The 2013 has an appointment for some cosmetic surgery, according to a report in Car & Driver. The restyle will be minimal, with detail changes around the fascia going just far enough to let other 7 Series owners know that you have the latest model.
A more substantive change could occur under the skin of the ActiveHybrid 7, however. It’s nearly $13,000 more expensive than it’s non-hybrid counterparts but doesn’t make an equally hard-to-ignore case for efficiency: the ActiveHybrid 750i has 55 more horsepower than the standard car, but is rated at 17 city / 26 highway versus 15 city / 22 highway. Speculation is that the ActiveHybrid 7 could get the six-cylinder powertrain from the to improve its green credentials.
As we said when we first drove the Blue-e-motion, is . Given the tremendous ups and downs that electric vehicles and EV start-up companies are going through, maybe making sure you have a car where everything is working smoothly – to say nothing about - isn’t such a bad idea. And it now seems like VW is confident enough in its Golf EV, which is , to push up its estimated release date from 2014 to late 2013.
Sure, technically, that could be a difference of just one day, but we don’t think that’s what VW of America president Jonathan Browning meant when he confirmed next year’s U.S. release date with Automotive News. Late 2013 is also when the car will go on sale in Europe. A .
Even though VW is getting ready to move into electric vehicle territory, it is well behind other automakers. Perhaps that’s why it is also a bit less optimistic about the potential success of plug-ins. The automaker expects just three percent of its new vehicles to be EVs or hybrids by 2018. You can .
Rally racing, like virtually every other form of motorsport in the world, is a dangerous activity. As much as we love watching a talented driver negotiate a tricky off-road race course with skill and luck, crashing is no doubt part of the experience as well. And crashes happen rather often in the world of rallying.
During the 2012 Rally Mexico, which took place from March 8-11, 2012, there were two drivers who started the race but were forced to retire after crashing out. One of those was Evgeny Novikov, who ended his race in spectacular fashion after the roof vent of his Ford Fiesta RS WRC blew away, causing the cabin to fill with dust and debris. As the commentators point out, he was truly driving blind, at least until he veered off course and crashed.
When we say Noviko crashed, what we really mean is that he flipped, rolled and generally demolished his Fiesta rally car with a vengeance before ending up on the roof. See for yourself by watching the video .
So where are we at with the 2013 ? We’ve seen , along with . We’ve seen a shot of the car , and of course, in a conventional disguise, but got a good look at its interior in the process.
Now comes with this, a brief video that shows off the Altima’s new hind end. Like most every sedan on the market these days, it looks like the will be getting a bit of a Bangle butt. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) We do get the first really good view of the Altima’s taillights, which have a bit of spindle thing going on.
We’ll have to wait until the on April 4-5 to see the full reveal, though we wouldn’t put it past Nissan to eke out another shot or two of the car before then.
Click on the image above to enlarge, then feel free to see the very brief video yourself .
Those interested in getting their 650-horsepower kicks in the form of a can now at least partly satiate their longing with an online configurator. And, as you can see above, you are free to deck your favorite ‘Stang in any number of classic racing colors… or even in Superman-spec red and blue.
Outlandish color choices aside, there are plenty of interesting options for the fastest factory ever created, including the expected Sync infotainment technologies, a voice-activated navigation system and a three-subwoofer Shaker Pro audio system. Those looking for some added sportiness inside the cabin can opt for a color-coordinated pair (black and blue in the case of our config) of front Recaro seats for an extra $1,595. Sounds like money well-spent.
For those wishing to check every option available for the car, including a Shelby-branded car cover, the most-expensive 2013 Shelby GT500 hardtop will waltz off the factory floor with a $66,485 window sticker. On the other side of the equation, even a base $54,200 (*plus $795 for destination) car will come equipped with the supercharged 5.8-liter V8 capable of hurtling the GT500 to a terminal velocity of a bit over 200 miles per hour. Performance bargain, anyone?
Feel free to build your own 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 , and share your favorite config in the Comments. Ready, set… go!
Sorry, Phillips de Pury & Company, but you guys evidently had no business auctioning this car at a sale of contemporary art. Because no matter what the dynamic rap duo of Kanye West and Jay-Z did to it, this 2004 is, first and foremost, a used car. Clearly the art community has voted with its wallets – and decided that the vehicle’s value is about what you could make if you parted it out. Frankly, that’s sad.
For those that don’t remember, the Grammy Award-winning hit from Kanye’s 2011 album Watch The Throne. Despite its overt ugliness, the car certainly has provenance. (Did we mention that the song won a Grammy?) We only hope that whomever ponied up the paltry sum of $60,000 for the “Otis” is either a real music fan or someone who goes on to resell it at Barrett-Jackson or another car auction .
Be sure to of the “Otis” Maybach, and click to watch the music video.
Automakers are always attempting to show how popular their new vehicle is, but there are only two ways to truly prove a smashing hit. One is to deliver outstanding sales numbers, and the other is to experience demand so strong that new employees must be hired to help assemble them.
Land Rover is experiencing just such a success with its sexy new line, as evidenced by its latest press release. The Tata Motors owned luxury marque announced that it is hiring an additional 1,000 workers at its Halewood plant to bolster production. The facility, which currently builds the Evoque and the Freelander 2 (a.k.a. ), will now employ 4,500 workers, or three times the number it did in 2009.
With those new hires, the Halewood plant will now be running at or near full capacity, with three full eight-hour shifts. Hit the jump to read over the Land Rover press release which includes details of some of the positions needed at the plant.
