Brandon Wright is the lucky young man who was that we told you about earlier this week. Wright’s motorcycle collided with the German sedan and it wound up on top of him. Luckily, a group of bystanders banded together and lifted the fiery car, with another bystander then pulling Wright out of harm’s way. Now recovering in a hospital, Wright has gone in front of the cameras to thank those that kept him alive.
Wright calls the men and women heroes for putting their lives on the line to save his. He states that he is “forever in debt,” and that he “can’t thank them enough.” Wright, who wasn’t wearing a helmet at the time of his crash, goes on to say that he plans to wear the protective gear from here on out.
The young motorcyclist suffered a fractured pelvis, broken leg and burns to one of his feet. Doctors say it will take Wright several months to fully recover. to watch the video with more of his story.
Consider this a sign of the times: Even though is readying its highest-performance ever, General Motors executives are reportedly already hedging their bets that over 50 percent of all 2012 ZL1 orders will be for automatic transmission models.
The high expected order rate for automatics paired with the not only follows a growing market preference for two-pedal vehicles, it also suggests that even sporty car buyers are noting that advancements in design have all but eliminated the performance deficit long associated with this type of transmission.
Low take rates also means that fewer models are even available with manual transmissions, and it’s a problem that’s only getting more acute. With fewer new cars being fitted with manual transmissions, opportunities for learning how to drive a three-pedal car (along with people who can teach how to drive them) are fewer and further between. The result? Even fewer manual transmissions.
According to the Ward’s Auto report, fully 89 percent of 2010 model-year passenger cars were fitted with automatic gearboxes. In the case of Chevrolet’s Camaro, even the existing SS model is trending at 70 percent automatic, and that’s higher than the 65 percent take rate among base purchasers.
The Oshawa, Ontario-built Camaro ZL1 is expected in dealers in the first quarter of 2012.
is preparing to reveal the facelifted , and we now have what is perhaps our best look yet at the updated car’s -ified front fascia thanks to the folks over at Hyundai-Blog. We won’t see the final design until closer to the car’s debut in January, but after plenty of and , we have no reason to believe that things will change much from what you see here.
As we’ve reported many times before, it’s pretty safe to assume that the 2013 Genesis Coupe will use the updated, direct-injected 3.8-liter V6 that’s available in the , producing 333 horsepower. We’re confident that the 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-four will also carry over, and we can’t help but cross our fingers that Hyundai found some way to shoehorn the big 5.0-liter, 429-hp V8 under the coupe’s sleek hood, however unlikely that might be.
Pour a 40 out, dance a dervish or do whatever your people do to celebrate the dead, because yesterday, the final Ford Crown Victoria rolled off the assembly line at St. Thomas Assembly Plant in Ontario, Canada. Workers from the plant have been documenting the wind-down on a , and you can check out some choice build pictures of the last-ever Vicky in our gallery. The final Crown Victoria was a white model with tan interior and optional rear-seat air conditioning for a customer in Saudi Arabia. With the long-serving also ending production, only 250 of the plant’s roughly 1,200 workers will be kept through December to help decommission the facility.
On sale for roughly 32 years, the Crown Victoria was a mainstay of the lineup that refused to modernize. Aside from the Lincoln, it was the only rear-wheel-drive, body-on-frame sedan left on sale in America. You could get it with a column-mounted shifter. You could order two bench seats and seat six comfortably (front bench seats in passenger vehicles are now officially dead in America). It rode on the oldest continuously produced platform on sale in America, Ford’s tough-as-nails Panther platform that was first used back in 1979. Lastly, it always offered a V8 no matter what gas was going for at the corner station. Click to continue reading…
Many of you have been following the 2011 Targa Newfoundland here on Autoblog, what with our own . Perhaps you were surprised to find out that rare supercars like a MC12 and a Enzo had entered the demanding race.
Unfortunately, the Enzo has bowed out early after taking a turn for the worse when it lost control and dove into the Atlantic Ocean off a coastal road. The Enzo was piloted (and owned) by Zahir Rana, who also owns . Ferrari produced 400 Enzos, and of them, Rana’s was one of the fastest that road-legal after being modified to similar specifications as an FXX. It was tuned in Germany to deliver a bewildering 850 horsepower and held a 0-60 mph time of 2.8 seconds.
We were able to get a few quick glimpses of the Enzo with Rana and his navigator, Roland Linder, heading for the ocean thanks to . and was waiting in anticipation for their to come around the same bend in the road.
Rana has posted a video, which you can find , that clearly states his disappointment, but also his reasoning and reflection on what happened. He definitely has the right mindset, explaining how things like this happen in racing and he is lucky that he and his teammate were left unscathed in the incident. He also makes a point to sadly say, “It’s only a car, it’s not a big deal.”
