If you’ve looked into purchasing a new car recently, we likely don’t need to tell you prices are plenty lofty. According to TrueCar.com’s data, the average selling price of a new car sold here in the U.S. last month was $30,748, marking an all-time record (last year’s figure was just $28,771). While buyers are currently looking toward smaller, less expensive and more fuel-efficient models, overall vehicle sales have jumped ahead of the rest of the slowly recovering economy. In addition, manufacturers are keeping production more in line with demand, resulting in significantly scaled-back incentives.
As a result, the average transaction price has inched skyward even in the face of an uncertain economy and escalating fuel prices. In addition, small cars now carry significantly more content than before and prices to match, and crossovers just keep getting more and more popular. Buyers have proven none too wary of optioning B and C-segment vehicles well above MSRPs typically seen on mid-sized fare, and used car fleets are thin, raising prices and pushing buyers toward new cars instead. According to CNW Marketing, consumers now routinely option a vehicle to within 86 percent of the fully loaded cost.
There have been plenty of rumors surrounding the fate of and its relationship with its longtime parent company, Proton. Some are saying that Dany Bahar has been axed as CEO, that the company is undergoing bankruptcy protection, and that its involvement in Formula One has drawn to a close. Lotus itself is hard at work quashing those rumors – attributing most to the people at Caterham – but among them we have some juicy tidbits of information regarding its arrangement with the Formula One team formerly known as Renault.
Having sold most of its stake in its team to Genii Capital, Renault reverted to an engine supplier role the year before last, and Group Lotus stepped in as title sponsor, which is an interesting relationship for an automaker to have with an F1 team that it does not own or run itself – and not dissimilar to the sponsorship arrangement has with Red Bull Racing. The deal has Lotus holding branding rights, merchandising license and title sponsorship with the team.
As part of the arrangement, however, Proton granted Genii a £30 million ($48 million) loan against which Genii leveraged the team’s entire assets. So in addition to the 10 percent of the team which Proton has the right to buy at any time, it could take another 10 percent if Genii defaults on the repayment of its loan. But if Genii proves incapable of paying back Proton altogether, the Malaysian automaker could find itself in entire possession of a leading F1 team. Just what they’d do with it if it no longer owned Group Lotus, however, would remain to be seen. for the full statement.
The production crew for recently stopped by the Nürburgring to recreate Niki Lauda’s infamous Formula One crash during the 1976 Nürburgring GP. Lauda’s car suffered a catastrophic failure on the second lap, launching him into the guardrail and placing his crumpled machine in the path of Brett Lunger’s Surtees-Ford. The two collided and it wasn’t long before Lauda was trapped in burning wreckage. Lunger and a handful of other racers fought to pull Lauda from the flames. Those on hand succeeded in rescuing the Austrian, and while he lapsed into a coma and suffered disfiguring burns, he was back in the cockpit within two months.
Just before the race, Lauda had pressed for a boycott of the dangerous race. The area in which the crash occurred is now known as Lauda Links.
Rush will follow the volatile 1976 F1 season and two of the primary characters that defined the year: Lauda and James Hunt. to see bystander video of the stuntmen in action.
When an automaker comes out with a two-door sportscar, you know what will come next: a roadster version. But while we haven’t heard anything from , its division or its partner in crime on the prospect of a GT 86// convertible, a California coachbuilder has stepped up to the plate with a concept version of its own.
The Scion FR-S Speedster concept you see here was worked up by Cartel Customs, a company with a history of chopping the roofs off of Scions. But while the lack of roof and chopped-down windscreen are what set it apart, Cartel hasn’t stopped there. The aftermarket outfit also installed a giant 61-inch rear wing and upgraded the suspension, brakes, rolling stock, exhaust and clutch, and gave the open cockpit a hot rod-style retrofit, too.
Although this appears to be a one-off chop-job, the fact that it’s set to kick off the festivities at the Toyota-sponsored Long Beach Grand Prix CART race this weekend has us raising an eyebrow like Cartel Customs has raised the roof on this beauty you can check out in greater detail in the high-res image gallery.
Long, long ago, when we first put our grubby hands on a driver’s license, someone passed on a bit of sage wisdom: in the wrong hands, a car can be more dangerous than any gun. The video after the jump is a keen reminder of this fact. Autoblog reader Vasiliy tells us the individual in the kamikaze SUV seen here allegedly brought his new purchase back to the dealership to have a faulty shock replaced. When the dealer refused to do the work, the man decided to take the issue into his own hands by ramming his through the front glass and into multiple vehicles parked in the showroom.
