It’s been seen by millions of viewers on television and the internet, it’s been on both sides of the aisle and it’s been . And, according to YouTube, staring Clint Eastwood has been named the top Super Bowl car commercial of 2012.
For those keeping track of such things, Chrysler’s commercial has over 10.5 million views on YouTube, though we do feel the need to remind everyone that the video was , which we’d imagine is one of the highest traffic times for such advertisements.
The only other commercial from an automotive company that made YouTube’s top five Super Bowl commercials was – itself controversial due to before it aired on the worldwide stage.
The number one ad, you ask? That would be M&M’s “Just My Shell” commercial. Guess there really is no accounting for taste… we prefer our M&Ms to be green, just like everyone else. Feel free to watch Chrysler’s winning ad one more time .
Exclusive can be an overused word in the automotive industry, but if anyone can claim the description, it’s Mosler. The Florida-based supercar manufacturer recently announced that it will be limiting production of its MT900S Photon supercar to a single unit for 2012. Having that sort of exclusivity comes at a cost, though, and the customer that decides to pick up Mosler’s 2012 allocation will have to shell out upwards of $479,000.
So what’s so special about the Mosler MT900S Photon? For starters, it’s one of the lightest supercars on the market, weighing in at just under 2,500 pounds thanks to a composite chassis and carbon fiber body panels. Motivation comes from a 7.0-liter V8 borrowed from tuned to deliver 535 horsepower, allowing the Mosler to reach 60 mph in less than three seconds and a top speed of over 200 mph. Despite having a design that’s more than a decade old, the Mosler still looks somewhat modern (if kit-car like), particularly with in Proton guise that adds additional aerodynamic modications.
for the brief press release from Mosler Automotive, or have a look at the car in more detail in the gallery above.
Long before we saw the in the flesh, word of the vehicle’s arrival flittered around the web with tantalizing persistence. Few rumors manage to get the enthusiast world licking its chops quite as well as one with a potent V6 in the nose of a rear-wheel-drive two-door. Editors began salivating at the thought of a performance coupe renaissance, complete with all of the associated front-page comparos, while forums lit up with threads detailing hypothetical grudge matches between the would-be Korean prize fighter and hardware from the to the then-upcoming . had clearly rustled up some snakes.
Then the Genesis Coupe debuted, and while ingredients like available Brembo brakes and a limited-slip rear differential pointed to the possibility of a genuine contender, it’s fair to say the coupe never really became a top-flight prospect for many enthusiasts. A vague gearbox and similarly detached brakes sapped precision from the platform, consigning it to a mid-pack finish in our three-way back in 2010.
None of this is news to Hyundai. The company began planning ways to sharpen its first genuine sports car nearly as soon as the vehicle debuted at the . For 2013, the two-door receives a dose of the automaker’s patented love-it-or-hate-it styling as well as a host of mechanical improvements tucked behind the polarizing aesthetics. Are the changes enough to give the 2013 Hyundai Genesis Coupe the fangs it needs to thrive in the cutthroat performance coupe world?
It’s a . It’s a van. But it’s not a minivan. That’s because the sort of van we’re talking about here is a panel van – think of the or recently departed – a vehicle with two seats up front, a partitian behind the cockpit and nothing but a flat load floor in back. These little workaday runabouts are immensely popular in Europe, and Mini has decided to get in on the action with its latest concept, the Clubvan, which will officially debut at the in March.
Seeing this concept confirms about a potential -based panel van, and aside from the removal of the rear seats and the addition of a stainless steel honeycomb partitian, there isn’t much else to separate the Clubvan concept from its passenger-friendly Clubman kin. That makes us think this concept could rather easily make it to production.
But unlike more work-focused vans, the side walls and load floor of the Clubvan are lined with anthracite-colored cloth rather than a durable plastic compound. Then again, Mini is touting the Clubvan as the perfect fleet vehicle for fashion designers and gallery owners rather than drywall contractors or heating and cooling repairmen. The Clubman’s five-door layout (that’s a driver’s door, passenger door, passenger-side suicide door, and dual barn doors out back) remains intact, and Mini has added six attachment loops throughout the rear cargo area to secure goods while they’re being transported.