We agree wholeheartedly with Rana, but by the same token, having the incident happen to a car currently valued at $1.5 million is like throwing salt on the wound of enthusiasts and car insurance adjusters everywhere.
Follow the jump to see the devastating video of Rana’s Enzo coming down a hill and landing in the ocean, along with a walk-around video of the car before the Targa Newfoundland began.
So sayeth the peanut gallery that thinks drifting is just a bunch of wheel-spinning youngsters who’ve watched way too many selections from the Fast and Furious library. I’m here to tell you that it’s very much a sport, and the men and women behind the wheels of their sideways machines dance the thin line between aggressive fury and smoke-filled poetry.
I’m sweating my ass off in the middle of the Mojave Desert for my first lesson on drifting, and my teacher for the day is none other than Mr. Michael Essa. He’s late, it’s hot and I’m surrounded by a pit road filled with random examples of rear-wheel-drive Japanese machinery in all the colors of the rainbow. Plus three more hues that I’ve never seen before.
Who exactly is this guy I’m waiting for? If you’re already a fan of drifting, than you know that Professor Essa is the bespectacled pilot of the GSR Autosport . Essa is a professional drifter who competes in the Formula Drift series alongside the likes of Vaughn Gittin Jr., Rhys Millen and Samuel Hubinette, amongst others. Mike is passionate about his sport, skilled behind the wheel and also capable of ducking under the hood and turning some wrenches. At the moment, however, I don’t know any of this… because I’m melting into the asphalt of the Streets of Willow, and Essa is still late.
Even though public days for the have only just begun, details on the upcoming are already starting to emerge. sources have divulged to Car and Driverthat the automaker will unveils its in the Motor City and sell it to U.S. buyers by the end of 2012.
Reports claim the Jetta Hybrid will feature a 1.4-liter turbocharged gasoline engine and an electric motor powered by a lithium-ion battery pack.
Rather than aspire to , VW is more conservatively shooting to meet the 44/44/44 (that’s city/highway/combined) marks set by the . VW hopes that the addition of a gas-electric model will further fortify the Jetta’s bid for alt-fuel efficiency excellence, a movement currently spearheaded by the .
In related news, C/D says its sources also confirm that there will be no Jetta Coupe model offered – this, despite a warm reception for the shown in 2010. Additionally, C/D sources say that a convertible version of the recently launched will show up at the in April.
The 2011 labor negotiations between the United Auto Workers and the Detroit Three have been a relatively quiet affair so far, but the story is a bit different on the other side of the globe. and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union aren’t seeing eye to eye, which has lead to a strike at facilities in Melbourne and Sydney. Well, most of the union’s rank and file are striking.
Australia’s The Age reports that 400 of the 3,300 workers have crossed the picket line and returned to work building and Aurion models, and union members are less than thrilled. In fact, striking workers have been less than subtle in threatening those 400 workers, issuing letters calling the line-crossers “f— scabs,” and adding “we know where you live.”
The threats have not been well-received by union management, with national secretary Dave Smith issuing a statement saying that there was no place for threats and intimidation at work. Still, the line-crossing workers have to feel less than safe after receiving threats like “payback is a bitch three-fold” and “we know what car you drive.”
Workers are striking for a 12 percent raise over three years. Toyota has offered an 11 percent raise over 39 months split into four installments. You can check out Toyota’s official response to the strike in a statement available .
is prepping his Effingham, Illinois-based Mid America Motorworks for a celebration of an American icon. On September 15, the doors to the 18th annual Corvette Funfest will open, and thousands of cars and people will descend upon the grassy destination. This is an important year for fans of the Bowtie brand because the automaker is about to celebrate its 100th birthday.
Another American icon has also reached a milestone this year. The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile turns 75 years old. Oddly enough, the Weinermobile shares a portion of General Motors history alongside the . Since 1969, the hot-dog-shaped vehicle has utilized a GM chassis, and the current Weinermobile is powered by a 6.0-liter Vortec V8 engine. The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile is also making the trek to Effingham to join in on the Funfest activities.
While it’s certainly an odd pairing, the Weinermobile and hordes of Chevrolet Corvette cars and fans will mingle under the Illinois sky. According to organizers, registration for the 2011 event is already 40 percent greater than Mid America Motorworks experienced for the 2010 Funfest.
Check out some photos from previous events in our gallery.
You already know that . Now, however, comes word that plans to give the subcompact hatchback a light facelift before it arrives. The version you see above will get slightly refreshed mug before it shows up in your local dealer’s showroom.
