is having some pointed fun with its featuring the called “2012,” only the fun is pointed directly at , which finds it a little too sharp to be all that much fun. So on the eve of the big game, Ford sent Chevy a cease-and-desist letter to pull the ad and “pressured” NBC not to run the commercial, according to a report on blog. Chevy has released a statement in response, which you can read , indicating that the ad will run despite Ford’s protest.
Ford found no reason to chuckle at some of the commercial’s claims, “particularly around durability.” One in particular comes from a character that says of their now-deceased, F-150-driving pal, “Dave didn’t drive the longest-lasting most dependable truck on the road. Dave drove a Ford.”
Ford spokesman Mike Levine says his company has more trucks with 250,000-plus miles on the road than any other brand, which would appear to contradict the small print that appears in the “2012″ ad that reads, “Dependability based on longevity: 1981-2011 full-size pickup registrations.” Ford says its lawyers will decide what to do (if anything) after the ad airs during tonight’s game, but Chevy’s legal minions must have vetted the spot closely well before time.
Or Ford could take Chevy marketing honcho Joel Ewanick up on his offer and bide its time. Said Ewanick, “We can wait until the world ends, and if we need to, we will apologize.”
Jaguar’s headquarters and production were located at Browns Lane in Conventry for more than fifty years. Part of the complex included the and its collection of 150 cars, so when the Browns Lane site was sold in 2007 , the countdown began on the museum’s remaining time.
Now comes the formal announcement that the collection will vacate its current spot in September, the tragedy being that it might not relocate to a publicly accessible location. Museum reps say that the collection will continue to be in circulation, either on the historical circuit like Goodwood or on loan to other museums. Even now the Jaguar Heritage Museum only .
Nevertheless, unless another location is secured you won’t be able to just show up, buy a ticket and stroll among cars like the 1935 SS Airline AWR564, 1950 Jaguar XK 120 NUB120 or 1956 Jaguar D-type ‘Long Nose’ 393RW. You’ll also miss Austin Powers’ “Shaguar,” if that’s more your style.
Chris Bangle may be the name most recently associated with design, but he’s just one of many men and women who have sketched and sculpted automobiles for Bayerische Motoren Werke. BMW enthusiast website has to the beginning of the brand, when a BMW was a knockoff of an Austin 7. The names we all know show up in the chronology; giants of post-World War II automotive design world like Michelotti, Bertone, Gandini, Bracq, and of course, Hofmeister.
In addition to the Italian hired guns who sketched for BMW at one time or another, a few surprising names dot BMW’s history. , the largely unsung automotive engineer responsible for much of the original Volkswagen Beetle, also did contract work for BMW. Aerodynamicist Wunibald Kamm based his Kamm-Coupe on BMW 328 mechanicals. Raymond Loewy’s mid-century lines were wrought upon at least one BMW 507, and Albrecht von Goertz was a colleague of Loewy’s before he designed the 507.
In more recent years, it’s intriguing to note the diversity of backgrounds. You’ve got Bangle, Henrik Fisker, current design chief Adrian van Hooydonk (the man actually responsible for the “Bangle Butt”), and Z4 designer Juliane Blasi. Perhaps the most understated of all BMW designers is Jojii Nagashima, the man responsible for the outgoing E90 3 Series, the iconic E39 5 Series, and, along with Boyke Boyer, the E36 3 Series. Taken as a whole, BMW has a pantheon of automotive design big-thinkers, a trend that doesn’t look to be slowing anytime soon.
Force India has come a long way. What started out as Jordan Grand Prix and changed hands (and names) several times before landing in the stewardship of Indian bazillionaire Vijay Mallya has become a solid mid-field contender on race days. In 2011, the team finished sixth in the constructors’ standings, behind front-runners Red Bull, McLaren, , and Renault GP. In 2012, however, Force India aims to challenge Mercedes and Lotus for fifth place using the car shown above.
