2010 ChevroletCorvette Grand Sport Convertible – Click above for high-res image gallery
Even though it was just named the not even a month ago, a story from WLNS speculates that production could move from Bowling Green, Kentucky to Lansing, Michigan. The UAW president and economist who brought it up apparently didn’t suggest that it would happen, they were really just throwing out possibilities to the WLNS reporter.
General Motors’ Corvette rep David Caldwell, though, has doused any idea of this happening. When Autoblog asked him about the story, Caldwell told us that there had been a roundtable about what the Lansing Grand River plant might produce, and various cars were mentioned, including the Corvette. However, as Caldwell notes, “Corvettes are born in Bowling Green,” and “nothing going on in the foreseeable future changes that long-time fact.”
In other words, all of you in the Bluegrass State can relax now.
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Photos Copyright (C)2009 Sam Abuelsamid, Max Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc.
2011 Chevrolet Caprice Delective Package – Click above for high-res gallery
A new generation of police cruisers is afoot. We’ve already seen the likes of ’s Taurus-based up close, and we’ve even seen opens the floodgates with a full raft of images of its . While Ford has opted to use its EcoBoost twin-turbo V6 for high-powered police action, has taken a more traditional approach, fitting the Caprice with a 6.0-liter V8 cranking out 355 horsepower and 384 pound-feet of torque, mated to a six-speed automatic transmission.
We already knew what to expect for the standard police-spec Caprice, but we’ve been extra curious about the special “Detective package” that adds some plainclothes stealthiness to the Caprice, especially as it seems to hint at what the oft-rumored civilian version of this car might look like. It’s available in seven different colors (we’ll just stick with black, thanks), uses all the same mechanical underpinnings as the standard Police PPV, and for the moment at least, remains unavailable in a retail model for John Q. Public.
Be sure to scroll through the gallery below to check out the entire PDF of the Caprice PPV’s features.
Edmunds is honoring the top new vehicles of 2010 with its first annual Launch Breakthrough Award, and the online research site gives the winning nod to the . The award is given based on 18 different factors, including “pricing, sales, market share, dealer profit margins, incentives, consumer consideration, consumer ratings, inventory levels and residual values.” Senior Analyst Ray Zhou says the award “recognizes the vehicle that had the most successful introduction of the past year.” The Camaro captured the top prize with consistently strong demand from the minute it hit the showroom floor.
In total, Edmunds picked the top 10 new launches for 2010 among 54 eligible vehicles. To be eligible for the Launch Breakthrough Award, the new vehicle had to receive an all-new model or a complete refresh during calendar year 2009 (through December 1, 2009) with at least 100 sales per month. Domestics absolutely dominated the top 10 as well, with five General Motors products and two Fords. The second place winner went to the , while Toyota took the last two spots with the and the . to read over the Edmunds press release, which includes the complete top 10.
There’s a lot to like about the all-new Sonata, and with a turbocharged four-pot under the hood, the package gets even sweeter.
The stereotypical American motorcycle is more of a cruiser than a bruiser. But Motus plans to stand that preconception on its head with its new line of V4 bikes.
Top Gear does its fair share of comparison tests, but the gearhead trio has obviously lost their minds during their latest match-up.
Conducting utterly inappropriate comparison tests is completely par for the course at Top Gear. After all, these were the guys that pitted a and a Jaguar XK120 against a Vincent Black Shadow and a train. In this week’s latest episode Richard Hammond samples the new with its lovely 6.2-liter small-block V8 and then pulls out a slightly different kind of 6.2-liter V8 powered car.
Frankly, we doubt many (if any!) people are actually cross-shopping the against the Camaro SS, but it sure is entertaining to watch the big German power-sliding around the air-strip test track at the hands of The Stig. With any luck, this episode will be the last time that we get to hear the Stig lapping to the less-than-dulcet tones of the vuvuzela. See how the Camaro fares against the E63 by watching the video .
If the compact crossover segment grows as fast as automakers predict, Mitsubishi has a credible player in the market.
No matter what aspect of vehicle performance you’re looking at – acceleration, braking, cornering or ride quality – it all comes down to four patches of rubber on the road. We take an in-depth look at Hankook’s newest tires to see what’s in store for enthusiasts.
The beloved HEMI badge might be nixed from future Chrysler products as the Pentastar redefines its green image.