Originally slated to be a 2012 model, the reworked Spark is now expected to arrive in the middle of 2012 for the 2013 model year. GM Inside News reports that The General will bring the car Stateside with a 1.2-liter four-cylinder engine under the hood, which can be paired with either a four-speed automatic or five-speed manual gearbox (each down a gear from where they should be, sadly). Either combination should be able to hit 40 miles per gallon in a combination of highway and city driving.
Seventy-five. That’s how many vehicles we managed to cover from the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show. And we’re completely spent. Our men on the scene have boarded their jumbo jets and are finally on their way home.
While we take a short break from auto show coverage – at least until November, when , the and the are all vying for space on our calendar – we suggest you revel in all that Frankfurt had to offer by reliving it all in our table of concepts and production cars below.
There were plenty of curiosities to see art the this year. City cars into beach buggies. Electric supercars. Exotics with . Even a tuner Porsche crossover as a new vehicle. But few were as intriguing as what we found in one of the back halls of the Frankfurt Messe.
What you see here is a pile of scrap metal transformed by artistic vision into a full-scale replica of the iconic 300SL “Gullwing.” It’s made entirely of reclaimed car parts and random pieces of scrap by German firm Giganten Aus Stahl, which roughly translates as Giants of Steel. It’s just one of a number of creations the studio offers to those with enough, um, “scrap” to buy the unique creations.
Other projects have varied to include full-scale replicas of famous movie characters – from Peter Fonda in full Easy Rider glory to Aliens and Predators – as well as animals, athletes, even pieces of furniture. Of course we were most interested in the cars, and in addition to the Gullwing we found similar replicas of a classic Spyder and pre-war Auto Union grand prix racer.
You can check ‘em out in our trio of high-resolution image galleries, but if you like what you see, don’t expect them to come cheap: the Gullwing fetches a princely €69,000 ($96k), while the Porsche and Auto Union are available for €39,000 ($54k) and €54,000 ($75k), respectively. Head over to and for more information.
Touring car racing isn’t big in the States, which could be in part due to the popularity of NASCAR. But whatever the reason, it’s a bit of a shame, because the cars can be wicked cool. Like the new .
Though powered by the same 460-horsepower V8, the racer internally dubbed R17 is set to replace the long-serving A4 DTM (and the V8 Quattro that preceded it) when the new regulations take effect next season. Then it will line up on grids across Germany alongside the new and the fresh in the German touring car series. But while development is still ongoing, we got a good look at the A5 DTM here in .
for the press release, and check out the car in the live gallery for a closer look, because while of the series potentially making the U-Boat trip across the Atlantic, for the time being this is as close as we’re likely to get.
The new is going racing, and it has its eyes set on conquering the DTM series. That means the standard C-class Coupe gets the typical DTM outfit of a massive front splitter, seductively wide fender flares and a wing large enough on which to throw a party fit for Dance-centrum in Stuttgart.
The Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe DTM AMG was introduced to the crowds by racing greats Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg. It is a fitting reception considering the amount of wins Schumacher has, and just how German Rosberg is. The new C-Class DTM AMG racer will have to live up to both of those men on the racetrack, while also carrying on an impressive history set forth by Mercedes DTM cars of the past.
In 27 years, Mercedes DTM racecars have secured 84 victories in 156 races. Those wins also saw five driver’s titles handed to the tri-star-backed teams. The new Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe DTM AMG begins defending its heritage in 2012.
We know what you’re thinking: This car looks an awful lot like an . But it isn’t. And it is.
Regular readers may be aware that Audi’s Spanish sister-company Seat inherited the previous-generation A4 some time after it was replaced. They put some new badges on it and presto! A new flagship model for Seat.
Called the Exeo, it has now undergone a minor facelift that did nothing if not make it look even more like an Audi, if that were possible, and we got up close and personal with the new model here in . Check it out in our high-res gallery of live images from the show floor.
It’s a good day to be in the Flyin’ Miata camp. As of the conclusion of Day 3 of competition, both the V8 Roadster and the Supercharged 2006 MX-5 hold the top position in their respective classes. While Keith and Janel Tanner have managed to sling their 430-horsepower machine through Wednesday’s nine stages to take the top slot, Brandon Fitch and I overcame a few small obstacles to zero all of our times through the day. Despite my fat-fingering the egg-timers ahead of the incredibly technical Greenspond stage, we came in just two-seconds outside of dead zero and well within our plus or minus nine-second window.
