If you’re looking to give your an added dose of performance, look no further than Brabus. The aftermarket tuning house specializes in customizing Daimler’s finest, and doesn’t stop at upgrading the engine and running gear, either. With packages like the suite, Brabus will turn your , for example, into a 219-mph high-tech office on wheels. In other words, it’ll make it more like a private jet. But what if you want your jet to feel more like your customized Mercedes? Brabus can help with that, too.
The new Brabus Private Aviation division is set up in response to customer demand and follows a similar project launched recently to outfit yacht interiors. It allows discerning and well-heeled clients to either retrofit the cabins of their existing private jets or commission the accoutrements to be fitted to new aircraft direct from whatever aerospace concern is building their new private jet.
The focus is on both luxury and business capabilities, which Brabus is currently displaying with two concepts at the European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition in Geneva. Scope ‘em out in the high-resolution image gallery above, the press release and the dedicated website beyond .
The Touchskin interface has beeen on display since last October; now it’s at a stage where Magna is shopping it to automakers. Although Magna is the marquee name, the various components that comprise Touchskin are produced by nine companies: , , , , , , Votteler, Hennecke Polyurethane and .
It is exactly what it sounds like: instead of buttons and knobs populating the center tunnel space around the gearshift, there is a a perfectly smooth Clearmelt panel whose glossy surface heals itself of scratches and nicks. On either side of the shifter in the concept is the IDMP area, where your mobile phone rests. Without needing to be docked, the phone can connect with the car through Qi transmitters (common to phones as of this year) and be charged. The IDMP area and near-field Qi system is one of Magna’s contributions and the company says it can’t be hacked like Bluetooth or Internet protocols.
To the rear of the concept panel is the haptic interface, a protuberance that responds to numerous fingertip gestures to provide control of the car’s various systems. It is made possible by the Touchskin film, produced in reel-to-reel fashion at a rate of 80 meters per minute, that can be molded to any shape and is wedded to the Clearmelt with copper foil.
There’s a video just to take you through the production process and how Touchskin works. It’s unlikely the entire panel would make it into a new car, but we can certainly see it creeping, piece by glossy piece, into our Minority Report futures.
Gazoo Racing (full name: Gazoo Racing Masters of Nürburgring) has unveiled a concept racing version of the famed that features both a turbocharger and a supercharger to offer up 320 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque.
The car, officially called the Sport FR Concept, oozes high performance out of its fenders and includes Gazoo brakes, spoilers and suspension tuning, according to . However, few specifics were available.
teamed up with Gazoo earlier this year to help jump start it’s small-displacement engines. Earlier this year, Toyota gave the green light to the . Gazoo was expected to build about 100 of those cars.
Long before unveiled the Urus concept for its new SUV at the last month, we got two chances to preview the show truck: once at the factory in Italy and once at a private preview in New York. The Italian automaker’s development chief Maurizio Reggiani wasn’t prepared to talk about powertrain options at the time, but in speaking with Automotive News, he’s now given us a hint of what to expect should the Group board give the project the green light.
As expected, the Urus would have to be based on the same platform that is slated to underpin the next , , and Bentley EXP 9 F (if similarly approved) in order to make good business sense. Unfortunately, that new PL73 architecture is made principally of steel, a material that Lamborghini has been getting away from in favor of new types of carbon fiber construction. In order to keep weight down – Lambo is targeting 4,400 lbs for the Urus, significantly less than its potential competitors – it would need to make other components out of carbon to compensate.
That covers the mass side of the power-to-weight ratio that is integral to any performance vehicle. As for the power, Reggiani says the company has yet to make a final decision. The last time Lamborghini made an SUV – the legendary LM002 “Rambo Lambo” – it was powered by the same high-revving V12 as the Countach, lending to speculation that the Urus could incorporate the new V12 from the or the V10 from the . Reggiani, however, indicates that the new twin-turbo V8 powering the latest RS models and the Continental is a more likely choice, given that it would help keep weight down and provide more low-end torque than the naturally-aspired 10 or 12-pots the Raging Bull marque currently produces for its sports cars.
We’ve heard for years that Chinese automakers hoped one day to export their wares to the United States. Ironically, the global economic slowdown could be what gives the Chinese incentive to finally make it happen.
Chinese automakers ramped up production capacity to meet surging demand at home only to see the local economic conditions slow from 30 percent growth in 2010 to just 2.5 percent in 2011. On top of that, the Chinese auto marketplace has now become crowded with foreign and domestic competitors.
“The rapid growth phase of China’s auto market is coming to an end, and we see exports as one possible outlet for all the capacity we have built up,” Xing Wenlin, vice president in charge of overseas markets, tells . Great Wall’s (pictured above) was shown a few years ago as a possible export model.
