Following the launch of the refreshed 2012 Continental GT coupe, Bentley is prepping the inevitable droptop GTC variant.
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Is making play for diesel? , it sure seems that way… at least for pickup truck duty. Thanks to some cash from the U.S. Department of Engery, Cummins is developing a four-cylinder oil-burner, and it’s currently nestled under the hood of a Nissan Titan. Cummins is looking to bump fuel efficiency by 40 percent compared to the current V8 mills being employed.
The current fuel economy target? A combined rating of 28 miles per gallon, which would mean the diesel-equipped Titan would be running at over 30 miles per gallon on the highway. Cummins is said to be targeting 220 horsepower and 380 pound-feet of torque, and currently, the prototype engine is able to produce 350 pound-feet of torque at 1,800 rpm.
Arguably more than any other driver, Kimi Raikkonen has a penchant for breaking with convention and forging his own path. The Swedish driver started out in F1 amid protests over his relative lack of experience – having contested fewer than a dozen professional lower-level races in his career – and finished 10th in his debut championship.
The next season, he was driving for McLaren, the season after that he won his first grand prix, and within just a few years was crowned world champion for . And when that got boring, he made an unprecedented moved to the World Rally Championship. But that’s apparently wearing thin on a driver not known for sitting still, so off he goes to NASCAR.
We first of Kimi’s plans back in March, and a few days later already had confirmation of his (KBM) to debut in the Camping World Truck Series – the entry point into NASCAR racing. Now he’s set to make his oval-track debut this weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and this is the truck he’ll be driving.
The No. 15 Toyota Tundra is being fielded by KBM for Kimi’s ICE1RACING team, and features sponsorship from – wait for it – Perky Jerky. The dried meat snack packs guarana (a plant with twice the caffeine of coffee) and was apparently invented when some guys spilled energy drink on their beef jerky while trapped on a ski lift. (Seriously, we couldn’t make this stuff up.) Today it’s the “official jerky of the Daytona 500″, and should go down well with the Red Bull sponsorship on the Citroën DS3 which Raikkonen drives in the WRC. Official press release .
Do you demand satisfaction? No, not the glove to the face brand, but the type of satisfaction that makes you proud to own the car in your driveway. AutoPacific has done some research to determine which automakers are the doing the best job of keeping customers happy. The results are in for the 2011 Vehicle Satisfaction Awards (VSA), and you may be a wee bit surprise to learn that and have taken top honors.
Lincoln has earned the award for Highest Satisfaction Premium Brand. Chrysler earns the nod for Highest Satisfaction Popular Brand. Each automaker also earned specific shout-outs for certain vehicles. The was given a VSA in the Luxury Midsize and Hybrid categories, while the nabbed a VSA in the Premium Luxury Crossover SUV spot. Chrysler’s earned the Premium Midsize SUV VSA, and the Chrysler Town & Country was given the Minivan VSA.
The top individual nameplates were the (truck) and (car). You can view all of the winners by to the full press release.
There can be only true king. In this feudal system, it’s Ford F-150, which has attracted more buyers than the Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra and Ram 1500 for years. Why? We took to the saddle of Ford’s latest entry-level F-Series equipped with the company’s new 5.0-liter V8 to find out.
We love a good station wagon. Audi has just pulled the wraps off its sleek new 2012 Audi A6 Avant, and we’re already swooning over the capacious cargo-hauler.
Remember that Scion FR-S prototype we spied heading to the Nürburgring earlier this week? Well, it’s now doing hot laps, complete with a body kit and huge wing.
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Does the world need a competitor to the ? While sales figures of Honda’s half-truck would lead us to believe consumers aren’t clamoring for such a vehicle ( only sold , barely more than the 13,047 Dakota’s Dodge moved), recent reports indicate that seems to think otherwise.
We’ve known for some time that Dodge was considering a small urban-style pickup – ever since it showed off the Rampage Concept (shown above) at the 2006 Chicago Auto Show and then mentioned it – but talk of the so-called Lifestyle Pickup had cooled off… until now.
According to , Chrysler suppliers were recently briefed on the automaker’s future product plans, and a replacement for the unloved is on the docket. It’s thought that Chrysler may build the vehicle in Windsor, Ontario atop its minivan platform, which lends credence to the Ridgeline comparison.
