Alfa Romeos were meant to be on sale here after summer, but we all know that’s not happening. Nevertheless, lentamente, Alfa Romeo’s return to the U.S. progresses. According to a story in Automotive News, was earlier this month granted the U.S. trademark for “Alfa Romeo 4C” for the car and ancillaries. We can at least take that as certain; Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne’s statement that the 4C will go on sale at the end of 2013 we’ll take with a bit more caution.
is in Italy, and the is projected to go on sale in Europe early next year. Only 2,500 will be made per annum, and here they’ll give Alfa a much needed halo car to entice less spendy buyers into showrooms and into giving other Alfa models – and the brand itself – a chance.
We know the 4C will eventually be joined by the based Giulia sedan and a crossover or two. As for when, well, you can circle late 2013 on your calendar. In pencil.
Color us unsurprised. Car and Driver reports that officials have confirmed a production version of the company’s concept first shown at the in March. We expected as much – after all, parent has demonstrated real adeptness at building a myriad of derivatives from the basic architecture, and the boutique brand already markets more spinoffs than Law & Order, so what’s one more?
Essentially a panel van version of the , C/D says the Clubvan will appear in U.S. showrooms this September as a 2013 model. It isn’t immediately clear if the model will offer both the standard 121-horsepower four and the Clubman S’ 181-horsepower turbo, but C/D says we shouldn’t expect a John Cooper Works version.
Interestingly, it doesn’t appear that Mini will weld in sheet steel where the Clubman’s rear side windows normally go – instead, C/D reports the company will employ body-color foil on the outside and plastic and safety foil liners inside. Other changes will include a trimmed-out cargo hold with power sockets and tie-downs. As with the concept, a stainless-steel grille will be fitted to keep cargo from intruding on the passenger compartment.
No word yet on whether the loss of rear seats will make the Clubvan any lighter, but Mini says the vehicle will offer more cargo capacity than its passenger-minded brethren. No guidance yet on pricing, either, but we’re guessing that like other Mini models, boutiques and delivery services will have to shell out a pretty penny to get their hands on this dutch-door cutie. Our only question now is… how long will it take for Mini to come out with a panelized version of its softroader?
In between bouts of Olympic games, the official torch that traditionally kicks off the opening ceremonies makes the long journey by a relay of runners to the host site. And you can bet that over the course of years, it has passed through some tricky environmental conditions. But is it ready to endure the unpredictability of British weather?
To find out, – a main sponsor of the fast-approaching London Olympics – lent its wind tunnel facility to test the torch in a variety of conditions. Over the course of the grueling test, the torch was made to withstand temperatures ranging from 23 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, winds generated at upwards of 50 mph, with snow packed into the front and under driving rain. But all the while the flame stayed lit.
The tests were carried out at the BMW Energy and Environmental Test Centre in Munich, a facility which boasts three wind tunnels and two climatic test rooms capable of simulating weather from -4F to 131F, replicating the Arctic Tundra and the Sahara Desert, generating wind speeds at up to 174 mph, and simulating altitudes approaching 14,000 feet above sea level.
Watch a video of the testing procedure shown on the UK’s ITV1 news by .
We can now add a rendering and a litte more gossip to and its recent designation. GM has used the SS designator for more than 50 years but only got around to trademarking it five years ago, and persistent rumors have suggested that a civilian version of the will simply be called the SS.
previously confirmed that its next NASCAR entry will be , which suggests that the and are disqualified. But a new car called the SS would fit, and the rumormill suggests it will be a derivative of the Zeta-platform Holden Commodore. The folks at Chris Doane Automotive have opened the rendering account and taken this rather conservative stab at what a reboot of a U.S. Commodore might look like.
Yes, we’ve been here before, and in fact, we’re still here. The now extinct but universally lauded was itself a Americanized Holden Commodore, and the current Caprice law enforcement vehicle is a long-wheelbase version of that Holden that packs either a 3.6-liter, 301-horsepower V6 or a 6.0-liter, 355-hp V8. Resurrecting the G8 would return a vehicle that many loved but was handicapped by Pontiac’s zombie status, improve Holden’s fortunes and give Chevy a proper rear-wheel drive sedan with teeth. To all of that, we say Yes, Yes and… Yes.
The group of hackers known as Anonymous last night announcing their intent to hack and take down the officialwebsite for Formula One at for the duration of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Their reason? To protest the increasingly violent crackdown on the people of Bahrain by their own government.
As of this writing, as promised and another website, , is displaying a message from Anonymous that claims responsibility.
