By all accounts, vehicle theft is down to some of the lowest levels in over 25 years. Even so, cars are still getting pilfered every day, and LoJack has gone through the trouble of crafting a detailed infographic displaying some of the more interesting information associated with the 10,251 LoJack-equipped vehicles that were stolen and then recovered last year. The company says that, of all vehicles equipped with the theft recovery system, 92 percent are brought back to their rightful owners. Last year, the most stolen and recovered 2011 model was the ubiquitous , while the took the top slot overall.
The oldest model saved from the clutches of thieves in 2011 was a 1948 Fleetline, while the priciest of them all was a worth $116,825. Not too shabby.
Not surprisingly, California led the list of states with the most stolen and recovered vehicles, with Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey fleshing out the top five. The full, expanded infographic can be seen .
While the ink has barely dried on our , the automaker has reportedly just divulged the roadster’s official lap time around the famed Nürburgring circuit in Germany – the grueling racetrack that serves as a benchmark test for today’s sports cars. According to , its new two-seat convertible crossed the start/finish line after delivering a 7:58 lap.
That time may seem a bit off the pace when compared to heavy-hitters like the 911 GT2 RS (7:18), (7:19) and (7:24), but it is plenty quick among its peers in the same horsepower range (the ‘13 Boxster features a 3.4-liter flat-six rated at 315 horsepower) and strong enough to take the checkered flag away from the and . Much of the credit goes to Porsche’s commitment to keeping weight off the roadster (its curb weight is just 2,910 pounds), widening its track and fitting the redesigned vehicle with its capable torque-vectoring system.
The Amelia Island Concours may not be as old or have quite the prestige of Pebble Beach, but it still marks an important place on the automotive calendar every spring. For 2012, an incredible selection of cars gathered in the northeast end of Florida for the 17th annual show, with the event celebrating 50 years of the , the legendary , custom coachwork Cadillacs, experimental Corvettes as well as cars that won the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring.
As with Pebble Beach, the Amelia Island Concours gives out awards to the most outstanding vehicles, but unlike the West Coast show there are two main trophies up for grabs instead of just one. This year a 1938 Bugatti Type 57, one of just three like it in the world, was awarded the Concours d’Elegance award, while a 1962 330 LM, essentially a 4.0-liter version of the 250 GTO, claimed the Concours de Sport award.
You can read more about this year’s Amelia Island Concours and the two best of show winners in the press release .
The British sure , don’t they? As if living in the police state that is modern Great Britain isn’t bad enough for motorists, what with all the speed cameras and , there’s a new plan afoot: Keep the uninsured from pumping gas.
According to The Mirror, a new government proposal would have surveillance cameras at gas stations determine whether a vehicle carries valid insurance and registration before turning on the pumps. Automatic license plate recognition is already in place at thousands of British fueling stations, acting as a deterrent to driving off without paying. The new measure would be as simple as allowing the systems to cross-reference databases of the national Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, according to the report.
One in 25 drivers in the UK are uninsured, according to The Mirror - some 1.4 million motorists. While the report calls this rate “one of the worst records in western Europe,” it’s far better than here in the United States.
According to data from 2009, , nearly 14 percent of U.S. drivers, or one in seven, has no insurance. In that report, the south stood atop the list of U.S. states with the highest rates of uninsured drivers, with Mississippi, New Mexico, Tennessee, Florida, Oklahama and Alabama all topping 20 percent.
What do you think about this initiative? Is it it a good idea or a bad one? Would you welcome similar legislation here in the States? Take part in our survey below and feel free to leave your thoughts in Comments.
The Italian city of Modena stands as a veritable mecca for automobile enthusiasts. Not only does it serve as the home of both and Pagani, but it was also the birthplace of one Enzo . While the automaker and racing team that carry his name are situated in nearby Maranello, where the company also operates its own museum, a new foundation has started up in Modena, dedicated to preserving the memory of the legendary industrialist and racer.