So, why a panel van? The company states that the Clubvan “combines the driving fun for that Mini is renowned with increased load-carrying capability,” and that, “The Mini experience will therefore find its way into new areas of life, the brand’s distinctive character gaining new popularity among target groups not previously on the Mini radar.” We’ll definitely be checking this one out in Geneva in a few weeks, but in the meantime, for the official press release and scroll through our attached image gallery to see the Clubvan concept inside and out.
Chevrolet’s fire-breathing, can now be custom configured for your very own garage – at least your virtual one.
The 580-horsepower, 6.2-liter V8-powered won’t come cheaply, starting at $54,995, and choices are limited. Major options include paint (we’re kind of fond of the $325 Rally Yellow scheme shown above, though perhaps it’s a little too Transformersque), transmission choice (six-speed manual or automatic), wheel finish, sunroof and faux suede interior bits. Given that this is a small-volume model with serious performance intentions, we’re not bothered by the limited decision tree offered by the configurator, and it helps tamp the bottom line down.
Build your own by checking out the link below, or compare and contrast builds against the ZL1’s nemesis, the by checking out the latter’s configurator .
We’ve reported plenty on items we’d like to place in our automotive-themed dream house, from and to and – but most of them are for the living room. We’d be remised, however, to forget the one part of the house where the fascination all began: our childhood bedroom.
We all had the posters up on the walls, the models on the shelves and maybe the sheets on the bed, but the luckiest kids among us had beds shaped like cars, similar – but probably not as awesome – as this latest release from toy company Step2. Released this week at the New York Toy Fair, it isn’t just a bed: it’s a whole bedroom set, all modeled on the Z06.
The set includes a $229 bed capable of holding a toddler’s mattress but expandable to accommodate a twin (extending its usability from ages 2 to 10) with optional working headlights, a $110 dresser that looks like dad’s tool box, a $65 storage chest and a $40 wheeled storage box to make clean-up time quick. It’s all made of molded plastic from one of the biggest in the business, and is sure to make for some very sweet dreams indeed.
If NASCAR is more to your kid’s speed, Step2 has got a available too, but it’s the Vette set that has us (a) wishing we were little again, and (b) second-guessing the grown-up’s bed we just ordered for ourselves.
We’ve reported plenty on items we’d like to place in our automotive-themed dream house, from and to and – but most of them are for the living room. We’d be remised, however, to forget the one part of the house where the fascination all began: our childhood bedroom.
We all had the posters up on the walls, the models on the shelves and maybe the sheets on the bed, but the luckiest kids among us had beds shaped like cars, similar – but probably not as awesome – as this latest release from toy company Step2. Released this week at the New York Toy Fair, it isn’t just a bed: it’s a whole bedroom set, all modeled on the Z06.
The set includes a $229 bed capable of holding a toddler’s mattress but expandable to accommodate a twin (extending its usability from ages 2 to 10) with optional working headlights, a $110 dresser that looks like dad’s tool box, a $65 storage chest and a $40 wheeled storage box to make clean-up time quick. It’s all made of molded plastic from one of the biggest in the business, and is sure to make for some very sweet dreams indeed.
If NASCAR is more to your kid’s speed, Step2 has got a available too, but it’s the Vette set that has us (a) wishing we were little again, and (b) second-guessing the grown-up’s bed we just ordered for ourselves.
There are a few car photographers out there that we count among our favorites. Our own is at the top of the list for obvious reasons (have you seen his recent ?), but close behind is Jordan Shiraki. We’ve shown you his work before, including a where the came face to face with the supercar that’s replacing it.
Jordan mainly shoots Lambos, rare ones at that, and he shoots them well. Recently, however, he decided to do something extra special for a shoot with an ultra rare . Only 12 of these special edition Gallardos were made; this one is #11. So to set this shoot apart, Jordan decided to try his hand at producing video, and the result is .
The three and a half minute video is every bit as beautiful as his still photography, if not more so. We suggest setting the YouTube player to 720p and turning up the sound. Oh, and he didn’t forget to pull out his DSLR during the shoot either, so check out the gallery below.
