is air-dropping the and back into the UK retail market next year. Corvette supplies dried up in 2009 when the importer closed its doors, and it’s been 34 years since the mothership last sold the Camaro in Britain. Autocar reports that Chevy UK is seeking approval for the entire Corvette lineup, while Camaro buyers will be limited to the SS model in coupe or convertible body styles.
Pricing hasn’t been finalized, but in 2008 (when Corvettes were last offered in the UK) a standard C6 cost £39,999 ($62,117 U.S.) and the Z06 was £54,995 ($85,405 U.S.). The new pricing is expected to be in the same ballpark, with additional cars like the Grand Sport and ZR1 factored into the mix. Shoppers should see the American sports cars in UK showrooms next May, but in the meantime, Chevy UK would like to interest you in an Orlando MPV, which goes on sale in early 2011.
An interview and walkaround with McLaren’s Antony Sheriff
McLaren MP4-12C – Click above for high-res image gallery
It takes a lot to stand out during Monterey Car Week, yet one vehicle that came up in nearly every conversation was the McLaren MP4-12C. Making its first appearance since debuting at the Goodwood Festival of Speed earlier this year, the MP4-12C was trotted out for prospective buyers and champagne-slurping journalists adjacent to Pebble Beach’s photogenic 18th hole so those of us in the States could finally see what the fuss is about.
If you’re not already up on the stats, here’s the pertinent information: The MP4-12C packs a twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V8 mounted amidships, with 600 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque delivered to the rear wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox. And this isn’t an off-the-shelf drivetrain from another automaker – the entire car, from the engine to the window controls has been developed in-house. The result is a 2,800-pound exotic that – on paper – has the potential to rule the segment.
We spent nearly two hours poking and prodding the 12C, all while interviewing McLaren’s Managing Director, Antony Sheriff. He answered our questions, laughed at our stupid jokes and came equipped with an encyclopedic knowledge of nearly every facet of McLaren’s new baby.
But more than the power and the looks, it’s the 12C’s overall concept and execution that stuck with us. Rather than go with an aluminum spaceframe, McLaren opted for a carbon fiber monocoque weighing a mere 176 pounds. An aluminum structure is mounted fore and aft, and the bod work is simply draped over the structure to aid aerodynamics. Nobody does this. (And we now want a bare chassis to mount on our wall).
Get inside and it’s obvious that the act of driving is the sole focus. The seats are molded to the individual buyer’s body, the steering wheel is infinitely adjustable, the tachometer sits front and center with two configurable displays flanking it. The paddle shifters work like a camera shutter switch: hold the downshift paddle halfway, the gearbox recognizes you’re about to select the next gear, dials it up and as soon as you pull back past the detent, it engages. And the headroom. We wouldn’t be surprised if the McLaren had more of the stuff than a Rolls-Royce Ghost.
Other interesting tidbits: You can option the 12C with a three-camera video recording system to document your on-track antics. Carbon composite brakes are optional, but unless you’re heading to the track every weekend, the steel units are said to stop the 12C in the same distance (and don’t squeal). Three wheel options are available – forged, lightweight forged or ultra-lightweight – the latter of which came into being after McLaren execs told the engineering team to just design the lightest wheel possible – they didn’t care what it looked like. We saw them on the concept car lawn at Pebble and the ten-spoke design looks fantastic.
There’s much more, but we’ll let our interview with Sheriff take it from here. And if you’re interested, McLaren plans to make a total of 1,000 MP4-12Cs next year, with sales in the U.S. beginning in August. McLaren hasn’t announced pricing, but we expect something in the $250,000 range. for the interview and check out our two high-res galleries below.
The Audi R8 V10 Spyder is just too easy. Too easy to drive. Too easy to look at. And too easy to love.
We’re descending on Detroit to cover this year’s Woodward Dream Cruise, complete with streaming video, tweets from the street and dozens of gorgeous galleries.
The next coupe to get AMG’s 571-hp 5.5-liter twin-turbo’d V8 is the SL63, and our spies have caught it in action.
