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Next Autoworks, nee V-Vehicles, recently hired CEO Kathleen Ligocki to shepherd its planned 2012 car through to production. The design of the car itself was overseen by Tom Matano, who penned the original Mazda Miata and the 1993 RX-7. Matano recently shared some of the compact car’s details with Automotive News, which describes it as a “utilitarian five-door hatchback… a cross between a Nissan Leaf and a Lada Niva.”

The car’s build sounds just as intriguing: a spaceframe with non-load-bearing body panels attached. Countering a build process that is pricey by segment standards, costs are kept down by interchangeable door panels and taillight assemblies. Matano suggested he was after “an advanced concept car that would look like something by Ikea.” It all sounds like it could go quite right or very wrong, but before it can build anything, Next Autoworks needs to have its request for funds from the Department of Energy approved.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req.]

Details emerge on Next Autoworks’ 2012 compact car

The enthusiast hordes have been gearing up for the arrival of the Fiat 500 for some time now. At last, Fiat has prepared its ad campaign to let the more casual car fan know what’s about to hit, and the initial result feels, to us, a lot less exciting than the car itself. Think Anthony Robbins meets a Target commercial, with a little bit of a white 500 thrown in. Or just think Moby since, with no disrespect to the musician himself, his tunes have become the soundtrack to tapioca advertising.

The 1:47 spot you’ll find after the jump will supposedly be cut up to provide more TV-friendly commercial spots of various lengths. Have a look and let us know if you think the Fiat 500 is well served, or deserves more. Hat tip to Jamie

[Source: YouTube via Left Lane News]

Continue reading Video: First U.S. ad for the Fiat 500 is… kinda bland

Video: First U.S. ad for the Fiat 500 is… kinda bland

Few auction houses have dealt with as many celebrity automobiles as Bonhams, and the upcoming event at Brooklands is poised to carry on the tradition.

Among the lots up for grabs during the auction at Mercedes-Benz World will be this unique Rolls-Royce Phantom III. The first of 24 Phantom IIIs sold to the United States, this particular 1936 example – a five-seat limousine with custom Inskip coachwork and 7.3-liter V12 – was used in the bizarre fantasy film Pan’s Labyrinth in the chase scene against a Bentley.

Also crossing the auction block at the event on December 6th will be a 1934 Lagonda M45 Tourer once owned by Nick Mason (of Pink Floyd fame) and a Mercedes-Benz 600 formerly owned by Elvis Presley. Other highlights include a ‘64 Maserati, a ‘55 Mercedes Gullwing, a 2000 Ferrari 550 GTZ and a ‘64 AC Cobra. Follow the jump for the full press release and check out the trio of Rolls-Royce photos in the gallery below.

[Source: Bonhams]

Continue reading Celebrity Classics up for grabs from Bonhams at Brooklands

Celebrity Classics up for grabs from Bonhams at Brooklands

According to Ford, 70 percent of the company’s growth in the next decade will come from the Asia-Pacific region and Africa. The Blue Oval had only planned to have 310 dealerships in China at the end of 2010, but having sold nearly half a million cars this year and expecting the boom to continue, the number has jumped to 340 dealers. This is part of Ford’s larger plan to add 100 new dealerships in China, mostly in smaller cities and inland provinces where new car demand is high.

Ford is planning a new plant with its Chinese joint venture partner, Changan, and will introduce four more models into the Chinese market next year, including the 2011 Edge. Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific market, Ford has already spent $500 million on increasing production capacity in India, where it now sells the Figo subcompact.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req. Image: STR/AFP/Getty]

Report: Ford adding 100 dealers in China

Given the manner is which demonstrations are put down by the Islamic Republic, populism may not seem like a key element in Iran’s political system. But in an effort to gain support from lower classes during his campaign, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rode around in his modest 1977 Peugeot 504. Not an extravagant car by any means, but one that became a symbol for the despotic ruler.