The VJM05 bears the same unfortunate stepped nose of the just-unveiled Ferrari F2012 and Caterham CT01, a trend we expect to see across much of the field as teams deal with F1’s technical regulations. Engine, transmission and KERS are again provided by Mercedes-Benz through a partnership with McLaren, and while former DTM champion Paul di Resta returns for another season in the cockpit. Adrian Sutil departs the team in the wake of his , his seat now occupied by Nico Hulkenberg.
We’ll be watching to see if the young duo can continue to move Force India up the F1 hierarchy. For now, you can check out the press release after the jump and photos from the car’s unveiling – which included the first on-track session of any 2012 F1 cars revealed thus far – in the image gallery above.
has been targeted by Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit advocacy organization, over the automaker’s 40 mpg fuel efficiency claim on the Hyundai Elantra. The group says Elantra owners have seen fuel economy averages of 18 and 19 mpg instead of the the 29 mpg city and 40 mpg highway reported by Hyundai and the Environmental Protection Agency. As such, the group has sent letters to both Hyundai CEO John Krafcik and President Eok Jo Kim warning that if the automaker advertised the 40 mpg claim in the company’s Super Bowl spots, Consumer Watchdog would release a retaliatory video of its own. The group has since followed through with that threat.
Hyundai has since released a new, updated version of its Super Bowl ad, and Consumer Watchdog claims the Korean automaker has now promised not to include the 40 mpg figure in any of the spots. Hyundai, meanwhile, released a statement saying the company’s advertising was “in no way” influenced by the Consumer Watchdog claims, comments or statements. for a look at the Elantra Super Bowl spot, the Consumer Watchdog clip about the vehicle’s mileage claims and a press release from the non-profit.
Also worth a read is of two cars boasting 40 mpg EPA highway ratings: the SFE and the Hyundai Elantra. Ultimately, when you get past all the noise, it’s important to remember that “your mileage may vary” is a mantra for a reason.
A minivan is not what you’d expect to see winning a racing series. Nor would a budget brand like Dacia. That’s where Alain Prost comes into the picture.
The three-time Formula One world champion isn’t quite retired: he’s still competing in the Andros Trophy, a French ice-racing series. After hoisting the trophy twice in a row with a snow-spec Toyota Auris rally machine, Prost switched over to Dacia, for which he has now claimed his third personal title and the first for Renault’s Hungarian budget brand.
The title fight came down to the last race in Auvergne, France, where the natural snow and best efforts of race organizers could not separate Prost (or his son Nicolas) from the bare tarmac. The vehicle with which he did it was a new racer (loosely) based on the new , an MPV that doesn’t make its production debut until theupcoming .
Check out the high-res photos in the gallery for a closer look and follow the jump for the full press release.
The diesel era at Le Mans may not be over yet, but already we’re seeing the emergence of a new propulsion trend: hybrids. recently announced the TS030 Hybrid LMP1, Peugeot was working on a hybrid version of its 908 prototype before it killed the race program, and now Audi has confirmed a hybrid version of the R18 TDI.
Few details were released, but what we can tell you is that Audi will field four cars at Le Mans this year: two with hybrid assist and two without. One will be headlined by Allan McNish, one by Oliver Jarvis, one by Timo Bernhard and one by André Lotterer, with supplemental drivers to be announced sometime before the 80th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans kicks off in June.
Audi also announced a two-car entry for the inaugural FIA World Endurance Championship, with four cars to be run at select racers like Spa and Sebring. Expect more details on the R18 hybrid to be released later this month, but in the meantime you can check out the official announcement after the jump.
There are very few things that get the unanimous approval of everyone here at Autoblog. One of them is Icon 4×4, which makes impossibly expensive yet worth-every-penny reimaginings of history’s best off-roaders. For this year’s , Icon debuted something new that had nothing to do with off-roading, yet still had our whole team salivating.