While we would never condone property damage or putting innocent bystanders in danger, we suspect replacing the shock would have been significantly cheaper for all parties involved. There’s no word on any injuries or damage estimates – or what happened to our intrepid show room demolisher once the local law enforcement caught up with him, but we’re guessing a poor-handling is now the least of his concerns. to watch the security camera footage for yourself.
As an American living in Italy, there are often entire month-long stretches where I drive nothing but European cars that will sadly never come out to play on American soil. Such is the case for the abundantly adored Audi A6 Allroad Quattro seen here. I was initially of the assumption that since the had already been confirmed for the U.S. that the A6 Allroad would be coming as well, but I am dismayed to report otherwise.
Such a pity, too. The business case for giving North America the whole range of Audi models that Germany offers apparently just doesn’t pan out financially – and for some of us, it’s the old predictable story of unrequited love across the chilly Atlantic.
Team Ingolstadt brought me into their home in Neckarsulm just north of hilly Stuttgart for this drive through the area’s precisely cultivated fields of hops. The aroma of beer is everywhere here, which may go some way toward explaining just why the new A6 Allroad felt so good under and around me as we freight-trained along the Swabian two-lanes.
A few years ago, we brought you on the speculative values of Pagani supercars. Whether as investments or frivolous purchases, those with the means, it seemed, were paying well above list price to get their hands on one of the rarest supercars on (or off) the market. But that was just as the world was on the brink of financial collapse. Surely with the global economy still in the drink years later, nobody’s paying those kinds of figures for something as extravagant as an exotic supercar… right?
Wrong. In fact, it seems, the value for Pagani models has only gone up. According to Evo magazine editor-in-chief (and Zonda owner) Harry Metcalfe, buyers with the means are paying as much as double the already grandiose list price to get their hands on a Zonda or Huayra. Apparently the white Huayra that Pagani displayed at the never reached the Middle Eastern buyer who ordered it a year prior and was supposed to take delivery after the show, having flipped it to another buyer who was willing to pay him an astounding 1.8 million euros for the car. That’s $2.35 million in American greenbacks, or twice the 900,000 euro ($1.18m) list price.
Think that was an isolated incident? Hardly. A Zonda F Roadster (said to be the last ever made), a 2008 Zonda F coupe and a used Zonda C12S were all, according to Metcalfe’s sources, recently sold for double their MSRPs. So if you’ve been scrimping and saving every dime to get your hands on a Pagani, better keep saving.
Early reports are filtering in this morning of an explosion at a General Motors Technical Center battery research lab in Warren, Michigan. According to The Detroit News, a battery exploded injuring one or two people.
According to the report, Warren’s fire department received a call at around 9AM this morning, only to find two injured and “a small fire” stemming from the explosion. A General Motors spokesman apparently put the number of injured parties at one, so there is still some confusion about the number of people affected by the incident at this point.
A HAZMAT team was dispatched to the Tech Center and the building has been evacuated, with all employees accounted for. Detroit NBC affiliate WXYZ is on the scene with a live feed that you can . The extent of the injuries and damage, along with what caused the explosion, are not immediately clear, but we will have more details as they become available, so stay tuned.
*UPDATE:Video added . ** UPDATE: In a statement added after the jump, GM now says the explosion was caused by “extreme testing of a prototype battery” that is “unrelated to the or any other production vehicle.”
According to a report from Car and Driver, documents submitted to the California Air Resources Board and to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration both point to a new arrival in the line: a turbocharged hatch called the 500T Sport. The NHTSA document was a key for decoding a car’s VIN, the “500T Sport” moniker appearing in the Series classification. The CARB paperwork approved California’s certification of a boosted 1.4-liter engine for an unnamed product, along with the the Dodge Dart and , which use the same engine.
There is currently a 59-horsepower spread between the 500 and the 500 Abarth, as well as a $6,500 difference in MSRP, which is a chasm offering plenty of space to mine a middle model.
C/D figures the 500T Sport will put out something around 130 hp and debut sometime over the next year, and a fan site, Fiat500USA, has found the car we’ll get.
Because new wheels ain’t cheap, and spray paint isn’t permanent enough, Foliatec offers vinyl .
For only about $65 (plus shipping from Germany) a can, any kustom kar owner can get all fast-and-furious on their wheels, mirrors, bumpers, vinyl tops, dashboards, ex-girlfriends, etc. – pretty much anything metallic or plastic.
Foliatec says the “rubber-like coat” is fairly durable and protects whatever it covers. And when you tire of looking like a Vin-Diesel-wannabe, the street-racer “green silky matt” easily peels off to instantly return $500 to the resale value of your pocket rocket. Or choose one of the other two spray vinyl colors available: anthracite metallic and black matt. Either should last you well into your mid-20s.