Part of his campaign pledge was to create housing for low-income Iranians, and to that end the president is selling his Peugeot. Proceeds from the car’s sale are earmarked to benefit the Mehr housing project. The vintage French sedan is actually registered to the president’s wife, but given the association, this particular example is sure to sell for more than the modest sum it would otherwise fetch. Thanks for the tip, zedster!

[Source: Yedioth Ahronoth Images: Peugeot]

Iran’s Ahmadinejad auctioning his ‘77 Peugeot 504 for charity

While you might be at home recovering from a Turkey-induced hangover, the dedicated spy photographers of the world are out and about, dutifully catching glimpses of new cars as they are tested. One lucky lensmith caught a camouflaged Pagani C9 being put through a rigorous testing regime.

And rigorous it is, with a reported 500,000-plus combined kilometers having ticked off the odometers of the four prototypes and one test mule. Pagani wants to hit 700,000 kilometers before the car shows its unmasked face, which looks almost Fisker-esque in the photos you see here.

The Pagani C9 is powered by an AMG-developed V12 engine, which is not related to the V12 found in the Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series. Rumor has it that the V12 powering the C9 produces over 700 horsepower while also lowering C02 emissions to sub-supercar levels.

We’re still calling it the C9, but the real name will be revealed sometime in the next few weeks. Pagani’s Zonda replacement, whatever moniker it might wear, should make its debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March of 2011. If that happens, you can be certain we’ll be on hand to capture it from every angle.

[Source: Carpix]

Spy Shots: Pagani C9 caught flexing its V12 muscle

If you thought the current trend of alphanumeric nameplates leaves most cars sounding like places on a bingo card, just get a load of the latest from Vauxhall. General Motors‘ British subsidiary has outfitted one of its Corsa hatchbacks with over 2,000 bingo balls hand-applied to a pastel bingo sheet all over the car’s surface.

The one-of-a-kind promotional “art” car will be displayed at a special game event at an old church in Manchester, England. 500 participants will be on hand to play under the special Vauxhall’s watchful eye, with a chance at winning one to take home for themselves… sans the bingo ball motif. See all the details in the press release after the jump and the high-resolution photos in the gallery below.

[Source: Vauxhall]

Continue reading Can a Vauxhall play Bingo? Well of Corsa it can!

Can a Vauxhall play Bingo? Well of Corsa it can!

Porsche and Bentley are related under the Volkswagen Group umbrella, and a new rumor suggests that the two might become kissing cousins. Autocar had a chance to speak with Porsche CEO Matthias Müller, and the head honcho of the German sports car vehicle brand says that a collaboration with Bentley could help push future Panamera variants foward. Per Müller,

“I think we have to discuss with Bentley whether we can put together our performance, our engineers. It should be possible.”

He goes on to state that sticking to just a four-door sports car is boring. The Panamera should be revised into a handful of iterations, and Müller uses terms like “van”, “combi” and “longer.” If you are a Porsche loyalist, we’ll give you a minute to restart your heart.

One variant we hope the Brits and the Germans can breathe life into? A Porsche 928. There have been rumors and speculation for years now, so perhaps this inter-brand teamwork is just what the doctor (would have) ordered.
[Source: Autocar]

Rumormill: Porsche to collaborate with Bentley?

Prepare to have your concept of the laws of physics twisted by the guys and gals at Lingenfelter. The crew have turned their attention to building one of the meanest full-interior, fifth-generation Chevrolet Camaro drag cars on the planet. In order to hustle 4,075 pounds of General Motors muscle down the track, Lingenfelter has dropped in a fully built LS9 V8 with an Eaton supercharger and all the guts to match. The heads were fully ported and loaded with titanium intake valves and hollow, sodium-filled exhaust valves for the easiest breathing possible. Throw in a set of long-tube headers, a two-stage nitrous system and twin fuel pumps and you’ve got a lump good for a mind-boggling 1,243 horsepower.

Lingenfelter has unsurprisingly ditched the stock clutch in favor of an RPS triple carbon piece, and a unique 9.5-inch billet rear differential with a 4.10 gear puts power to both rear wheels.