That organization is the Fondazione Casa Natale Enzo Ferrari, which has acquired the house where Ferrari was raised, turning it into a museum of its own. Although Enzo himself sold his childhood home to finance his aspirations, the foundation has recently reacquired it, transforming it and the adjacent garage where his father worked into a cultural center and expanding on the original buildings with a modern structure.
Designed by Czech architect Jan Kaplicky and carried to completion after his death by his protege Andrea Morgante, the yellow-roofed building – painted the color of the Ferrari logo and designed to evoke the hood on one of his iconic sportscars – incorporates an art exhibit, a multimedia experience, a rotating display of Ferrari road and race cars borrowed from independent collectors, and a collection of Enzo’s own artifacts.
The grounds also house education and conference centers, a book shop, cafeteria and the offices of the foundation itself. If you’re planning a pilgrimage to the area, it strikes us as an experience not to be missed. But if your travel plans don’t extend to the Modena area, you can check out the gallery of high-resolution images we’ve compiled for your virtual tourism pleasure.
New car sales have endured all manner of impediments since The Great Recession began in 2008, and for various reasons including everything from restricted lending by banks to strikes and Acts of God. Next up among the bugbears could be a shortage of car haulers, which were pulled from active duty when there simply weren’t cars to haul.
However, with 2012 sales riding a projected wave of 15 million in sales for the year, the opposite has happened: too many new vehicles to be shipped paired with a paucity of tractor-trailers and trains to do the shipping. Estimates put the disparity between demand and supply at 1.7 million vehicles – the kind of number that could make a dent that won’t buff out.
On the other hand, shipping companies are buying all the haulers they can, it’s only March, and no one knows how long the superheated sales will continue. Yet even if the hauler shortage is remedied, there could be a shortage of drivers. According to magazine, finding truckers to fill the drivers’ seats will become more difficult since pay hasn’t kept up with the economy.
to see the Autoline Daily report (skip to 1:18 for the car hauler story).
We haven’t heard much about Perana in quite some time, but not nearly as long as it’s been since the name AC last came up on our radar screen. The progenitor of the iconic Shelby Cobra, AC Cars is one of those great many British sportscar manufacturers that has long since disappeared into obscurity. There has been talk here and there of reviving the marque with a new model, but none of that seems to have materialized. Until now. Sort of.
Perana, as you may recall, is (or was) the name of an upstart automaker producing a devastatingly beautiful sportscar called the Z-One penned by no less accomplished a design house than Zagato. Now, the design (or, at least, what appears to be the same design) has resurfaced under the AC badge.
Called the 378 GT Zagato, the AC-ified Z-One is apparently being produced on the same line in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where the Perana was, and where, incidentally, some Noble models are, as well. The numeric nameplate is taken from the cubic-inch displacement of the 6.2-liter V8 engine.
It’s certainly not the first time Zagato has designed for an established British marque, the production version of the V12 Zagato it designed for having been unveiled as this one was being announced at the other end of the Palexpo. AC and Zagato also collaborated on a one-off Bristol variant back in 1957, a model that is scheduled to be showcased alongside the new 378 GT at Pebble Beach later this year where AC will be the featured marque two years after the Z-One made its U.S. debut on the very same manicured lawns.
That’s not where the collaboration is expected to end, however, as a roadster based on the same platform but featuring more Cobra-like bodywork is next in the pipeline. We’re not sure where that leaves Perana, but we’ll be watching to see where this goes. In the meantime you can see the full press release and spec sheet below, with high-res images (including some deliciously retro color schemes) in the gallery above.
Where does he get those wonderful toys? We’re speaking, in case you didn’t catch the movie quote, of Batman. Specifically, his most famous car, otherwise known as the . There have been since the first, a 1936 Cord, was used in 1941.
Seventy-one years later, Bruce Wayne’s number-one ride has gotten considerably more expensive to procure. According to the sleuths at Centives, between 1940 and 1970, Batman spent a miserly (and inflation adjusted) $32,000 for the average Batmobile. After that date? A whopping $358,000. Holy Toledo, Batman!
