and has yet to do the same at the Bahrain Grand Prix – the only two in the region (discounting Turkey), the company is part owned by Saudi businessman Mansour Ojjeh, and another part by the royal family of Bahrain.
Little wonder, then, that the upstart McLaren Automotive is setting up no fewer than six dealerships in the Middle East, the first of which has just opened its doors. To mark the occasion, McLaren took its new MP4-12C to the dunes of Abu Dhabi and around the Yas Island Marina Circuit and brought a camera crew – armed with a RED video camera and Canon’s new 1DX – along for the ride. The resulting high-resolution images and footage are worth a glance, so check ‘em out in the gallery below, the that and the press release below them both.
is moving to make its Easy Fill Tire Alert system standard equipment on its 2013 model year vehicles. Taking the tire pressure monitoring system to the next logical step, the Nissan system honks the car’s horn when you’ve inflated your tires to the correct pressure. No more reading the tire pressure placard on the door jamb and hunting around in the glovebox for a pressure gauge.
While Nissan actually introduced this feature beginning with the 2011 minivan, its proliferation throughout the lineup makes sense. After all, it’s a good idea, and , despite its importance for both fuel economy and on-road safety. If Nissan’s system can actually encourage a few of those disinterested drivers to maintain proper tire inflation pressures, it’s a win for all.
to watch a Nissan-produced video demonstrating the feature on the company’s and read the press release.
Say what you will about the whole retro design trend that gave us such vehicles as the , the , the Ford GT and the , but it has been (neo Thunderbird notwithstanding) a rather successful formula for several automakers, chief among them. The German automaker is now on its third generation of , and is preparing to launch the new convertible version at the in the fall (previewed by the E-Bugster concept pictured above). And when it does, it is slated to go even more retro.
That much, according to Car and Driver, will come in three special launch editions. Each one will be dedicated to a specific decade from the original Beetle’s long history – tipped to center around the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Special touches will be period-specific, including unique colors, seat upholstery and even white-wall tires. We’ll have to wait a few months to see how many of these particular details pan out, but recent history has been replete with launch editions from Volkswagen.
The has expanded its investigation into Chevrolet Cruze engine fires to two model years.
In April, NHTSA began investigating two complaints concerning fires erupting in engine compartments. Now, Reuters is reporting that the government agency has added 2012 Cruze models to the list, upping the number of total vehicles from 177,000 to 370,000.
General Motors told Reuters it has cooperated with investigators and there have been no reported injuries or accidents related to the probe.
According to a pair of complaints filed on NHTSA’s website, two Cruze sedans were on the the open road when smoke began streaming out from under the hood. A few minutes later, the cars were ravaged by fire.
“In two minutes, the car was fully engulfed and flames were 15-feet high,” one complaint said. “GM needs to find out and correct this problem before someone get [sic] seriously hurt.”