Some will invariably debate their authenticity, but as far as we’re concerned, there’s no arguing with the quickening of our pulse when we gaze at such examples of retrofitted classics as the or the Singer 911. But if you’ve been wondering why European sportscars have been getting all the old-meets-new attention, wonder no more, and feast your eyes on the Pogea .
German tuning house Pogea Racing – whose we reported on back on 2010 – has taken an original ‘59 Corvette roadster and given it a thoroughly modern makeover. Starting with the chassis itself, Pogea went back to the drawing board and built a new tube frame to which it has mounted a new suspension, brakes and powertrain.
The latter comes courtesy of a modern 6.2-liter Corvette LS3 V8 engine, upgraded with new injectors, camshaft, intake and exhaust to drive 485 horsepower and 431 pound-feet of torque through a five-speed manual with ceramic clutch to a Dana 44 differential. Modern Corvette-sourced ventilated brakes with six-piston calipers up front and four-pots in the rear were fitted to keep the power in check, mounted behind 19-inch modular wheels on low-profile Bridgestone Potenza rubber.
Pogea also widened the track, fitted LED tail lights in the shape of the originals, and refurbished the interior with fresh leather and carpeting, Cobra buckets, Vallelunga wheel, Alpine stereo with sat-nav and upgraded electronics. The result is a stunning package that has all the charm of the original (minus, perhaps, the rear quarter vents…), but with a 3.9-second run to 62 and a 179 mph top end. Check it out in the high-res image gallery and press release after the jump.
You wouldn’t expect something called the Roadyacht to weigh as little as 1,030 kilos (2,270 pounds), but that’s the curb weight that niche Dutch automaker Savage Rivale is claiming for its new GTR racing model. Couple that with between 700 and 800 horsepower, and what started out as a boulevard cruiser is shaping up as a serious performance machine.
That boulevard cruiser, as you may recall, is the , a four-door exotic hardtop convertible, which in roadgoing spec is already pegged to pack 600 horsepower from its Z06-sourced 7.0-liter V8.
The GTR packs an extra one or two hundred horses (this time from a turbocharged 6.2-liter V8), and while its creators were initially hoping to claim the Nürburgring lap record for four-doors, that the racing model has just two doors – and makes no such claim – leaves us wondering where the plans changed.
The finished product is set to make the mid-April trip from The Hague to Monte Carlo for the Top Marques Monaco show, after which no more than 69 examples will be made available at €141,250 (before taxes, or roughly $185k) – which is significantly less than the €257,000 sticker price for the street version (around $335k). Follow the jump for the brief announcement and full specifications, and scope out the high-res images in the gallery for a closer look.
As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to try and get . In his State of the Union address in 2011, he and proposed turning the $7,500 tax credit into a point-of-purchase rebate. That hasn’t yet happened, but in the President’s proposed budget that was released this week, Obama took another stab at promoting plug-ins: upping the maximum credit to $10,000.
To go along with pushing PHEVs, the budget calls for cutting more subsidies that Big Oil currently enjoys. Of course, the President’s political opponents that would divide America. Others are entirely.
Getting to a million plug-ins in four years will be tough. Last year, the top two plug-ins, the and the , sold just 17,345 units, . Add in sales of the and the new , and that leaves 980,000 or so to go. Do you think an extra $2,500 off the price of the car – plus more models to choose from – will do the trick?
Successful In Its Mission, But Not As The World’s Greatest Sports Car
Adhered to the Hamilton Hall dorm wall at Wright State University is a glossy poster of a jet-black sports car. It hangs low over an unmade bed, its corner blemished with a slight tear from an errantly placed thumbtack during orientation week.
A young engineering undergraduate, sitting at a desk just a few feet away, is staring directly at the poster. Instead of reviewing for an upcoming exam, his eyes remain fixated on the vehicle’s sleek bodywork, ominous quad exhaust pipes and Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes. Locked in a trance, the student daydreams about what it would be like to drive the sinister-looking monster.
Unbeknown to that 19-year-old scholar, and thousands of miles from Wright State University, Autoblog holds the key to the vehicle pictured on that very poster. It is the . With a 638-horsepower supercharged V8 mated to a six-speed manual transmission and a top speed of 205 miles per hour, it is the most powerful production car in General Motors’ history.