It’s true: there really is nothing sacred. In a move that, for us, is on the same level as painting a Hitler mustache on the Statue of Liberty, Bigfoot has abandoned its pickup body for a new skin. If you listen very, very closely, there are angels in cutoff jean shorts and camouflage hats weeping softly. We know it would hurt less if we told you that George Washington was a closet communist or that Porsche was switching to an all front-wheel drive portfolio, but there it is. For 35 years, Bigfoot was synonymous with the Blue Oval, but no more.
The truck helped launch into the public eye, but Ford dropped its sponsorship of the team in 2007. That left Firestone tires as the main sponsor, and since the company also throws plenty of cash at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Since Chevrolet also sponsors the event, Big Foot will be wearing new duds and a heart transplant. Yup, the truck will get its power from a mill, too. *Sigh.*
General Motors has been the largest automaker in the United States since before many of your parents were born. And The General managed to keep its sales lead in spite of a very public government-assisted bankruptcy and the loss of four brands. But while GM’s 20 percent market share remains impressive, it doesn’t come close to the success the automaker has achieved in… Uzbekistan?
Inside Line reports that GM currently owns 94 percent of the Uzbekistan market, with 59,000 of the 63,000 vehicles sold so far this year. Impressive, right? Well, if you remove commercial trucking from the equation, GM’s share of the market is 98.6 percent; a healthy temperature by any measure. You’re probably (not) wondering how The General managed to secure the entire Uzbek market. The answer is simple: GM is part owner of a join venture plant that is capable of producing 250,000 vehicles per year. The facility was a joint venture between UzAvtoSanoat and Daewoo, and since GM controls the Korean automaker, the plant basically makes Daewoos with Bowtie badging. The facility currently produces the Chevrolet Matiz, Lacetti and Captiva (shown above).
So it appears the Uzbekistians (Uzbekistanis?) are a very loyal bunch that go to great lengths to support local jobs. Now the competition knows what to do to break Chevy’s dominance; provided anyone can find Uzbekistan on a map.
Young Creative Chevrolet awards – Click above to watch video
Just as Toyota rocks a lot more hip in Australia than it does in the U.S., ’s got far more groove in Europe than it does domestically. That kind of juice gives rise to things like the fourth annual competition that’s grown from eight schools in eight countries to 135 schools in twenty countries.
The challenge for entrants this year was to find the coolest way to insert the Chevy Beat into five media: fashion, music, photography, video and visual arts. Winners came four countries, the UK taking photography, Austria grabbing music, Portugal owning visual arts, and France unsurprisingly nabbing fashion and video. Winners get “behind-the-scenes” experiences with their respective category judges.
We could tell you more about it here, but the gallery of high-res images below and the three videos do a much better job of it (there’s a press release back there, too). Congratulations to all of the winners. We hope the Beat/Spark is even half as cool when it reaches our shores… albeit maybe with a different soundtrack.
The first internal combustion-powered automobile was not invented by an American (thank you, Karl Benz). But we did invent the motorcycle (coal-powered), air brake, AC motor, stop sign, tractor, assembly line, automatic transmission, muffler, tow truck, bulldozer, car radio, tracked amphibious landing vehicle, stock car racing, cruise control, carbon fiber, the integrated circuit, satellite navigation, airbags, catalytic converter, The Mars Rover and even the Segway. In other words, we didn’t invent the automobile but we did contribute much of the technology that makes it what it is today.
In fact, we’d argue that while the Industrial Revolution began in the textile mills and iron foundries of Great Britain, the entire world went mobile when we Americans got our hands on the automobile. When Henry Ford introduced the assembly line (with conveyor) in 1918 1913, he put the world on wheels. Before the Model T, cars were conveyances for the wealthy, but the assembly line brought down costs to the point where car ownership became attainable to all. Ol’ Henry’s assembly line was so successful that the model was applied to almost every other area of manufacturing the world over, driving down the cost of goods and making life better for all.
The muscle car war is raging, with the and jockeying for the title of top pony car. The is no slouch either, with a rumored for the 2011 model year. Our friends over at Cars.com are celebrating the recent success of America’s reborn pony cars with an extremely neat interactive map that illustrates the towns most interested in a particular vehicle. The color-coded map differentiates the models, and you can click on any circle to see the percentage above average. The bigger the circle, the larger the search disparity.