The partnership beween and is , yet in that time, more acrimony and court proceedings have been created than jointly developed products – not hard to do when that product number is zero. Continent-crossing accusations have included Suzuki being upset at and that VW hasn’t shared its technology, while the German automaker has been miffed at from .
Suzuki filed for arbitration in London and hopes to compel VW to sell back the 19.9-percent stake it took in Suzuki in 2009. A line in VW’s annual report, however, reads that it “considers the claims to be unfounded and has itself filed counterclaims.” VW doesn’t expect a court decision on Suzuki’s arbitration to come before 2013. We know they say it’s always darkest before the dawn, but we have a feeling the sun won’t be rising on this union for quite some time.
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).
is hard at work on a refresh for the , and thanks to our intrepid spy photographers, we’re now getting our first glimpses of the subcompact’s new schnoz. It appears as though the car’s somewhat cutesy face will now have a more aggressive shape, complete with smaller headlamps that integrate LED running lights – which appears to be right in line with the revised design language seen on the all-new .
It’s unclear exactly what other changes are in store for the next Fiesta, though reports have suggested that EcoBoost power may soon be found underhood. Ford has long stated that it plans to incorporate EcoBoost powertrains into the vast majority of its vehicles, and the Fiesta would be a seemingly perfect home for the recently launched 1.0-liter three-cylinder turbo. , this engine is available with either 99 or 118 horsepower and a respectable 125 pound-feet of torque. For comparison, the current Fiesta’s 1.6-liter inline-four pumps out 120 hp and 112 lb-ft.
Scroll through our attached high-res image gallery to see the facelifted Fiesta blasting through the snow undergoing winter testing and stay tuned for more details.
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.
As a Formula One entity, Renault has gone from engine supplier to full manufacturer (having acquired the Benetton team back in 2000) and back to engine supplier (having all but completely divested the team now under the banner). The French automaker’s competition engine works also powers Caterham and Williams this season, but most importantly, the Red Bull Racing team that is returning once again as World Champions. So whereas previous Renaultsport special edition hot hatches celebrated the company’s own achievements, the latest celebrates Red Bull’s.
Named the Red Bull RB7 edition after last year’s car, the special Clio RS packs a 203-horsepower four mounted to the Cup chassis that would otherwise be an option. The body is painted matte black with yellow highlights, a tone-on-tone checkerboard roof, the requisite special badging and 18-inch wheels done up in a black finish and shod with the same Bridgestone rubber that kept the glued to the Nürburgring for its lap record.
Inside it’s got yellow Recaro buckets and the RS Monitor performance telematics system. The special edition will only be available, however, in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria and Spain. Details to be found in the press release after the jump with high-res images in the gallery 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!
According to , the 2013 Sprint Cup Series will kick off without an on the starting grid. That’s news itself, considering how intertwined the Impala is with Chevy’s NASCAR presence, earning 70 wins since 2007.
Even more intriguing, though, is that Chevy says it “will be racing a vehicle based on a new nameplate to the brand’s lineup.” That means the 2013 racer won’t be a or . Whatever it may be, Chevrolet says that both the race version and the production version will be debuted “in the coming year.”
As far as speculation goes, it’s hard not to point a finger in the direction of the , which is currently available in the United States for duty only. Will everyday consumers finally get another crack at a high-performance rear-wheel-drive Chevy sports sedan? If so, what will it be called, and will it wear the coveted SS nomenclature?
We have no idea. What we do know, however, is that Jim Campbell, vice president of Chevrolet Performance Vehicles and Motorsports, says the automaker is testing camouflaged vehicles and that the production version will be “just like” the race car. We’ll just have to wait and see about that… In the meantime, see the complete press release .
A design studio and contract manufacturer, when Pininfarina builds a car it’s typically under another brand’s auspices. That could change, however, with the Cambiano.
Unveiled just last week at the , the 680-horsepowerplug-inhybrid coupe concept – which we had to examine close-up in the ramp-up to the show – is being considered for limited production.
If built for public consumption, the Cambiano is tipped to ditch the concept’s diesel turbine in favor of a more conventional electric powertrain with its range extended by a diesel engine. If Pininfarina were to build just ten examples, the pricetag on each would amount to about 1 million euros (approximately $1.3 million at today’s conversion rates) but if ramped up to 70 or 75 units, each would fetch around 400,000 euros (about $525,000).
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.
Residents of Amish communities famously eschew almost all trappings of modernity. No TV, no telephones, limited use of electricity, and, gasp, no Autoblog! But there comes a in a young Amish person’s life when they’re allowed to go out and taste the world. And sometimes alcohol.
Case in point: Sunday evening, police in Sherman, N.Y. were of a group of young Amish having a “buggy party.” Before they could get there, though, another buggy carrying four Amish allegedly switched lanes abruptly and collided with the patrol car.
The buggy flipped, injuring one of the passengers and, we imagine, spilling what police say was the fruits of a beer run.
The crash must have been loud enough for the partygoers to hear, because when the cops finally showed up, several buggies were observed fleeing the scene.
The four passengers of the bashed-up buggy are charged with underage possession of alcohol. The driver, 20, faces additional charges since police say he admitted to being the host of the party.
And, by the way, the horse is fine. Police say it, wisely, fled the scene and took shelter in a nearby barn.
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.
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.
![76918 2004 maybach 57 otis 1 opt Auctions: Jay Z and Kanyes wrecked Maybach fetches just $60,000 at auction [w/video]](http://theautoblog.ru/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/76918_2004-maybach-57-otis-1-opt.jpg "Auctions: Jay Z and Kanyes wrecked Maybach fetches just $60,000 at auction [w/video]")