By some miracle of driving prowess, John Ebert was able to wrestle this machine down the quarter mile in 8.99 seconds at 158 mph. Hit the jump to watch it happen.

[Source: Inside Line]

Continue reading Video: 1,243-hp Lingenfelter Camaro runs eight-second quarter mile

Video: 1,243-hp Lingenfelter Camaro runs eight-second quarter mile

Economists and talking heads argue endlessly about our economy on a daily basis. “It’s back!,” “It’s almost back!” and “It’s never coming back!” seem to be the leaders among the varied viewpoints we hear and read about. One sector that has apparently begun to rebound is the car rental business. Not necessarily in financial terms, but from the standpoint of customer satisfaction, America’s rental car companies are returning to to a position last seen in the pre-recession days.

J.D. Power has released its annual North American Rental Car Satisfaction Study, and the results are positive for every company included in the survey. Now in its 15th year, this J.D. Power study examines customer satisfaction with the airport car rental process, and it looks at six specific factors: Costs & Fees, Pick-Up Process, Rental Car, Return Process, Reservation Process, and Shuttle Bus/Van. The highest score possible is 1,000 points and, for the 2010 study, the average Overall Satisfaction score is 750. This is up from 733 in 2009 and 734 in 2008. Every company in the survey has improved year-over-year in the survey.

This year’s big winner, however, is Enterprise, which received the industry’s highest rankings in customer satisfaction. Enterprise is no stranger to this award, and getting the nod in 2010 makes it seven years in a row for the rental car company. Following behind Enterprise, Hertz and National also performed quite well in the survey while Advantage, Alamo, Avis, Dollar and Thrifty rounded out the results. You can see how each one performed over at the J.D. Power results page.

[Source: J.D. Power]

Continue reading Study: Rental car companies increase customer satisfaction, Enterprise tops

Study: Rental car companies increase customer satisfaction, Enterprise tops

There’s just something about watching a Porsche 911 play in the dirt that flips all the right switches. Seeing that iconic shape throw rooster tails of silt triggers a sort of Pavlovian response brought on by years of daydreaming over shots of the Rothman 953 slinging sand in Africa. Consider that doubly true for Jeff Zwart’s Pikes Peak-winning GT3.

Zwart has just released a video of one of his shake-down runs prior to this year’s Pikes Peak event. The course runs up some godforsaken mountain in the middle of the California wilderness, and while Zwart isn’t seen flogging the life out of the car, it’s more than clear that both he and the machine are in their element. Click past the jump to enjoy the action.

[Source: YouTube]

Continue reading Video: Jeff Zwart shakesdown his Pikes Peak Porsche GT3

Video: Jeff Zwart shakesdown his Pikes Peak Porsche GT3

Audiphiles, prepare to have your lederhosen wrinkled. While speaking with Autocar, Peter Birtwhistle went and called the legendary SWB Sport Quattro “bloody ugly.” While Birtwhistle is currently the chief designer at Mazda Europe, he’s particularly well-suited to comment on the lines of the boxy Audi. After all, he designed the thing. According to the designer, the biggest problem facing the car is that it rides on the Audi 80 platform, and massaging the Sport Quattro design over those cumbersome bones required some sacrifices. Still, when taken a grain of salt borrowed from the time period, the car is as good-looking as it gets.

Of course, our opinion could be slightly tainted by the fact that Audi only minted a mere 200 of the cars as homologation specials. Anything built to justify a race car nets an automatic win in our book, and the SWB Sport Quattro is no different.

[Source: Autocar]

Audi Sport Quattro designer calls his iconic creation “ugly”

Review: 2011 Volkswagen Jetta SEL

How far will Volkswagen go to dominate the marketplace? The all-new Jetta is a good indication.

How does Hyundai do business in the shadow of war?

Most major automakers don’t have to worry about having a shell land in the middle of their boardroom. But the news out of the Korean peninsula makes it clear this is a very serious, very real possibility for the folks who run Hyundai and Kia.