In its press release, Anonymous addresses Bernie Ecclestone, president and CEO of Formula One, directly, promising the following:
Anonymous will turn your web site (www.formula1.com) into a smoking crater in cyber space. We will also jam your phone lines, bomb your E-Mail inboxes – and wreck anything else of yours we can find on the internet.
The group also calls upon fans of F1 to ignore the race by either not attending in person or watching it on television. They also appeal to the drivers themselves to protest the race by not crossing the starting line at the beginning of the race.
Last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix was , and despite the increasing frequency of protests and leading up to this weekend’s race, it has not yet been cancelled. As a result, activists, now including the Anonymous group, are using the motorsport’s worldwide popularity to gain attention for their cause.
In the music industry, a band’s third album is typically make-or-break. You start with the debut album, introducing the general public to the band’s polished works, then comes the sophomore record, which proves whether or not the band can keep its fan base happy and gain more traction in the music scene. But the third album must show if that band’s sound and style has a good enough mix of individual flare and mainstream appeal to keep them successful in the long-run.
If you think about it, the same can be said about the automotive landscape, and for the purpose of this review, the . The first-generation Escape, launched in 2000 as a 2001 model, entered during a time when small SUVs and “cute-utes” were booming. The redesigned 2008 Escape built upon the first model’s success, and now, as the curtain is about to close on that ruggedly handsome, boxy Escape, this new third-generation model has some mighty big shoes to fill.
Over the past year, the Escape has been an absolute sales superstar. In 2011, moved over 254,000 of the compact crossovers – a 33-percent gain over 2010’s numbers. To get an idea of just how impressive that is, know that in the same timeframe, moved just over 218,000 , while sold 137,000 and hustled around 193,000 models. Building upon that success, Ford announced that with 60,000 units sold in the first quarter of 2012, the Escape posted its best Q1 numbers in its 11-year history. Talk about going out with a bang.
But rather than sticking to the original formula of a small, trucky crossover, Ford has completely redesigned the Escape for 2013. Perhaps the biggest point of contention surrounding the new model is its styling – the two-box, upright design has been ditched in favor of the automaker’s Kinetic language, employing a more, shall we say, Focused appearance.
So here it is, the ever-important third album. Does Ford’s all-new Escape have enough mainstream appeal to take on the best and brightest of the CUV set while still being able to appeal to loyalists? We headed to the roads around San Francisco to find out.
Here it is, folks: the SUV. The only thing missing from these photos are the flying pigs.
Dubbed , the Lambo sport-ute will officially be unveiled at the shortly, but thanks to the magic of the Internets, the first few photos of the mighty ‘ute have been leaked. It looks pretty similar to all of the in the past, albeit with sleeker headlamps and a more low-slung appearance.
The Urus is expected to share its platform with the next-generation , and upcoming , but is tipped to be about 220 pounds lighter than all of those. Power is expected to be provided by a 5.2-liter V10 that produces around 584 horsepower.
We’ll have all of the official details shortly, so keep your eyes peeled for more. In the meantime, have a click through our attached gallery to see the full brace of leaked shots.
When a major automaker shuts down its racing program like Peugeot did at Le Mans, it leaves a big gaping hole for everyone involved. The French automaker’s departure from endurance racing left the series organizers scrambling for another team to take its place just as it was preparing to inaugurate the new FIA World Endurance Championship. It left – the Diane Sawyer of Le Mans racing, to borrow an analogy from Talladega Nights – without its Katie Couric. And arguably most of all, it left Peugeot’s roster of highly skilled drivers without a ride.
Easily among the most talented of these drivers is Marc Gené, the driver who helped Peugeot clinch the checkered flag at La Sarthe in 2009. A longtime factory test driver for (and one time grand prix driver for Minardi and Willaims), Gené has a wealth of experience that couldn’t very well be left untapped. So it should come as little surprise that Audi has scooped him up.
Although the German automaker already has a full roster of pilots – proven race winners, no less – at its disposal, it has found room for Gené as a reserve driver. In this capacity Gené will be filling in for an uninjured Timo Bernhard to drive the #3 Audi R18 Ultra together with French drivers Romain Dumas and Loïc Duval at Spa-Francorchamps in just a couple of weeks, and will undoubtedly be on hand to jump into the cockpit at Le Mans in June should duty call.
If you want to buy a new car, you go to a car dealership. If you want to buy a ridiculously expensive and luxurious cashmere sweater in any color imaginable, you go to Harrods. At least that’s the way it once was, but these days the swanky London department store has been turning its front window display into an automotive showroom.
A year and a half ago at Harrods, a lead that in the same space a month later. just a few months ago, and now is doing the same with its Goodwood edition hatchback.
