Well now, the inexpensive performance game just got considerably more interesting. has officially dropped pricing on its upcoming 2013 Focus ST. That kind of coin will net you a EcoBoost 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine good for a whopping 252 horsepower and 270 pound-feet of torque, along with a torque-steer compensation system that works in conjunction with electronic power steering to keep the nose pointed in the right direction. If you’re keeping track, those power metrics are slightly north of the figures Ford had previously released. A variable-ratio steering rack toes the line between sport and comfort while the sport suspension sits the chassis 10 mm closer to the ground than the stock configuration.
That fire-spitting four-cylinder breathes easy through a free-flowing exhaust, and interior options like Recaro bucket seats give the cabin a little pedigree. Of course, massive wheels and plenty of aero work are both part of the package as well. What’s more, Ford says it will give early buyers a GoPro HD Hero2 Motorsports camera when they pick up the keys. Sweet.
The entry price puts the Focus ST well below fellow front-drive competitors like the and , but within spitting distance of playful hardware like the twins and the all-wheel drive . Suddenly, it appears we live in a world where cheap speed is in abundance. Head over to the for a closer look and be sure to click for the full press release.
Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. A stolen from celebrity chef Guy Fieri has been found a year after it first went missing. In case you need refreshing, the Lambo was pilfered by a thief who literally in order to get access to the Italian Stallion.
It seems the perpetrator had a thing for stealthy operations – the vehicle turned up during an investigation that began after a motorcyclist wearing all black fired a gun into a parked car. The gunman was a 17-year-old boy, and Fieri’s car was located in a storage container in Point Richmond, California, along with the boy’s motorcycle and apparent evidence linking him to the shooting.
Fieri, for his part, is happy to have his Lamborghini back:
“I would like to thank the Marin County Sheriff’s Office and the Mill Valley Police Department for their hard work and effort in the recovery of my car. I’m glad we can put this behind us, and feel better knowing that justice is being served.”
If absence truly does make the heart grow fonder, we’d be happy to have our back in one piece, too, especially considering it’s been over a year since its disappearance.
Is the driver of this driving under the influence? From the looks of this four-minute-long video where he or she pinballs repeatedly between ditch and center line and narrowly misses oncoming traffic, it certainly looks like the wheelman is soggy drunk.
This four-minute+ video catches all the stupidity from the first off-road foray at about 40 seconds all the way to an expertly executed nosedive into a ditch. The impromptu videographers do a a fine job commentating on every jerky move as they attempt to warn oncoming drivers.
There’s high drama at various points throughout the video, and in the end, the driver is lucky that the conclusion isn’t worse.
Before you ask, from the audio, it sounds like the videographers called the cops before starting his camera. We assume the authorities showed up soon after the truck’s violent sudden stop, and presumably hauled the driver off to either jail, hospital or morgue. Either way, watching the video is a sobering reminder of the stupidity of driving under the influence. Watch the video by , but bear in mind there is some foul language.
Borg-Warner makes the turbos for all three IndyCar engine suppliers, , and , but the engine makers provide two compressor shrouds of their own design for homolgation by the series. Honda’s singe-turbo engine is down on power compared to Chevrolet’s and Lotus’ twin-turbo motors, and Chevrolet has won all every race so far and taken all pole positions this season. Honda had a new shroud ready for the Long Beach GP and IndyCar allowed the change, but Chevy protested so Honda wasn’t permitted to make the switch.
A three-man panel was selected to hear Chevy’s appeal, and their verdict in favor of Honda means that the Japanese automaker was permitted to swap the shroud before this weekend’s São Paulo race. The new shroud is said to be worth 10 to 15 more horsepower, but in the end, Chevrolet-powered racers managed to finish in seven of the top 10 positions.
Chevy had been contesting the ability to make an engine change at this point in the season, when there are no constant-parity clauses in the regulations and IndyCar has for such alterations to create parity. Honda’s argument was that that was meant to prevent turbo wars does allow the change it sought to make. The panel of the parity argument.