I also received a front-row showing of Fitch’s driving prowess after the car stalled at the start of the third-to-last stage. In a desperate push to make up lost time, the Flyin’ Miata engineer pushed the 240-horse Miata to 128 kph through a series of undulating turns. That figure is just two kph shy of our maximum allowable speed. Crossing that barrier brings all sorts of unsavory penalties.
Thursday will bring forth a whole new set of challenges as our window narrows to plus or minus five seconds. While we used today to train ourselves to arrive at the flying finish well within our final day tolerances, fatigue is beginning to set in on both Brandon and I, greatly increasing the chance of a careless error that could cost us our lead. Regardless of how we wrap up on Friday, the fact that we can say that we tied for first across the first three days of the 2011 Targa Newfoundland is a story I’ll be blathering at cocktail parties for years.
We love car configurators here at Autoblog, and we also enjoy competition. has just found a way to combine the two with a brand new website that lets you pit your online automotive creation against examples built by others. The vehicle that you’re tasked with making your own is the , and the automaker wants you to do battle with other Mustang fans across the Internet.
This special Ford Mustang Customizer will go live on Tuesday, September 20th. Once it does, users can pick between all varieties of the Mustang, from V6 up to the big-boy . Once a user decides on his machine, it’s time to customize it to his or her liking. Ford has a offered-up virtual wheels, body-kits, decals, grilles, decklid spoilers and a few choice parts from the Ford Racing Performance Parts catalog.
Once your mega Mustang is created, you can upload it to your Facebook page where it can “battle” against examples produced by your friends and other Mustang fans. There will be a leaderboard so you can see how your design stacks up against the rest of the world.
Also, if you end up falling in love with your work, Ford will help you turn it into a reality. A PDF description of how you optioned your car can be printed out, and then brought to your local dealer. All of the Ford performance and styling pieces can be purchased there, while the available aftermarket items will have to be sourced from the applicable vendors. Head over to on Tuesday to get cracking on creating your dream Mustang.
To say that Red Bull has found success in Formula One would be a gross understatement. The energy drink concern bought its way into the pinnacle of motorsports and, after several seasons of building up the team that started life as Stewart Grand Prix and then became Racing, has already secured itself both championship titles and is well on its way to repeating the feat.
That’s the kind of success that – whose sister company Renault provides Red Bull’s engines – is keen to tap into. And tap into it they have, prominently sponsoring the team, recruiting its top driver Sebastian Vettel as brand ambassador and . And just beside it sat this mockup of the current RB7 grand prix car.
Though it surely doesn’t pack all the mechanical bits of the car with which Vettel and his wingman Mark Webber are winning race after race, you wouldn’t know it from looking at the machine up close. See for yourself in our high-resolution gallery of live images.
Many cars have come and gone claiming to be “race cars for the road,” but few actually live up to it. Not Radical, though. The British automaker does one thing and one thing only, and that’s making Le Mans Prototype-style track cars that you can – technically speaking, at least – drive on the street. (That, and regularly trouncing six- and seven-figure supercars around the Nürburgring to continuously hold the vaunted lap record.)
Radical has been making these cars for years. And to be fair, the isn’t a brand new model – it came out several months ago. So why are we reporting on it, you ask? Because this is the first time we’ve actually seen a Radical – any Radical – up close and personal, this being the first time the company has displayed at a major international auto show outside the UK.
So check it out in our gallery of live images from the show floor of , and revel in the fact that while you probably wouldn’t, you could, hypothetically, actually drive one of these on the road.
has given its completely redesigned Panda – only the third in the model’s 31-year history – its international debut at the .
The Italian automaker describes the five-seat 2012 Panda as “compact but capable” and says the third-generation high-riding city car is more stylish and sips far less fuel than the outgoing Panda.
Measuring in with a total length of less than 144 inches, the redesigned Panda is ever-so slightly longer than the 2011 model. However, the added length means the 2012 Panda sports one of the most spacious boots in the city car segment.
It’s likely all four of the available engine options will make their way into Pandas sold throughout Europe. These choices consist of 64- and 83-horsepower turbocharged versions of Fiat’s two-cylinder 900-cc gas engine, plus a more conventional (and cheaper) 68-hp 1.2-liter gas engine and a 74-hp 1.3-liter turbodiesel.
Efficiency is the name of the game here, with likely to feature heavily across the 2012 Panda lineup. Fiat says the revised 1.3-liter MultiJet II diesel – now with start-stop and intelligent alternator control – is the most efficient of the bunch with CO2 emissions listed at just 90 g/km. That roughly equates to 69 miles per gallon on Europe’s combined test cycle.
for official details and a promo video of Fiat’s third-gen Panda, and check out our photos live from the show floor in the high-res gallery.