It certainly feels that way. Whereas our show halls were once a glittering homage to what could be if pesky things like cost, physics and safety were no object, automakers are beginning to shy away from overtly wild concepts. Byron Pope from Wards Auto has taken the time to interview a slew of designers from companies like , and to figure out why manufacturers are abandoning their whimsical concepts. Not surprisingly, the answer has a lot to do with the financial times we live in. With most concepts costing millions of dollars to produce, few automakers are willing to expend those kind of resources on something that won’t do much for public perception.
But fear not, all is not lost. According to Pope, the industry goes through cycles of wild design boom and bust. In the years following the great depression, concepts took a turn for the realistic, followed by an explosion of design that would eventually lead to the likes of Motorama. Likewise, concepts disappeared once again when the fuel crisis of the ’70s hit, only to be resurrected in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Our guess is that if futuristic design studies are your cup of tea, give the industry some time. They’ll surface again.
Are you looking for 1,000 heavily forested acres in the heart of Northern Michigan? Something in the $33 million range with a world class golf course and sleeping quarters for a couple thousand? If you are, it appears that the United Auto Workers’ is going to have to come off that (very) short list, because the Rank and File isn’t selling. The Detroit News reports that UAW chief Bob King and the new union board has taken the resort off the market. CB Richard Ellis Senior Real Estate VP John Carver called the decision “a matter of the new board reviewing previous policy decisions.”
That previous board said in January that the recession was a big reason that the facility needed to close. The fact that the resort has lost a reported $23 million since 2005 didn’t help much either, and declining union membership appeared to be the nail in the coffin. Guess not. UAW leadership apparently isn’t talking about Black Lake and why they took it off the market, but DetNews quotes UAW local leaders who say that events are still being scheduled there.
We’re sure there will be plenty of people out there who won’t like the decision to retain such an extravagant resort considering the fact that thousands of UAW members have lost their jobs in the past couple of years. But then again, with Bob King and his blue-collared brothers and sisters looking to make a comeback, selling off the UAW’s crown jewels probably wouldn’t serve to bring up morale.
Ford Focus ST – Click above for high-res image gallery
The Euro 5 emissions standards have struck again, contributing to the (timely) death of the current generation ST.
The ST is yet another high-powered Euro-only offering to meet its end at the hands of the upgraded emissions regs, joining the ranks of the , , V6-powered Alfa Brera and the 5.0-liter V10 turbodiesel fitted to the and a handful of other VAG products.
While the turbocharged 2.5-liter five-cylinder found in the Ford is being retired for duty, fear not. An all-new ST is rumored to debut at the Paris Motor Show this October, likely packing a turbo’d 2.0-liter four mated to a dual-clutch gearbox and sending 200 horsepower to the front wheels. We can’t wait.
Izaro GT-E – Click above for high-res image gallery
With the generous and quixotic assistance of Google Translate we’ve been able to cobble together random bits about the Izaro Motors GT-E. The brand itself is a resurrected name founded in Madrid in 1922, the Izaro Electric Car Factory. This new company is said to be run by the original founder’s grandson, and in keeping with that continuity, his new creation is a sports car that will use either electric or hybrid propulsion.
Originally developed on a Factory Five chassis, at least one source claims that Izaro no longer has any relationship with said company. Izaro explains that the roughly 2,200-pound chassis they’re using is fabricated from basalt fiber, magnesium and high-strength steel, and will hide one of two engines: a 495-horsepower electric motor or a 416-hp hybrid combo.
Since current fashion dictates that planned electric supercars need to be accessorized with whopping projected specs, Izaro doesn’t disappoint: 0-to-62 miles per hour in under four seconds, a 150-mile range in the electric variant and 428 miles in the hybrid, with a €60,000 ($76,089 U.S.) starting price. Since you probably won’t see it anywhere else for a while (if ever), you can check it out in the gallery of high-res photos below.
Motive Industries talks about its cannabis-bodied car – Click above to watch a video
has announced that they will unveil Canada’s first bio-composite bodied electric car this September at the EV 2010 VÉ Conference and Trade Show in Vancouver. Dubbed the Kestrel, the four-passenger compact forgoes some of the traditional fibers used in composites for a renewable green car (*ahem*) technology – .
