See this photo? That’s a Noble, a McLaren MP4-12C and a being prepped for taping in Lecce, Italy. And what trio of personalities will be piloting these exotic machines? None other than Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, of course. Top Gear is about to get its Roman and rural Italian groove on.
We’ll look forward to finding out next season why they’ve paired the two English with the Italian – a grouping that, especially in Italy, seems the equivalent of bringing a bull to a knife fight. to see the video featuring lots of rumbling horsepower and behind-the-scenes Clarkson.
An Off-Road Supercar That Prefers Anything But Pavement
I had just passed the point of no return. Actually, that’s not entirely true – I hadn’t just passed it, I had hurled mud, gravel and everything else that got in my way as I transitioned from a sweeping arc of pavement onto a much slipperier surface of slightly damp, hard-packed dirt.
Suddenly, what moments before had seemed like heavy but reassuringly direct steering felt more like I was only able to send gentle suggestions to the front tires as to where I wanted them pointed. I couldn’t let off the gas, having been told to hit the ramp at about 40 miles per hour, and an acute lack of run-up room meant I had to keep power fed to the massive rear Goodyear MTR Kevlar-laced tires in order to make my speed.
It was at this point that I began to question my insistence that I jump the Local Motors Rally Fighter so that I could accurately describe what it’s like to earn one’s four-wheeled wings.
It had all seemed like such a good idea a few moments before. Despite what should have been an ominous sign – our affable host and experienced off-road racer Buddy Crisp exiting the vehicle just before the most dangerous stunt we’d attempt (gleefully offering to hold the camera), I had clicked myself into place using a three-point safety belt whose tightly knit weave of nylon appeared woefully inadequate for keeping me in the seat in the event of The Unthinkable.
Luckily for me, it didn’t. The Local Motors Rally Fighter sailed 40 feet through the air with more grace and aplomb than the Wright Brothers’ first flight. And, though none of us were there to witness Orville and Wilbur’s Kitty Hawk triumph back in December of 1903, I’d bet our landing was far less eventful than theirs.
has announced that it is recalling more than 420,000 vehicles in the United States for a potentially faulty crank shaft pulley. A total of 283,200 Toyota vehicles as well as 137,000 Lexus vehicles may experience a pulley failure in which the inner and outer rings become misaligned. If that happens, owners may experience noise, vibration and a check engine light. If the problem is left untreated, the power steering belt may slip off of the crank shaft pulley, resulting in more steering effort. Toyota says that this could cause an accident, though no problems have been reported so far.
The recall covers the 2004 Toyota Avalon, 2004 and , , and Solara as well as the 2006 Highlander HV, 2004 and and . The 2006 Lexus RX 400h is also included in the recall, which covers a total of 550,000 vehicles worldwide. Toyota says that the company is currently in the process of acquiring the parts necessary to replace the faulty crank shaft pulley and that the company will inspect and replace the faulty piece free of charge. for the full press release.
continues to roll out a slew of special edition vehicles, this time creating Arctic variations of the and the . Both vehicles are set apart from their more pedestrian kin by the addition of winter-themed accents inside and out.
The 2012 Jeep Wrangler Arctic comes equipped with a body-color hard top and fender flares along with special Arctic badges and a Yeti footprint decal that wraps over the driver’s side fender and hood. Each model will only be available in one of three colors: Winter Chill, Bright Silver or Bright White. Inside, buyers will be treated to polar white accents with orange piping on the seats. Semi-gloss black 17-inch wheels are also part of the package, though curiously enough, snow tires are not part of the standard equipment.
The 2012 Jeep Liberty Arctic, meanwhile, offers up a similar smattering of aesthetic tweaks. The vehicle’s option sheet includes one additional color over the what’s available on the Wrangler, but expect to see the same Arctic badges outside. Additionally, the Liberty gets its own Yeti decal along with 16-inch semi-gloss black wheels of its own. Inside, the seats are shod in special edition colors with an Arctic logo embroidered on the seat backs. for the full press release.