While most Chinese-made cars aren’t up to American quality expectations, developing automotive markets like Egypt, Ukraine, Brazil and Indonesia are clamoring for cheap, reliable transportation. Chinese automaker Chery it would be selling cars in Europe by 2015.
Geely’s in 2010 has boosted the Chinese company’s automotive technology expertise and could help it achieve its goal of doubling exports to 70,000 units this year. While the U.S. is still out of reach for most Chinese automakers, Geely may begin selling a Chinese-made car in the UK by the end of this year. If successful there, a logical next market would be North America.
If you’re wondering why the name sounds familiar, it’s because . That’s right, General Motors’ chunky little crossover concept has blossomed into the production CUV you see here, and might we say, it’s quite a handsome little thing.
Details about the new Trax are scarce, but since it looks to be based on the same high-riding platform derived from the that underpins the and , so we’d expect the powertrains to simply carry over unchanged.
But know this: has no plans to offer the Trax in the United States, citing “the strong position of the ” as the reason why it won’t be offered Stateside. That’s a shame, too. In our opinion, this baby Bowtie certainly makes more sense than the frumpy Buick Encore that doesn’t really seem to fit with its brand. We suspect that Chevy dealers won’t get this vehicle in part because GM wants to protect the Buick’s positioning and price when it heads to U.S. dealers later this year.
The Trax will make its official debut at the in late September. For now, click the image above for a high-resolution version and to read GM’s official release.
Trax crossover headed to Paris, not bound for U.S.
Typically when an automaker wants to roll out a new car, it does so at one of a dozen or so major auto shows held throughout the calendar and around the world. But with the bulk of the show season on break for the summer, rumor has it that Renault is planning a more glamorous location to unveil its latest.
Speculation has been mounting for years that Renault was preparing to revive the Alpine nameplate with a new sports car sometime soon. And with the 50th anniversary of the legendary A110 (pictured above in the 1971 Monte Carlo Rally) coming up, the latest suggests that is exactly what the French automaker has in store for the Monaco Grand Prix, scheduled to take place in short order on the streets of Monte Carlo.
Just what the new Renault Alpine will amount to, if anything, remains to be seen, however. Some forecast that it could be based on the same platform as the from allied automaker , while others anticipate an electric sports car of some sort.
One way or another, it won’t be the only Renault present for the most iconic of grands prix: eight out of the 24 F1 cars on the grid this year are powered by the same Renault RS27 engine that powered Sebastian Vettel to the last two world championships.
worked with Fender, its stereo partner, to put together the concept shown at last year’s . The concept had an iPod dock set into amp-like mesh, a tube amp, sunburst-patterened wood trim and a trunk-mounted sub you could plug your guitar into.
Car and Driver reports that a production version is coming, perhaps before the end of the year, but it will be missing several of the components that made the concept that much cooler, like the mesh-decorated dock, the tube amp and the port in the sub. Oh, and the sunburst-pattern trim might not be made of wood.
There’s plenty that could remain, though. The black concept featured special red and chrome trim, a leather roof, and sat on a lowered suspension with 19-inch wheels. Those could make it through the production transition, as well as the high-end Fender stereo system, naturally.
When it comes to supercars, the sky is the proverbial limit. You can literally spend millions. And with vehicles like the , and , you can spend hundreds of thousands on a top-of-the-line luxury sedan, too. But when it comes to SUVs, prices seldom if ever breach the $100K mark fetched by the likes of the and the .
There are a handful of automakers aiming to break that barrier though. Like the upcoming SUVs from and , the on-again, off-again Spyker D12, and this, the FX Sebastian Vettel Version.
Based on the , the Vettel edition has had the output from its 5.0-liter V8 upped to from 390 horsepower to 414 for a 5.6-second sprint to 60 and a 186 mph top speed. The suspension is said to have been set up by the reigning two-time world champion himself, with the carbon fiber aero kit developed by his Red Bull Racing team. The only change we’ve heard of from the concept car pictured above to the production version will be a more conventional pearl white paint job instead of the matte white of the show car.
Only 200 examples will be produced, with 50 earmarked for continental Europe, and most of the rest likely heading to the Middle East. The price for such a high-end performance crossover? 120,000 euros, or about $155,000 in American greenbacks (if it were actually offered here). Of course if that still seems too slow and too cheap, you could always order a custom Juke-R from Infiniti’s parent company and smoke some supercars in the process.
plans to show off a new concept version of the Q3 at the Worthersee Tour in Austria next week. The Q3 Red Track boasts the same 2.5-liter five-cylinder engine found under the hood of the Audi TT RS, and thus, there’s a galloping 340 horsepower and 331 pound-feet of torque on hand. A seven-speed S Tronic gearbox handles shifting duties and drops the available grunt to all four tires via the company’s Quattro all-wheel-drive system. In addition to the extra power, the Red Track wears unique Energy Red paint flecked with gold, while accents like the fender flares and lower fascia are coated in matte gray.