While some Batmobiles are completely custom designed for the Caped Crusader, others are based on more pedestrian production cars… like the or . Indeed, over the years Batman has, among others, made use of various models, a or two, a number of models and even a British .
After it’s all tallied up and recorded for posterity, Centives guesstimates that the average Batmobile set Batman back roughly $214,700. Remember, there’s been over a hundred Batmobiles in comic book land. We guess it takes a multi-billionaire playboy like Bruce Wayne to afford the crime-fighting lifestyle of an alter-ego like Batman.
Well, at least in the Swedish Racing Elite League. Says Jan “Flash” Nilsson, driver and Managing Director of Flash Engineering, “I have longed for 40 years to see the fight between Saab and on the race tracks. It becomes reality this summer and my biggest dream is to get all Saab fans to the TTA races to cheer us on.”
In addition to the , the Saab 9-3 fielded by Flash Engineering and Team Tidö will go up against efforts from and . And, intriguingly, the team will have the support of what’s left of the Saab company in Sweden – Flash will be sponsored in part by Saab Parts, the organization created to handle Saab repairs now that the automaker is in receivership, along with the Saab Dealer Organization.
Check out the complete press release , which is chock full of historically significant Saab cars and drivers, along with the high-res gallery of the racing Saab 9-3 above.
Imagine you just bought the fastest, most powerful road-legal ever. Your has 740 horses and does 0-62 mph in just over three seconds. You’re on top of the world!
Enjoy your seat at the pinnacle of Maranello motoring while you can, because you’ll soon be relegated to the slow lane. There’s a bigger, badder Ferrari in the works. And if you already own a Berlinetta, chances are good you’ll be invited sometime before the end of 2012 to a private showing of Ferrari’s replacement for the legendary Enzo.
Ferrari Chairman tells Automotive News Europe that their next supercar will not be called Enzo, but will be worthy successor that packs a carbon fiber body and a big ol’ V12.
“The F12 Berlinetta delivers 740 hp and today’s Formula One cars have between 740 hp and 750 hp,” Montezemolo said. “Thus we are offering F1 power in a road car.”
the neo-Enzo have as much as 920 horsepower. Not too many other details were revealed in the interview except for…
“We want to surprise people not just in terms of price but also with the car itself,” Montezemolo said. Which we take to mean the next ultimate Ferrari will be free. But probably not.
The general public will probably get its first glimpse of the Enzo replacement either at next January’s or the 2013 next March. Oh, the anticipation!
Send a $107,000 to the dealer – after – and get a new battery pack in return. That’s the lesson that Consumer Reports learned over the weekend and the repaired vehicle is now “operating fine at our test track” after 48 hours offline.
All that CR is saying about the problem is that the Fisker dealer said that a “fault was found in the battery and inverter cable. Both were replaced as a unit.” Also, while lots of dealers wash your car after you take it in for servicing, CR’s dealer also charged the brand-new pack. How kind. With everything back on track – for now – CR will get to what it intended to do days ago: put the Karma through its paces.
CR’s Karma is not the only one with issues. All Karmas were affected by two recalls (due to a and then ) and, as we discovered last week, owners are over on FiskerBuzz.
We can appreciate a good track car as much as the next enthusiast, but we’re beginning to bemoan their creation as a way out for automakers to charge wealthy customers obscene amounts of money for cars they’re not even legally allowed to drive on the road. (As least, not in countries were homologation can’t be circumvented with a sufficient bribe to the right bureaucrat. Which we’re not entirely sure includes these United States.)
It’s the road that is expected to take with the “production” version of the Sesto Elemento concept, and it appears to be the way plans to bring its C-X75 concept to production. At least, the jet-powered one, anyway.
The C-X75, as you may recall, bowed at the with an awesomely innovative powertrain: two micro-turbines acting as range-extenders to electric motors. Reports then began to surface that Jaguar intended to build the supercar, only that the commercially available version would pack a 1.6-liter turbo four being developed with the Williams Formula One team and packing about 500 horsepower instead of the turbine setup. (Not too shabby, but still no turbine.)