Chevy has said the decision. Now it’s up to the Honda-powered drivers fitted with the new 0.74 A/R compressor cover to show they can do better than second place.
Any time a parent’s poor judgment results in harm or injury to a child, it’s a sad case. This story, however, seems particularly tragic. According to The Telegraph, a British woman whose daughter was seriously injured in a car crash was found negligent and partially responsible for her daughter’s injuries because the girl was riding in an inappropriate child safety seat.
While the accident was judged to be entirely the fault of the other driver, according to the report, his insurance company insisted that part of the responsibility for the girl’s injuries fell on her mother. Despite having an appropriate car seat with a five-point harness in the vehicle, the three-year-old girl was riding in a booster seat designed for older children. The judge agreed with the insurer and ruled that the mother was 25 percent liable for her child’s head, spinal and internal injuries, which the report said will affect her for the rest of her life. The decision means the woman will receive less financial compensation from the insurance company.
While we’re sure that the woman – who was described by the judge as “an excellent and caring mother,” according to the report – feels no small measure of guilt, her case reinforces the necessity of proper seatbelt and child safety seat use. For more information about keeping kids safe in and around cars, please visit , provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
We love action movies as much as the next guy, but sometimes the car stunts just look too ridiculous. Like when a cop car goes airborne during a chase scene after rear-ending a parked car. Or how about when a vehicle flips end over end upon impact. That never happens, right?
Well it apparently does in Russia, where, thanks to seemingly everyone in the country having a dash cam, you can watch video of a Land Rover Freelander 2 driving over a manhole cover and going Bourne Ultimatum.
What caused the cover to blow the way it did is not evident, though it’s interesting to note that in the aftermath (in the second video especially), you see that it’s not a plain, flat manhole cover that comes to rest near the car. It’s a cylindrical object with a square grate across the top. Lending credence to the whole thing not being a fake is that a second static security camera (or similar setup) pointed at the street also caught the whole episode.
Maybe you want a that does more than merely get noticed. Maybe you want a Beetle that… provokes. If so, you need to give German tuner ABT Sportsline a call.
Tweaks are made to the 2.0-liter turbo that add 40 horsepower. A front spoiler, wheels anywhere from 18 to 20 inches, and oval tailipes boost the aggression. Headlight covers make it look mean, and the “carbon-look deco set” with red trim makes it unforgettable.
The result is the Beetle Limousine 5CO, and if you’re a configurating kind of guy, then ABT will let you . Otherwise there’s a press release if you and a high-res gallery above.
Ex-engineer Richard Parry-Jones is now chairman-designate of the UK’s Network Rail. Having looked into the futures of both car and train development, he believes that by the end of this decade the most Earth-friendly internal-combustion engine cars will be about as polluting, on a per-passenger basis, as high-speed electric trains.
Parry-Jones says carmakers are targeting 40g/km of CO2 tailpipe emissions by 2020. If the “average” occupancy of 1.6 people-per-vehicle stays the same in eight years, that would equal 25 gm per person per kilometer and put such cars in the same environmental category as the cleanest mass transit.
Since the emissions of electric cars and trains is usually given as zero, we’re assuming he means diesel-electric high-speed trains; life-cycle emissions wouldn’t be a valid comparison since those aren’t factored into a car’s tailpipe number. According to of , right now you’d have to load four folks in a small diesel topped up with ultra-low sulphur fuel to get down to 42 grams per passenger per kilometer (gpkm), which would put you right with one of Virgin’s Voyager class diesel-electric trains at 75-percent capacity. If you want to go all the way low, though, you’ll need a 50cc two-stroke and a passenger: at that point you’re rocking just 19.5 gpkm. Slowly.