The bio material is derived from hemp mats produced by Alberta Innovates Technology Futures () who gets their stash from Vegreville, Alberta (industrial hemp, i.e., Cannabis sativa L, is legally grown in Canada and must contain less than 0.3 per cent THC). As well as having the impact resistance of fiberglass composites, the hemp version has the added bonuses of being lighter and cheaper – two important qualities for battery-powered vehicles.
Engineered for a program called that aims to aid Canadian firms produce electric vehicles and components, the Darren McKeage-designed cannabis car will undergo prototyping and testing later this month. for Calgary News broadcast discussing the new composite, including footage with company president Nathan Armstrong.
In 2001, Jesse Branhalm III was a 12-year-old in the back seat of a 1987 Bronco II. When the Bronco’s driver turned around to either look at or argue with the kids in the back seat, she nearly ran off the road. After making a quick steering correction, the Ford flipped, leaving the unbuckled Branhalm with severe brain injuries. Branhalm’s parents sued Ford, saying that the way the Bronco was engineered increased its propensity to roll over. In the first trial back in 2006, a South Carolina jury agreed with the family and awarded $16 million in damages and another $15 million in punitive damages.
According to a new article in BusinessWeek, the South Carolina Supreme Court, citing inadmissible and highly prejudicial evidence that the trial judge should have barred, has just reversed the decision. Ford gets the victory for now, but it’s not over: family attorney Ronnie Crosby said, “We believe there is ample evidence to demonstrate the Bronco II is defective and unreasonably dangerous and we’re eager to present that evidence to another jury.”
1.5 million people. 40,000 cars. 16 miles of famous Woodward Ave. It’s that time of year again to cover our favorite event near the city of Detroit (we love the Detroit Auto Show, but c’mon, it happens in the dead of winter): the Woodward Dream Cruise.
Like years prior, we’ll be on-hand for the official cruise day tomorrow, though Detroiters have had their classic cars out on Woodward Ave. all week before the thousands of classic car gawkers show up on Saturday and slow things down to idle on the street.
In a nutshell, you can expect Autoblog to make you feel like you’re there even if you choose not to make the trek to D-town.
We’ll be covering the 2010 Woodward Dream Cruise on three fronts:
Livestream: Come to Autoblog.com at 10AM EST on Saturday to watch the cruise all day via livestreaming. Our setup this year is the best it’s ever been.
Twitter/Facebook: Follow on Twitter and Like the for cool car tweets and updates throughout the entire day.
Galleries: Like always, we’ll bring you plenty of high-res image galleries of the best cars cruising on Woodward. And we’ve made a promise to ourselves this year to label each and every image so you know what you’re looking at.
Make sure to check us out this weekend so you don’t miss a minute of coverage!
Well, take a look-see at what our intrepid band of spy photographers have just netted. Apparently, the go-fast gurus at AMG have been hard at work on a bevy of new goodies, including the car you see above. Underneath all of that cladding lurks the next-generation . Even with all of the plastic obscuring its bodywork, it’s clear that the engineers intend for the folding hardtop convertible to have some healthy air intakes in the front fascia. Why? We’re guessing it has something to do with the manhole-cover sized front brakes on this mule. Take a close look at the front stoppers and you’ll see six-pot calipers squeezing on cross-drilled rotors.
That’s probably a good thing considering that from what we understand, the SL63 AMG is slated to pack 571 galloping horsepower from a twin-turbo 5.5-liter V8. Something tells us we’re going to need those galactic brakes to bring this thing to a stop. Word has it that an AMG Speedshift seven-speed gearbox will provide shifting duties, too. Sounds like a tasty piece of heavyweight German engineering to us.
Wake County sheriff deputy gets mobbed by bees – Click above to watch video
Alright, fine; it wasn’t a sting operation per se, but we do love our pithy headlines. A sheriff’s deputy in Wake County, North Carolina recently found himself in an odd situation when a truck carrying bee hives broke down on U.S. Highway 64. While the truck had left for its destination before dawn, it ran into mechanical trouble, and when the sun came up, the bees came out. When the deputy pulled up to investigate the situation, the bees in the hives decided that they liked the officer’s better than the back of the trailer, and set about establishing a colony by swarming the cruiser.