Christened a “Derelict” by Icon founder and designer Jonathon Ward, this looks like an abused artifact from a time not worth remembering. Knowing Icon like we do, however, it’s anything but. The Derelict is fitted with a 6.2-liter V8 from producing 430 horsepower and an interior upholstered in gorgeous vintage briefcase leather, but the exterior is as original and rusty as it was when Icon found it. What we didn’t know at SEMA is that the ‘52 Chevy isn’t the first Derelict that Icon produced.
Our friends at have produced an excellent video about how the two Derelicts came to be, including how Jonathon Ward and his company made them. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t as easy as dropping a new engine into an old car and redoing the leather. The Derelicts were meant to be high-performance yet reliable daily drivers, which requires more thought and engineering than we ever imagined.
to be one of the first to watch this latest video from eGarage.
There’s something inexplicably mesmerizing about watching a factory in action. Seeing the innumerable complex mechanisms mesh in perfect harmony to create the products we know and love is part of what makes shows like National Geographic’s Ultimate Factories so interesting. Now the program is headed to Dearborn for a look at how the and come together on the line in crystal-clear HD video. The show will also spend time with both trucks out on the company’s proving grounds, which means there’s a good chance we’ll see the Raptor bashing over various obstacles.
Consider us excited. Last year, the Ford plant in Dearborn produced 344,446 vehicles, making it the third most productive plant in North America behind the facility in Aguascalientes, Mexico and the plant in Puebla, Mexico.
The show will air on Saturday, February 4 at 8 p.m. Eastern on the National Geographic Channel, but you can get a glimpse of what to expect in the video .
be built on Ultimate Factories this weekend [w/video]
The good people of Tennessee are no doubt thrilled to have a plant in Chattanooga. The facility already features well over 2,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, and now the German automaker is bolstering employment by another 200 full-time VW staffers, boosting the employment total to 2,500 full-time and temp workers.
VW says it is making the move to enable the plant to increase production from 31 vehicles per hour to 35. The boosted line rate also means that VW dealers will soon have more sedans to sell, though the automaker failed to mention the sedan in the post-jump press release. Given VW’s torrid sales pace in January, we’re guessing the jump in factory output will be good news for the automaker’s retail outlets.
VW isn’t just looking for line workers – the automaker is also looking for supervisors and engineers. Hit the jump to read over the VW press release, which includes information on how to apply for a position.
In an effort to stay on the bleeding edge of old crap-bucket technology, the 24 Hours of LeMons has now created a prize specifically for autonomous vehicles. The X Ceedingly Bad Idea Prize will award one million shiny new nickels to the first team that manages to pilot an autonomous vehicle to a win. We assume that carries a caveat of not killing anyone in the process. As always, the vehicle itself can’t cost more than $500, though the associated technological wizardry required to keep the driverless machine on the track doesn’t count toward that grand total.
Madness? Probably, but we would feel more comfortable sharing the course with a computer than some of the tactically inept drivers we’ve seen bashing around the track in our time. The next 24 Hours of LeMons race kicks off at New Jersey Motorsports Park on April 14-15, but you need to get your application in by February 4. Get cracking, people. In the meantime, to check out the press release.
Ducati has announced that it will be back at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in July. The company will once again partner with the Spider Grips team using Multistrada 1200 machines. The Multistrada is the same bike that propelled Ducati to first and third place last year. Privateer Carlin Dunne took home a slew of titles when he conquered the mountain in 11:11.32, setting a new record for motorcycles in the process. He’ll be back this year alongside Greg Tracy, a six-time Pikes Peak winner. In 2010, Tracy took the top win on the mountain astride a Multistrada of his own.
To celebrate the brand’s return, Ducati is inviting fans and owners to join the team in Colorado in July for a gathering that should include plenty of riding along some of the state’s more impressive scenery before attending the race. Sounds like a very good time to us. Head over to for more information.
July is still a long way off, so Ducati has been kind enough to show off a short recap film of the brand’s 2011 season. to check out the clip as well as the full press release.