It’s not much of a stretch to imagine plonking down the six figures it would take to drive home in a , assuming your pocketbook were so well endowed. After all, when it comes to boulevard cruisers, it doesn’t get much more luxurious. That’s what most might do, but Roland Hall is not most people. Instead of simply dropping by the local Rolls dealer and ordering his DHC, he commissioned Pininfarina to build him something more unique.
The result was the the Hyperion – a one-off convertible penned by no less regarded a talent than Jason Castriota. The car was rumored to be up for sale off and on, but has now popped up at a showroom in Abu Dhabi where it is for sale at an undisclosed price. Previous reports put its MSRP at around $6 million, and if anyone has that kind of scrap to blow on the ultimate status symbol, they probably live nearby.
has a knack for creating some of the concept world’s most lustworthy creations, and they are made all the more desirable by their functionality. This year, the star of the Easter Jeep Safari was the company’s Mighty FC Concept. Penned as tribute to the old Willys Forward Controls of yore, the Mighty FC boasts high-dollar portal axles and a cab-forward design.
Motor Trend caught up with the big blue machine as it lumbered around the desert this year with Mark Allen, head of Jeep design, behind the wheel. Allen took the time to explain some of the challenges behind bringing the Mighty FC to life as well as the origins of some of the components on board.
As it turns out, Jeep used a snowboard bag for the seat inserts and arm rests. With a cab lifted straight from a standard Wrangler, engineers had to come up with some steering trickery to make sure the vehicle drove like a standard SUV instead of a school bus.
MT even found an old-school Forward Control to bomb around in for a spell as well. Very cool. to see the video for yourself.
By the early 1950s, Alfa Romeo had grown tired of dominating (and spending huge sums of money on) grand prix racing, and shut down its program. Along with it, a program to develop a small-displacement two-liter V8 was aborted. But Alfa couldn’t keep away from racing altogether for very long, and by the early 60s the factory noticed that its customers were competing in endurance sportscar races and set about fielding its own works effort.
Development of the high-revving 2.0-liter V8 picked up again, finding its way into a variety of prototypes and GTs, but this was arguably the most alluring. Shortly after its debut in 1967, the T33/2 scored an impressive 1-2-3 class finish (and 5-6-7 overall) in the 24 Hours of Daytona, giving the car its nickname. And while Alfa and its racing partner Autodelta kept notoriously sketchy historical records on their racing cars, chassis 75033.029 is believed to be one of the most successful.
The extensive history of the vehicle you see here – regarded as one of the most desirable of racing Alfas of an era that stretches from the 1960s through the 70s – includes victory at the 500 km of Imola in 1968, punctuating a series of races campaigned by the works Alfa/Autodelta team and various privateers that followed. You can read more about the Tipo 33/2 Daytona in the text after the jump ahead of its consignment to the RM Auctions event in Monaco next month, or you could let the pictures in the high-res image gallery speak for themselves.
While we’ve already reported that BMW’s from is , this footage all but confirms it. Britain’s Car magazine has over a minute of video showing a rather sporting three-door testing at the Nürburgring.
Of course, this latest bit of news only for us North American lovers. We’ve yet to see a 1 Series hatchback of any sort for sale on our shores, and whether the new F20 hatch is headed our way is entirely up in the air. Outside of the bizarre , BMW has been reticent to sell a hatch here since the E36 318ti, which has been out of production for a solid decade now.
While we loved the , now that its one-and-done model year is over, it would be dandy if BMW would throw us a bone and ship the M135i here. With rumors of all-wheel-drive availability and 300-plus horsepower coming from BMW’s TwinTurbo, three-liter inline-six, it looks to be one heck of a car.
The kicks off in less than two weeks, and has just released two teaser sketches for concepts it will be showing in China.
While the tiny images don’t reveal much, the top sketch seems like its a coupe, one that bears a resemblance to the . The bottom one looks like some sort of people mover, with lines that seem drawn from both the North American and international versions of the .
Honda says it will also be displaying three hybrids in China: , and Hybrid. The ILX and and the Acura NSX Concept will also be on hand. All five of those, excepting the NSX, will be launched in China this year, says Honda.
How’d you like to go see Metallica at this summer’s Orion music fest? Sounds good to us, but this makes it even better; the cost: Free.
Yes, that’s right, if you’re into the hot rod and custom scene and you want to display your car or bike there, the band will comp you two passes to the weekend’s festivities. It turns out that besides being the lead singer of Metallica, James Hetfield (that’s him in the picture above) is a big car guy. One who wants to share his automotive passion with his legions of fans, hence the Custom Car and Motorcycle Show planned as part of the two-day Orion festival, scheduled for June 23-24 in Atlantic City, NJ.