It’s almost DLC time again at – Tuesday, May 1 will bring with it the Top Gear pack, a true goulash of automobilia. At one end you have the 2012 Hennessey Venom GT, a car that automotive historians will look back on and say “Wow.” At the other end you have the 1977 AMC Pacer X, a car that we look back on and say “Wow.” In ‘between’ are the: 2011 SuperSportVan, 1965 Austin-Healey 3000 MkIII, , 1966 Lotus Cortina, 1992 Galant VR-4, , 1990 RS and .
The bad news is that the TG pack won’t be part of the Season Pass, so you’ll need 560 MS points, or $7, to make it yours. But if you throw down the fresh amounts you’ll be able to enter the new Community Rivals Mode with the Hennessey Venom GT. Set a leaderboard time with it and you could win one of the 100 unicorn cars Forza will be handing out every week.
to check out the video and have a look at the wares in the gallery of high-res screenshots.
When rolled out their outrageously styled three years ago, car buyers took notice. It’s eye-catching exterior styling, well-appointed interior and affordable price was just what a lot of family sedan buyers wanted.
Few will admit it, but carmakers sat up and paid attention, too. However, Andy Palmer, executive vice president for global planning, doesn’t mind telling the world that his company certainly saw the significance of the midsize Korean sedan. So much so that they briefly halted design work on the 2013 .
“We even delayed development by a short amount just to check that the (new Altima’s) proportions were right, the (package) was right (and that) the product overall was right,” Palmer tells Ward’s Auto. “I’d say they (Hyundai) are our major point of reference.”
But with the Altima as the second-best selling car in its segment, Nissan is focusing not on the Sonata, but on and the No. 1 best seller: .
“If you keep coming with better cars and better communications, telling better stories, over a period of time,” Palmer says. “I guarantee you’ll be talking about Toyota and Nissan.”
The breadth and scope of the Chinese car market has ballooned to such an extent that it makes sense for many foreign automakers to design cars specifically for China. Case in point: the new Renault Talisman.
Instead of building the Talisman in China through a joint venture, manufacturing is handled in nearby Korea by Renault Samsung Motors – the same division that has already brought Renault eight awards and sales increasing fourfold since 2009 due to the success of the Koleos crossover.
As for the Talisman itself, Renault has releases suspiciously little information, and even less photos. It’s billed as a “casual luxury” sedan, whatever that means, but more than that we couldn’t tell you. Which is just fine, because unless you live in China, you’ll probably never see one. Feel free to peruse the press release .
The No. 1 car purchased by men was the Porsche 911, while the car with the highest percentage of women buyers was the Volvo S40.
Some stereotypes are true. Men like V8s. Women like I4s. According to the third annual demographic study by on the car buying habits of the sexes, men continue to fixate on size while women care about efficiency and price.
The No. 1 brand for women – the brand with the highest percentage of female buyers – was at 46.2 percent. was No. 2 with 45.7 percent and third with 45.6 percent.
Men, as expected, dominated the exotic brands with sales being fueled by the most testosterone – 92.5 percent of buyers being male. was the No. 2 brand with 83.4 percent of its buyers being male and having 82.8 percent male buyers.
“The price point for many of the cars and crossovers women buyers wanted started at or below $25,000, while men tended to spend more money for their vehicles,” said Kristen Andersson, TrueCar.com senior analyst in a news release. Furthermore, women focused on smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles while men gravitated toward fast exotic cars, big pickups or SUVs.
Indeed. The No. 1 car purchased by the highest majority of men was the . The car with the highest percentage of women buyers was the , with 57.9 percent of the customers buying it being female.
As reaction settles down to news that has right from under the nose of for a cool billion, we can now get back to the four-wheeled performance Audi does best. And there are few better ways I can think of doing that than throwing body and mind into a fully optioned new Audi S7 and hitting the sunny German countryside.
At least for this scribe-driver, Audi does a much finer job on its S models than it attempts to do on the RS versions. Not that the RS lineup is a bad thing, but its various members often strike me as just souped-up S models – not the true RennSport icons they ought to be. I want mayhem and magic in an RS and never really get it. What I probably really want is rear-wheel drive and about 400 fewer pounds to lug around, but knowing Audi’s modern day raison d’être, that’ll never be allowed to happen.