Two more Japanese auto industry suppliers, Yazaki and Denso, have been fined by the U.S. Department of Justice and four executives from Yazaki will go to jail, according to reports in the New York Times and Automotive News. Yazaki’s $478 million fine and Denso’s $78 million fine come on top of the $200 million penalty paid by another Japanese supplier, Furukawa Electric Company, last November as . Three Furukawa execs also were sentenced to prison.
The DoJ opened the investigation two years ago into collusion among firms setting prices for parts like wire harnesses and ECUs, but is said to have found evidence of such practices since 2000. Yazaki was charged with three felonies, fixing the prices of wire harnesses, instrument panel clusters and fuel senders. Denso was charged with two felonies, conspiring to fix the prices of ECUs and heating control units. Four Yazaki employees, working mainly for its North American operations in Ohio and Kentucky, were charged with violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and will serve from 15 months to two years in prison.
Both companies have pledged to retrain their employees and bolster their antitrust compliance, and both Yazaki’s Chairman and CEO said they would return half their pay for three months. The Justice Department investigation continues, and said the CEO of the Original Equipment Suppliers Association, “I’m dead certain that there has to be a lot of concern out there.”
Feel free to read over the official statements from both Yazaki and Denso .
Few things can stand between a and the finish line. Not rain, not sleet and certainly not snow. So while the latter on Maranello, where Ferrari was planning to unveil its latest F1 challenger yesterday, that didn’t stop the Scuderia from showing it off to the world, through the magic of this newfangled invention they’re calling the “internet”.
The F2012 you see here is the fifty-eighth F1 car built by Ferrari, comprising a chassis and powertrain developed and produced entirely in-house: a rarity among F1 teams, particularly in these past few years since major manufacturers like , and withdrew from the sport.
The most prominent change to the car’s form over the it replaces is the rather aesthetically challenged but aerodynamically-optimized stepped nose, which (like the one on the and expected to follow on several more) conforms to revised FIA regulations while allowing sufficient air to pass underneath the nosecone to allow the underbody aerodynamics to do their thing. The rear section is also more tapered, leading to the rear wing with the Drag Reduction System that returns from last season.
That’s all well and good, of course, but what really matters is how the F2012 is going to stack up against the competition – particularly from the returning champions at Red Bull and longtime rivals at McLaren. Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa will wring out all the F2012 it has to offer, but only time will tell if they’ll be able to add another trophy to the cabinet in Maranello. In the meantime you can check out their new ride in the high-res image gallery above and for the full press release, technical details and video footage.
Though the may be a niche player in the North American market, the small van market is big business in Europe. According to , it accounts for some 700,000 units annually, and that’s a pie of which Daimler wouldn’t mind getting a bigger slice. And so it has announced its new Citan.
Taking its name from a combination of City and Titan, the Citan will slot in below the Vario, Sprinter and Vito in order to meet the needs of workers who need to get around crowded city streets and take their gear with them. Mercedes plans to offer it in a broad range of configurations, lengths and engine options once it hits the market in the fall.
The concept was unveiled at a logistics symposium held at the Mercedes-BenzDesign Center in Sindelfingen, and will be presented for the first time in public next September at the IAA Commercial Vehicle Show. In the meantime, you can check out the details in the press release after the jump and the renderings in our high-res image gallery below.
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama visited the Washington Auto Show, and he even had time to get a closer look at a few vehicles. We’re guessing that the carmakers were more than happy to set aside some time to talk to the Commander In Chief, but not every automaker got the chance.
Bloomberg says that the Association of Global Automakers is upset because the president only spent time with the Detroit Three, even though other automakers reportedly flew in executives from around the world for the occasion. The executives were reportedly on hand and waiting in a “bullpen” in the event President Obama had any questions about specific vehicles, but The Pres stuck to American cars like the , , and the .
AGA CEO Michael Stanton voiced his disappointment about the perceived slight, adding that many members “bent over backwards to meet the request from the White House.” Stanton also points out that AGA members have invested $43 billion in the U.S. and employ over 80,000 workers here.