To stock the 300-plus field of cars and bikes Metallica has planned, they’re looking for entries and dangling the aforementioned free tickets as bait. Entry is restricted to 1972 and earlier American models and the deadline is May 15. (Full details are available at the Orion .) It won’t be Pebble Beach, but hey, we’re pretty sure there’s more fun to be had headbanging to “Metallica” (a.k.a. The Black Album) and “Ride The Lightning,” which the band will be performing in their entirety on consecutive nights, than standing around on a golf course in a blue blazer anyway. If Metallica isn’t your bag, the Orion festival will also feature performances from acts like the Arctic Monkeys, Avenged Sevenfold, Modest Mouse and comedian Jim Breuer.
to watch a video of Hetfield talking about his love of classic cars.
Buyers in China have been snapping up models for 20 years now, and the Italian automaker is marking the anniversary with the introduction of a special-edition . Dipped in a new Marco Polo red and swaddled in a “dragon-horse” livery with gold imagery and black stripes, the vehicle is supposed to pay homage to Chinese culture. Buyers will also enjoy unique gold wheels and a cabin fitted with gold embroidery to match. A start button with 20 stars and a unique dash plaque are also part of the package. So far, there’s no word on how much the machine will cost.
The company plans to build just 20 examples, the first of which will be unveiled at the debut of the first “permanent” brand exhibition outside of Maranello. Ferrari will set claim to nearly 3,000 square feet at the Shanghai World Expo Park, where the exhibition will remain for three years. Examples from the Maranello Museum will be arrayed in order of topic, from green technology to product, design and racing as well as Ferrari in China. for the full press release.
Former General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz went bicep-to-bicep with “America’s ballsiest pundit,” Stephen Colbert, last night – and came out ahead. Ostensibly, Lutz was on Colbert to talk about his new book, Car Guys Vs. Bean Counters, but as one might expect, the discussion veered into Mitt Romney vs. President Obama territory pretty quickly.
The actual car industry part of the discussion, though, revealed more potential good news for the , the car that Lutz is obviously trying to make his legacy and called “a huge success.” Sure, Colbert talked about , but Lutz responded by predicting that sales would be “about 3,000 a month from here on out.” This would not only set a new record (Volt sales for March 2012 , the highest so far) but would also put GM’s plug-in car into the 36,000-a-year range. That’s commendable, but still this year. Of course, Akerson’s 60,000 number could have included the Opel Ampera and its Vauxhall twin. In any case, things are looking up for the Volt, and that’s something Lutz is more than happy to tell Colbert or anyone else. Watch the video – including an impromptu push-up contest between the two – right now by .
More than two years ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began investigating the 1997-2008 Econoline/E-350 and E-450 over faulty HVAC temperature controls. According to The Detroit News, stories of melting switches leading to smoke and hot buttons on the dash were recounted in 1,036 complaints received by NHTSA. Two years ago, the government agency upgraded the case to an engineering analysis, but its testing has led to the case being closed without determining that a recall is required.
Two fires due to the short circuits were also reported, but NHTSA found that the layout of the switch tended to prevent a fire when it went bad. Although there won’t be a recall, Ford has redesigned the switch and is informing dealers and customers about replacing the switch and electrical connector.
The vans that were under the agency’s microscope overlap with the 1999-2008 models in question in a . Still, for perspective, the E-Series has been America’s best-selling full-sized van for decades, and according to Ford, those from 1997-2008 have done more than a billion miles.
The next year and a half will be an interesting period for . The automaker has announced that it will launch five new models over the course of 15 months, starting with the that at the last week. What’s next? Take a close look at the image above and those mysterious shapes under the white sheets aren’t exactly tough to decipher.
Left to right, first up is clearly the hatchback, the five-door follower of the not-so-highly regarded sedan that launched late last year. Want another glimpse of what could be in store for the large-rumped Versa? Have a glance at its overseas cousin, the . The North American model will no doubt be different, but the Tiida indeed previews what could be in store.
The next two models aren’t really a surprise – that big crossover is the that we’ve already seen in , and the middle car is the midsize Altima sedan. Moving one more space to the right, there’s a smaller CUV that is, without question, the next-generation . Lastly, that’s the new hanging out at the far right. The next Sentra has already been tipped to receive an Altima-like front fascia, and that’s immediately noticeable even under the white sheet.
The 2013 Pathfinder will go on sale later this year, following the launch of the new Altima. As for what’s next, your guess is as good as ours. As Car and Driver reports, the fact that Nissan has confirmed that one of these cars is the new Sentra makes us think it’ll be the next one to arrive, not to mention the fact that it’s the one most desperately in need of replacement.