The ZR1 has been upgraded and enhanced for 2012, so what is it like to drive America’s premier sports car on public roads? Can the beast be reasonably tamed? Be pleased to learn that this evil brute is nearly everything expected, a little less and then a whole lot more.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation concerning door fires on 2006-07 models. The inquiry affects over 309,000 of the Chevy SUVs, with NHTSA stating that the door fires were caused by problems with the power window switches or some related electrical parts.
As of this writing, NHTSA has received 12 complaints from TrailBlazer owners about smoke or fires inside the vehicles, and thankfully, no injuries have been reported. According to The Detroit News, has stated that none of the TrailBlazers in question have been destroyed because of the fires, though some interior parts were melted and some seats were singed.
If this story sounds familiar, it’s because NHTSA recently began investigating and models , with some 830,000 Toyota vehicles possibly affected. Because of this, NHTSA is looking to see if General Motors and sourced the power window switches from the same parts supplier. If that’s the case, other vehicles may be affected.
The Chevrolet TrailBlazer shares its power window switches with three other GM vehicles – the GMC Envoy, Buick Rainier and Saab 9-7X – though NHTSA has not received any complaints from owners of those vehicles, The Detroit News reports. A spokesperson from GM says these other vehicles have different door configurations, and thus, may not have any problems.
GM has said it intends to fully cooperate with NHTSA on the investigation. Of course, it’s important to note that this isn’t an official recall yet, but one may be issued pending the results of NHTSA’s inquiry. In the meantime, owners experiencing any problems should contact their local dealership.
Of the remaining General Motors nameplates, is the one that’s most difficult to wrap your mind around. On the one hand, it’s supposed to be a premium brand, but on the other, it’s selling vehicles with sticker prices that tend to start in the $20,000 price range, seemingly encroaching on territory. To wit: The is a bit over $23,000 and the starts just under $28,000, while Chevy sells its , and in that same range. Even the , whose price shot up nearly $4,000 this year, starts at $31,045. Indeed, GM must be using a mandoline to price the different versions of its sedans clustered around the $25,000-$30,000 price range.
But it’s over that threshold where things get really perplexing. Because whether we understand GM’s strategy or not, a twenty-some-thousand dollar Buick makes sense. You look at all the boxes you have to tick on a mainstream brand product to get the amenities that Buick offers and you dump that and all the data about the premium competition in a spreadsheet, and you can probably justify a Buick as a wise purchase. If you’re an actuary or an accountant, all the better.
A Regal GS with a $35,310 base price (or an as-tested cost of $38,155 like ours), however, has stepped onto an entirely different playing field, like a junior varsity kid getting bumped up to play on Friday night. This isn’t the sort of car you research over the Internet and lease after a five-minute test drive. It’s purportedly a driver’s car, something to seek out and manhandle. We thus find it rather disingenuous to compare it with cars from and – the Regal GS is really scrapping with vetted sports sedans like the and , and even its kissing-GM-cousin, the larger .
Five years ago, engineers, a variety of partner companies, and Carnegie Mellon University built a Tahoe that autonomously traversed 60 miles of urban traffic in less than six hours, taking home the DARPA Urban Challenge win. Later this year, some of that technology will make its way to production in the 2013 Cadillac XTS.
The list of active safety systems in the XTS is easily on par with what the Germans offer, including adaptive cruise control, intelligent brake assist, forward collision alert, automatic collision preparation, lane departure warning, blind spot alert and a heads up display ( for the full, exhaustive list).
The incorporation of all these systems is something GM is calling “sensor fusion,” which combines multiple inputs and serious processing power to, in the words of Bakhtiar Litkouhi, GM Research and Development lab group manager for perception and vehicle control systems, “provide advisory, warning, and control interventions to help drivers avoid collisions and save lives.”
It’s also the first step in bringing both semi-autonomous and fully autonomous vehicles to market, something , and are all actively working on.
Get a brief primer on the philosophy behind sensor fusion in the video and accompanying release .
General Motors took dead aim at the during the Super Bowl by airing a spot for the . The ad featured a post-apocalyptic scene where only Silverado owners survived the end of the world and customers were left to fade into the fossil record. Interestingly enough, however, the spot may not have had the intended effect of pushing more eyes toward products.