As you may recall, the Goodwood is a Mini hatchback that’s had its interior fitted by the same craftsmen who do the cabins for . Only 1,000 units will be made, each with a whopping $52,000 price tag. The Mini Inspired by Goodwood has been on display at Harrods for a week already and will be for another, with a salesman on hand – swatches and samples at the ready – to answer questions and take orders behind the window on Brompton Road.
Okay, so maybe this isn’t much in the way of confirmation, but M division president Friedrich Nitschke told Car and Driver that the company was “considering” building an M Performance version of the . While that’s not quite an M7, it’s close.
Remember, that BMW has created to offer a higher performance version of its vehicles to slot between the standard models and the full-blown M cars. M Performance will also allow BMW to create performance diesel and all-wheel-drive models without sullying the M badge.
Of course, enthusiasts looking for a full-size BMW performance sedan can already have an like the one pictured above, but there’s something alluring about a real M-badged 7-Series. Given that BMW has already , it only seems fair that the 7-Series gets some love too, even if it’s just in M Performance form.
Nitschke’s interview revealed a few more interesting details about BMW’s product plans, namely that turbocharged engines are here to stay. He said BMW has no plans to use superchargers for its M products, and it sounds like naturally aspirated M engines are a thing of the past as well. Manual transmissions will continue to be offered, as according to Nitschke, new models will be equipped with transmissions that use software and electronics to “protect” the tranny from mismatched shifts. We won’t be seeing a hatchback M135i here in the U.S., however, nor are any of the diesel M Performance models headed towards our shores.
Can’t say we didn’t see this one coming. Hot on the heels of Audi’s official announcement that it had from Investindustrial Group, , the in-house performance arm of German automaker , has ended its “marketing cooperation” with the storied Italian motorcycle brand.
Naturally, Mercedes-Benz doesn’t want to sponsor Ducati now that it’s been taken over by, in its own words, “a rival car manufacturer.” While there had been some speculation that Mercedes or its AMG division might make a bid for Ducati, the automaker claims that was :
“Our focus lies clearly in developing and producing premium performance cars and we will be concentrating all our energy on this.”
Seems pretty cut and dry to us, but if you want to read more, feel free to for the brief announcement. We have to wonder, though, what will be come of the ?
has made no secret of the fact that it plans to officially unveil a new at the upcoming . We now have our first idea of what the vehicle looks like thanks to the company’s invitation to the show.
The invite shows a line drawing of the crossover’s profile, though the text mentions no details about the beast. Rumors are already swirling, with reports indicating that the vehicle when it debuts. As you may recall, Lamborghini as well.
What will the high-riding Lamborghini bring to the table? Details are scarce so far, though a tweaked version of the same V10 that feeds the Gallardo may wind up behind the headlights. With around 584 horsepower and an MSRP of around $200,000, the machine will be exclusive no matter what it’s called.
Along with Renault- CEO Carlos Ghosn, CEO Alan Mulally is confident in the growth of the electric car segment. It’s a long-term play, though, so Mulally isn’t committing the electric Ford Focus EV to making a strong sales statement. For now, Ford’s chief says he’d be fine moving fewer than 5,000 Focus EVs in the model’s first full year. And even that would mean a steep rise in uptake based on in December and January.
TheWall Street Journal reports that Mulally has also let slip the cost for the battery pack in the all-electric Focus: “around $12,000 to $15,000,” which makes a bit more understandable. Given that price range and the EV’s 23-kWh battery, that means Ford’s cost is between $522 and $650 per kWh, which is lower than the so far this year.
Reportage on the current sales of EVs is a bit schizophrenic – for example, , , but the commentators and the numbers seem to support Mulally’s confidence. If the Focus EV did manage 5,000 sales this year, that would be a little more than half of the 2011 tally for the , yet according to Bloomberg, EV market share grew more quickly than any other segment in Q1: Nissan is still working through its Leaf pre-order list, sales to 2,129 units vs. March 2011, the Opel Ampera has exceeded sales expectations, and other electric vehicles and their marketing pushes will come online later this year. Oh, and gas prices are still climbing.
There were no Focus EVs sold in February or March, but the retail push is gearing up now for the Spring season.
The 1961 Impala SS inaugurated the SS trim line to the brand, and its SS cars have found more than a million homes since – examples helping the way. Turns out, though, that just got around to patenting the designator SS on April 13, 2012. Since the SS descriptor has historically indicated a model variant or trim level, distinctions that apparently don’t normally warrant trademark protection, the questions are why now and what for?
The evidence would seem to lead to this being a model designator, not just a trim, and there have been of the will hit the market and simply be called SS. But if that’s the case, what would the we’ve seen in spy shots be named, and what – if anything – would happen to the SS trim available on other Chevy models?