For example, in Hutchinson, Minnesota, Ford Mustang searches on Cars.com are 1,894 percent higher than the national average. In Fitzgerald, Georgia, Chevy Camaro searches are 753 percent above average and in Ponca City, Oklahoma, Dodge Challenger searches are 1,840 percent above the national average.
There’s one catch to the map, however: the percentages are highest in small towns, so if you live in a big city, a substantial spike in pony car searches is unlikely. For the record, Cars.com says that the Mustang has the highest search total of the three vehicles. to see if your city is obsessed with one muscle car in particular.
2011 Chevrolet Volt – Click above for high-res image gallery
During a live video webchat this afternoon, Tony DiSalle, marketing director for the , announced the production volumes for the first two years. plans to build 10,000 Volts by the end of the 2011 calendar year, with another 30,000 units coming in 2012. There will be a relatively slow production ramp up during the first year as the automaker learns to build the Volt as well as well as picking up lessons from cars in the field.
dealers will have to meet some minimum qualifications in order to sell the Volt. For instance, every dealer authorized to sell the Volt will have to maintain at least one demonstrator vehicle in stock so that potential customers can test drive it. Those same dealers will also have to install a 240 volt home charging station so that the cars have a full battery and customers can try it out. Beyond the dealers that sell Volts in the initial retail markets, GM will also assign dealers in other parts of the country to service the Volt if needed.
Unlike the , customers will not have to get pre-qualified to buy a Volt by having access to 240 volt home charging. Anyone can walk into a Volt authorized dealer and buy one (assuming they have the money!) even if they live in an apartment. Of course, getting the most out of a Volt will require access to a plug, but that is the customers’ choice.
2009 Chevrolet Orlando concept – Click above for high-res gallery
During a marathon presentation on Tuesday, Vice Chairman Tom Stephens showed off slides of a new family van based on the company’s compact car platform. The van and other vehicles were shown as part of the session detailing a new Chevrolet SUV, a compact car concept and a . The images shown were not released to journalists.
While executives were intentionally vague about the new van, the production version of the immediately springs to mind, as it would seem to fit that description. Based on product-man Stephens’ assertion that the van will launch soon in multiple markets around the world, the -based Orlando seems a logical assumption. The Cruze is already on sale in Europe and Asia, so production kinks have been smoothed, and a platform variant seems like the most likely step. Worldwide markets have plenty of MPV options, and the Orlando slots right in. GM’s moves have defied logic in the past, but CEO Ed Whitacre characterized yesterday’s presentation as an introduction of a new GM. We’ve heard talk like this before, of course, but maybe this time they mean it.
Patent drawings for a small Chevy pickup – Click above for high-res image gallery
designers have had some fun with the company Etch-a-Sketch and came up with this, then filed the drawings with the patent office. Any details identifying its place in the Chevy lineup or in the automaker’s global marketplace were sadly left out of the filing.
Carscoop theorizes that it could be an update for the South American market, or a long-shot replacement for the Colorado. At right is a single-cab Chevy Colorado, whose door handles and greenhouse are close to the patent drawing.
However, beneath that is a Brazilian-market 2009 Chevy S10 Colina, whose taillights are a much better match for the patent drawing. Swapping its front end for the Cruze-ish grille in the filing might be more reasonable than performing the same swap on a Colorado, or maybe not. What’s really got us wondering are those exposed bed-rail tie-downs, which look like something from an early eighties Toyota. Or a . What truck and what market are looking for those?
Have a look at the high-res filings yourself and feel free to make all the guesses you want.
There’s the right way to immortalize a car in song, and the wrong way. For every ode to the , there’s at least one . Granted, the piece of fanboyism after the jump isn’t nearly so toxic as the prepackaged corporate drivel served up in honor of the plug-in, but we’d still put it on the same level as shoveling week-old, unrefrigerated sushi down your gullet. It’s just not something that we’d recommend, which is exactly why we’ve decided to post it here and share it with the masses.
Someone by the name of J Brave and a merry band of musicians under the name the Luminaries have taken it upon themselves to pontificate on the benefits of the in song. We’ll be honest – we don’t have a single musical bone in our body. It’s why we’re sitting here banging on a computer keyboard instead of rocking out on the ivories, but we know something worth listening to when we hear it, and this just ain’t it. if you dare.