According to TheCarConnection.com, the ad may have benefited Ford more than . Kelley Blue Book keeps an eye on which vehicles visitors to the site are interested in, and Ford saw an immediate uptick directly after the GM commercial aired. Ford didn’t have a big Super Bowl ad this year.
That wasn’t all. Ford continued to see a swell in shopping in the days after the Super Bowl. Interest in the Silverado, meanwhile, rose slightly when the ad aired before leveling off during the remainder of the game and falling shortly thereafter. Interest in the F-150, meanwhile, continued to surge. According to TheCarConnection.com, the F-150 saw a greater boost in shoppers week over week while the Silverado fell off by 25 percent. Turns out Ford shouldn’t have been after all. Click to see the ad one more time.
has taken home the first ever Kelley Blue Book award for Total Cost of Ownership among consumer brands. As you might expect, the award goes to brands and vehicles with the lowest projected ownership costs. KBB examines depreciation, fuel costs, fees associated with finance and insurance, maintenance costs and state fees. Both the sedan and CUV helped Kia cinch the win this award’s inaugural year.
Kelley Blue Book also examined the cost of ownership among luxury brands, and took the top nod in this category. KBB specifically pointed to the German automaker’s low depreciation and good average fuel economy as reasons for the brand’s win. The , and all helped the automaker in the total cost of ownership evaluation.
The award is also broken up by individual vehicle categories, and there were some surprises among the winners. The took the Hybrid Car award while the nabbed the Electric Car win. We would have expected to see the and take those categories, respectively. for the full press release that reveals individual winners in each model category.
This is the new station wagon, which will debut at next month’s and then arrive in European showrooms this summer. At 184 inches, it’s longer than both the and (by three and seven inches, respectively).
Inside, there’s 17.6 cubic feet of cargo space with the seats up, and up to 52 cubic feet with the seats folded. Drivers will get to choose from a range of gasoline (1.6, 1.8, and 1.4T) and diesel (1.7 and 2.0) powertrains, and the long-roof Cruze arrives with available.
Australians will get a Holden-badged version, but as for us? Sorry, guys. Don’t expect anything in the near future. Chevrolet spokesman Michael Albano says, “No plans on bringing the wagon to US at this point. But we’ll continue to evaluate market as needed.”
The official press announcement is pasted , and you can click on the image above to see a larger version.
The shows that the rivalry between and still . But is there room for another brand or two to mix it up in the battle for pickup supremacy? Not according to marketing chief Joel Ewanick.
Fox News reports that Ewanick said during a web chat on that “the two big players are Ford and Chevy.” Ewanick added that it’s like a presidential debate, saying “We want to have it with the other strong candidate – and we want to engage them and want them to engage us.”
A quick look at the numbers shows that Ewanick has a point. The was the top dog in 2011, with 584,917 trucks sold. The came in second with 415,130 sales, but if you add the nearly identical , General Motors makes the battle much closer with 564,300 unit sales. That’s more sales than the , and combined (even without the Sierra.)
The Ram, also an excellent pickup, finished a distant third with a reported 244,763 sales. Still, Ram brand spokesperson Dave Elshoff insists that Ram trucks remain part of the equation, adding “across much of the west – where trucks are worked hard – it’s Ram that’s either number one or two in market share.”
We’re not so sure that the truck battle is Chevy versus Ford and then everybody else, but it sure is nice to see GM and Ford getting a little chippy. It’s a good bet that the chatter grows louder as the next generation Silverado and F-150 hit the auto show circuit in about a year.
has the . ? The Family Vehicle of the Year. And for 2012, the winner is the .
While we must have missed last year’s inaugural winner – it was the , by the way – we did catch this year’s award presentation. The Passat beat out two other finalists, the and , in the voting of 68 automotive journalists. Those car scribes all belong to the Midwest Automotive Media Association, or “MAMA,” as the Chicago-based group is affectionately known.
Candidates for the FVOTY must be new or updated vehicles that have four doors, have base prices under $50,000, and “appear at one of MAMA’s two annual rallies.” Other models considered in the 2012 voting included the , , , , , , , , and .