Click the image below for a look at the patent application, and we’ll be looking forward to finding out what is going to go where.
has been kind enough to give us all a glimpse of the company’s ahead of the super SUV’s debut at the 2012 Beijing Motor Show. A 5.5-liter AMG-built twin-turbo V8 engine lurks behind the updated face, complete with a heady 544 horsepower and 560 pound-feet of torque. The direct-injection engine is also laden with fuel-saving gear, including a start/stop system and an intelligent alternator that only charges the vehicle’s electrical system when needed.
We’re guessing the tech may help move the boxy Geländewagen’s fuel economy from supremely abysmal to merely exceptionally atrocious. Mercedes-Benz hasn’t released any solid estimates beyond saying the numbers have improved by around 13 percent on the EU cycle. Keep in mind, that’s with 44 more horsepower than the outgoing G55 AMG. A seven-speed automatic transmission handles shifting duties.
If the G63 AMG doesn’t provide enough power for you, there’s always brawny . With its twin-turbo 6.0-liter V12 engine, the monster delivers 612 horsepower and 737 pound-feet of torque. For perspective, that’s more thrust than vehicles like the with a Duramax turbodiesel, the or the . This dog will surely hunt.
European G-Class buyers can look forward to shelling out €137,504 (circa $180k USD) for the G63 AMG, including Value Added Tax. The G65 AMG, meanwhile, starts at a breathtaking €264,180 (roughly $347k). Mercedes-Benz suggests we should see the G63 AMG in the States beginning in August, but it’s remaining mum on the G65’s prospects, and it has not disclosed U.S. pricing. Learn more in the official release .
The challenge of small, efficient and clever hatchbacks catching on with the American masses is a long story that shows infrequent signs of becoming less challenging. The bottom line is that most U.S. consumers feel such vehicles are simply too small for our wide-open-spaces sensibilities. This smallness is only enhanced when one looks around while stopped at American intersections, only to see big and tall sheetmetal in all directions. There are admittedly serious strides being made in this segment in various U.S. markets, usually of the urban variety and on the coasts, but it will always be a struggle.
The last time Peugeot tried directly communicating in American English with imported product was back in 1991 with its 505 and 405 ranges that unceremoniously flopped. There was ongoing talk at that time of bringing over the 205 hatchback to try and improve things, but we missed out and Peugeot was gone. Perhaps the seven percent of PSA Peugeot-Citroën now owned by General Motors will someday result in the importing of the solid hatchback tested here, but I won’t hold my breath.
Recently, the new Peugeot 208 was all over the French giant’s show stand at the , together with its legendary GTi trim and new XY upmarket trim. Back in 1984, it was the 105-horsepower 205 GTi that established the legend of the French hot hatch. While the 206 was then a smash hit with buyers between 1998 and 2006, the subsequently larger 207 has been far less popular in the face of much improved competitors – a group that blossomed from just 16 different models on the European market in 1998 to now 27 separate hatches today. In its prime, the 206 outsold even the mighty Volkswagen Golf and stayed at the top of Europe’s sales charts for a time. The outgoing 207, however, has routinely lingered behind the and Polo, Renault Clio, Opel Astra and Corsa, not to mention the and .
Anything can do, McLaren can do better. At least that’s what the boys in Woking seem to believe. After all, McLaren has trounced Ferrari around the Formula One circuit for the past several years now. But while the British team has followed its Italian rival from grand prix racing into building supercars with the McLaren F1, and (most recently) the MP4-12C, one thing Ferrari does that McLaren doesn’t is grand tourers. And with the advent of the , shooting brakes.
That could all change, however, if the latest rumors are to be believed. (Which is something which, in this case, we wouldn’t take for granted.) According to the rumormongers over at Auto Express, McLaren is preparing a shooting brake based of the MP4-12C (pictured above, flashing its air brake). Now given that the 12C is a mid-engined supercar and not a front-engined GT like the Ferrari Four, we’d say that makes about as much sense as Renault reaching back into its showcar history to build the .
The rumors further state that the McLaren shooting brake (fancy-talk for a two-door wagon) would go downmarket to rival the – which is something we’ve been expecting McLaren to pursue sometime after the MP4 roadster and the upmarket successor to the original F1 supercar. But something’s a little amiss here, so for the time being, we’ll take this particular report with a grain of salt that would dwarf Lot’s wife. Then again, we did run into McLaren design director Frank Stephenson checking out the in Paris last year…
Several years ago, we were surprised to discover that the Yugo was still being made. Sometimes dubbed the worst car in history, Serbian automaker Zastava continued producing the Yugo through 2008 when rolled off the assembly line in Kragujevac after a twenty-year production run. That was only months after inked a to buy the company and its assets, including the factory.