The hoard of bees was so thick that the deputy was forced to seek refuge inside the car, where he became stuck until help could arrive from the beekeepers of North Carolina State University. The keepers managed to talk enough of the buzzers off of the car so that the deputy could then drive away, scattering the stragglers.
Of course, this brings us to the most enjoyable part of this tale – our caption contest. We’ve levied a few of our own suggestions below to get you started, but feel free to leave your own in Comments after to check out a video of the swarm.
“Arresting Mr. Pooh for stealing honey doesn’t seem like such a great idea now, does it, rookie?”
Dodge’s early attempts at a Superbee revival meet with mixed results.
Krispy Kreme’s new honey-flavored donuts are creating quite a stir.
2011 Audi R8 Spyder – Click above for high-res image gallery
Chas Murphy, until recently the U.S. product manager for Audi’s TT, and sports cars, said of the R8 V10 Spyder: “You have to drive the car. It can’t be put into words.” Well, we drove it over the hills and through the woods of the Cleveland (Cali, not Ohio) National Forest, and we can put it into words. Rather, we can put it into one word: unfair.
The ways in which the R8 V10 Spyder is unfair leave us thoroughly taken with this open-air supercar and yet a little melancholy. You see, as good as the R8 V10 Spyder is – and there’s no doubt about that – when you look at it, what you behold is the dumbing down of driving civilization. On the upside, this particular kind of dumb is among the most rewarding, outstanding kinds of idiocy you could ever hope to achieve. Find out what we mean after the jump.
According to a report in The Washington Post, the event data recorders the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration used to investigate claims of unintended acceleration in vehicles have a history of problems. In one incident, a Toyotapickup that struck a tree in a single car accident was recorded as going 177 mph – far faster than any T100 we’ve ever seen. A separate reading from the same device put the truck’s speed at a more feasible 75 mph. The article even says that Toyota itself has warned about the reliability of data collected from the so-called black boxes by stressing that the recorders were not intended to be used as crash-reconstruction devices. In the recent past, Toyota has already been accused of .
The EDRs in question apparently also have a history of being inaccurate about more than just speed. In another case, the device onboard recorded that both passengers had their seat belts unbuckled at the time of impact when in reality, one individual was safely buckled in.
Unfortunately, government researchers have little other recourse when it comes to substantiating or refuting claims of runaway Toyota products. NHTSA just recently released saying that over half of the instances in which the vehicles seemed out of control were actually attributable to the driver applying the wrong pedal at the wrong time. The Washington Post has indicated that the unreliability of the EDRs leaves some question as to the validity of those findings. They may have a point. Thanks for the tip, FYI!
Han Duk-soo, the South Korean ambassador to the United States, recently urged the Detroit Chamber of Commerce to embrace increasing automotive imports from his country. Talk about a tough sell. However, the move would be part of a deal that would open South Korea to cars built in America – a market that has been notoriously protected by tariffs and other barriers. Duk-soo said that eliminating America’s 2.5 percent tariff on cars built in South Korea would allow his country to do away with its eight percent automotive import tax at the same time.
Without a doubt, , and wouldn’t mind diving deeper into a new consumer pool, but according to Representative Sander Levin (D), the U.S.-South Korean Free Trade Agreement needs significant revision before it can provide “meaningful market access” between the two countries. Lawmakers and manufacturers currently say that the agreement isn’t adequate enough protection for U.S. exports to keep them from running into additional regulations that may hinder their sale in South Korea.
Meanwhile, Duk-soo says that perception is a misunderstanding, and that while his country’s auto market was protected in the past, it’s now open to imports. The ambassador even pointed to increasing U.S. auto sales in Korea even despite the hurdles. According to The Detroit News, April U.S. auto sales in the country were four times what they were in 2009, driven largely by the popular .