Of all the car shows around the calendar year, the Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance doesn’t typically fall on our radar screen. But maybe it should, because the annual event in Florida – young as it is – has a history of offering firsts. Maybe not the first time a vehicle is seen in North America, mind you, but a first just the same.
the event included the sale of the first examples of the , Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster and Audi R8 GT to be delivered in America. The year it was the (yeah, that’s the one with the V10) and . And before that, the event’s auctioneers sold off the first Audi R8 Spyder, and .
Noticing a pattern here? Organizers have no intention of dropping the ball this year, when they’ll be auctioning off the first U.S. deliveries of the new . Now if you’re thinking that we haven’t even seen the new SL63 AMG yet, you’re absolutely right. The new itself has been shown, but not the AMG version, which is expected to pack Affalterbach’s 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8 with 571 horsepower on tap. Once the car has been unveiled and deliveries commence, the winner of the auction is guaranteed to be the first to get one in the United States.
As if that’s not enough, there will also be an Audi R8 GT Spyder – one of only 50 slated for production and the only one in red to be made available in the U.S. – as well as a and a whole mess of special-edition Shelby muscle cars, with proceeds going to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Follow for more info, or head down on February 25th to see the bidding frenzy at the Boca Raton Resort & Club.
A new study from the water-is-still-wet research department has found that teens may have been the victims of peer pressure just before a crash. The studies were crafted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm. The first study surveyed 198 teens and found that those who were more likely to have friends pile into a vehicle with them were also apt to call themselves “thrill seekers.” Those teens also said they didn’t want their parents to set rules or keep an eye on their comings and goings. In addition, they were less likely to perceive the risks associated with driving in general.
The second study, meanwhile, analyzed information from 677 teens who were involved in serious crashes while behind the wheel. As it turns out, both male and female drivers were more likely to be distracted just before the incident, with 71 percent of males saying they were distracted by their passengers. The study found 47 percent of female teens admitted the same. The study also found teen males with passengers were six times more likely to perform an illegal maneuver and twice as likely to drive aggressively before a crash compared to their counterparts driving alone.
While it’s no secret that teens with passengers are more likely get into an incident, the two studies help shed some light on why that is.
A Minnesota man recently found himself too intoxicated to safely operate a Zamboni. Witnesses allege the 39-year-old man was weaving across the rink and smacked into the boards after a PeeWee C game. The rink attendant retreated back into the garage as coaches ushered players and fans away from the scene. By the time the driver parked the Zamboni, authorities were waiting for him. He then failed sobriety tests and was taken to police headquarters for a blood-alcohol test, according to The Duluth News Tribune. The wayward Zamboni operator has not been formally charged, though he was convicted of drunk driving once in 2002 and twice in 1999.
Parents took to the ice themselves to smooth out the rough spots so that the PeeWee A league could play their game.
Minnesota law is a bit murky on whether or not the man could be charged with drunk driving. The state has seen convictions for people driving under the influence on both a motorized recliner and a tractor, though the state’s Court of Appeals recently ruled one can whirr about on a motorized scooter while three sheets to the wind without raising the ire of local law enforcement officers.
Reports this week out of London indicate that CEO Dany Bahar seeks a partner, or even a purchaser, for the Hethel firm. Malaysian automaker Proton currently owns Lotus, but Proton was taken over in January when Malaysian auto the government’s controlling interest. The trend with new ownership is to put every project on the table for review, and with Lotus in the midst of – Esprit, Elan, Eterne, new and – it makes sense that Bahar isn’t wasting time arranging options.
Although it’s not exactly as if Bahar just started looking for a buyer. In summer 2011, Proton’s position was shaky enough that , with often mentioned as a hypothetical mate.
It is said that Bahar wants £500 million ($792 million U.S.), roughly Proton (via bank loans) was said in 2010 to be committing to the brand’s revival. As one would expect, Chinese interests are suspected as potential buyers, but only one possible suitor has been named so far, that being Genii Capital, which owns the Lotus Formula 1 team.