We have to wonder if the crossover platform employed by the latest (and very well-received) might be a better bet, but we’ll surely reserve judgement until something more concrete than these rumors begin to surface. We’re also curious as to whether the small pickup would wear a Dodge or Ram badge. Stay tuned for more…
Rollin’ With The F-150’s New 5.0
As a race, we humans are obsessed with the notion of “best.” Whether it’s generations of on-point marketing or a strand of latent genetic code that pushes us to shack up with a better mate, we just can’t shake the disposition. It’s what drives our society forward – the quest for the latest product that promises a slightly improved experience or that one feature that eclipses the competition. It’s why we can happily saunter up to the feeding trough at the local buffet instead of poking at wild boars with pointy sticks. It is, simply put, a good thing.
The domestic full-size truck segment provides perhaps the greatest study in “best” available. Each new model year gives the Big Three one more shot at outdoing each other in the areas of power, towing capacity, interior room and fuel economy. Neither , nor skips the chance to brag about its latest advancements over the other two. But as with everything, there can be only true king. In this feudal system, it’s , which has attracted more buyers than the , and for years. Why? We took to the saddle of Ford’s latest entry-level F-Series equipped with the company’s new 5.0-liter V8 to find out.
F-150 4×4 SuperCrew [w/video]
It’s important to make sure your tires are adequately filled, but for some owners, that may be a problem. A recall notice has been issued for some 2007-2011 Tundras because they may be afflicted with faulty tire pressure monitoring systems. Approximately 1,629 pickups are affected by this recall, as it is limited to vehicles handled by Southeast Toyota Distributors.
The TPMS were incorrectly calibrated, which means the warning lamp will not light up despite a tire being under-inflated. Owners of potentially affected trucks are being notified, and dealers will recalibrate the systems free of charge.
The Queensboro bridge in New York City has seen its third major accident involving a since March. According to The New York Post, a lost control while exiting the bridge, struck scaffolding erected outside of a building and landed on top of a parked livery vehicle. The driver of the VW was treated at a local hospital for minor injuries. No one else was harmed in the incident.
That’s a better outcome than in both of the previous accidents. The post reports that in April, the driver of a lost control in that exact location and spun into two store fronts. The driver later died of her injuries. Likewise, in March, a single-car accident at the off ramp resulted in the death of a pedestrian. The driver of that particular Volkswagen Golf lost an arm as a result of his injuries.
At this point, it’s unclear what will be done to curb speeding on the off-ramp. to view a news report of the latest incident.
Other than the temporary shut down of ‘ Shreveport, Louisiana plant and the loss of some , domestic automakers haven’t yet felt the brunt of parts shortages due to the March 11 earthquake in Japan. According to a report from The Detroit Free Press, that changes shortly for . Spokeswoman Jodi Tinson tells the Freep that three plants will idle earlier than expected in an effort to “conserve parts from suppliers impacted by the situation in Japan.”
Chrysler’s Warren Truck plant, which builds the and , and Toledo North, which builds the and , will both shut down for the weeks of June 20 and June 27. The original plan was for the plants to go idle for the weeks of July 11 and July 18. The Toledo Supplier Park, which builds the , will shut down for the week of June 20 instead of the week of July 11.
A fourth facility in Saltillo, Mexico, which builds Ram models from the base 1500 through the heavy-duty 5500, will also lose overtime on May 20, May 27, June 10 and June 24. In a move that is likely to annoy the United Auto Workers, Chrysler is also dropping the plants’ planned week of downtime.
At this point, it is unclear if Chrysler will endure more downtime as a result of parts shortages, but it appears that Team Pentastar has more than enough supplies of key vehicles to keep dealers happy for weeks if problems persist.
Some creations out there defy description, walking the thin line between absurdity and awesome toed by the likes of the Type II flatbed and the Tatra T87. This is one such machine. Branded “Triation” by its wayward creator, this ride seemingly mates all the hatefulness of the Chevrolet Celebrity with a propensity for rollovers typically enjoyed only by the Reliant Robin. You see, the Triation uses a Celebrity’s 2.5-liter four-cylinder to push itself down the road.
Why? You’d be better off spending your time pondering why there are no indigo skittles.
Along with three years of custom fabrication work, this project makes use of enough fiberglass to sustain the aftermarket body kit industry for posterity. The seller claims that the Triation has spent most of its life garaged since it needs a clutch. If the thought of fiberglass splinters and malaise-era reliability have you licking your chops, you’d better . This machine is up to $4,700 with the reserve not met and a few hours left on the auction.