Likewise, the headlight arrays wear body-color accents, and massive 20-inch five-spoke wheels help set the crossover apart from its production kin. Audi also stretched the track by by 1.5 inches and lifted the machine by 1.2 inches for a beefier stance. The Red Track will be on display at the Worthersee Tour starting on May 16. for the full press release.
Go back a decade or so – before Koenigsegg, SSC and the were on the scene – and the idea of a million-dollar, thousand-horsepowersupercar that could break the three-second barrier to sixty would seem out of this world. Posting those kinds of figures with an electric car? No way.
Way. That’s what the Rimac Concept_One is all about. It chews up and spits them back out into the Silicon Valley from whence they came. The electric motors mounted at each wheel give the electric supercar 1,088 horsepower of thrust and a 2.8-second sprint to 100 km/h (62 mph). Range comes in at a claimed 372-miles. All yours (if you’re one of the first 88 customers to call) for the low, low price of $980,000.
We could hardly believe it when we saw the show car in last year, and neither could the show-goers in Monte Carlo where it made its production debut. So to show the public that it was for real, Rimac put out this short video clip showing its Croatian creation laying down patches of its Giugiaro-designed Vredestein rubber on the tarmac. It’s brief, but it’s worth a watch. to check it out.
Bloggers we may be, but we’re still fans of good old fashioned long-form journalism – or what passes for it in this day and age. Yes, digital attention deficit disorder and the failing fortunes of print publishing have combined to largely neuter the art form, but there are still some publications willing to think high concept and go out and spend some shoe-leather on stories.
Here’s a good one: Car and Driver buys a used-up car to take to the auto recyclers, then traces the derelict vehicle’s progression through the process of being reduced to its elements.
The magazine’s choice, a 210,000-mile 1993 , is a brilliant way get us emotionally involved. The E36 is one of those cars that is just so likable, a product that was head and shoulders better than anything else in its time, that we can’t help but care what happens to it once it’s cast into the clutches of the salvage yard.
The story is fascinating in the way it focuses our attention on things we rarely think of when we ogle sheet metal and obsess over the performance profiles of new models. The numbers are all there too – who knew that a scrap catalytic converter was worth $250?
But enough with that, just go read it for yourself at C/D’s .
Exotic automakers from Italy come and go, and some are missed more than others. But while names like , and have remained constant throughout, others have risen and fallen. was one such example – revived temporarily by Italian investors before Volkswagen stepped in to bring it back to Alsace – but another is De Tomaso.
Founded (not unlike Pagani) by an Argentine-Italian in Modena, but way back in 1959, De Tomaso produced legendary sports cars like the Vallelunga, Mangusta and of course the Pantera. It even owned Maserati and Moto Guzzi for a time, but it eventually petered off into bankruptcy. Along came a certain Gian Mario Rossignolo – a veteran auto exec in Italy – to scoop up what was left of the company in 2008.
The revival led to the debut of the Deauville concept at the 2011 , but a lack of interest and funds led to the program being sold to a Chinese automaker which appears to have done little with it. Meanwhile it looked for a time that Rossignolo was planning to continue development of a new Pantera, but those plans have reportedly lost momentum as the outfit struggled without enough capital to even pay its workers.
The most astute readers may recall Rossignolo’s name coming up in the news about a month ago as well, when his other business – Prototipo SpA – . Whether the proceeds from that sale end up giving Rossignolo enough to pay his staff and possibly turn the Pantera program around, however, or if they’ll only prove sufficient to repay his debts, remains to be seen.
Every single Cadillac XTS post ends up with comments deploring the sedan’s FWD – even a post that speaks of nothing more than the with the car. For those folks especially, Car and Driver has loaded the hopper with news on the possible treats coming from the Wreath and Crest. Examining uses of the Omega platform, C/D says “a proper rear-drive sedan” will arrive in “a few” years and take the top spot in the lineup. Predictions are that it will have a rakish roofline and the 310-horsepower, 3.6-liter V6.
GM’s Omega platform is said to have been engineered to accommodate this new RWD flagship, though the chances of it actually coming to fruition are about as likely as winning the Mega Millions. The only trifles, according to C/D, are that the program hasn’t even been approved, and if it is, would Cadillac have an engine good enough to serve in such a car or would it need to develop one. But said flagshp does, we repeat, it does, have a platform. Still, since the Cadillac Sixteen concept is from a time when “Gaga” is what babies said, you should probably stick to the Mega Millions for now.