Something tells us few riders here in the States are sulking over the fact that the Honda Integra isn’t coming to the land of the free. We don’t blame them. has already served up the goods on the company’s cruiser and sportbike ranges, but we now know what to expect from the rest of the lineup.
The 2012 VFR1200F will pack a slightly larger fuel tank for additional range as well as a redesigned seat. The big sport tourer also now comes standard with traction control to go along with the optional dual-clutch transmission, and Honda says the 1,200cc engine now boasts more low-end torque than before.
Models like the 2012 CB1000R and CB250R will continue on largely unchanged, however. That’s no bad thing, especially considering that the CB250R just arrived on our shores. Look for the 2012 model to show up in dealer show rooms as soon as February of next year. for the full press release.
F1 cars aren’t made by teams. They’re not made by automakers, either. They’re made by chassis constructors. And few have the kind of experience in the field that Lola has.
The British company (similar to Dallara, Reynard and Panoz) makes a business out of designing and manufacturing racing cars. It makes ’s Le Mans prototype (among others) and spec racers for various feeder formulae. It made the last Champ Car chassis before the series folded into the IndyCar series, and it makes the SP/300.R track toy for Caterham. For many years, Lola made F1 cars for a variety of teams, too – like the THL1 pictured above, driven by Alan Jones and Patrick Tambay for Team Haas in 1985. And now it wants back in.
A couple of years ago, Lola was one of several outfits vying for a spot on an expanding F1 grid, but was ultimately overlooked in favor of the likes of , Virgin Racing and HRT. Back then, Lola hoped to design and build the chassis for an independent team to race, but now it wants to field its own F1 team. If only the FIA would give it a shot.
It’s exactly the thing, say Lola’s management, that the company needs to boost its profile. Having lost out to longtime rival Dallara for the new IndyCar contract, it could prove to be just what the doctor ordered. The FIA, for its part, already cleared the way for a 13th team on the grid, but opted not to award the slot to any of the applicants – Lola included. Looks like it’s time to start lobbying again.
Every conceivable medium, including art and pornography, has been drawn into figuring out where art ends and pornography begins. Now a lowly rear window in Montana has become the battleground for this contentious debate.
Shanna Weaver of Great Falls has a sticker on the rear window of her SUV that depicts a woman’s silhouette above the word “SKIN.” You can see it above in pixelized form or to view the graphic as it would appear on Weaver’s rear window. Great Falls resident Brian Smith, meanwhile, parks across the street from Weaver’s SUV and says he should not be forced to endure what he considers to be a sacrilegious display of the human body.
The logo itself appears to be from , an organization that dubs itself a “Sports Fashion” company. The sticker is akin to the famous mudflap girl silhouette that’s often seen on big-rigs – it contains no shadowing but is more detailed than the .
Weaver and Smith have discussed it, with Weaver taking the opinion that her First Amendment rights condone the sticker, whereas Smith feels it’s obscenity. Smith took his complaint to the police, but the officer sent to investigate the dispute decided the sticker wasn’t obscene. So, for now at least, the sticker remains in plain sight.
Sound off in the poll below about whether or not you think the Skin Industries graphic is obscene, or let us know what you really think in the comments.
enthusiasts should know the name Polestar well. The performance garage has a long history of tuning Volvos, and was anointed by the factory to run its works touring car program. Based on that success, Polestar launched a radical that is tipped to jump-start a from the Swedish auto marque.
Most recently, to help specs, and had the tuning house start work on an . Now Volvo has officially announced the availability of the fruit of its collaboration with an upgrade for select models.
For $1,295 (including installation), owners of the , and (and soon the ) with the T5 engine will be able to have an extra 23 horsepower and 29 pound-feet of torque squeezed out of their turbocharged five-pots with a dealer-installed tuning package.
The enhancement is affected by increasing airflow and optimizing spark timing, and while the aftermarket could surely squeeze out more for less, for a factory-backed upgrade, it strikes us as a good deal. for the full press release.