But the S cars are genuinely satisfying Sport-driving professionals that happily double as very stylish everyday drivers. The current civilian Audi that expresses best the stylish part of the equation is the sleek . It’s a funny car in that the initial reaction to the swoopy A7 was a bit hesitant from some quarters. But the enthusiasm has grown over time and now the sportback-style car is a certifiable hit in the United States and elsewhere.
While we’re not ready to label this the return of the , count us eager to get behind the wheel of whatever a “2014 Chevrolet SS Performance” turns out to be. Hopefully the appearance of this reference on the OnStar website is more than just a digital placeholder.
Chevy SS rumors have been swirling lately, with General Motors earlier this month, just days after our spy shooters caught what looked like a . Then there’s the NASCAR situation: has said its new entry in the racing series will be both a . We’re guessing that car isn’t going to be the .
So this new OnStar “leak,” if it is such a thing, would point to the Chevy SS being a separate model (you can check it out on OnStar’s site ). If we are reading our tea leaves correctly, the model will be (the same Zeta architecture that underpins Chevrolet’s law-enforcement-only ), while the brand’s front-drive will get a new, sportier variant. We’d also assume that the long-wheelbase version of the Commodore used for the would donate its top-level powertrain, the 355-horsepower, 6.0-liter V8.
Maybe we should just press the OnStar button and ask?
Toyota’s may be getting a bit long in the tooth, but it’s received a mild refresh for 2012, and a new “limited edition” package courtesy of in-house tuning arm, Toyota Racing Development. showed a preproduction TRD T/X Baja at last fall’s and at , with the real deal now poised to go on sale in May.
The Baja Series will start at $32,990, plus a delivery fee of $810. That’s for a Tacoma Access Cab model with a manual transmission – the price scales up for automatic-equipped trucks and Double Cab models. The Baja Series package carries an MSRP of $5,015, but you get to subtract $650 in a “factory credit” if you order it, since the Baja’s Off-Road Package is cheaper than the standard Tacoma Off-Road Package. Or to make things simpler, figure the Baja Series Tacoma is going to cost you $4,365 more than the same truck without it.
Besides the kit already included in the TRD Off-Road Package, which is required to get the Baja Series upgrades, the special Tacomas will feature BF Goodrich T/A KO tires (LT265/70R16) with bead-locking wheels, Bilstein shocks (front and rear), a TRD exhaust system, a two-inch front lift, and those snazzy Baja Series graphics.
Toyota has all the details in it’s press release, which you can see if you .
Limousines? That’s so last millennium. These days the pampered and rich in the know get chauffeured around in the back of pimped-out vans. Sure, they may look utilitarian on the outside, but inside, they’re as luxe as a private jet. has been at the forefront of the scene with its much-modified Sprinter vans, but that’s not the only big box in its portfolio. And to drive that point home, the German automaker has just rolled in to with this tricked-out Viano.
Called the Viano Vision Diamond, the custom Benz wagon has a two-tone paint job that only hints at the -grade cabin that awaits inside. The windows (including the partition inside) have the same Magic Sky Control tinting technology as the roof on the new , the cabin is done up in Nappa leather (black for the chauffeur, white for the passengers), and the rear features reclining, temperature-controlled massage chairs, a champagne cooler with flutes, lighting, 40-inch flat screen and Bang & Olufsen sound system (all controlled by a specially-designed iOS app), wireless internet and diamond trim.
Drive us to the airport in one of these and we’d be inclined to just stay in the back, lapping up the luxury of it all. Instead, we’ll just admire from afar in the high-res image gallery and press release .
It’s not the most pronounceable model name, but that’s not our problem, is it?
debuted its sharply styled Yundong Shuangqing hybridconcept at the today, announcing that a production version will be sold in China at some point in the future. The Yundong Shuangqing was joined on stage by the Dear Qin compact and the GT 86 rear-wheel-drive sports car.