If you’ve been living in a house with no TV or internet connection, you may not have heard that Osama bin Laden was found and killed. Actually, even if you have been living in such a house, you still probably know about bin Laden. Teams of analysts are combing through a mountain of data recovered from bin Laden’s compound, and one nugget of information they’ve found is a bit surprising; bin Laden was against a proposed plan for U.S.-based Al Qaeda operatives to weld blades to the grilles of pickup trucks and run down pedestrians.
This plan was laid out by Inspire, an English-language magazine by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The magazine stated that drivers of the customized trucks could look for crowded areas, then motor onto the sidewalk and cause major carnage. It’s a sick plan, and apparently bin Laden felt the same way. He called it “indiscriminate slaughter,” and felt it wasn’t in line with what Al Qaeda does.
Yes, seriously. And no, we’re not making this up. Read more about this aborted plan and the way bin Laden managed the terror organization from his secluded home .
Like their body-on-frame SUV cousins, full-size pickup trucks are more prone to roll over than a standard passenger car. That’s exactly why it’s so important to have a vehicle that earns good marks in roof-strength tests. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has just released the data on its recent volley of tests on full-size pickup trucks, and both the and earned the coveted Top Safety Pick designation. The vehicles earned the highest possible rating of ‘good’ in the institutes crush test, where a large steel plate is pressed against one corner of the roof to calculate a strength-to-weight ratio.
Meanwhile, the took home an acceptable rating in the rollover evaluation while the , and 2011 Ram 1500 netted marginal scores.
IIHS says that the roof on the Toyota Tundra stood up to 4.5 times the truck’s weight while the F-150 handled 4.7 times the pressure. A vehicle must withstand 4 times its weight before five-inches of crush is detected before being awarded a Good rating. for the full press release.
, Toyota Tundra earn IIHS Top Safety Pick Awards
While in Washington D.C. for the launch, we had dinner next to Victor Muller, then spoke to the newly announced captain of Saab’s North American ship, Tim Colbeck, who actually fills the dual roles of president and COO – at the end of his first day on the job. Muller started the evening by talking about the most recent troubles, saying of , “It was all my fault.”
“ was really a subsidiary – GM financing, GM terms and conditions, GM suppliers, and things can start to come apart when you’re independent. Sometimes you have to tell suppliers it’s not going to be the way it was.”
Muller says a single supplier told Saab that “if we didn’t pay, he wasn’t going to open his truck that day,” and Muller “called his bluff.” The supplier was a man of his word, wouldn’t deliver the parts, and the lack of those particular components caused a production stoppage of two hours, which Muller says is “normal elsewhere, but not in Sweden.”
To hear Muller tell it, it might not have been such a problem if the Swedish media, which he accuses of being Saab bashers, hadn’t turned it into a sensational story. “Within two hours of the stoppage,” he said, “we didn’t have one supplier with problems, we had 92 suppliers with problems” as Saab experienced a “run on the bank.”
We’re not sure if Andrew Linn is the luckiest man alive or the least lucky, but either way we have no idea how he could survive a two-inch pipe passing through his face and out the back of his head. Linn somehow left the road and hit a chain-link fence (he has no recollection of the event), and when the fence broke apart, the two-inch pipe at the top of the fence snapped off, traveled through the windshield, under Linn’s nose and through his neck. Doctors say that if the pipe entered at any other point or at a slightly different angle, Linn would have been killed instantly.
to watch the ABC News report, which includes an animation that shows how the may have struck the fence and lead to the pipe passing through Linn. We know it’s just pixels, but we can’t help but shriek every time we see the pipe pass strategically though his neck. Ouch.
has been in the news quite a bit lately, and mostly for the . But now that the Swedish automaker appears to have secured loans and buy-in from in China, Victor Muller and company are looking to go on the offensive.
Automotive News reports that the Spyker CEO is still talking China, but now he’s entertaining the possibility of partnering with a Chinese company to distribute low-cost autos in the U.S. Muller reportedly says that Saab could utilize its dealer networks in the U.S. and Europe to sell $10,000 Chinese vehicles in two or three years. And just because Saab struck a deal with Hawtai doesn’t mean that the Swedish automaker is restricting its plans to its newest strategic partner. Muller pointed out during an interview in Washington, D.C. that there are 120 companies in China, and that Saab is interested in “the one with a strategy.”
There are many hurdles for Chinese automakers to overcome to finally breach the U.S. market, not the least of which is passing federal safety standards. Muller acknowledges that a five-star-rated Chinese vehicle likely won’t happen any time soon, but he says that made-in-China SUVs can be had with tons of features for about $10,000, adding “Do you really worry about a five-star rating? They Look good.”