Dissecting the Lotus Metamorphosis: The Cars

Lotus’ new line-up may be tough to understand, so here’s your definitive cheat-sheet.

Also of interest:

• 2011 Chevy Volt gets 93 mpge (and 37 mpg and 60 mpg) rating from EPA
• Spy Shots: McLaren prepping race-ready MP4-12C GT3
• Report: Production Lamborghini Sesto Elemento will be for track use only
• McLaren MP4-12C priced from €200,000
• Jeep Grand Cherokee bests Toyota 4Runner in latest Consumer Reports testing

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Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 11.24.10

Two speed-loving Canadians have had the keys to their hoon machines taken away. A 2008 Ferrari 430 Scuderia and a 2008 BMW M6 were caught speeding up Mount Seymour in British Columbia, hitting speeds of up to 200 km/h (about 126 miles per hour) in a 60 km/h zone, as well as narrowly missing a mother who was walking with her two children. As you’d expect, the cars were impounded, but the provincial government is taking things a step further. Both vehicles are going to be sold. In fact, the Ferrari has already moved on to a new home and the M6 is set to hit the auction block in the very near future.

The Ferrari is owned in part by a relative of the person driving at the time. That relative will receive 50 percent of the proceeds from the sale, while the other owner receives 30 percent. The government is going to hold on to the rest. The owner of the M6 also receives 30 percent but the government keeps the other 70. The reason for the payouts? To clear notes on each car with the owners respective banks.

[Source: CNews]

Man caught driving 200 km/h on public roads gets $235,000 Ferrari taken away

General Motors is investing $163.2 million three plants as it prepares to ramp up engine production for the Chevrolet Volt, Cruze and a new small Chevrolet. The company’s Flint Engine Operations will take home the lion’s share of the money, with $138.3 million going to help boost production of the Ecotec turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine used in each of the company’s fuel-thrifty cars. Meanwhile, The General’s Bay City Components plant will receive $12.7 million and Defiance Castings in Defiance, Ohio will see $12.2 million. All told, GM says that the money will protect 184 jobs across the three manufacturing sites.

At the beginning of 2011, the Flint plant will be responsible for producing around 400 engines per day, though GM wants to increase that number to 800 by the end of next year. The Bay City plant is set to increase production of both connecting rods and cam shafts while the Defiance facility will increase its output of crank shafts and engine blocks. Hit the jump for the full press release.

[Source: General Motors]

Continue reading GM to invest $163 million in three plants

GM to invest $163 million in three plants

The wonders of advertising have brought us many miracles of entertainment and phenomena of pop culture over the decades. From Budweiser Frogs to ridiculously capable blenders, as a society, we’ve likely wasted away several lifetimes just watching people try to sell us the next best product. Well, pull up a chair and get ready to chalk up a few more moments. Pace Butler Office, a cell phone recycling company, wanted to get the word out about the damage that throwing away your old cell phone can wreak on the environment. For that, they needed a visual aid – the kind that only an fourth-gen Camaro and 1,500-pound pallet of busted handsets can deliver.

As you might expect, the roof of the old Bow Tie isn’t quite up to withstanding the force of all those phones dropped from above, and the damage is catastrophic. Pace Butler Office says that the Camaro was in no state to drive and that it wasn’t going back on the road in the near future. After the death-from-above stunt, an employee reportedly bought the car to use for parts later, so it’s not a complete loss.

Even so, we have to shed a tear for the videos after the jump. Click here to see for yourself.

[Sources: YouTube, Jalopnik]

Continue reading Video: What happens when 1,500-lbs of cell phones are dropped on a Camaro

Video: What happens when 1,500-lbs of cell phones are dropped on a Camaro

By the year 2020, Audi hopes to be the “leading premium seller of electric vehicles,” Franciscus van Meel, the automaker’s manager for electric mobility, told AutoWeek during a recent technical workshop at the company’s headquarters in Ingolstadt, Germany. In addition to launching a number of hybrid vehicles (including the A8 and Q5) over the next few years, Audi plans to debut a plug-in hybrid in 2014.