Sometimes, even concept cars evolve. Take the , an ungainly, all-electric bubble-on-wheels that first appeared in 2005 at the . The first version was pretty round, but the somehow managed to add extra curves around the wheels. For the Pivo 3, unveiled today in advance of this year’s Tokyo show, Nissan is keeping some of the quirkiness of the first two Pivos but has scrapped most of the supple round curves. Instead, the new Pivo gets some artistic angles to go with its city functionality. Whether this is an improvement or not is in the eye of the beholder.
The changes don’t mean that the Pivo is ready for sale quite yet, but Nissan does say that the third-gen Pivo is “what Nissan envisions to be a more ‘realistic’ EV of the near future.” Aside from the zero-emission powertrain (note the “e” logo, as also seen on the ) and in-wheel motors, what’s notable about the Pivo 3 is that has got a lot of automated parking capability. In “specially equipped parking lots,” you can even let the car park and recharge itself using “Automated Valet Parking.” Even better, you can have the Pivo 3 come to you using your smartphone and the car’s autonomous driving skills. Bruce Wayne’s got nothing on Pivo. When you are driving, the center-located driver’s seat and ultra-tight (two-meter) turning radius.
As you can see in the video , Nissan is considering putting the Pivo – of something like the Pivo – into production. Would you buy one? Sound off in the Comments.
Use your truck for work? Chances are good, according to , that truck is an proudly wearing a Blue Oval on the massive front grille. Perhaps that shouldn’t come as too big a surprise, considering that Ford has sold 4.1 million Super Duty pickups since 1998, which, Ford is happy to point out, is enough trucks to wrap around all 16,000 miles of the Australian coast.
Something tells us that Ford’s placement atop the heavy duty work truck market is secure for at least a little while; after all, every 63 seconds, a Super Duty pickup truck rolls off the assembly line. Want more interesting stats? You’ll find plenty of ‘em – including 21 separate industries where the Super Duty reigns supreme – in the infographic above (click on the image for the full-size version) and press release . And if you’re a Super Duty owner yourself, Ford invites you to share your own story at its new website.
does a whole lot more than just cars. They do motorbikes, ATVs, power equipment, outboard marine engines, personal watercraft, business jets… and yes, even robots. In fact its ASIMO humanoid robot (parodied in a rather disturbingly hilarious episode of South Park) is one of the most advanced in the field of robotics, and it’s only getting more so as the Japanese industrial giant has just unveiled its latest iteration.
While ASIMO may look more-or-less the same as he/she/it always has, the new model encompasses several advancements. For starters, ASIMO longer needs to be controlled by a human – it can walk about and do stuff all on its own, taking in its surroundings and making spatial decisions accordingly. Its new arm and hand mechanisms also allow it to perform delicate and intricate tasks like opening a bottle of water and pouring it into a paper cup without crushing it under the might of its own technological superiority.
The long and short of it is that ASIMO – now under the newly-formed Honda Robotics division – will soon be able to do everything a human can, only better. So start stocking the bomb shelter again. Or better yet, let ASIMO do that for you. You’ve had a long day.
Click to let ASIMO pour you a drink and show off some of its newfound skills.
Used to be if you wanted a proper full-size van, you were looking at something made in Detroit. But just as the Japanese have taken on the full-size pickup market, so are they going after the big van segment. That currently falls to and its range, and the Japanese automaker is showing no signs of relenting.
After preparing the of choice, Nissan has now launched an even bigger version of the van. The NV3500 HD Passenger Van (that’s heavy duty, not high definition) is being built alongside its chassis-mates right here in the United States at Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi, assembly plant, packing all the features and specifications you’d expect from its Big 3 rivals (or, for that matter, from the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter).
That means a flexible twelve-passenger cabin that can, with four rows of seating, be configured in any of 324 arrangements. There are two engine options on offer – a 4.0-liter DOHC 24-valve V6 with 261 horsepower and 281 pound-feet of torque and a DOHC 32-valve V8 with 317 horsepower and 385 lb-ft of torque – both offering variable valve timing and a 5-speed automatic transmission.