Toyota developed the Yundong Shuangqing’s hybrid powertrain mainly at the automaker’s research and development plant in Changshu, China. “We would like to put smiles on the faces of our Chinese customers with hybrid technology,” Toyota President Akio Toyoda said in prepared remarks at the show. “I want the people of China to be able to experience the beauty of hybrid technology through a hybrid car born in China.”
In 2005, China became the first place outside of Japan where the hybrid was built when Sichuan FAW Toyota Motor Co. Ltd. started making the third-generation model. And two years ago, GAC Toyota Motor Co., which is in China’s Guangdong Province, started making the Hybrid.
Earlier this month, Honda specifically for the Chinese market under either its moniker or the brand in order to capitalize on what’s likely to be surging car sales in that country. Honda will introduce the , and Hybrids in China later this year, and will likely sell its promised hybrid-powered Acura NSX sports car in China as well.
“Stock” is a relative term. Stock cars, for example, like those raced in NASCAR, are anything but showroom stock. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, “stock” is just the starting point when ordering a new . The high-end marque offers its customers a virtually endless array of personalization options, and to drive that point, home Rolls-Royce is showcasing the show car seen here at this week’s .
Called the Six Senses concept, this specially equipped is designed to stimulate each of the five senses – sight, sound, scent, taste and touch – and proffers the singular luxury of a Rolls-Royce as the sixth sense. Sure beats seeing dead people.
The concept is painted in pearlescent Carrara White, with unique forged alloys and an interior decked out in walnut burr veneer, deep-pile lambswool carpeting (even in the trunk), leather headliner with panoramic sunroof, an upgraded sound system and champagne cooler. Check it out in the gallery above and follow the jump for the details in the press release.
Go back just a few years ago, and you’d easily conclude that and hybrids would go together about as well as ice cream and pickles. But a lot’s changed since then, and Ferrari is making no secret of the fact that it’s developing hybrid powertrains of its own.
The first system it developed is the Kinetic Energy Recovery System, a type of regenerative braking device developed with its sister company, Magneti Marelli, for use in Formula One. That lead to a similar system installed in an experimental version of the called the displayed at the 2010 . More recently reports surfaced that Ferrari had patented a more conventional hybrid powertrain system, leading to speculation that the KERS type had been abandoned for road-car use – most poignantly in the upcoming successor to the Enzo. But while Ferrari apparently pursues development of that more conventional hybrid system, it appears that its next mid-engined V12 hypercar will adopt an evolution of the HY-KERS system displayed on that green 599 two years back.
A revised HY-KERS system has just been announced by Ferrari at the , where the Prancing Horse also marked the Asian debut of its new F12 Berlinetta. Ferrari says the new system – installed on a V12 engine mounted amidship – is more effective than the one that preceded it, bringing emissions down to 40 percent of what a conventional engine with the same output would produce (compared to a 30 percent reduction from the previous incarnation), all while bringing engineers closer to their target of producing one kilowatt of energy for every kilogram of weight the system adds.
As for the F12, Ferrari has revealed that its latest supercar set a lap time at Fiorano of one minute, 23 seconds, making it the company’s quickest road car yet: a full second quicker than the 599 GTO it replaces, and about two seconds quicker than the Enzo, the and the 430 Scuderia. With that kind of progress, we can count on the new hybrid V12 hypercar to set an even quicker time still. for the press release and video clip.
At what point does a political issue become a moral one? And at what point, if any, should motor racing enter that debate? These are the questions that Formula 1 and all those involved have wrestled with since the Bahrain Grand Prix was put back on the calendar for this year.
Some argued that sporting competition should rise above such issues. Others decried the cold-heartedness of holding something as glitzy as an F1 race where government forces are brutally cracking down on protestors – particularly when the race itself is orchestrated by said government.
One way or another, however, the grand prix took place this weekend in Bahrain, entering the record books as the fourth round in this year’s championship. Keep reading to find out how it unfolded.