Exactly what sort of plug-in hybrid we’ll actually see hasn’t been disclosed just yet, but the whole business is part of Audi’s e-tron division – the folks that gave us beauties like the R8-based e-tron supercar (pictured above) that debuted at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show.

Furthermore, Audi’s board member for technology, Michael Dick, says that by 2020, he wants to see the automaker’s internal combustion engines improve efficiency by 30 percent, with 5 percent of the brand’s lineup to be purely electric. That’s a tall order, indeed, but with parent company Volkswagen AG aiming to be the number one producer of hybrid and electric cars before the end of the next decade, the four-ringed automaker’s quest for electrification isn’t as far-fetched as you might think.

[Source: AutoWeek]

Report: Audi bringing plug-in hybrid in 2014

After yesterday’s 99 miles per gallon (equivalent) EPA rating for the Nissan Leaf, General Motors had to be eager to get the numbers for the Chevy Volt from the government – if for no other reason than because these efficiency stickers are the last thing holding up deliveries of the first production vehicles.

Today, GM shared the official numbers with the world, and they range from 37 miles per gallon to 93 mpge (equivalent) combined to 60 mpg “composite.” Sixty mpg composite is a “combined, combined” number, and will be completely different for everyone. You might want to think of it as a lifetime figure, since it accounts for both electricity and gasoline consumed. Oh, and it’s also best in class for compact cars. The Volt’s official electric-only range will be 35 miles, but GM, like Nissan, has been giving a range recently of 25-50 miles recently. The Volt now has an official total range of 379 miles, with 344 miles of that being extended range (i.e., gas) driving. As Tony DiSalle, Chevrolet product marketing director, said, “If you try to boil it down to a single number, it gets quite difficult.”

Doug Parks, Chevrolet Volt Global Vehicle Line Executive, said he is “quite pleased” with the numbers and understands that it is a complicated story to tell. GM and the EPA worked together to come up with this label to figure in all of the different modes that impact the vehicle’s efficiency. We’ve heard that the 2011 Volt will have a temporary EPA label, but Parks told us that what you see above will likely be what we see in next year, saying “Our intent was not to do something that was a one-year deal. Our hope is that this is very similar to the path that everyone will go down in the future. We tried to make the label look as similar as it can to next year.”

So, what about that “230 mpg” GM touted last year. Well, that was a different way to calculate things. “230 by itself was never intended to be a composite number,” Parks said.

[Source: GM]

2011 Chevy Volt gets 93 mpge (and 37 mpg and 60 mpg) rating from EPA

Lotus‘ gave us an in-depth look at both what the company wishes to become and how the cars it builds will drive them there. In our previous installment we looked at the Lotus Group as a whole. Here we’ll break down the vehicles Lotus hopes will make it a global success and discuss the two cars that are conspicuously absent from Lotus’ next great renaissance. Follow the jump to find out what they are and how Lotus’ line-up is set to undergo a massive evolution.

Continue reading Dissecting the Lotus Metamorphosis: The Cars

Dissecting the Lotus Metamorphosis: The Cars

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rolled in the first batch of pickup trucks to be tested using its latest Five-Star New Car Assessment Program. Three trucks were tested: the 2011 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (this truck’s scores were also applied to the nearly identical GMC Sierra 1500), 2011 Ram 1500 and Toyota Tacoma.

Of the trucks tested, the pair from General Motors recorded the best scores, earning a Combined score of four stars. The 2011 Tacoma also managed a Combined score of four stars, but performed significantly worse than the GM trucks in NHTSA’s front crash testing, taking home just two stars for the passenger.

Bringing up the rear in this round of testing is the Ram 1500 (non-Heavy Duty). While Chrysler’s full-size pickup managed a Combined rating of three stars, it floundered in the agency’s tough new pole test with just one star being awarded. Check out PickupTrucks.com for more analysis on the results, and search NHTSA’s full 2011-model-year crash testing database here.

[Source: NHTSA via PickupTrucks.com]

First pickups tested using NHTSA’s new crash testing system