There’s also extensive mobile office capabilities on offer, plus all the electronics you’d expect to find in a smaller passenger vehicle, and class-exclusive side-impact airbags for all four rows of seats. There’s plenty more to digest in the press release , along with the images in the high-res gallery.
If you woke up today hoping to read a minivan review, then it’s your lucky day. We know that sliding doors and third-row seating aren’t the most exciting traits, but the minivan needs love, too. In fact, the entire minivan segment was all but ignored for nearly a decade as automakers responded to our fevered clamoring for more sport utility vehicles and crossovers. The good news is the minivan is back, and every option in the segment has been completely redesigned or updated within the past two years, including the .
Chrysler is, of course, the company that invented the modern minivan. But while Team Pentastar can lay claim to being the segment’s father, many soccer moms and dads have long since migrated to the and . In fact, while the Town and Country emerged as last year’s best-selling minivan, it won’t repeat that feat this year. Its sales so far this year are behind both the Odyssey and Sienna, the latter of which may be the new best-selling minivan if the doesn’t finish up strong.
Why has the Town and Country slipped? The competition’s fresher designs and higher build quality are at the top of the list of reasons. To dig a littler deeper, we got an adequately equipped base model 2011 Town & Country Touring to see if Chrysler’s redesigned mainstay is doing enough to regain its place at the top of the minivan hierarchy.
The year is quickly winding to a close, and General Motors is taking steps to ensure that the automaker meets its goal of selling 10,000 units. The company has given its dealers the go-ahead to sell their Volt demo vehicles, thereby greatly increasing the availability of the plug-in. In the past, GM has required its dealers to keep at least one Volt model on the lot to show off to potential customers. Dropping that requirement will see the number of available Volt models swell by 2,300 units, according to Automotive News.
As of the end of October, GM has managed to move just 5,003 Volt units this year. That’s a far cry from GM CEO Dan Akerson’s 10,000-unit goal. The company says that in addition to the demo vehicles, the automaker has an extra 1,800 Volt models in transit to dealers right now, which brings the total number of available vehicles to 4,100. Even if GM dealers manage to find homes for all of those plug-in hybrids in just two months, the company would still miss its target by almost 800 units.
In 2010, and were both understood to be vying for the chance to provide future sports car platforms for the entire Group. Not to take anything away from Audi, but few would be surprised to learn that for the task.
It seems that Porsche had plans for the platform , considering it might underpin a competitor that would slot in . If such a car is made, what it is based on now seems to be a matter of timing: if Porsche produces its new model soon, a report in Autocar says VW wants it built on the next-generation chassis that will also support the coming . The overlords apparently feel that the aluminum and carbon fiber structure will be good enough for Porsche’s light heavyweight challenger.
That might not be good enough for Porsche – at least according to Autocar, which suggests that Porsche might wait all the way until 2020 to produce its rumored supercar. By then, all of the group’s sports cars will be on Porsche-designed platforms, so the Stuttgart firm won’t need to accept one from across the aisle.
On the one hand, Opel continues to pump out good looking sedans, hatches and wagons with some gumption and motoring chops. Meanwhile, there have also been so many proposed new products and segment competitors for the German brand (, , , , , etc) that sometimes we wonder which way the lightning bolt is going. The latest imagining of new Opel wares comes from chairman Karl-Friedrich Stracke, who says he could see modern takes on both the Opel Manta and Opel GT.
The Manta was a sport coupe rendition of the Opel 1900 that didn’t just take on the Capri, but also Group B rallying. They were praised by American scribes for their handling but they never really caught on – certainly not like the GT, which sold more than 70,000 units in North America. Nevertheless, while it’s true that Opel doesn’t have a true sport coupe or sports car in its range, we wonder where and how a new Manta and/or GT would fit, especially considering what could be done with the supposedly forthcoming Calibra. Unless either one of those could be the small Opel that supposedly …
Italian automakers have a knack for stretching a two-model line into a full range. Just take a look at what Abarth has done with just the Punto and the 500. Or what has with the and . And certainly fits the same with the and the (or the before it).