Now almost four years later, Fiat has finished upgrading the Cold War-era assembly plant into what it now calls its most advanced factory yet. Inaugurated just the other day by Chrysler/Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne and Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic, the former Zastava plant has undergone a billion-euro renovation, including new production shops, machinery, infrastructure, landscaping and roof over a 1.4 million square meter site.
By the end of the year, the plant will employ a workforce of some 2,400. Their first task will be production of the new 500L mini-minivan (pictured above), which is scheduled to begin delivery (at a rate of as many as 200,000 units each year) from the former Yugoslavian country to markets across Europe and around the world later this year.
You’ve probably heard it a hundred times before: a product or service calling itself the of its category, or the of another. Well you might call the St. Regis the of hotels, and not by some spurious correlation.
The British automaker has been using the chain’s high-end hotels around the world for years to launch its new models, and last year kicked the relationship up a notch by hosting a driving event through the Italian countryside for Bentley owners and guests of the St. Regis hotels in Rome and Florence. Now that they’re done flirting, the two luxury marques are about to consummate the relationship with a more comprehensive partnership.
The freshly inked collaboration will see fleets of stationed at St. Regis hotels around the world from Singapore and Abu Dhabi to the flagship location in Manhattan. But that’s not the end of it.
The St. Regis and its associated locations in The Luxury Collection of hotels and resorts in the Starwood group will also be hosting a series of driving programs, special events and brand initiatives for Bentley and guests of the hotels, starting with the Springtime Bentley Grand Tour that will take participants over the course of two days from Vienna to Salzburg behind the wheel of the new . for the full press release.
It may come as a shock, but diesel cars are doing well outside of their traditional European home. The just-released shows that , but the real story is that we might be seeing the start of a golden era for diesel-powered cars in the U.S. In fact, clean diesel sales were up 35 percent in the first quarter of 2012 over Q1 2011, a trend – and it is a trend, since diesel sales were up 27 percent in 2011 – that the Diesel Technology Forum (DTF) says is due to higher fuel prices pushing people into the efficient oil-burners.
Allen Schaeffer, DTF’s executive director, said in a statement that, “I expect clean diesel auto sales to increase further as several new diesel cars are introduced in the U.S. market in the next year.”
Right now, it’s pretty much all Jetta TDI, all the time.
Once those other vehicles arrive, we’ll see how the market shakes out. Right now, it’s pretty much all , all the time. A while back, we spoke with Lars Ullrich, the director of marketing and business excellence, diesel systems North America, for Robert Bosch LLC. He told us that diesel Jettas made up 44 percent of all diesels sold in the U.S. last year, which makes the Jetta sort of the Prius of diesels in America. Last year, had 58 percent of all diesel sales in the U.S.
Does this mean the Jetta TDI is “the” diesel in the U.S.? Ullrich said it depends on how you look at the numbers. About 60 percent of all s sold in the U.S. in 2011, for example, were diesel, but the A3 sells in smaller numbers overall than the Jetta. When you have diesels available in high-volume models, he said, you end up selling a lot of diesels.
Diesel-powered passenger cars and medium-duty pick-ups had around three percent market share in the U.S. in 2011.
What does the big picture look like? Overall, diesel-powered passenger cars and medium-duty pick-ups had around three percent market share in the U.S. in 2011. That may not sound like a lot, but compare it to the hybrid market share, which has gone from 2.7 to 2.4 to 2.1 percent over the last three years, Ullrich said. Today, there are 25 clean diesel models available in the U.S. By 2014, that number will double, he said, which gives us an indication of where the market is moving. Echoing Schaeffer, Bosch’s prediction is that the U.S. will see diesels grab 10 percent of the market by 2015.
While increasingly popular, diesels are not perfect. There are issues like the , for example, and a fossil fuel is a fossil fuel. But it’s clear that Americans are considering diesel more than they used to. The question is what happens when the and arrive? Or more of ’s -D models? And, further down the line, when we see more merging of electric and diesel powertrains, where the diesel – perhaps – is burned in an efficient generator to generate electricity. That’s when things get even more exciting.
High gas prices are helping and do quite well in the U.S., too. The Diesel Technology Forum says hybrid sales increased 37.2 percent while plug-in electrics jumped 323 percent. Overall, vehicle sales were up 13.4 percent. For more number-crunching details, see our monthly green car sales charts for , and of 2012. The DTF has compiled a list of all the diesel-powered vehicles available in the U.S. .