Then parent company Tata invested in a turbine outfit called Bladon Jets near Jaguar’s headquarters in Coventry, leading to the that a limited quantity would be offered with turbine power like the concept’s. The latest reports, however, indicate that even those would be confined strictly to the track.
Now don’t get us wrong, we applaud Jaguar and Tata pursuing the technology of getting this experimental powertrain into a “marketable” car, however much it may cost. We’re just not sure that keeping it confined to the race track, given the prices they’ll be bound to charge, is the right way to go about it. Agree or disagree? Cast your vote in the poll below.
has put a halt to all development of future models. The news comes after the Malaysian government sold its controlling stake in Lotus parent company Proton. According to EVO, the company’s takeover regulations require all involved parties to enter into a “lockdown” wherein anything outside of normal business is brought to a halt. For Lotus, that means stalling development for 60 days and pushing back launch dates for vehicles like the Exige S, Evora GTE and the upcoming Esprit successor. Lotus CEO Dany Bahar is currently engaged in talks with DRB-Hicom, Proton’s new owner, in an attempt to ensure the industrial conglomerate holds onto the sports car maker.
Odds are we won’t know what the future has in store for Lotus until after the due diligence period comes to a close. In the mean time, Lotus will continue to build and sell cars as well as engage motorsports efforts. It will also be the featured marque at the 2012 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Linsanity’s next stop could be your local neighborhood dealer. If you live in China, that is.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Jeremy Lin, the sophomore NBA sensation is in talks with the Chinese-owned carmaker about signing up to endorse the brand overseas. Lin, the bilingual point guard from Harvard, has entered the NBA limelight this season while playing for the New York Knicks.
According to Bloomberg, Lin is the first American of Chinese descent to play in the NBA. Former NBA All-Star Yao Ming, a Chinese national, remains one of the most popular celebrities in China after his retirement from pro basketball last summer. Tapping into the NBA’s growing popularity in China could help boost Volvo, which is not as well known as more established luxury brands like or .
For Lin, capitalizing on his nascent success with Volvo would have to be seen as a positive move, given the fickle world of sports endorsements. As talented as Lin is, the annals of the NBA are littered with flash-in-the-pan guys who had but 15 minutes of fame before fouling out of celebrity life forever.
When we initially reported on the that would be up for sale at Gooding & Company’s Amelia Island auction, we figured that many of the cars would command impressive sums. Now that it’s over, we doubt that even the auction house could have guessed just how successful the sale could be.
Held in conjunction with the Amelia Island Concours in the beginning of March, the auction smashed eleven world records for Porsches. A 1973 917/30 Can-Am Spyder broke the record for both the most expensive Porsche and a 917 at $4.4 million, a 1955 Porsche 550 dropped the hammer at a record $3.685 million, and a 1974 Porsche Carrera RSR Turbo sold for $3.245 million. Other records broken include top prices for a Porsche 935, 962, 911 GT1, 906, 934, 924, 968 and 944. In total, ten cars sold for more than a million dollars, and all sales combined for a final sum of $36 million.
for more details on Gooding & Company’s 2012 Amelia Island auction as well as a full list of the most expensive cars sold.
has found itself struggling with a range of technical issues shortly after the launch of the company’s extended-range EV, from to pesky software updates. According to one former employee, that’s no surprise. According to GigaOM, the worker in question reportedly left the company because of a push to get the production model out the door to satisfy Department of Energy loan requirements even though the early cars had a range of technical issues that still required sorting. The report lacks much in the way of specifics, and the unnamed defector now works for another EV startup, Coda, leading some to question the individual’s motives.
Fisker, meanwhile, says quality and customer satisfaction are top priorities for the company, and that the automaker has been quick to solve any issues that have surfaces thus far. Owners have access to a 24-hour VIP help line in the case of a technical problem.
While the DOE awarded the company a $529 million loan in 2009, Fisker has only been able to draw on a portion of the funds due to delays in the Karma development.