Automotive News reports will turn to Magna Steyr to build a new compact car in 2014. The Austrian manufacturer will assemble the vehicle as part of the luxury brand’s efforts to grow in western Europe and other global markets.
So far, Nissan and Infiniti have been tight-lipped about what the vehicle will bring to the table, but earlier reports have hinted the model will be designed to compete directly with the likes of the and Mercedes-Benz A-Class. Speaking of , the new Infiniti will likely ride on the same underpinnings as the current A and B-Class models.
The report says Nissan is set to use a number of Daimler components in the new compact, including Mercedes-Benz four and six-cylinder engines. Expect to see both gasoline and diesel variants as well. Magna Steyr is expected to produce between 50,000 and 60,000 Infiniti units per year. The two companies are currently finalizing the details of the agreement.
Autoblog reader Ed sent us from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, showing that has apparently trademarked the name for use on automobiles. It’s no secret that the Riviera name resonates well with anyone familiar with Buick’s history, and since the production coupe’s death in 1999, the name Riviera has only been resurrected once for the 2007 concept car you see here.
So, why is GM registering the Riviera name again? Your guess is as good as ours. As , it could be nothing – automakers will, from time to time, trademark a host of words or alphanumeric sequences (, for example, has trademarked everything from MKA to MKZ for potential use). But then again, this isn’t the (or , or ) time that we’ve heard rumors about potentially adding a coupe to its lineup, and the Riviera name would certainly be appropriate.
In 2011, commenced its People’s Car Project in China to create crowdsourced concepts of the VW of the future. More than 33 million people visited the site, and three concepts were created from the inputs: the Music Car, the Hover Car and the Smart Key.
The Music Car is a wrapped in LEDs that change colors to match the driver’s choice of music. The Hover Car is a zero-emissions two-seater that, no surprise, hovers over electromagnetic road networks. The Smart Key is Big Brother for your car, in your pocket: the high-def touchscreen on the nine-millimeter key can track the status of your car and keep an eye on it via “satellite transmission.”
The project is continuing, so you can still post your thoughts to VW’s future. In the meantime there’s a video and a couple of press releases for more on the story.
’s People’s Car Project in China has produced three concepts [w/video]
We knew the three-door Volkswagen Up! was going to shape-shift into other variants, one of them being a that’s due later this year. According to word in German newspaper Handelsblatt, the well-received Cross-Up!, which provided clues to the styling of the five-door Up! could actually be the follow-up.
Crossovers remain popular and their sales are on the rise in Europe, so it’s no surprise that manufacturers are finding ways to create market-specific versions. According to the preliminary numbers, the The Cross Up! would slot in at $6,000 less than the larger . And like every other tiny Euro crossover – – we shouldn’t ever expect to see it here.
It’s a long ride into 2015, and you can expect it to be filled with seemingly endless speculations and renderings, all surrounding the next-generation . Inside Line hass pieced together the information it has managed to gathered so far and produced a rendering that, if not for the , would be considered not just next-generation, but next millennium.
What it does, though, is tweak the Evos with the recognizable Mustang forms that IL s been told will remain, like the three-bar taillamps and the three-quarter light, though, again, the whole thing looks decidedly futuristic. Still, don’t get too attached to this rendering – there’ll no doubt be plenty more before we’re through.
With an epic chassis and the lowest center of gravity in the business, there’s plenty for enthusiast to love about the . Except, that is, for those who prefer to take their nimble, affordable sports cars with the roof down. Their choices are rather limited in this price category to the and , but if the latest reports prove accurate, the FR-S – which is, of course, virtually identical to the and sold overseas as the GT 86 – is preparing to throw its hat in the ring, as well.
Long rumored, a convertible version of the jointly-developed “Toyobaru” coupe could stand to boost sales figures and help the bean-counters justify the expenditure on the new platform. However while the recently showcased at Long Beach lost its rear seats (along with most of its windshield), Car and Driver predicts that the FR-S convertible will keep the auxiliary pair in the back – though the addition of a folding roof mechanism would likely mean that would come at the expense of most of the trunk room.
We’re told to expect the FR-S convertible to arrive sometime late in 2013 or early in 2014, with a price tag that would tack a few grand onto the coupe’s $25,000 MSRP. Look for the same 2.0-liter, 200-horsepower boxer four to carry over with a choice of six-speed transmissions in either manual or automatic configurations. Beyond that, Toyota may be considering basing a larger four-door sedan and coupe off the new platform, which could stand to make the money men back at headquarters – to say nothing of the enthusiasts – even more happy.