Hmmm. We’re guessing there will be plenty of buyers who don’t want to drive a vehicle with compromised safety capabilities, but a low price tag could cure those fears. Of course, we also can’t help but wonder how many luxury car shoppers will want to pay premium prices for Saab automobiles if they share showroom space with discount Chinese offerings – the Swedish automaker’s residual values have been problematic enough as-is.
What’s the point of going on safari if your truck’s rumble and exhaust sully the experience? That’s what and have reasoned, teaming up with the solution you see here.
Developed in collaboration with JLR South Africa, this Defender 110 – a long-wheelbase model with an extended pickup bed (fitted with extra seating) instead of an extra set of doors – has had its diesel engine replaced with a lithium-ion battery pack mated to an unspecified motor capable of propelling the Defender over approximately three times the usual “game drive” (read: hunting expedition) on a single charge. All this without emitting a single local gram of carbon and maintaining silent operation that will bring its occupants closer to the game without spooking them off.
The vehicle will be unveiled this month at the INDABA tourism expo in Durban. for the details in the press release.
One of the toughest aspects of tornado chasing, besides running headlong into almost certain death, is finding a vehicle that can withstand the violent onslaught of wind and debris generated even by (relatively) weak storms. Over the years, storm chasers have come up with all sorts of solutions to the transportation issue, with everything from to balls-to-the-wall armor-plated beasts.
The Tornado Attack Vehicle is the latter, and is credited as being one of the first specialized tornado chasing machines ever created. The truck was commissioned by legendary tornado chaser Steven Green and is the first vehicle to be driven in to the heart of a funnel cloud. Even with heavy modifications, Green knew a road-going pickup truck platform wasn’t going to cut it. To ensure he and his team got through the twister and lived to tell about it, he had the truck built from the ground up.
The skeleton of the monster is a steel tube frame, draped with 16-gauge steel bodywork. The windows and wheel covers are made of bulletproof M10 Lexan plastic, while the windshield sports a triple layer of super-strong DuPont Mylar. According to the listing, one layer of Mylar is enough to stop a .38 caliber pistol round.
All that armor means this thing isn’t what you would call light, so a ZZ502 big block was chosen to send power to front and rear Dana axles through a custom Turbo 400 automatic transmission. That’s an impressive list of specs to be sure, but we’ll stick to doing our tornado watching courtesy of CNN. Check out the .
Auto sales were up sharply in April, but trucks continue to make up less of the overall pie. Ward’s Automotive reports that light-duty pickups accounted for only 11.8 percent of overall vehicle deliveries; the lowest total since Ward’s began collecting data back in 1980. Back in 2005, when the auto industry and the economy at large was far healthier, light trucks accounted for 22.9 percent of all vehicles sold.
There are a lot of reasons truck sales are flagging as of late, not the least of which is gasoline prices that are currently at about $4 per gallon nationwide. But truck sales are also being hurt by unemployment rates and continued weakness in the housing sector.
Trucks are no longer such a large portion of over all car sales, but the utilitarian vehicles are still selling far better than they were in 2010. Truck sales are up 17.9 percent year-over-year, but that number has been outpaced by overall growth of 19.4 percent.
While trucks aren’t quite as popular as they were a few years ago, we suspect that this trend may lose steam as the economy improves. After all, light trucks continue to outsell cars even with high gas prices and a poor housing market, though the advantage is down to 5,000 units so far in 2011.
Despite sharing a lot of dirty bits underneath, has done a commendable job lately of differentiating and . Look at the and or the and as proof. Both pairs of vehicles share the same underpinnings, yet each have their own look. That’s a definite improvement over prior efforts, and Automotive News is reporting that GM may go further in the future.
Mark Reuss, GM President in North America, tells AN that GM’s two-brand approach to trucks needs to be better executed in the future. The high-level exec adds that the similarities in price between the two brands often leads to identical incentives, which has in turn led to the dilution of the GMC brand.
One way to further differentiate GMC is to head upscale, and the Professional Grade has its successful Denali trim range to help make that happen. “I think we can do premium Chevrolets, and take GMC and move it even further up,” says Reuss. If GMC were to use Denali to increase luxury sales, the brand would have to incorporate the badging on a lot more vehicles. Right now the Denali brand is limited to Sierra, Yukon and variants, but a Terrain variant has been spotted testing.
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