Pennzoil and RCR Street Performance Group Camaro – Click above for high-res image gallery
Pennzoil has launched a new line of products, and they want you to be as happy about it as they are. To assist in that cause, the company has partnered with the RCR Street Performance Group, a newly formed offshoot of Richard Childress Racing, on a special edition 2010 that you can win in the “Get Your Key to Clean” promotion.
The Camaro has been kitted and fitted with a Magnussen supercharger, custom headers, Wilwood six-piston big brake kit, carbon fiber aero bits, 22-inch wheels, a reupholstered interior trimmed in Pennzoil colors and a whole lot more. Did we mention the ‘old school’ grille? You can go to Pennzoil’s site to register, but before you do that you’ll want to read the press release after the jump for all the details. Oh, and don’t forget to peruse the gallery of high-res photos below.
Project American Heroes Chevelle – Click above for high-res image gallery
The top seller in Barrett-Jackson’s first Orange County auction on Saturday was a very special Chevy Chevelle. Built by Route 66 Motorsports and chronicled by Super Chevy Magazine, it’s known as the Project American Heroes Chevelle, and it brought a cool quarter of a million bucks for the Armed Forces Foundation. This Chevelle is the third in a series of souped-up muscle cars built for this particular charity, which supports the families of injured veterans.
The car itself is a 1970 Chevelle, with an intercooled, supercharged GM Performance Parts LSA engine where you might expect to see an LS5 or LS6 big block. Detroit Speed & Engineering did the suspension, the binders are Baer’s new “6P” brake system, power is routed through a TCI Automotive 6x 6-speed 4L80E transmission, and the end result of these and about 30 other component contributors is one badass Chevelle that sold for $250,000 on Saturday afternoon. Take a look at the gallery below to see some shots of this very special Chevy, the color guard that escorted it onstage, and the cheerleaders that helped keep the crowd revved up during the auction.
Consumer Reports checks out the Chevrolet Volt – click above to
“What do you think about the ” It’s a question we get asked all the time. For most of us, the answer is, “I’m anxious to check it out.” The staff of Automotive Test Center can offer more substantive replies. General Motors drove two Volts out to CR’s Connecticut test facility and let the magazine’s experts give the extended-range EVs some thorough study. Jake Fisher provides a succinct video overview of the Volt and comes away impressed with the promise the Volt shows based on its on-road behavior, space, and comfort.
CR’s Eric Evarts shares some impressions on the . The EREV doesn’t break new ground conceptually, but basing a mass-production, mainstream automobile around the architecture is nearly akin to a reinvention of the wheel. Set aside the impressive technical details for a moment and consider how completely realized the Chevy Volt will be from a user’s perspective.
Nice touches abound, such as a built-in circuit tester that “pings” the outlet you plug the Volt into. Following a clean test, an in-car indicator changes from yellow to green as charging commences. If the ping fails, the light blinks, signaling a problem. that will provide drivers with remote access to the charging features, and owners will be able to download their utility company’s electric rates to the Volt’s command-and-control interface so the car will automatically charge when doing so is most cost-efficient.
Those types of usability features are what’s going to make or break the Volt, and from what Consumer Reports has said, there’s more reason than ever to reply excitedly about trying out General Motors’ new propulsion paradigm. to watch the CR videos.
2010 ChevroletCorvette Grand Sport – Click above for high-res image gallery
If you take a close look at any built in recent years, what you won’t find anywhere on it is the word “.” The traditional bowtie does appear on the twin-flag badge, but that’s all. Regardless of what badge it may or may not wear, the Corvette has always been sold as a Chevrolet in North America. Not so in Europe, where the Chevrolet brand is the budget label selling re-badged Daewoos. Corvettes have been sold without any additional branding through stores.
That’s all changing now, however, as the is far more upmarket than its predecessors and GM will soon start selling the overseas as well. With these changes, the Vette will again be branded as a Chevrolet – even if it doesn’t actually wear the word on its bodywork.
designers have had some fun with the company Etch-a-Sketch and came up with this, then filed the drawings with the patent office. Any details identifying its place in the Chevy lineup or in the automaker’s global marketplace were sadly left out of the filing.