You may never have heard of the French carmaker . After starting out as a coachbuilder for companies like Delahaye and , Facel moved on to crafting entire cars. From 1954 to 1962, the company produced the Hemi-powered Vega. Facel closed its doors in 1964, but some intriguing sketches and renderings have stirred up a lot of chatter on the Internet of a possible revival of the brand.
Details are scarce and almost impossible to verify, but if Google’s translation of French websites are believable, the image above is a rendering of what the resurrected Facel could show off at this September’s and we might even see a production version in 2014. But rumors written in French translated by Google are not exactly credible. The images all appear to come from a constantly updated Facebook page called “.”
Swoopy fenders, and a slick greenhouse wrap the four-seater concept in a sports car disguise. The interior sketches show minimal seating that seem more suited to racing than relaxing.
Speaking of performance, there’s no mention of what would power such a car, but it sure is fun imagining that car barking with the power of . Sinister sexiness.
The project now has two major corporate backers and, more importantly, an engine. and Michelin have signed on of designer Ben Bowlby, Dan Gurney’s All-American Racers and Don Panoz. Now called the Nissan DeltaWing, the Japanese firm will provide a turbocharged, direct-injected 1.6-liter, four-cylinder with an output of around 300 horsepower. Known as DIG-T, the powerplant shares the same roots as the engine in the .
That’s about 200 hp down on the 510 horsepower developed by the diesel V6 in the and about half the horsepower developed by other LMP1 racers. However, Nissan says the engine is half the weight of a typical LMP1 motor, and paired with the DeltaWing’s minimal aerodynamic drag, the lap times are said to be somewhere between those of the LMP1 and LMP2 classes. Why does this matter? Because Nissan and Co. are taking this needle-nosed baby to Le Mans.
Of call cars and classes, Nissan says this strangest looking effort is one that will “showcase the pioneering technology that will show one potential direction for the future of motorsport and will feed into the research and development of future technologies, that filter down to Nissan’s road car product range.”
The Nissan DeltaWing will be allowed to run in the 24 Hours of Le Mans following a special dispensation for an experimental car that doesn’t follow any technical guidelines offered by ACO, the organizer of Le Mans. It will use Garage 56, it will wear Number 0, and won’t be classified in the results. Even so, we’ll be watching closely. for a video of the racecar’s development and a press release detailing Nissan’s involvement.
If you’ve ever wanted to flag down one of Mexico City’s classic Bug taxis, you’d better book your travel now. The last of the iconic cabs will be decommissioned by the end of the year, according to the Associated Press.
VW hasn’t built the classic Beetle since 2003, the same year that Mexico City began requiring that taxi operators switch to four-door vehicles. The last Bugs that entered service as cabs back in 2002 have already been given two extra years of service compared to most taxis, according to the report.
The cabs are considered particularly dangerous, not just because they are essentially 74-year-old cars, but also because cab drivers generally remove the front passenger seat to facilitate access to the cramped rear quarters of the Beetle. But the cars are cheap to operate and according to one former Mexico City cabbie, help make the streets safer.
“Today the cars are bigger, and they drive faster,” Vera Perez told the AP, “Before, they drove more cautiously, because any accident would destroy them.”
sold 449,255 cars globally in 2011, with 67,240 of those sales coming from right here in the States. By 2020, CEO Stefan Jacoby aims to boost those numbers to 800,000 sales globally and 120,000 here, and to do so, he can’t let the exchange rate between the dollar and the euro stand in the way. That’s why, according to a report in Automotive News, Jacoby says the company will spend “the next two or three years” considering building a plant in the U.S. or Mexico.
Jacoby six months ago at the 2011 , but now he’s added a timeframe to the discussion. Even on the optimistic end, if Volvo decided to build a factory in 2014 and got the site chosen and the facility built in 18 months, it would probably be 2016 before anyone would benefit from locally produced cars. Nevertheless, with the new V40 due for a new generation not long after, that it might make a perfect timing for us to finally get the svelte hatchback .