2009 Smart Fortwo - Click above for high-res image gallery
Perhaps the most telling statistics of the merits or demerits of a new vehicle may be from owners who have driven that machine for a number of months. By that time, the new-car smell is beginning to wear off and the various positive and negative aspects of the car in question are just starting to be burned into the owner’s psyche.
With that in mind, we were totally blown away with news from that just 8.1 percent of owners in New York would buy the car again. You might expect that New Yorkers, at least those living in the city, would get the best possible impression of their little urban machines since that’s the environment the Fortwo was designed for.
It strikes us as odd, then, that 19.8 percent of owners in San Francisco say they’d buy the car again. While better than that of New York, that’s still an absolutely abysmal statistic. To put it into perspective, the lowest scoring nameplate from owners who were asked a similar question by Consumer Reports is the much-unloved sedan, with 37 percent answering in the affirmative.
Those who have driven a Fortwo likely already know the biggest peeve cited by owners: the transmission. It’s not an automatic, really, but it’s also not quite a real manual. You see, the Fortwo has an ‘automated manual’ gearbox that has a real clutch and gears like a manual but no actual clutch pedal for the driver to operate. Instead, it’s all controlled by computers and servos. Poorly. This design may be good for fuel economy, but it’s very bad for drivers looking to coax some smoothness from their pint-sized rides.
For what it’s worth, you can read . Yes, we excoriate its transmission too (along with its so-so fuel economy and pricy nature). Sadly, there won’t be a new transmission coming to the Fortwo any time soon – neither Smart’s budget nor its architecture will allow for the easy development of a conventional manual or automatic. Instead, Smart is putting all of its eggs in the , which it says will offer a smoother drive than its gasoline-powered sibling. One can only hope.
Drive a non-, or product? Don’t try to park it any lot owned by the United Auto Workers. That has been the stance for many years, and new UAW President Bob King is making it known that he will follow that rule to the letter, regardless of situation. The Detroit News reports that Kansas City Business Journal reporter James Dornbrook learned this lesson the hard way as he was asked to remove his from Local 249’s parking lot by an unidentified member. The scribe later wrote that his Camry was built at Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky plant and that the popular midsize sedan contains more domestic content than the .
Dornbrook may have a point, but King is standing strong on the union-made-only policy. The UAW leader wrote a long letter to Dornbrook – which the KCBJ published – accusing transplant automakers of refusing workers the right to organize. King then added that transplants have accepted millions in tax cuts to build factories in the U.S. while at the same time jeopardizing middle-class jobs. The UAW and its 300,000 members, meanwhile, still account for two-thirds of U.S. auto assembly jobs.
While “union only” parking rules are the exact sort of thing that has many Americans rolling their eyes at the UAW, Wayne State University labor professor David Reynolds suggests that the current economic recession actually makes the public a bit more sympathetic to the UAW’s situation, adding “there seems to be a better understanding of buying products and supporting companies that benefit local communities.”
Codemasters’ F1 2010 doesn’t appear to be getting the same kind of press as or even , but a recently released in-game video could change that. The upcoming Formula 1 game is scheduled to hit stores in September, complete with damn-near photo-realistic gaming action that has us drooling. And we’re not talking about those fanciful panning, aerial beauty shots that you see in some of the theatrical-looking promos for games. This is actual in-car, live racing footage. In the rain. to experience F1 2010 from the virtual cockpit of a Formula 1 car.
Surprise, surprise – is working on an AMG version of its coupe sedan. Our spies recently caught this prototype out and about, and underneath all of that cladding is what we imagine to be an immensely attractive, steroid-enhanced version of the new body. We’ll take one in black, please.
Shapely lines aside, the most important part of any AMG car is what’s under the hood, and the CLS AMG will doubtlessly pack wallop. Expect Benz’s new 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8 to be under the bonnet, as this will rapidly become standard spec for Benz’s V8-powered AMG cars. We’ve already read about this mill in the new and , so expect the CLS to bring around 540 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque to the table, though we assume that an upgraded performance package will be available, increasing these output numbers.
We’re on the edge of our Recaros for this one, folks. But until the final tweaks have been made, we’ll have to settle for these spy shots. See for yourself in the high-res gallery below.