The Gallardo itself has spawned a good dozen variants, distinguished by their roofs, drivetrain configurations, states of tune and other parameters. Soon enough they’ll all be replaced by an all-new model, but before they are, word on the street (or chat boards) has it that Lamborghini has one last variant in the works.
That variant is tipped to be the LP550-2 Spyder, a derivative but now claimed as confirmed, apparently. So what will make it special? The combination of simplicity and open-air motoring. The powertrain is borrowed from the – meaning slightly less power than the standard model, but lighter in weight and driving just the rear wheels – but with the Spyder’s convertible roof.
More intriguing still would be if Lamborghini were to nix the roof altogether and carry the Gallardo out as a fair-weather purist’s dream, but at this point, we’re just grasping at straws.
Spitting out the equivalent of “No soup for you,” has about shutting off from its technology and component pipeline and the new , due to the Swedish company’s proposed takeover by Chinese firms Pang Da and Youngman. While the GM statement didn’t appear to make a definitive statement of walking away, it did say “GM will not agree to the continuation of the existing technology licenses or the continued supply of 9-4X vehicles to Saab following the proposed change in ownership as it would not be in the best interests of GM shareholders.”
The mere fact of the Chinese accessing GM technology is obviously part of it, but this would also involve a Chinese competitor – not a joint-venture partner – ingesting a steady stream of GM’s current and ongoing platforms and engineering. Since GM’s shareholdings mean it needs to approve a Saab sale, the latest arrangement looks like it’s going to take some reworking to come to fruition.
Saab CEO Victor Muller saying “We go back to the drawing board” is admitting that GM’s stance all but unravels the Chinese Saab and in long-term funding. We aren’t entirely sure what Muller can do when he gets there: the Chinese are the only suitors on the board, no one knows if they even have government approval yet, and GM is the only company that can keep Saab in products without it costing a lot more than $850 million. But Muller’s kept the ball in the air this long, we won’t be the ones to count him out yet.
Law enforcement agencies may now sink their teeth into a specially prepared version of the pickup truck. The Special Services Police Truck is built to take the abuse that only police officers can throw at a vehicle with additional door supports to handle the weight of optional ballistic protection, a 220-amp alternator for added electronic gadgetry and a 390-horsepower 5.7-liter V8 engine.
Each truck is built with a unique wiring harness specifically engineered to endure the heavy loads of the radar, computer, lighting and radio equipment officers need in the field. Speaking of fields, this is one pursuit vehicle that can chase you anywhere you run thanks to the presence of a four-wheel-drive system.
Ram isn’t saying how much the Special Services Police Truck will cost municipalities or whether or not regular-Joe buyers can tick the right boxes and get their own service truck. We do know that with 407 pound-feet of torque on tap and a 3.92 axle ratio, this vehicle will be plenty quick off of the line when it comes time to give unruly motorists a stern talking to. for the press release.
NASCAR has announced the rest of Kyle Busch’s punishment for during the Texas Motor Speedway round of the Camping World Truck Series last weekend: $50,000 and probation until the end of the year. According to the Associated Press, it is exactly the same punishment given to Robby Gordon in 2007 and Kevin Harvick in 2002 for their racing incidents, except those two drivers only paid $35,000.
Busch promptly released a written apology to Hornaday, Jr., his team, sponsors and fans. Even so, after Busch’s other intentional altercations this year and the fact that he dangerously plowed a competitor dead-on into the wall at more than 100 miles an hour, and with Hornaday, Jr. purposefully taken out of the running for the series championship, a $50,000 fine and probation strikes us as little more than a wrist slap. He might receive further discipline from his team or sponsor, but it’s unlikely.
Do you think NASCAR levied a fair punishment? Watch the crash and the aftermath again in the video for a refresher, then have your say in our poll below.
